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“No talking! Don’t forget your rules! Don’t make us rip her apart, too. Teach you all for defying those above you. Remember your place. Fucking half breed.” The blonde Silas hissed before laughing, all of the others joining in, white snakes slithering over their chests as they laughed their way out.
I heard the door, but I didn’t dare move. I was frozen, eyes still glued to the keyhole as I waited to be sure that no one was out there. There was nothing but the sobs and whimpers from the mound of shadow on the chaise.
I turned the knob.
It didn’t budge. The door rattled under the pressure of the lock that had been secured from the other side.
No, no, no, no! Not now!
“Boy!” My voice rattled with sobs as I shook the door, pushing and pulling as though I would break the large double doors down in my attempt to get to him. Perhaps I would. Soft sobs seeped through the wood, the pained noises rattling right alongside my furious attempts at the lock.
“Boy!” I called again, hands frantic against the knob before the lock clicked as the wide panels swung open to reveal the Boy.
I barely caught him, his heavy frame falling into me and sending us both back. The metallic tang of blood was everywhere, the musky scent of the rust making my skin crawl more than the ripples of heat that I was quickly becoming accustomed too.
“Boy?” I grunted under his weight, stumbling back and sending him to the foot of my bed, my hands desperate to find a grip on his leather tunic, his back damp and slick with warm sweat.
He landed with a grunt, the sound half sob, half moan as he sunk into the lumpy mattress. As the cape flopped to the side and revealed what I had been trying to grab.
It wasn’t sweat.
My hands were coated with blood, the color a deeper shade of red than I had ever seen. It clung to my skin, coating the back of his leather tunic where slits had been made. Not made, sliced. Slices that were everywhere.
They covered the leather, the marks crisscrossing over nearly every inch of his back. He lay there, moaning.
Batian had promised lashing, but this was enough to kill a man. To just drop him there, when I had no idea how to help him.
This wasn’t only a punishment and a warning for him. It was for me, too.
“What… what did he do?” My words strangled themselves on the knot in my throat, the panic catching as I stood there, hands hovering above his back as I tried to figure out what to do.
How to fix this.
He couldn’t stay like this, that much I knew. I needed to get him out of this uniform. To clean the wounds, he would need a bath. I ran to draw that first, cursing the lack of truly hot water that was available on this side of the Runturin.
I cranked up the knob that should have given hot water and ran back to where he was still moaning on my bed.
“We need to clean you up.” What I wouldn’t give for a sewing kit or any kind of supplies. If I had been able to truly train, I would know how to handle injuries, but I didn’t even know how to mend a hem, let alone dozens of whipping marks on flesh.
I moved to remove the cape, my hand clasping around the brooch on his neck but his hand gripped mine, his moaning sobs sounding far too close to ‘No’.
“I have to take it off. We have to take it off.” My voice was still choked in my panic.
“No.” That time I heard him.
“I have to help you.” I was well aware I was pleading, my hand still on the brooch as he turned toward me, the black shroud plastered against his face so I could see the outline of a nose.
“No. Catalyst.” He was barely able to get the word out.
“Catalyst?” How was that to help us?
“Need… catalyst.”
“Do you need a Catalyst?”
A nod. “Dalyah.”
The panic grew at the mention of my mother’s name.
