Last Stand (The Black Mage Book 4)

by Rachel E. Carter

  Every time I cast, twenty regiment mages shattered whatever defense I built. I might have been able to take on five of their most powerful on even ground, but I was trapped in a cage and these were hand-selected warriors from the King’s Regiment. Blayne had picked the best of the best, and I was just a doll they tore apart.

  Knives ripped across flesh. Boots and fists pounded against bone.

  Someone held my head underwater as I thrashed. My nails clawed the tub and I choked, ice splitting my lungs… Eventually the pain stopped, and for a moment there was peace… Until someone dragged me up by the back of my skull.

  And then they inflicted something worse.

  In the end, it hadn’t mattered. I was the victim. Their victim. Some bruised and beaten shade of a girl crippled on the dungeon floor.

  How much time had passed? I couldn’t be certain. I lost count when someone took an iron to my skin, this time branding a sigil of the Crown to my wrist. They pressed it so hard and so deep I could still smell the burning flesh.

  They said those of us that could pain cast had a higher tolerance than the rest. That we were used to holding onto sanity under conditions where others would break.

  They never prepared me for this.

  I couldn’t even open my eyes.

  They couldn’t break me, but parts of me wished they would. That it was over.

  But it had only just begun.

  Someone jerked my hair back and my head slammed against the bars of my cell. Someone was saying something, shaking me, and then an iron fist collided with my cheek. They wanted me to look at them.

  “Open your eyes, you filth!”

  Another blow to the ribs, and then another terrible crack as something snapped.

  I opened my eyes, as much as it hurt. I wasn’t sure I could survive another blow.

  “There she is. Doesn’t look much like a pretty little mage princess now, does she?”

  I recognized the voice before Mira’s face came into focus. My vision was stained with red.

  “No. Certainly not.”

  A second face came into view and I recoiled, every part of me raging against the movement as my back hit the wall.

  A fresh wave of pain tore up my spine, and I couldn’t control the small whimper that fell from my lips.

  “You kept your word…” Blayne looked down at me with a smirk. “I believe her mouth is the only thing you didn’t break. She can’t cast?”

  The woman clucked her tongue. “All depleted. Every last drop. It will take her days to recover her stamina.”

  “And you sent the others away?”

  “Yes. Would you like me to wait outside the door?”

  “No.” The king’s eyes were locked on my face. “I don’t trust this one. I’d rather you stay.”

  Blayne knelt so that our eyes were level through the bars. The head mage went to stand by the wall, ready to strike at her tyrant’s first command.

  It hurt to take a breath; I couldn’t even lift my arms.

  “So, Ryiah.”

  Every part of me stilled.

  “I thought I was a good actor, but you…” Blayne clucked his tongue against his teeth. “…you caught me by surprise.”

  My pulse hammered against my throat, the air growing thick.

  “I hated you at first. Watching my brother fight so damn hard for a lowborn when he never fought that hard for me…” Something like jealousy flashed across the young king’s face. “But after the Pythians, I recognized your worth. You came in second during the Candidacy. You risked your life during the attack on my father… You were exactly what I needed. No one would question a king with the two most powerful mages at his side.” His tone abruptly soured. “Was it your brother? Was that when everything changed?

  “I think it was.” Blayne didn’t bother to wait for a reply. “It’s the only explanation. But I still wonder, those things that you said. They were new. Even Derrick failed to mention the Caltothian girl and my role… which leads me to believe you discovered the truth after he was gone.”

  My mouth felt like sand; I couldn’t swallow.

  “What really interests me is what you were planning.” Blayne rose to his feet and began to circle the room. “You went after the map. It was just a test, something I knew a rebel couldn’t resist, but now I’m curious what you were going to do with it. Were the rebels preparing to take over the desert? Was that what you promised Cassius? A bit more land?”

  The king stopped pacing. “The Pythians are predictable, of course. Always ruthless, seeking a better deal.” Blayne let out a bark of laughter. “Won’t Cassius be surprised when you disappear.”

  My hand twitched.

  “Oh, yes.” Blayne missed nothing. “Your illness. I thought it best that the court not know of their princess’s traitorous crime. In time, I’ll reveal it to the world, but for now I thought it best to sit and wait. I wouldn’t want any of your rebel friends staging an escape, again.”

  I refused to reply. I refused to give him any sort of response.

  “I suppose you could tell me everything now.” The king gave me a knowing smirk. “But something tells me your answers won’t come without a fight. They haven’t broken you yet.”

  “You will never break me.” The words burned my throat. “I’ll die first.”

  The young tyrant laughed. He laughed and laughed as he unlocked the cell door and grabbed my face, jerking it up so I was forced to meet his eyes.

  “Such a stubborn little girl,” he hissed. “You’ve got spirit. Much more than that friend of yours. What was her name? Ella?”

  I spat in his face.

  Blayne didn’t flinch. He just held onto my chin, his fingernails biting into my skin, digging new rivulets of hot, coppery blood. “I’ll enjoy watching you die.” His eyes were manic. “Just like your brother.”

  I would have given anything for my muscles to obey, but I couldn’t summon the strength to fight.

  The king laughed and rose, dragging me up by the collar as I cried out in pain. Everything was red, and I couldn’t even raise my arm as he sent a fist flying toward my face.

  I stumbled back against my cell.

  Everything went black.

  12

  The next day, I learned why the rebels chose to take their own lives before the Crown’s Army dragged them away to interrogations. I learned why giving up everything was better than clinging to hope.

  I learned what Derrick had withstood while I’d thrown tantrums inside the palace begging his surrender instead.

  I learned what it meant to bleed.

  I lived with nightmares in mortal flesh.

  They had me wasting away on hallucinogens, watching over and over as everything and everyone I knew died. They submitted me to devices I didn’t even know the Crown possessed.

  “N-never.” It was the last word before I was flooded with darkness. Again.

  Those brief moments when everything ceased to be… I yearned for them more than anything. But I think Mira knew that.

  My world was a flood of pain.

  I knew nothing else.

  I was drowning, and I just wanted it to stop. I finally understood the release of death.

  My lips were cracked. All I could taste was my own blood. The little water they gave me was stale and warm, and the bread was covered in mold.

  The room stank of pungent flesh and acidic buckets of waste. I felt each old wound reopen when I shifted in my manacles or slept. My shift was worn to rags.

  There were parts of my body that couldn’t react. Parts of me that were numb. Parts that ached and burned and sent needles down my spine when I turned.

  I couldn’t hear anything. The world was a jumble of noise, sharp and soft, colliding with my thundering pulse; they had to shout into my face for me to hear.

  When it got too bad, they called a healer.

  Only so they could begin anew.

  Questions, silence, and pain.

  Over and over, minutes and hours melded togethe
r, and I lost all sense of time.

  There was some sort of commotion when I awoke. I couldn’t see it. My eyelids refused to cooperate.

  But suddenly I could hear. A healer must have come while I was fading in and out.

  “She’s refusing to cooperate.”

  “We should just kill her now.”

  Blayne and Mira were somewhere inside.

  “No.”

  My lungs stopped. I knew that voice. I knew it so well, and somehow I had almost forgotten it in the hours that passed.

  “Darren—”

  “She’s my wife, Blayne!”

  “Brother.” The king’s voice lowered sympathetically. “Why do you want her alive? Look at her. She betrayed you. She betrayed all of us.”

  Silence.

  “If you want her for other things, there are plenty of ladies in court who would be more than happy to warm your bed.”

  “That’s. Not. It.”

  “Don’t you dare tell me you still have feelings for the traitor.”

  “I don’t feel anything.” The prince’s snarl echoed across the cell.

  “Then that settles it.” An order: “Mira.”

  Someone jerked at my chains and pulled me up off the floor. My eyelids fluttered as Mira shoved me up against the wall, one hand holding my throat as a conjured blade rose in her fist.

  Did I scream? Her blade pressed into my neck and something wet slid down my shoulders as every inch of me shuddered and burned.

  “If you don’t feel anything,” the king said loudly, “let Mira finish the job for both of us. Let’s put the traitor behind us once and for all.”

  Silence. Again. Not that I truly noticed with a blade cutting into my neck. A dull, throbbing pain exploded just above my chest. Is this what it feels like to die? I wondered. Like your pulse is being taken right out of your throat? Like someone—

  “Give me a week.”

  “Darren—”

  “I’ll interrogate her. Please, if she doesn’t give us the answers—” There was a pause, “—I’ll execute her myself.”

  The blade left my throat; I wished it hadn’t.

  Up until that moment, I’d forgotten the boy with the garnet eyes.

  But hearing him… I felt everything.

  The next time I opened my eyes, I could take a breath without shattering my lungs. Slowly, cautiously, I extended my arm, first one, then the other when the pain didn’t make me cry out. My legs came next.

  With effort, but not so much that it brought me to tears as before, I drew myself to my knees. My arms trembled and a burning sensation ignited in my limbs, but eventually I was able to stand, pulling myself up with the bars.

  When I could finally breathe, I dared myself to look.

  There was a silhouette in the shadows watching me.

  “I had a healer see to the worst of your wounds,” it said. “If you try anything, I’ll make them worse than before.” The Black Mage took a step from the darkness so that I could see his face amidst the flickering flames. “Much worse.”

  I swallowed, taking a heavy lungful of air.

  “You will not speak.” His order stole the words from my lips. “Unless it is in direct reply to a question.”

  I folded my arms and instantly regretted it. There was an ache in the side of my ribs.

  “Where are the rebels?”

  I stared out at the prince, wondering what he expected me to say.

  “Don’t make me do this, Ryiah.” Darren’s warning was flat. “Don’t make me interrogate you like Mira.”

  I didn’t speak a word; it wasn’t a question.

  “One more chance,” he said. “You have one more chance to tell me where they are.”

  “They aren’t the enemy—”

  I never got to finish the rest of my sentence. Darren’s magic slammed into me like a hammer, or it would have, had I not expected it just in time.

  My shield redirected the brunt of his casting to my left.

  Bits of stone crumbled to the floor.

  Darren looked out at me without the barest hint of surprise. He probably had expected as much, given the healing.

  “Who are the rebels?”

  “Your brother is a liar—”

  This time he tried a pair of daggers.

  My magic wasn’t fast enough, but somehow it didn’t matter. Instead of hitting me, the blades shuddered and fell. On their own.

  He cursed.

  My gaze lifted to the prince. “Darren—”

  This time his dagger hit its mark. I bit my cheek to keep from crying out as a sharp blade embedded itself in my shoulder. My pain casting came a second later, and the dagger fell away.

  I tore at the hem of my dress. It was little more than a bloodstained rag, but I needed something to quell the flow. I didn’t have enough magic to keep a casting in place.

  It didn’t escape my notice that Darren waited for me to finish.

  “We will do this again, and again. I’ll break every bone in your body. Is that what you want?”

  “No.”

  His eyes were fathomless. “Then answer me with the truth instead of a lie.”

  I opened my mouth and shut it as a different kind of pain worked its way up my chest. Speak. “I am.”

  The Black Mage stood there all the way across the room, his arms locked at his sides. His chest was moving, but other than that, there was no sign of life.

  Then he turned around and banged on the door, calling for the pair of guards just beyond.

  “Put her in the chair.”

  No.

  My eyes shot to the iron chair in the center of the room. I’d forgotten about it until now. Mira preferred hands and blades. Or branding irons. Or drowning. Or nightshade.

  “The P-Prisoner’s Chair, Your Highness?”

  “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

  The two mages hurried forward, unlocking my cell and then my manacles. I didn’t fight. I let them drag me forward by the pits of my arms. I stumbled along, looking at Darren the entire time.

  When they finally stood me in front of the chair, I was forced to take a good look at the infamous device. Dark stains of old blood and rust coated the rows and rows of iron spikes lining its surface, from the headrest right down to the legs. There were straps everywhere to keep the prisoner from struggling during interrogation.

  I noted the small clasps where they could pull the straps tighter.

  “Place her in it.”

  My eyes shot to his. Darren wouldn’t even look at me.

  The guards turned me to face the front of the room.

  I didn’t fight.

  I should have.

  But I knew why Darren had ordered the others to bring me there instead of himself. I knew why he had chosen the chair over his magic.

  I knew why his fists were locked at his sides.

  The men shoved me roughly into the device, and a thousand different kinds of pain ripped across my skin. I choked back a scream. It was all I could do not to writhe and claw at the iron-laden arms. In seconds, my nightdress—what little was not already stained in blood—turned a deep, dark red. Blood trickled down my legs and wrists and then pooled on the floor. Air expanded in my lungs. I was holding my breath just to keep from sinking lower in the chair.

  The guards pinned me against the spikes, strapping me in place.

  The more I squirmed, the more blood, the more pain. An involuntary flinch sent my whole body into panic. I was gasping at forty seconds, and the sharp exhale made things worse. My back jerked against the chair.

  The two mages shoved me back harder than necessary and my eyes watered. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold back a scream.

  “This can stop if you tell me where they are.”

  “The rebels”—I was trying not to breathe, not to move, not even my chest—“aren’t the enemy.”

  I couldn’t see Darren now that I was strapped in. He was somewhere at my right. But I imagined the cold fury matched his voice.
“Pull her straps tighter.”

  The guards started forward.

  “Why don’t you do it yourself?”

  For a moment, nobody moved.

  Drip, drip.

  A rush of steps and then the guards were staggering back, the crown prince bare inches from my face.

  I will not break.

  “You think I won’t?” he snarled.

  “If I’m g-going to be int-terrogated by the B-Black M-Mage…” Everything was raw and the pain was getting worse. So. Much. Worse. “I w-would expect h-him to do his own w-work.”

  “Very well.” His laugh was cruel and unfeeling. “If that’s what you want.”

  Darren’s fist caught the side of my jaw.

  Iron needles raked the side of my face, and for a moment, I couldn’t do anything but scream.

  The betrayal was worse.

  Salty tears mixed in with blood, and when I was finally brave enough to pull away—hoarse gasps pouring from my lungs—I was on fire.

  I hadn’t really thought he could.

  He’d been standing so far away. He’d distanced himself. He’d called on others…

  But I needed to reach him. If he felt anything.

  I opened my eyes.

  “You are g-going to h-have to do b-better than t-that.”

  Darren raised his arm again.

  I held still, watching him, blood rushing down the side of my face.

  “D-do it.” Tears stung my eyes. “H-hit me a-again. Just like your f-father.”

  Something in his expression faltered, and then it was gone. Darren’s fist collapsed to his side. The prince took a step back; he was no longer looking at my face.

  “That’s enough for today.”

  “Your Highness?”

  “Remove the prisoner from her chair and take her back to her cell!”

  My breath caught in my lungs. “D-Darren—”

  “She will most likely bleed to death anyway.” His hard eyes met my own, and anything I thought I’d seen, it was gone. “I’ll be back tomorrow. If she’s still alive.”

  A couple hours later, there was a familiar squeal of metal sliding into place. The prison door was thrust open for the second time that day.

  My shackles were gone.