Not that he cared. He was far more interested in who amongst them had upset his beloved. Surely it must be one, if not all: She had no handmaidens, at her own request, so these were the only figures she had any contact with at court.
What had been said. Who had said it.
It was with no small amount of aggression that he proceeded down the line and greeted each one according to protocol. Indeed, this ancient sequence of private address in the midst of a public gathering was a way of acknowledging and reaffirming the advisers’ position within the court, a declaration of their importance.
He could remember his father doing precisely thus. Except the male had seemed to actually value the relationships with his courtiers.
Especially on this night, the son was not where the father had been.
Who had—
At first he assumed his beloved had tripped and required more of his arm’s strength. Alas, however, it was not her footing she lost. It was her balance …
And all of it.
The dragging sensation on his forearm turned his head, and that was how he saw it happen, the vital form of his shellan going loose and toppling downward.
With a shout, he reached out to catch her, but he was not fast enough.
As the crowd gasped, Anha fell upon the floor, her sightless eyes staring up at him, but seeing nothing, her expression as blank as a mirror with no one before it, her skin even paler than it had been up in their chamber.
“Anha!” he screamed as he crumpled to the floor with her. “Anha…!”
EIGHTEEN
Sola woke up with a start, her face whipping off a cold, concrete floor, her body stretched out unnaturally. Flipping herself off her belly, her brain processed the status of her location in a split second: Cell with three solid walls and one with bars. No heat, no window, recessed light high above, stainless-steel toilet.
No cellmate, no warden that she could see.
Next check-in was her body: Her head had splitting pains at the nape and in the front, but that wasn’t as bad as what was going on with her thigh. That bastard with the dark birthmark covering half his face had shot her about six inches above her knee—the fact that she could lift her calf off the floor suggested he hadn’t gotten bone, but talk about a case of the ouches. The burning sensation coupled with the throbs was enough to make her nauseous.
Silence.
Across the basement, over on a wall, a pair of chains had been bolted into the concrete, and the wrist latches that hung off their ends were a promise of horror.
Well, that and the stains between and below the setup.
No security cameras that she could see. Then again, Benloise was cagey. Maybe he’d use a camera phone to replay his version of home movies?
With no idea how much time she had, she got to her feet—
“Fuck.”
Putting weight on her right leg was like taking a hot poker and shoving it into her wound. Then pulling a Chubby Checker twist.
Let’s try to avoid that, shall we.
As she eyed the toilet, which was a good five feet away, she cursed again. This leg of hers was going to be a major tactical disadvantage—because it was hard to walk without doing a zombie foot drag—which made noise as well as slowed her down.
Trying to whisper her way over, as opposed to creating a major audible disturbance, she used the loo but didn’t flush. Then she backtracked to where she’d been. She didn’t feel the need to test out the bars or see whether the door was locked.
Benloise wasn’t into shoddy construction and wouldn’t employ someone that stupid.
Her only shot was to try to overpower that guard with the gun, and how that was going to happen in her current condition, she hadn’t a clue. Unless …
Resettling down on the ground, she sprawled herself out in exactly the same position she’d woken up in. Closing her eyes, she was momentarily distracted by the beat of her own heart.
Loud. Really damn loud.
Especially as she thought of her grandmother.
Oh, God, she couldn’t end here. And not like this—this wasn’t an illness or an accident on a highway. This was going to involve suffering deliberately inflicted, and afterward? Benloise was exactly the kind of sick fuck who’d send a piece of her back to be buried.#p#分页标题#e#
Even if the recipient was an innocent party to all this ugliness.
As she pictured her grandmother having only a hand or foot to place in a casket, she found her lips moving.
God, please let me get out of this alive. For vovó’s sake. Just let me survive this, and I promise you I will get out of the life. I will take her and go somewhere safe, and I will never, ever do a wrongful thing again.
Distantly, she heard a clank like a door was being unlocked, and then muttering.
Forcing her breath to be even, she watched through the veil of her hair, listening to footsteps get closer.