Death Wind (Elven Alliance #3) - Tara Grayce Page 0,17

long, but when he tried to shift, agony flared through his shoulders. He could wiggle his fingers, but stone held each of his wrists.

He was missing his shirt, his bare back pressed against the cold stone beneath him. Glancing down, he moved his bare feet, his boots and stockings also missing, but the stone around his ankles kept him from moving any more than that.

At least the trolls had left the Escarlish breeches he had been wearing when captured. If he had known he was going to be stuck in them this long, he might have thought longer before he had worn them for that ball.

Except...He closed his eyes, remembering the way Essie’s smile had brightened her eyes. It had been worth it to make Essie smile. Especially considering the way the evening had ended.

Essie...He squeezed his eyes tighter, chest aching. He could still feel her, the heart bond filled with weight and grief instead of the warmth and cheeriness he usually sensed from her. She slept, a fitful restless sleep, that gave him the impression she had cried herself to sleep.

Would he ever see her again? Or would he die here, pinned like a bug to the floor?

He was stuck in his own nightmare. Stone and pain and crushing darkness.

Memories haunted the darkness. His and Essie’s capture by the Escarlish traitors. The train ride. Melantha’s betrayal. The troll king. Thanfardil dying and a gun pointing at Melantha. Shouting trolls. Kicks. Stumbling over icy stone in his bare feet.

And...and...

The troll king cutting his hair.

Farrendel’s stomach churned, his breathing growing more ragged. Surely that was a nightmare. It could not have been a real memory. Surely not.

But as he turned his head, he felt the shortened strands brush his forehead. He could not see the strands around his shoulders or feel them caught beneath him as he should have if his hair was still long.

The trolls had cut his hair.

It would just be the beginning of the degradations he would suffer. Right now, they owned his body. They could do whatever they liked to him, and he would be absolutely helpless.

His heart pounded harder, a deeper darkness closing in at the edges of his vision. Too much stone. He could feel the weight of all the stone stretch far above him, hammering into his skull. Too much darkness wrapped around him, suffocating.

He needed to move. He strained against the stone, crying out as raw edges of pain cut deeper with his movements. Blood warmed the stones beneath him.

He had to get out. He flailed for his magic, and pain scorched through his head, flaring in his wrists.

Somewhere, far away, Essie stirred. The impression through the heart bond changed from sleep to waking awareness in a snap, filling him with a wave of her emotions. Tears. Worry.

Farrendel squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to relax, lie still, and breathe deeply. Panicking was hurting Essie. She was already burdened enough without having to feel his despair through the heart bond.

For Essie’s sake, he had to pull himself together. It would not be fair to her to expect her to carry the weight of his anguish along with her own. For her, he needed to be as mentally strong as he could manage.

Despair and hope to die. That was his first instinctual reaction, scarred into him through too much pain. He had fought and won a lot of battles, all while not caring whether he lived or died.

There on the train, he had told Essie he intended to fight to the death rather than face torture again. He had despaired. Given up on any hope of a future. Probably because it was a future he had never fully grasped, not the way Essie had.

Essie had not despaired. She had clung to hope, even in the face of his hopelessness.

This was not a battle he could win with despondency. This pain was only the beginning of torment and humiliation. He would never survive the weeks ahead if he broke now. Nor would Essie survive if she had to carry such unrelenting despair for him.

In the end in that battle at the Escarlish border, he had chosen Essie rather than a quick death. Hope rather than despair. A future of torture for a chance to return to her.

For the past three and a half months since marrying Essie, he had begun to hope. But he had still held back, fearing he would break if he dared to dream of a future, only to have it