Page 3 of Bite Sized Bride

MIKANA

T he summons comes an hour after nightfall. Not a written request left on my desk, but a sharp rap on the door of my small, windowless chamber. It’s one of the household guards, his face carved from the same impassive stone as the rest of them.

“The master requires your presence,” he says, his eyes looking through me. “In the lower sanctum.”

Ice trickles down my spine. The lower sanctum is not for scribing. It is for rituals. I have never been summoned there before. My work is with the dead and their artifacts, not with the living on their way to becoming so.

“My ledgers?” I ask, my voice a carefully constructed monotone.

A flicker of something—annoyance, perhaps—crosses his face. “You will not be writing tonight.”

He turns and walks away, expecting me to follow.

I do. My feet are silent on the cold stone floors as we descend, leaving the opulent upper levels of the estate behind.

The air grows colder, heavier, thick with the scent of damp earth and something else.

Something metallic and sharp that catches in the back of my throat. Fear.

The sanctum is a circle of raw, black stone.

Runes are carved into the floor, glowing with a faint, sickly green light.

The air hums with contained power. Lord Malakor stands near a central altar, his back to me.

He is dressed in ceremonial robes of black silk embroidered with silver serpents that seem to writhe in the shifting light.

He looks serene, almost peaceful, like a priest about to lead a prayer.

Vexia, his personal sorcerer, stands to his left. Her platinum hair is a fall of moonlight against her dark robes, her violet eyes holding a chillingly detached curiosity. She is examining a set of wicked-looking silver instruments laid out on a velvet cloth.

In the very center of the runic circle, chained to the floor, is a man.

My breath catches. It’s Ren, a stable hand, barely a man at all. He can’t be more than seventeen. His face is pale with terror, his eyes wide as he stares at the instruments in Vexia’s hands.

“Ah, Mikana,” Lord Malakor says, turning. His smile does not reach his cold, indigo eyes. “You are just in time. I felt it was important for you to observe the process. To better understand the… provenance of some of the items you so diligently catalog.”

He is doing this for me. The thought is a shard of ice in my gut. This is a performance, and I am the intended audience.

“What was his crime, my lord?” I ask, keeping my gaze fixed on a point on the floor just to the left of his boots.

“He was accused of theft,” Malakor says, his voice smooth as polished glass. “A silver locket belonging to one of our guests.”

A lie. I saw the locket fall from the guest’s own pocket in the courtyard this morning. I said nothing. Saying something would have earned me a beating for my impertinence. Saying nothing has earned Ren a death sentence.

“Vexia will now… persuade him to tell us where he has hidden it,” Malakor continues, gesturing to the sorcerer. “The Serpent values truth above all else. And pain is its most effective midwife.”

He steps back, moving to stand beside me. So close I can smell the expensive wine on his breath. He wants to feel me flinch. He wants to watch me break.

I will not give him the satisfaction. I build a wall of ice inside my mind, brick by brick, until I am numb.

I focus on the details. The way the green light from the runes glints off the silver of the chains.

The drip of water somewhere in the darkness.

The frantic, shallow rhythm of Ren’s breathing.

I am a scribe. I am an observer. I feel nothing.

Vexia picks up a long, thin needle. She approaches Ren, her movements fluid and graceful, like a dancer. “The locket,” she says, her voice soft, almost gentle. “Just tell us where it is, boy. It will be so much easier.”

“I… I didn’t take it,” Ren stammers, shrinking back against his chains. “I swear on the Mother’s name.”

Malakor makes a soft tsking sound beside me. “The wrong god, I’m afraid.”

Vexia sighs, a theatrical display of disappointment. “A pity.”

She drives the needle into the soft flesh beneath Ren’s fingernail.

He screams.

The sound is high and shrill, echoing off the stone walls.

It tears through the icy fortress of my mind, shattering my composure.

My hands clench into fists at my sides, my nails digging into my palms. I force myself to breathe.

In, out. Slow. Steady. Do not look away. That is the one rule I cannot break.

“An interesting reaction,” Malakor murmurs, his voice a deep vibration next to my ear.

He isn’t looking at Ren. He’s looking at me.

His eyes are alight with a connoisseur’s appreciation.

He is savoring my anguish as much as Ren’s.

“Such empathy for a common thief. It’s a flaw in your character, Mikana. A weakness we may need to carve out.”

The torture continues. I lose track of time.

Vexia is an artist of agony, her work precise and unhurried.

She uses blades that peel skin like fruit rind, enchanted tongs that heat from within, and whispers of magic that make a man’s own blood feel like fire in his veins.

Ren’s pleas for mercy dissolve into incoherent sobs, then to choked, animal whimpers, and finally, to a terrifying, gurgling silence.

Through it all, I watch. I catalog the sounds, the smells, the way the green runes on the floor seem to brighten with every scream, feeding on the raw energy of his pain.

I see now. The sanctum isn’t just a torture chamber.

It’s a crucible. Malakor is channeling Ren’s suffering, feeding it into the very stones of this place, charging some unseen artifact dedicated to his vile god.

Ren’s body goes limp, his head lolling to one side. A final, shuddering breath escapes his lips and then… nothing.

Vexia straightens up, wiping a single drop of blood from a silver scalpel with a silk cloth. “He expired, my lord. Without confessing.”

“As expected,” Malakor says, his voice filled with a profound sense of satisfaction. He turns to me, and the look in his eyes is a physical blow. It is a look of ownership, of promise. It says, This is your future. I will unmake you piece by piece, and I will enjoy every moment.

He dismisses me with a flick of his fingers.

I walk from the sanctum on steady legs. I climb the stairs. I do not run. I return to my chamber and close the door behind me. And only then, in the suffocating silence of my tiny room, do I allow the wall of ice to crumble. A single, dry sob escapes my throat.

I will not be next.

The decision is not a thought. It is a certainty, cold and hard as diamond. I will not die on that floor. I will not be his next spectacle.

The storm hits an hour later, a furious assault of wind and rain that rattles the very foundations of the estate. It is a gift from The Guide herself. My cover.

I move with a purpose I have not felt in a decade. My plan is a tapestry woven from years of observation. The changing of the guard at the third bell. The blind spot on the western wall, where the refuse pile masks the lower stones. The baker who leaves the scullery door unlatched.

From my mattress, I pull a small, hard bundle I have been hoarding for months—a strip of dried taura meat, a small, hard cheese, and a waterskin.

From a loose stone in the wall behind my cot, I retrieve my greatest treasure: a letter opener, stolen from the library months ago.

It’s long and thin, its steel sharp enough to pierce skin. A pathetic weapon, but it is mine.

I slip out of my room, my bare feet making no sound. The corridors are dark, the torches flickering in the drafts. I press myself into the shadows of a tapestry depicting one of Malakor’s ancestors slaughtering orcs as two guards march past, their armor clanking.

“…heard the beast roaring all evening,” one mutters. “Vexia’s going to perform the mind-wipe soon. Says the last one wasn’t thorough enough.”

My blood runs cold. The Urog. They are going to peel away whatever scraps of his soul are left.

I force the thought away. I cannot save him. I can only save myself.

I reach the kitchens. The air is warm, smelling of yeast and roasted meat. A hulking figure sits at a table, silhouetted by the dying embers of the hearth. The head cook, a brutish Zagfer with a temper as foul as his breath. I freeze. He is not supposed to be here.

My eyes dart around the darkness. A stack of copper pots sits on a shelf in the pantry. An idea, desperate and risky, sparks in my mind. I slip into the pantry, my heart a frantic drum against my ribs. I nudge the stack with the tip of my finger.

They crash to the floor with a deafening clang.

“What in the Serpent’s thirteen hells was that?” the cook bellows, shoving his chair back. He stomps toward the pantry, a heavy meat cleaver in his hand.

This is my chance. I dart from the pantry, across the kitchen floor, and through the scullery door he left ajar. I don’t look back.

The rain hits me just like a physical blow, cold and sharp. It plasters my thin tunic to my skin in an instant. The western wall looms before me, a cliff of wet, black stone. I find the refuse pile, its stench thick in the air, and begin to climb.

The stones are slick, my fingers raw and numb. I pull myself up, finding purchase in the cracks, my muscles screaming in protest. Halfway up, a bolt of lightning splits the sky, illuminating the courtyard in a flash of stark white.

“Hey! What was that?” a shout from the parapet above.

I freeze, pressing myself flat against the wall, my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest.

“Probably just a branch in the wind! Stop seeing ghosts and keep your eyes on the gate!” another voice answers.

An arrow thuds into the stone beside my head, so close I feel the vibration through my teeth. They are shooting blind, a warning into the dark.

Adrenaline, hot and sharp, floods my veins. I stop thinking. I just climb. My fingers find holds I can’t see, my feet scramble for purchase. I haul myself over the top of the wall, my body scraped and bruised, and tumble into the muddy ditch on the other side.

I don’t pause. I don’t look back. I push myself to my feet and run, plunging into the churning darkness of the forest. The shouts from the wall are already fading, swallowed by the roar of the storm.

Rain and tears stream down my face, but I do not slow.

I run, my lungs burning, my legs pumping, my only thought a frantic prayer to a god I don’t believe in.

And beneath the thunder, I can almost hear it. The distant, enraged roar of the hound, unleashed at last.