Page 96 of The Fury She Holds
“Who will?”
“You’ll see,” the mage crooned. He grinned audibly, his lips scraping along his teeth. The dry skin cracked, and a drop of blood seeped through.
Blood crawling between cobblestones.Too much blood.
Tal swallowed with difficulty. “What do you want with me?”
“Show me.” His eyes widened greedily.
“Show you what?”
“Your gift.”
Waylon. Waylon missing. Waylon searching for her. No red. No gold. No fire.
“You mean my singing voice? Sorry to disappoint. This bard doesn’t work well under pressure.” The same searing pain she felt outside the tavern split her head again. She screamed, straining against her invisible bonds, and just as suddenly, it was gone.
“You’ll find that I don’t have patience for nonsense. Now, if you please.” He waved his hand to signal for her to proceed.
Sybil’s vision. The Pyrie standing opposite her.
Tal took a deep breath, paused, and began to sing, “The cold wind blo—” She screamed again. She closed her eyes and only saw blood behind the lids. Her head burned. But this wasn’t the fire she knew; this was like poison. It ate at her mind and slithered into every inch of her body like the blood that coursed through her veins. When it stopped, her captor brought his face to hers.
“I can continue like this for weeks. I assure you that you will not outlast me. Now, show me your gift.” His breath accosted her, and Tal gagged.
“Have you ever considered chewing mint leaves? You would make more friends if your breath wouldn’t frighten them away.”
Aside from pursing his lips, the mage showed no sign that he heard her. He sighed heavily. “One more time?”
Carrick at her bedside, chastising her for getting hurt again.
Tal screamed until her throat burned. Her brain must have swelled until it grew too big for her skull. She tried to thrash, punch, and kick, but her body refused to respond. When it stopped, she gasped a ragged breath. The mage asked again for her to reveal her craft, and she spat in his face.
He stayed silent as he wiped away her saliva but then gripped her head in both his hands and maintained eye contact through the agonizing barrage of a powerful spell that felt like a thousand needles impaling her eyes.
Calm and calculating Rainier, worrying a spot on his nails, anxious he missed something—a detail, a clue.
It continued like that for what felt like ages. She slipped in and out of consciousness, and lost track of time. When she woke, she taunted her captor, and he slowly lost his composure. First, he pursed his lips. Then, he gritted his teeth. Before long, he began pacing the floor. At some point, he adjusted his paralyzing spell so that she could feel pain without being able to move. He switched to alternating between one spell that bludgeoned her body and one much like the slicing spell she had experienced at Silaron.
Sweet, tortured Egan looking to her for answers she didn’t have.
She imagined the bruises and gashes that must cover her body and wondered what bones were broken and how much blood she’d lost. The sight of her must’ve been horrendous. Her energy sapped, her throat raw from screaming. There wasn’t an inch of space that didn’t hurt. When she’d finally had enough, she waited for the mage to get close to her. He’d slapped her across the face this time. She turned back and he got in her face and screamed, “Show me!!”
Faron.
Tal took a deep breath and concentrated what remaining energy she had left. She met the mage’s eyes and blew into his face. She called her fury and willed it to burn the mage where he stood. But none came. There was no heat, no rumble in her chest. She felt nothing. Her fury had gone. No, not gone. Impaired. The alcohol still flowed in her system. Where her fury should have been, laughter bubbled up in her chest. She burst out an exhausted, hysterical sound. Her eyes sprang with tears that she couldn’t wipe away. “How long ago did you take me?” she croaked.
Faron fighting alongside her. Faron exasperated, running a hand through his hair. Faron and his telltale smirk, filling her space, tangling his hand in her hair, kissing her.
The mage stormed out of the room and slammed the door. Not a moment later, he rushed back in and grabbed her head, eliciting the most excruciating pain she had ever felt, like her head being ripped apart by his bare hands. Tal didn’t even have a chance to scream before she passed out.
She was dreaming. She knew that much. The small room and the mage were gone. She stood in a forest. In front of her, with her back turned, stood a woman with flaming red hair. She stared at a mirror image of herself.Am I dead?she wondered. She reached for the other Tal, but the woman did not turn. Instead, she walked away, setting the forest around her ablaze.
Water splashed onto her face. It filled her mouth and nose. She coughed and choked on the liquid. She turned her head to get out of the stream of liquid and continued to splutter.
“Why do you make this so difficult?” asked her captor.
“You do realize you picked me up at a tavern?” Her throat felt like fire, and she continued to cough. “Do you not know anything about magic?”
