Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
The guards spin me round once again, and off we go, their grips biting into my arms, my stomach flip-flopping in fear. They proceed a different way than I was first escorted, heading through a doorway, into a corridor, down a set of stone stairs, and into another part of the dungeon below. The stench of fear sweat, damp stone, and old blood is the same however, and as I start to choke, I open my mouth to breathe in hopes of not throwing up from the stench—
The hooting and hollering starts as we take a corner and begin down a long, narrow block of cells. The men in them are dirty and wearing tattered clothes, their hair and beards grown out. Through the bars, they reach for me, yelling obscene things that I cringe and look away from. Just as we reach the final cells and are about to make a turn—
Merc is there on the left, sprawled out against the stone wall, blood oozing, glossy and alarming, from his shoulder, his eyes closed, his chin down on his chest. He’s been stripped of his chain mail and all his weapons, and they’ve even cut off the beads from the ends of his braids, the pieces unraveling out of their weaves.
“Merc!” As I scream his name, his eyes open and his head lifts. “Merc—”
I renew my fight against the guards, and against everything that is logical, Merc somehow jumps to his feet and throws himself at his cell’s bars.
“Sorrel!”
With a full-body yank, I slip free of all the grips and careen over to him. He’s pale, and there is blood in his hair, on his throat, down his long black shirt and leather britches.
“I tried—” I start crying. “I tried to get us free—”
“Are you all right—”
One of the guards re-grabs my arm, and Merc thrusts the heel of his palm forward, catching the man on the chin. As the latter stumbles back from the impact, the other guard jumps in to pull me away—
The first man in uniform is caught by the inmates across the way, and he lets out a scream as they start to claw at him. His comrade has no choice but to release me and run to his aid.
Separated by bars, I search Merc’s eyes. “I’m so sorry—”
He strokes my hair back. “No apologies. Not from you, ever.”
Our lips meet, and then I say it, the words I have known in my heart for the longest time … maybe even that first night back at the Gauntlet when I smelled him.
“I love you.”
The expression of pain that contorts Merc’s face is something I feel in my own chest. I can’t believe we end here, like this. After coming so far—
“Sorrel, I—”
The guards get free of their tangle with the prisoners, and I’m grabbed around the waist and hauled away.
I’m yelling Merc’s name as the men march me around the corner.
The last sight I have of the man I love is him straining against the iron bars, his arms outstretched, his black and white eyes full of tears.
Seventy-Eight
A Dreadful First.
After I’m thrown back into the cell, the bars are closed on me and locked this time, and then I’m left alone.
I spend the first couple of moments standing with one foot in the fetid puddle I landed in twice, tears streaming down my face, my arms wrapped around myself. And then I realize that the soldier will come for me. This is how … it happens.
And if the last thing I do on this continent is kill that man? I am all right with that. If I’m dying tomorrow morning anyway, I might as well make sure that he doesn’t hurt anybody else.
I back up against the stone wall and wait.
And wait.
And … wait.
Wherever I am in the underground stone maze, there is no sound that travels to me other than those that are immediately about: There are drips from leaks in the mortar of the walls and ceiling, squeaks of the occasional rat, and the hiss and spit of the torches mounted around. And then there’s my ragged breath.
But no voices from somewhere else, not a footfall or hinge of doors.
Then again, this is where they torture people. They don’t want sound to travel.
My nervous eyes skate over those gruesome tables and the stained racks, those buckets, and the drains. I rub my face, and start to pace.
That lasts … for a while? I don’t know how long.
When my legs begin to ache and my sore feet protest my weight, I settle down on the floor, and think of the position Merc was in as I finally saw him. Mirroring exactly the orientation of his limbs, I arrange myself as he was because it seems like the only way I’m able to be with him.