Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
More time passes. I know this because it always does, and in my solitude, as the cold and damp seep into my bones even with my makeshift cloak, I think of how many days and nights have gone by without my noticing over the course of my life … how many times I awoke under the stairs, and scurried to work in the Gauntlet’s little kitchen, and went to Mare’s, and raced back, and cleared tables and cleaned up messes—only to go to bed and get up and do it all over again.
So many days and nights.
Countless, really.
And now here I am, with no outdoor lighting for reference, floating in an unknown sea of hours that may be going fast or slow, I have no idea … waiting for a man to come back so I can kill him. Having no watch or clock or rhythm of repetitive actions to ground me is a mental challenge. It’s as disorienting as walking through a dark room, this time blindness, and the longer it persists, the more drowsy I become. Even though I want to stay alert, I can’t seem to keep my heavy eyelids open and once they close, I …
* * *
“Leave us.”
At the sound of the male voice, I jerk my head up. I’m lying on my side on the stone floor, my arm as my pillow, my legs tucked up close to my body.
It’s the soldier, finally. And he’s closing the two of us into the cell together as he keeps his eyes on a pair of guards who retreat at his command. After they disappear through the door across the way, he goes immediately for the front of his britches.
He smiles coldly. “I do not know what you have done to increase the ire with which you are held, but I commend you for your efforts on our behalf. I have been assured that we will not be interrupted. For however long I wish.”
My lungs strain for air, and I struggle to my feet as the soldier comes at me—and then he’s upon me, one of his hands gripping my throat and squeezing, the other shoving under the felt cloak to commence the groping.
I mean to be strong. I intend to fight. I tell myself to scream and kick and punch, and fulfill what I’ve been shown—
Instead, I freeze.
As his rough, greedy fingers start to tear at my clothes, my skin tightens all over my body in revulsion and my stomach thrashes in the cradle of my pelvis. I smell his breath and his sweat, feel the wool of his sleeve streak across my stomach and under my breasts—and then the jodhpurs are gone and he forces himself between my thighs.
He stops. Pulls back and frowns at me. “I expected more resistance from you. You were far more promising before.”
The soldier yanks my arm up over my head and pins it to the wall. “Nothing to say? Are you not going to beg me to stop, whore?”
The word snaps me out of the numb place I retreated to. All at once, I’m threaded with heat: The surge starts in my extremities and zeroes in on the center of my chest as a sudden rage floods me—and I embrace this other side coming out.
From a vast distance, I hear my own voice, steady and calm.
“You want a fight,” I say.
His horrible laugh is like his hands on my skin, something that I cannot abide. And will not.
The fury in me redoubles, and then explodes until I am shaking, not from fear, but from a pent-up energy that feels totally different than anything I have ever experienced—
“I told you before.” His lips go to my neck. “I will hear you beg.”
The soldier bites my collarbone, and as I let out a shout of pain, he laughs again. “Ah, more like it. Let’s try that once more—and if you make this good for me, I’ll ensure your death tomorrow morning is quick—”
The gasp he makes goes right into my ear, and echoes in my skull.
As he straightens, he looks down at me in shock. “What … have you done.”
I pull my free arm back—and punch him again. And then I’m looking him in the eyes as I am punching, punching, punching him in the gut, over and over—with such strength that I’m pushing him back against the grimy stone wall.
“You want to fight,” I growl as I plunge the crystal knife into him again. “You want to hurt me as I beg for mercy?”
I stab him another time, so deeply now that my whole fist is going into his abdomen—and now I’m twisting and forcing the weapon up higher. Blood speckles my face and throat, warm little flicks that surely stain my soul. I am unleashed though, and the act of killing feeds the vengeance within me—