AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I twisted my head as far to the left as I could and saw it. A tube made of glass filled with a blood-red liquid. At the end of the tube was a needle-like thorn. Some sort of injector. The tip had just pierced through my skin.
“Another infusion. The first time you were injected, I had an assistant. Now it shall be much easier to keep you appropriately docile.”
I remembered the sound of the High Priest's voice in my ear.
“Tyre,” I said between gritted teeth as pain washed over me and the bitter taste filled my mouth once more. “The fucking traitor.”
“The tube will deliver a continuous infusion of bloodwraith directly into your bloodstream every thirty minutes,” Fenyx went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “All automated, of course. It's an ingenious contraption, really. I didn't build it myself. No, I had a quite clever fae boy in here at one point. He helped me turn my idea into a reality.”
The fae boy had helped craft the tool of his own destruction, Fenyx meant. I tried to imagine the fae boy being forced to build the torture device I now sat in, then having to eventually sit within its confines himself as he’d been poisoned, tortured, then had his powers stripped away.
“You speak of the High Priest as a traitor, Lady Morgan, and yet what of you? Did you not come as a snake into your brother’s court to spy and to steal?” He paused. “I wasn’t certain about you. At first, I really did wonder if you were not simply another young, naive girl, despite all of Tyre’s fantastical claims. Then you suggested having Lancelet de Troyes brought to the arena. And when I saw her wield the sword, I knew you were more than you had pretended to be. You imbued her with the power to use Excalibur, did you not? All along, you have known only you could use the sword. You played your brother for a fool.”
In truth, I’d had no idea. Excalibur had been meaningless to me. But I wasn’t about to tell Fenyx that.
I moved my eyes around the room. There. On a table near the back between two of the grotesque cylinders that held fae bodies, I spotted the sword.
Fenyx followed my gaze. “Yes, it’s here now. Arthur wished for me to... discuss certain things with you first.”
“Oh, a discussion? Is that what this is? Here I thought you’d brought me to some kind of torture chamber.”
Fenyx smiled thinly. “Your brother tried to place limits on what I could do to you. It’s very odd to me that there are yet some boundaries he will not cross. At least, not when it comes to you. I’ve never met a man with such darkness in him, and yet he has a remarkable soft spot when it comes to you. I wonder why. It was all Tyre and I could do to convince him of the traitor you truly are. But finally, he conceded that we needed you in order to do what had to be done. And so, here you are.”
“And Kaye?” I dared to ask. “Where is he?”
“Oh, off with Tyre. You both have very separate purposes.”
“What,” I said very slowly through clenched teeth, “is Kaye’s purpose?”
Fenyx leaned back against the table as casually as if he were at a banquet rather than standing in a dungeon. “Why don’t I tell you yours first?”
“Fine. Enlighten me.”
“You control the sword. Thus Arthur intends for you to be his weapon. Under the power of my compulsion”—Fenyx touched a hand very lightly to one of the stones on his breastplate. It was a subdued yellow color—“you will be very, very easy to control.”
I felt myself beginning to tremble.
“And if you fail us or weaken, well, perhaps your friend, Lancelet, can be located and brought into our service. Our soldiers are searching for her and those rebel friends of yours as we speak. Clearly the sword is now familiar with her. How did you manage to get it to serve her? Not many would wish for such a weapon to work for anyone but themselves.”
“I’m not a selfish bastard like you, I suppose,” I spat. “That made it easier.”
Fenyx laughed. “That’s certainly true. If I had the power of Excalibur, I doubt I would ever give it up.” His eyes narrowed. “And that’s where Arthur and I diverge.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, he wishes to keep you alive. He believes controlling you carefully will be enough. It’s true that compulsion can be very effective.” He tapped a finger to the cleft in his chin. “Here, perhaps a demonstration is in order. You look as if you have doubts.” He touched his hand to the yellow stone, and this time, kept it there for a moment. “Pain, Morgan. I wish for you to feel pain. Feel immense pain.”
The world around me seemed to warp and twist. And then an agonizing jolt surged through my body, a pain so excruciating it felt as if my very bones were being crushed by an unseen force. My muscles contorted in torment.
The pain was relentless. Unyielding. Liquid agony flowed through my veins like molten lead. Every nerve in my body seemed to scream out in anguish.
As if from a distance, I heard the sound of my own voice screaming.
And then, like a door slamming shut, the pain was suddenly gone.
My breath came in ragged gasps.
Across the room, Fenyx’s eyes were filled with a complacent satisfaction.
