lash snapped wickedly across Tristan’s shoulders, tearing open his skin. His face twisted, but his eyes locked on mine. “Don’t do it. No matter what he does, agree to nothing.”
The whip fell again. Blood splattered and Tristan clenched his teeth in agony. He won’t kill him, logic told me, but logic was cold comfort in the face of Tristan’s pain.
The King nodded, and the whip fell again. And again. Tristan bore it in near silence at first, but I felt his reaction to every fiery lash. And I felt him break an instant before the first scream tore from his throat. Still the whip fell.
It was too much.
“Stop! I promise. I’ll find her.” My words were garbled, falling over each other, but the King heard. The whip froze mid-lash and Tristan crumpled to the ground. Rivulets of blood trickled down his back, the iron-inflicted wounds refusing to heal.
“Whatever it takes?” the King asked. “And you’ll bring her here? I feel inclined to hear how well the witch crows with her guts removed, although I’d accept her death in any fashion.”
I nodded numbly. “I promise to do whatever it takes to find her and bring her here.”
“Good girl.” He tossed Anushka’s grimoire through the barrier. It landed with a thud on the wet rock.
I ignored it, dropping to my hands and knees. “Tristan?”
His eyes half-opened and fixed on mine.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I couldn’t bear it.”
He turned his face away from me. He wasn’t grateful – he was angry that I’d failed him.
“Take him back to the palace and have him cleaned up.” The King watched with an expression devoid of emotion as the guards lifted Tristan between them and carried him up the River Road. Then he turned to me. “Best you get to work, little witch. You’ve a promise to keep.”
FOUR
TRISTAN
Maintaining one’s dignity while being dragged in chains through the city one had once been destined to rule, covered in weeks’ worth of one’s own filth, is difficult. That being said, I thought I had managed the deed well enough on the trip between my prison cell and the River Road. Not so on the return voyage. There had been no dignity in my screams; and while the streaks left behind by my tears of pain might have elicited the pity of some, they certainly earned me no respect. I did not deserve it.
I was the fallen prince. Twice a traitor, having betrayed both my father and my cause in a single moment, ensuring that I would remain an outcast for whatever remained of my life. All for a human girl who I loved above all things, and all, it seemed, for nothing.
My jaw ached as I clenched my teeth, half for the pain racking my body, but more for the remembrance of her expression. Horror and pity mixed together in her brilliant blue eyes, but all paling beneath the weight of the promise she’d made for my sake. The burden of a choice that should have been mine, but because I’d been too weak to endure my father’s abuse, the choice had fallen on her instead. I hadn’t even been man enough to look her in the eye and own my defeat – had instead turned my head away, feeling that not only had I failed her, I’d failed at everything I had ever set out to accomplish, at everything that I thought myself to be.
The guards dropped me, and I ground my teeth to keep from crying out. My eyes fixed on the familiar carpet beneath my knees.
“Leave,” said a voice I would recognize anywhere. The guards grumbled, but their boots retreated from my line of sight and the door slammed shut behind me. It took a concerted effort to lift my head enough to see the troll standing in front of me. “Hello, cousin,” I said, my voice hoarse.
“You look terrible,” Marc replied, his disfigured face grim. “Can you get up?”
“I think I am content where I am.” The carpet scratched against my cheek as I lay my head down. “Why am I here?” I asked as an afterthought.
“I’ve little notion – I was hoping you might provide some insight into why your father ordered your change of accommodation.” Marc came toward me, and I rolled one eye up at the sound of metal keys clinking together, remaining motionless as he unlocked four of the six manacles skewering my arms. “Brace yourself,” he said, and jerked one of the cuffs open. A wet sucking noise filled