Page 56 of Golden Queen (Idrigard #1)

The fact that my eyes were sewn shut barely registered in the new agony of my existence. All I knew was the pain of my body being sliced apart by the hands beneath my skin tearing and ripping flesh.

Each time I fell silent, I could hear the wet, horrible sound of their work—the sound of my unmaking. So I screamed and screamed and screamed.

And then a hand pressed over my mouth, and I heard an urgent hiss in my ear.

"You need to stop fighting, you stupid girl!

" Mordred seethed. "I am trying to make this painless for you, but you are undoing all my work with your incessant struggling.

We are giving you a chance to reclaim your honor, your purity.

Relax and let us finish so that the pain can end.

We will heal you, and it will be as though you are untouched. "

His words made the anger surge in me again. "No," I groaned. I leaned my head back so that my teeth were against the hand over my mouth. I bit down with as much force as I could manage, jerking my head to the side to rip his skin apart.

I tasted blood and felt the revolting feeling of flesh in my mouth as Mordred screamed.

Striking against them, even in such a small way, seemed to invigorate me. Wicked, bloodthirsty rage coursed through me as I roared my fury through the chamber.

The necromancer's blood ran down my throat. At first, it choked me, filling up the back of my throat with its foul taste. I had no choice but to swallow. Hands had taken hold of my head, preventing me from turning to the side.

The blood burned a path all the way down my throat and through my chest. It flowed into me with a furious fire that lit every vein in my body with power—dark, angry power that made my muscles grow taut as it rose and rose and rose in me.

Fury erupted, seeming like a living thing. It had the shape of me, it looked like me, but it was apart, another thing entirely. And it was angry.

I shuddered with the energy rushing through me. The creature did the same. We wanted to lay waste to everything around us. The urge to destroy was all we knew.

I surged up, feeling the chains go taut and snap as I pulled them free with the force of my rage alone.

I wrenched open my eyes, the skin of my eyelids tearing free.

Blood covered my field of vision, coloring the world around me red.

It did not interfere with my sight as I looked at the startled faces of the necromancers gathered around the table.

Indeed, my vision sharpened on them, giving me in quick succession all the details I needed in order to kill them—to rip them to pieces.

I reached down to my feet, grasping the chains, and pulling them free with another furious tug. I no longer felt the pain of my broken feet.

I did not know where the strength pulsing through me came from, but I would gladly use it.

The necromancers backed up from the table, some of them putting their hands up as though to ward me off, but I was undaunted, unstoppable.

I slid down from the table and struck out with the chain still attached to my wrist. It hit the closest necromancer. His head whipped to the side as the chain spun around his neck once, then twice, leashing him to me. I yanked and felt his neck break through the length of chain.

The other necromancers ran, scrambling towards the door as I turned and looked for the next.

It was Mordred. I knew that one was Mordred.

He backed up to the wall as I stepped between him and the door.

"Please, don't hurt me. You must know I was only trying to help you," he said, holding his ruined hand in front of him. Blood leaked down his arm and stained the length of his gray robes.

He was missing the last two digits on each hand, just as Aegis had been, and just as they all would be. They used their own bones for shadow magic, sacrificing their body parts to channel magic—to steal it from everything around them. Disgust and outrage rolled through me.

Which of them had managed to put their remaining, nasty, probing fingers inside me—between my legs and beneath my skin? Had they yet managed to etch a spell into my bones? Had they bound me to that horrible prince?

"What did you do to me?" I growled in a voice that was not my own. It was the fury creature’s voice—ancient and angry—full of wrath.

"Please," Mordred begged, his face crumpling to despair.

Another wave of cold, dark anger surged through me—like waves crashing onto the shore one after another.

I reached down to where he was crouching and pulled him upright, holding him against the wall by his neck.

"What did you do to us?" I demanded.

"We...we...we repaired the damage to your maidenhead, and we began the reaving, but we did not finish it."

I glanced down at my stomach where a gory wound lay just above my belly button and another in the center of my chest. They were already beginning to close—as though my body was healing itself.

My arms were a different story though. My head swam as I looked down at what they had done. They had laid my muscles and bones bare. But my mind was on to other questions. "Did you take anything from me?"

Mordred's eyes went wide, puzzled for a heartbeat, and then he shook his head. "You were not with child. There was no need—"

His voice choked off in a strangled grunt as I growled like some wild animal. Another wave of fury, larger than the others, washed over me. The fury took control for a heartbeat.

I looked down at Mordred’s lifeless, dead eyes. I had crushed his neck with only my hand.

The feeling of the ruined, mushy flesh beneath my hands turned my stomach. I loosened my grip and let the dead necromancer fall to the floor.

Already some of the anger seemed to be rushing out of me, leaving me cold and shaking.

I was alone now, since all the other necromancers had fled—or died like the two lying at my feet.

I recognized the dank walls around me. I was still under the castle in the unused dungeons. I turned to the door, but weakness swamped me. I struggled to take a step.

The floor was warm and wet beneath my bare feet. When I looked down, I was surprised to see so much blood.

The door opened, but I found I could not raise my head back up to see who it was. I was utterly spent.

"What have you done, you idiotic girl," came a female voice. "Stupid little cunt. You have nearly killed yourself. Get her back on the table."

I heard the jangling of armor and shuffling of boots as soldiers filled the room.

I willed myself to move as fear filled me at the idea of them putting me back on the table. "No," I cried, but my voice was broken, hoarse, all used up in the screaming.

Hands grasped me. I opened my mouth to scream as the ruin of my forearms jostled as I was lifted, carried. The sound of my cry was little more than air forcing its way past my burning throat. "No," I cried again. "No."

I was powerless again as my back slid against the smooth, cold surface of the wood.

A hand fisted in my hair and yanked my head to the side where I saw a pale, moon-white face with vivid red lips swim before my vision. "The prince is going to hate you," she said. "You are so fat."

A wild, inappropriate laugh burst out of me, but the effort caused a cough to sputter from my chest and a bright spray of blood hit the woman in the face, dotting her pale skin with red that matched her lacquered lips.

Her eyes went wide, and she jerked back from me with a look of disgust. "Fucking bitch," she snarled, using her sleeve to wipe at her face.

I only turned my head to the ceiling and laughed again. It was a strange sound, and it startled me a little—like it wasn't me laughing at all.

It seemed to scare the woman as well. She made the sign to ward off evil against her chest, the three middle fingers bent, the pinky and thumb pointed out.

It only made me laugh harder. I supposed I must really have snapped. I had gone insane.

The woman left. I heard the soft sound of her slippers padding across the room, and then the heavy wooden door closing behind her. I knew the insane laughter still coming from deep in my chest followed her down the corridor.

I was still laughing when the soldiers jerked the chains attached to my arms and spread them out to fix me to the table again. I laughed until my throat cracked with hoarseness, and the sound was little more than the hiss of the wind sighing through the godsgrass.

I only stopped laughing when I saw brilliant, silver-white flames curl up around me at the edges of my vision, filling the room with fire.