Treason: Book Two of the Grimoire Saga (a Young Adult Fantasy series) (36 page)

Braeden turned in time to see Carden’s gray version of Flick—he could never remember what that thing was called—turn around and stare at him. The creature crouched on the edge of Carden’s shoulder, watching him as if seeing him for the first time.

“I thought those creatures couldn’t teleport through lichgates,” Braeden said absently.

“Kara’s can’t?” the king asked. “Each has different powers, so that’s good to know.”

Braeden cursed under his breath. He shouldn’t have said anything.

“Come on, boy, we haven’t got all day,” Carden said. The king turned so that his head hid the creature on his shoulder. He sneered.

“What?” Braeden demanded.

“Look at that. I didn’t even have to ask.”

Braeden looked down, confused, only to see his gray hands. He’d changed form. Well, he couldn’t change back
now.

Carden began off down the hall, and the small gray creature watched Braeden the entire way. Its massive eyes simply stared, as if waiting for a magic trick.

It was unnerving.

“Your return was inevitable, you know,” Carden said. “You belong here. This is your home. Your duty is to your people. You will be forever remembered, Braeden. But first, you must prove yourself.”

They stopped at a door in the center of the Cellar. Braeden knew the door too well. A flight of steps behind it would lead to the torture room where he’d mutilated Aislynn as a boy.

Braeden would have to prove himself by torturing someone.

Carden opened the door and started down a stone staircase with no handlebar. Walls closed in on either side. The gray creature on his shoulder stared at Braeden the whole way down. Its eyes glowed in the growing darkness until the two massive beads bobbed in the shadows as if on their own.

There would be light farther down. Only the stairs were this dark, but they were dark for a reason: to terrify prisoners before the torture even began. Thin light pooled at the bottom of the steps, illuminating a sharp turn in the stairway. There, the wall on the left would open up into a low ceiling. A row of windows would illuminate the lines of stone tables, where thousands of yakona and other creatures had died over the years. One wall would be lined with knives and saws. The other wall hosted a row of mirrors so that the prisoners could watch their torturer’s handiwork.

Braeden hesitated. He couldn’t.

But he forced himself to take the first, shaky step. He pressed on down the stairs, foot by foot, hoping all the way that his irregular steps wouldn’t give him away. He’d come so far.

There was no going back. There wasn’t room for error. There wasn’t room for hesitation. If he had to kill someone to prove himself to Carden, to lead the terrible man to the ambush waiting for him, then that’s what Braeden would do.

Carden turned into the light below and disappeared into the chamber. Not good. Braeden had just let his greatest enemy walk first into a room filled with weapons designed to inflict pain.

He hurried and rounded the corner. The sudden light blinded him, but he blinked away the glare. He had to be ready to face whoever waited on the tables for him.

Twelve tables lined the room, each six feet apart and all of them empty.

Carden stood by the first table, arms crossed. He watched Braeden with a complicated expression of furrowed brows and a half-sneer. Braeden couldn’t make out whether he was disappointed or trying not to laugh.

This had to be part of the hazing. Carden wanted to drag this out, to see his reaction as the prisoner walks down the stairs. He wanted to make Braeden nervous as he waited.

Well, it wouldn’t work.

He crossed to the table and ran his hand over it. The stone glided under his fingers, smooth from the weight of the countless bodies strapped to it in its years.

The world tossed around him—no,
he’d
been flipped. His back hit the stone table and knocked the wind out of him. The ceiling—oh
Bloods,
he faced the ceiling.

Cold metal whipped over his body. Chains, slithering on their own accord, tightened around his legs and torso. He wanted to laugh. Chains couldn’t do any—

Barbs dug into his skin anywhere a chain touched him, springing to life as if they’d been coiled and simply waiting. Poison dripped from their ends and coursed through his blood. He screamed, unable to suppress the agony.

Carden patted him on the head. “I’m not as stupid as you seem to think, son.”

Braeden leaned back into the table. Panic set his heart racing.

His father paced around the table. “Your friends sent you here. You would never come back without an agenda. You’ve already run at every chance you’ve had. You’ve always
run
, Braeden! Like a coward! You’ve hidden when any other Heir would have fought. So why would you come back unless you were trying to help those other Bloods? You’re pathetic!

“I know a loyal man when I see one. I also know how to break a loyal man so that all he remembers is what I tell him to believe. It’s a lesson I was trying to teach you with Aislynn all those years ago. You could have been truly great, Braeden. But now I must start again. Now, I will burn the defiance out of you forever.”

Carden stood at the foot of the table, blocking Braeden’s view of the mirrors. The king’s hands changed color from dark charcoal gray to a hot, fiery orange. Steam radiated from his fingers, which lost their defined outline. They simmered and shook as if they were melting, as if the slightest touch would send them spilling to the floor like molten rock out of a kiln.

“Carden, don’t—”

But Carden grinned and set his steaming hands on Braeden’s feet.

Searing pain roared up Braeden’s body. He screamed. The spiked chains tore rips into his skin as he thrashed, trying to escape. His boots melted, bits of the liquid leather sticking to his skin as it cooled. He couldn’t see his feet, but knew they would burn to a crisp from Carden’s molten touch.

He would never escape this.

“Come now, boy. You’re stronger than that,” Carden said with a laugh.

The Stelian Blood let go. Aches ripped through Braeden’s feet. His legs twitched, and a sting raced up his side each time.

Carden paced around the side of the table and stopped at Braeden’s torso.

“Please, no—”

“You are a coward. Don’t worry. I’ll burn that out of you as well.”

Carden set his molten hands on Braeden’s chest, but didn’t stop there. He traced one finger up Braeden’s neck and up his cheek. Braeden screamed again. Carden allowed it.

Burnt skin and singed fabric clogged Braeden’s nose until he thought he would either vomit or pass out from the overwhelming stench.

In the mirror, he could see a trail from his stomach to his left eye, a steaming black line that marked Carden’s path. His shirt’s fibers melted to his skin. Red embers simmered in the scarred tissue.

“Do hold still,” Carden said from behind him.

The two molten hands grabbed each side of Braeden’s head. The splintering pain was too much. Agony tore apart his mind, snapping and stripping his resolve. Everything burned away—his hair, his skin, his hope.

Braeden didn’t even know if he was screaming anymore. He couldn’t hear. The world fell perfectly silent, marred only by the intense pain
coursing through his skull. It bubbled on his face.

He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see the rest.

At some point, Carden left. Braeden knew that only because the pain receded long enough to hear again. His ear rang, the sound a deafening roar after the incessant, painful silence.

His sight returned next, though he wished he couldn’t see once he looked at himself in the mirror. Black blood dripped from his fingers into pools on the floor, or fell from the half-tattered clothes hanging from his body. Black handprints and trails from Carden’s burning hands covered everything.

Carden hadn’t stopped with the molten hands. That had been the warm up. The scorched patches on Braeden’s shoulder, stomach, and legs meant that, somewhere along the way, Carden had switched to using controlled bursts of lightning. Jagged lines had been carved into Braeden’s arms. Little remained of his boots, though the soles had melted into the skin on the bottom of his feet.

And this was only the beginning.

He groaned and shifted his weight. The chains ripped new holes in him, so he tried to lay still. So far, he hadn’t revealed anything—at least, he didn’t think so. There were moments he couldn’t remember, wounds that seemed to have appeared from nowhere. Carden might have left to release a herd of troops to take care of the Bloods while he finished—

“Oh good, you’re awake.”

The voice came from the stairs, but Braeden didn’t have to turn his head to know Carden was back.

“You’re a good deal stronger than I gave you credit for, boy. I admire that. But my patience is running low, as I have things to do.”

Carden stepped into view. Braeden looked up from half-raised eyelids—oh,
Bloods
. He had two black eyes as well.

Braeden forced a raspy laugh. “Show me what you got.”

“That’s my boy,” Carden answered.

The room darkened, as if the sun had gone behind a cloud. The darkness continued, fast and sudden, until the only light came from Carden’s palm. The Blood stared into his hand, apparently focusing his energy.

The darkness splintered. Each of the black shards pulsed, shivering and rippling as they snaked their way into Carden’s palm. White sparks broke in waves across each one as it floated. The room’s light returned more with each shadow that lay in Carden’s palm or wrapped itself around his arm.

Braeden choked on a gasp. He tensed.

No.

Carden smiled. “Ah, you do remember the slivers. It’s my favorite technique. I tried to teach it to you with Aislynn. Do you remember that? She must have endured that for, what, two days? Three? You just never quite got it right. Usually, a yakona doesn’t survive that much exposure to the slivers, though I can’t imagine she was ever the same after that. The slivers never leave a yakona the same as he was before.”

Braeden tried to push away, but the chains held him tight. His strength was gone. His resilience was gone. If he had to endure the slivers, there was no telling what he would be when Carden finished. Aislynn had likely only survived because Braeden hadn’t ever been able to go through with torturing her himself.

“Welcome home, boy.” Carden sneered.

The slivers dove from the Blood’s palm onto Braeden’s stomach. One pushed under his shirt and forced its way into his belly button. Braeden yelled, twisting as he flexed his stomach in an effort to fight it off. The rest slunk into the wounds on his body or wriggled toward his face, burning whatever skin they touched.

One pushed into his mouth. He gagged. It scratched his tongue, as if the thing had a million clawed legs propelling it forward. He tried to scream, but another forced its way in after the first.

White light broke across the back of his eyelids. It was only a flash, but with it came relief. Peace.

The white light faded away as quickly as it had come. He reached for it with his mind. Instead, different images spun past: the Queen, Gavin, Richard, Mother.

He grabbed the first memory he could. Mother’s face came into view, smiling as she kissed his nose. She said something, her voice echoing incoherently in his mind. Ice splintered across his nose. He shivered.

The slivers raced into the memory, wrapping themselves around her. She didn’t react, apparently oblivious to the smoky things slithering into her ears and mouth. Her eyes turned red, and her sweet voice became Carden’s booming laugh.

Braeden pushed away. Carden was taking everything—even his memories. He couldn’t. Braeden wouldn’t let him.

He reached for the Queen, for Gavin, for Richard—but each had the same effect. Their faces became distorted ghosts, their voices the resounding boom of Carden’s laughter.

Braeden pushed away again, with nothing to grasp for anymore. This was it. He had truly lost.

A hand reached around his waist. The flash of white broke across his vision again, and with it came that same wave of peace. But this wasn’t just a flicker; it remained. As long as the hand touched him, Braeden would be safe.

He looked down to see small, pale hands wrapped around him, as if someone hugged him from behind. He turned to see a blond head smiling up at him.

“Kara,” he said. Relief flooded through him.

But—this was all in his head. None of this was real.

“Don’t question it,” she said, as if she read his thoughts.

She pulled him away from the darkness and slivers. The two of them floated in the vacant white relief from the pain.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Let go,” she answered.

“Let go of what? I’m not letting go of you.”

She smiled. “Let go of the pain. Leave that behind.”

“I don’t know how to do that.”

“Just try.”

He nodded. “Distract me.”

She grinned and kissed his neck. “I think I can do that.”

His skin flushed, and he gripped her tighter. He ran a hand through her hair.

She leaned into his chest and sighed. “That’s better. Don’t think about anything but being here with me.”