through her chest and splat upon a floor that wasn’t there.
“I am the sky,” Owen murmured.
“Why did you come back?” Brasque screamed, suddenly and desperately. “Why did you come back when you knew you would be taken? Is it a trick? What is the plan?”
“I am the air.”
Brasque motioned and one of the executioners strode from the shadows. He held what appeared to be a long iron rod. It glowed red on one end.
Rune closed her eyes, but it didn’t matter. She could still see.
“I am the land.”
She shook her head. “Stop, Dray. Stop.”
But he did not stop.
He beckoned the torturer on, and the hooded man shoved the burning end of the rod under Owen’s ribs.
“I…” Owen lost his breath for a minute. “I am the sea.”
“Strip him,” Brasque commanded, and the torturers were quick to divest Owen of his boots, then they cut his clothes from his body. Lastly, they took his hat.
With his wrists fastened above his head in heavy shackles, Owen was whipped until his back was a raw mess, for what felt to her like eternity.
Wicked, bloody, scream-filled eternity.
Eventually the screams stopped.
And Owen never said a word.
“So strong. But he can’t last forever. Strap him to the wheel,” the shimmer lord commanded. His voice was slightly dim, as though he had begun to fade from her mind.
Oh, how she wished he would.
Lashed to the huge wooden wheel, Owen regained consciousness. He began to chant once more.
“I am the air.”
Chant, and eventually, to moan.
He was whirled slowly around before them on the torture device, and as he whirled, the executioner used a heavy hammer to smash and break his bones. Elbows, fingers, ankles.
He didn’t scream. Maybe he couldn’t.
Rune screamed for him.
“This is only the beginning,” the shimmer lord promised. “Answer my questions and I promise you a quick death. Why did you come back?”
But Owen would not answer.
And maybe Brasque didn’t really care. Maybe he just wanted his revenge.
“Do you know how I found you?” Brasque asked, when Owen’s hoarse screams had dwindled. “No? I’ll tell you then. See, I am happy to give answers.
“I found you because you have the scent of the princess all over your body. You reek of her.” He leaned close to Owen’s ear. “Idiot.”
Rune shuddered.
Finally, Brasque found something that Owen could not withstand.
One of his men gripped Owen’s penis with a device that looked like large pinchers.
“One squeeze and…” Brasque shrugged. “Well, you know. You have one last chance to talk.” He nodded at the torturer, who began to slowly squeeze the pinchers.
Owen tried to shrink back, tried to pull away, but he could not.
And that was how the shimmer lord made him talk.
Owen laughed, but the laughter was full of sobs. “Fuck you.”
“God, Owen,” Rune murmured.
Brasque watched him calmly. “Why would anyone as powerful as you want to leave Skyll? You became a weak little boy there. I gave you everything you could have wanted.” He curled his lip. “And look at you. You still haven’t regained your strength. You knew I’d eventually find you. Yet you returned. I wasn’t able to drag you back. Believe me, I tried. I couldn’t figure out why you stole the disease, why you wanted to infect the Others. I had planned to send someone much less experienced than you, and he would have done everything right. Instead, you stole it, ran from me, and caused the deaths of those most precious to me.”
Owen. Owen had brought the sickness.
Owen had killed the Others.
Owen had poisoned Lex.
“So what made you return? Answer the question,” Brasque demanded, his voice cold. “Answer now. I won’t give you another chance.”
“I came back to be with her,” Owen yelled, his voice as raw as his back.
Brasque frowned. “Her?”
Owen averted his eyes.
“Ah,” Brasque said. “Ah. Five is power hungry.” He put his fist to his lips and walked a few feet away, thinking.
When he went back to his prisoner, he was smiling. “You wanted her to fall in love with you and choose you as her king after she destroyed Damascus. After she destroyed all of us. You would have convinced her to purge Skyll of shimmer lords. That’s why you waited so long to unleash the disease. You needed to first make her love you. But you fell in love with her. You fell for our princess.”
“No one ever fought for me before,” Owen said. “But she did.”
Rune wept.
She wept for him, for herself, for the world.
“You’re a fool.”
“Skyll deserves better than you. Our people deserve better than the