by Jann Rowland
She briefly considered throwing herself on the bed and crying her heartbreak into her pillow, but she dismissed that as worthless and turned her attention to the one who meant more to her than anyone else.
“Skye!” Tierra called through their link. “Skye! Please open up to me. I must speak with you. It is urgent.”
For a long, terrible moment, Tierra thought he might continue to shut her out, just as he had been since their argument. At length, however, she heard the wonderful timbre of his voice in her mind.
“Yes?”
Almost wilting with relief, Tierra exclaimed, “Skye, I have to talk to you. The king was just here, and he told me something very important.”
“And that was?”
Tierra almost growled with impatience. Now was not the time for petulance!
“He told me that Quicksilver means to sever the link between us.”
Skepticism crept through their mental connection. “Didn’t you tell me the link could not be removed? I seem to remember you explaining to me something about us being connected forever, the other dying when one of us dies—that sort of thing.”
“Skye,” Tierra said with exaggerated patience, “you do remember that the water was created by Terrain, right?”
“So you said. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Would you not agree that if Terrain created it, then he can nullify it too?”
“Terrain is behind this?” Skye exclaimed. “I knew it! There were too many clues for it to be any other way.”
Tierra’s protest died before she could even make it. Had she not been wondering herself whether Terrain could be as benevolent as she had always thought? Tierra could no longer be certain, and it would make no sense to snap at Skye now.
“So Terrain is finally about to take a direct hand in everything?” Skye asked.
“I do not know, Skye. It seems crazy. Terrain and Celesta have not intervened in our lives for so long that the notion of one of them doing so now is almost inconceivable. But everything seems to be unraveling. So many things I took as the truth not long ago have been upended, and I no longer know what to think. And when I heard—”
Tierra cut off, wondering whether to tell Skye what she had overheard. He needed to know, but her past allegiance to Terrain made her question the best path to take—even though she was now questioning whether the god she had always revered deserved her support.
“What is it, Tierra? Tell me.”
The compassion in Skye’s voice overcame the last of Tierra’s reservations, and she started speaking, hesitantly at first, but with ever-increasing confidence as the words came. Soon, she was baring her soul to him, telling him of what she had overheard, the thoughts and doubts that had plagued her mind, and everything that had been said to her by Canyon and by Quicksilver. The telling was long, but Tierra felt a great weight lift from her shoulders.
After she finished, she fell silent, feeling drained. Skye did not respond for a long moment, and Tierra simply allowed him to think on the matter, knowing he was still with her.
“Are you certain that is what you overheard?” Skye asked at length. “What could possibly have the power to assail the gods?”
“I do not know, Skye. But I am certain that was what they said. I do not understand it any more than you, but this whole episode is making me question everything like I never have before. And I do not want to lose you.”
A chuckle sounded over their link. “I don’t know this king of yours, but if he thinks he can intimidate me or cause me to lose my faith, then he doesn’t know me well. I am stronger than he thinks.”
“But what will we do if they succeed in removing our bond?”
“We’ll fight them however we can.”
“Oh, Skye,” Tierra said, feeling tears prick the corners of her eyes. “I do not know how I could possibly live without your reassuring voice in my mind. If Canyon—”
“Tierra. They’re here.”
“Well, what do you want?” Skye asked.
As soon as the king had approached, Skye had shut down the link between him and Tierra, knowing that whatever happened, he did not want Tierra to feel the pain that was in his future. And though he knew he could not completely shut her out—even now, he could hear her calling him, pleading for reassurance, like a gnat buzzing around his head—he would not. He could give her this much.
“I believe you know what I want,” the king said, staring at Skye through the bars of the cell. He wore brown robes, as did the two stony-faced guards flanking him, and Skye could hear the sounds of several more Groundbreathers as they approached the room. “Have you not been speaking with Tierra over your link?”
Skye lifted his chin and gave Canyon a hard gaze. “And if I was?”
The king shook his head. “Defiant to the end, it seems. I would commend you . . . if it were not so very pathetic.”
“We’ll have to agree to disagree on what exactly fits the word ‘pathetic,’” Skye said. “I might suggest that a man lusting after a woman who is engaged to another constitutes the very definition of ‘pathetic.’”
“And what can you give her? You will likely be here for the rest of your life. We can never release you.”
“Groundbreathers on the surface said the same thing to me once. I believe I have some surprises left for you.”
The king regarded him with a frosty expression. “I am not a man much given to subterfuge, so I will lay it out on the line. I have feelings for Tierra, and I believe she has feelings for me that she has been attempting to suppress. Once this unholy connection between you is laid to rest, her feelings will be allowed to grow.”
“So you arranged this.”
Snorting, the king said, “Oh, no. It is the will of my god that this happen, though it does benefit me. I will have what I want. You will, unfortunately, die in your cell.”
“You are delusional if you think Tierra will ever love you. I hold her heart. She is not a fickle young woman. Anything you say is nothing more than noise.”
“You may think you hold her heart, and perhaps that is true on the whole. But you must remember that she does not fully trust you. She does not want you to be in possession of the Fenik. She would much rather the creature be in my hands.”
The look Skye gave the king would have caused a more cowardly soul to flee. Skye hated that he could not wholeheartedly deny the man’s statement. But Skye’s argument with Tierra hinged on the fact that she did not want Strix to be in Skychildren hands. Her desire to keep that from happening was so strong that she had been willing to try to make a deal with the people who had murdered her father. Skye could not forget that. And he was beginning to think he could not forgive it either.
When Skye did not give a verbal response, the king said, “Tierra will want to stay close to me to keep an eye on the Fenik. Given time, her feelings for me shall naturally grow strong. Eventually, you shall fade to only an unpleasant memory in her mind.”
“If I had the powers of a Groundbreather, I would choke you with the bars of this cell,” Skye growled.
“That would be an interesting sight,” the king said. “My powers over the earth are nothing to sneer at. I feel you would be a worthy opponent.”
“Can we quit with the posturing and get this over with?” Skye snapped. “Let’s not delay the inevitable any longer.” He looked at the newest guards who had appeared behind the king. They, too, wore brown robes.
There were a number of them, and had the situation not been so grim, Skye might have been amused at how many men had been sent. They obviously expected him to put up a fight.
But he was wearing their blasted collar, and he knew they could choke him with it if he provided trouble. Furthermore, he did not know how to find the other members of his party, and he was not about to try to leave this place without them. It was better not to attempt escape at this time.
“Very well,” the king said. He gestured to a guard who stepped forward with a black robe. Then he told Skye
, “Strip yourself of your clothes and put this robe on.”
Skye glared at him in affront. “You think I’m going to just—”
“Do it, or I shall have my guards come in there and force you to do as I say.”
Skye grimaced at the notion of having his clothes stripped away by these filthy men’s paws, and then he began to divest himself of his shirt.
“A little privacy would be nice,” Skye said after dropping his shirt on the floor.
The king laughed. “I am afraid that when we are done with you, you shall not even know the meaning of the word ‘modesty,’ Skychild.”
“Can I keep my boots on at least?”
“Remove everything.”
Cursing under his breath, Skye removed every article of clothing he had. Though he could care less what these men thought of him, his nakedness made him feel as though he were being treated like an animal, and that made his already wretched mood turn darker. His mouth forming a tight line, he reached a hand out for the black robe, which was handed to him through the bars of the cell without a word. Though the cell was cool, he refused to let his captors see him shiver. When he pulled on the robe, however, he pulled it tightly closed.
The king of the underground Groundbreathers signaled the guards. One man opened the cell door, and two stepped inside to grab Skye’s arms with looks of distaste on their face.
“Do not forget that we know how to use that collar at your neck to make you rather uncomfortable,” one of the guards murmured in Skye’s ear.
“I know what the collar can do, dirt-eater,” Skye growled, giving a half-hearted jerk of his arm in response—not enough to wrest himself from the man’s grip, but enough to show that he was not going peacefully.
The man’s expression tightened, but Skye was only dragged forward by the guards, who manhandled him to his destination with intentional roughness.
When they finally arrived, Skye gazed at the room before him with a blank expression. He was not certain what he had expected, but it was not this.
The dark room contained only a man-sized altar surrounded by candles, a large tub filled with water, a small forge that blazed brightly, a table with an assortment of items on it, and that wretched man Quicksilver. Unsurprisingly, Quicksilver wore brown ceremonial robes, and the slight smile on his face indicated he was happy to have Skye before him.
The multitude of guards fanned out in a circle around the altar, save for two who pushed Skye forward. The king of the Chosen went and stood beside Quicksilver, not saying a word.
“Remove your robe,” Quicksilver said.
When Skye hesitated for a moment, his two guards moved as though to remove the robe for him, and he hastily did as he was told, not wanting anyone to assist in something so personal as undressing him.
He dropped the black robe to the ground and lifted his chin. He refused to be cowed by this lot.
Quicksilver began muttering some words Skye could not make out, and he motioned for the Groundbreather king to pick up a rope from the table. As the king held it in the air, Quicksilver took a flask and sprinkled oil over it.
The rope was then handed to the guards, who pulled Skye’s hands behind his back and tied them together. He felt a flare of claustrophobia. It was bad enough that he was in this gloomy hole in the earth, but now his hands were bound, and he was in a room that was really blasted dark in spite of all the candles inside it.
Fighting against these feelings, he pushed the fear back and steeled his resolve, trying to imagine himself in a place far away from this hellhole. A place with Celesta’s beautiful skies visible above.
“We come here now,” Quicksilver began, “to undo something that should never have been done. We are here to remove the bond that has formed between this wretched Skychild and a Groundbreather princess. It is the will of Terrain that this unholy union never come to pass, and so we are here to perform the rites that will lead to the permanent removal of this bond. What Terrain has done, so can he undo.
“The first of the rituals is purification. Though this Skychild is unholy in blood, we shall purify his body, that the presence of Terrain might briefly descend upon him to tear his spirit from that of the one to whom he is bonded.”
At a gesture from Quicksilver, Skye’s two guards began to drag him forward. There were no steps leading up to the tub, and when it became apparent that Skye would have to be lifted into it since his hands were tied, his eyes widened, and his body tensed. As one guard went for Skye’s legs and the other for his head, Skye began to struggle, not wanting these heinous men touching his bare form.
The man who grabbed Skye’s legs had a particularly iron grip, so any attempts to kick were met with futility. Thrusting his head about did not provide Skye any success either, and the two persistent men finally managed to dump him in the tub.
Skye immediately sank, but he tried to rise by pushing up from the bottom with his feet. Four hands held him under the cool water.
Skye stared upward through the blurry liquid, his lungs already feeling fit to burst. He had not been prepared for a dunking when he had been dropped, so he had not inhaled as much air as he should have. In desperation, he tried to move his head close enough to bite one of the hands. But the hands pushing down on his shoulders were just out of reach.
Skye held his breath so long he began to see black spots swimming in front of his eyes. And then, finally, the hands pulled him upward.
He gulped in large mouthfuls of air, gasping and sputtering. No doubt he looked less than impressive, but he could not bring himself to care.
He was then yanked out of the tub and placed on his unsteady feet. He began to shiver. The underground city was cold in general, and this room seemed even more so.
Quicksilver came forward and handed one of the guards a large bristled brush. The guard began to scrape it all over Skye’s body without a word. Skye had to bite back curses and groans every time the harsh brush moved over his skin. It was as though the guard were trying to peel off the first few layers of Skye’s skin but was having a hard time of it.
When the last brush stroke finished, Skye was red and raw on top of wet and shivering. His chin trembling with the cold, he gave a stubborn look to Quicksilver and the king. But Quicksilver only smiled and made a slight gesture, and before Skye knew it, he was being taken in hand and lifted once more.
He was prepared this time when he was dropped into the water, heaving in a great lungful of air. To his addled and burning body, it almost felt good to be returned to the water, and he wondered whether he would actually succeed in surviving all this.
His bond with Tierra had almost begun to crack open to allow her inside his head, and he quickly worked to make the block he had put up stronger. He did not want Tierra to feel any of this.
Several seconds ticked by, and his chest began to hurt. The Groundbreathers seemed to be keeping him under longer this time, and he wondered whether they were just going to have done with it all and drown him.
But then he was pulled up, once more gasping uncontrollably. The two guards lifted him out of the tub and placed him down on the altar, with his head facing upward.
Skye glared over at the approaching Quicksilver. “You will not break me.”
Quicksilver chuckled as he took a flask of pungent-smelling oil and began to pour it all over Skye’s body, causing Skye to wince as the oil stung his sensitive flesh. “Great and Almighty Terrain, we use these oils of the earth to anoint this frail body before us, preparing it to be touched by your mighty hand.”
Skye grimaced at the smell of the oil. “It figures your oils would stink as much as you do.”
Quicksilver, ignoring Skye, turned and gave the king of the Chosen a meaningful look, and the king went to the table to fetch something.
When King Canyon returned, he moved to stand by Skye’s head. He put a piece of wood in front of Skye’s mouth and murmured, “Open.”
Skye stubbornly kept his teeth clenched together, and the two guards came over and
manhandled his mouth open, all the while foiling his efforts to bite their fingers.
When the piece of wood had been inserted into Skye’s mouth, the king tied a rag around Skye’s head to keep the wood in place. Skye gave him a frigid look. He did not know whether the gag was to take away his dignity, keep him from talking, muffle his screams, or prevent him from biting off his tongue. He supposed it did not matter.
Quicksilver moved away to the table. “Fumigation of the body is necessary for the purpose of purifying, as best as possible, that which has been soiled.”
Skye craned his neck and saw that the man was lighting some incense. The smell soon filled the room, and Skye’s face twisted. The scent was even worse than the oils. He fought the urge to gag, wishing desperately that he could breathe through his mouth instead of his nose.
“The suffering of the body serves to open up the soul,” Quicksilver said, “and so we place this one before us through trials of the flesh.”
The two guards flipped Skye over onto his stomach. He felt he knew where this was going.
But instead of the bite of a whip, he felt the sting of something much more solid. As he twisted his head to look, he saw that Quicksilver had a wooden cane in hand.
“The scourging,” Quicksilver said with unmistakable pleasure, “is a critical part of opening up the soul.” And then he brought down the cane again.
Skye would have been lying if he claimed he had not bitten down on the piece of wood that had been shoved into his mouth. He was suddenly grateful for the gag, as it allowed him to release muffled moans despite his pride.
The difference between this caning and the whippings he had previously received was more than just the implement. Of course, Skye did feel almost certain that a cane hurt more than a whip, as the cane had no give to it. But more importantly, Skye was not certain that any of the Groundbreathers who had taken a whip to him—save for Wisteria, whose pampered nature had dictated a fortunate lack of strength—had ever truly enjoyed his pain.
