Realm of Light - Deborah Chester [151]
Caelan bent, still reeling from shock and pain, and picked the sergeant’s dagger off the floor. The world tilted without warning, and Caelan staggered into the wall. The jolt brought a fresh wave of agony from his back that spread up through his chest. He struggled to reach the dagger, but his shackles prevented him. If he strained and twisted with all his might, he could just touch the hilt with his fingertips. But he could not grip it, could not pull it out.
A sound warned him. He turned, his reflexes blunted by pain, and the sergeant hit him across the chest with the heavy chain. The blow crushed the breath from him, breath he couldn’t afford to lose.
He had black dots dancing in his vision. He couldn’t draw in more air, couldn’t move. The weapon wobbled in his slack fingers, and he was barely aware of the sergeant wrenching it away from him.
The dagger felt like a log inside his back, brutal and invasive.
“Damn you!” the sergeant said hoarsely, his voice ruined.
Gripping Caelan by his shirt front, the sergeant slammed him against the wall.
Brutal pain exploded inside Caelan as the blow rammed the dagger a little deeper. He tasted blood in his mouth, and knew he was finished. He met the sergeant’s eyes just as the sergeant’s weapon flashed up.
Glaring with hatred, the sergeant held his dagger up where Caelan could see it. “Get your eyes off mine!” he said. “You’ll use no spells on me, you bastard.”
Pinned against the wall, Caelan could barely focus on what he was saying. Caelan’s whole consciousness had centered on the dagger hilt, jammed between his back and the wall’. Every breath, every movement, every bit of pressure exerted by the sergeant brought fresh torment.
“Mox! Get up and help me, damn you!” the sergeant ordered. “Cut open his shirt.”
“Watch ‘im,” Mox said, dragging himself upright with difficulty and staggering over to them. He took the sergeant’s dagger and cut open Caelan’s linen shirt.
“Going to cut out your heart,” the sergeant said, coughing again. He sneered, pushing Caelan harder into the wall until Caelan felt himself suspended on that single pinnacle of pain, unable to move or even cry out.
“Hurry, Mox! Damn you, be quick!”
Snarling, Mox raised the dagger. “Slit ‘is throat,” he growled.
“No!” the sergeant said, intervening. “I want him alive while we cut out his heart. I want him to feel it pumping in another man’s hands. I want him to know when we rip it out of him.”
Caelan rolled his head to one side, gasping for breath, feeling the blood bubbling up where it didn’t belong. All he knew was that he had failed. This time, his strength and his gifts hadn’t been enough. It didn’t seem fair that he should die like this down in the grubby depths of a dungeon room, stabbed in the back, chained like an animal, outnumbered. As a destiny, it was sordid and pathetic. And the prophecies he’d been told were lies.
He thought of Elandra, wondering if she would ever know his fate. He longed for her, wished he could tell her once more how much he loved her.
His only prayer was that she would be safe.
“Make it quick,” he said to the sergeant.
The sergeant put his ugly face close to Caelan’s. “Do you hurt now? Eh? Does that knife in your back make you want to beg and puke? Well, see how this feels.” He grinned. “All right, Mox. Make it clean, and make it slow.”
A furious pounding on the door awakened Elandra. Disoriented and groggy, she pulled herself upright on the bed while the jinja hissed and sniffed the air.
She looked at the small, golden creature. Its big, luminous eyes met hers. “Safe.”
Iaris, who had been asleep in a chair, rose and walked over to the door. Her unpinned hair streamed down her back, making her look younger and more vulnerable. Holding a lamp in her hand, she spoke to whoever was knocking, then glanced at Elandra.
“It is the guard,” she said. “He is to escort you to the emp— the prince.”
Elandra’s eyes widened. “Now?”
“Yes.”
Elandra glanced involuntarily at the window, seeing her