Name the demon who would touch the mate of Ire, and their death will be slow and maddening,” the rough voice bellows in my head, but his words are a jumble, and I can’t focus on it. I shove it back so that I can focus on Medley and Morax.
“Very well done, Medley,” Morax praises, reaching out to wipe a tear from her cheek. He brings his finger to his mouth and licks her tears as he circles her like a lion does its kill.
With a grasp on her arms, he positions her to face me and runs his hands slowly over the arc of her lilac wings. Medley shivers, her black eyes fixed on nothing, and fear and anger knock against the insides of my body.
She’s reacting, which makes me believe that she must still be feeling everything, and that’s different from what happens with me. But I don’t know how her darkness is working or if that’s what her black eyes even mean.
“Call your scythe, Sable,” Morax tells me, no power in his tone.
Helplessness rakes its claws up my back, and I feel my own tear slip down my cheek. “I don’t have a scythe,” I confess desperately, knowing the words won’t stem his cruelty, and terrified of what that will mean for the sister I just found.
“Call. Your. Scythe!” the Ophidian screams at me, dipping quickly into the unhinged maniac inside of him like he’s dipping a toe to check the temperature of water. “If you can’t do it, then you’re as good as useless. If you can’t perform, I have no use for you. I have one sister, and soon, I’ll have the other too. So if you want to make threats, you better be able to back them up. Call your fucking scythe!”
“I can’t! I don’t know how!” I scream back, and Morax’s face goes from deranged to a mask of calm in a heartbeat.
“Then you’ll watch her suffer until you do,” he declares evenly, moving to hang the bloodied whip back up on the wall and pulling what looks like large tweezers from a different spot.
“Medley, you will pluck out each of your feathers one by one. If Sable hasn’t called her scythe by the time you’re done, then I want you to use these to dig out your eyes.”
“NO!”
I scream at him as he hands the tool to Medley, and she grips them in her bloodied palm. She immediately reaches back and yanks a feather out of the bottom of her wing. My own wing twitches at the sight, and I know from experience how much it hurts.
She moves to another one, tugging it out with a wince. Then another. And another. And another. Lilac-colored feathers fall to the floor beside her bare feet, like petals being plucked from a flower and lying at the base of a drooping stem. Every time she pulls out another one, every time she grimaces at the small burst of pain, my heart pounds.
“Stop! Please!” I plead as Morax turns to watch her handiwork. “I swear I don’t know how, but I’ll try! Just please stop,” I beg him, but it falls on deaf ears.
I fist my hands in my hair, enraged and frustrated. How can I do what he wants? I have no idea how any of this works. I’m trying to think through how I can end this when the door that leads into this room suddenly opens, and a large shadow forms in the doorway.
“My Liege, something has come up that you need to be made aware of immediately,” a deep resonating voice declares. I can’t make out much more than a massive being with wings, not with the shadows and tears hindering my vision.
Morax sighs, like this interruption is an annoyance, but he gives a terse nod. “Fine.”
I hear the person from the doorway walk away, footsteps receding as Morax turns around to look at me again. “I suggest you get to work,” he tells me before he grips Medley’s arm and manhandles her back to her cage and shuts her in.
I watch in horror as he walks away with a smirk, realizing that he has no intention of turning his compulsion off.
“No! You can’t do this!” I scream, but he’s already walking out, the door slamming shut behind him.
I scramble to the bars that separate me from Medley, watching as she stands there, plucking another feather from her wing.
“Medley, stop.”
She doesn’t hear me, or can’t, her black eyes moving to the next