Page 31 of Stormvein

The torturer pauses, whip dripping crimson onto the floor. He looks to his master for instruction.

“The salt,” Sereven orders.

A wooden bucket appears in my peripheral vision. The torturer dips the bloodied whip into it. Even before the liquid touches my wounds, I know what’s coming. My body begins to shake in anticipation, an involuntary response I cannot control.

Salt water.

This time, my scream rips free, torn from a throat that rebels against making any sound. The salt finds every wounded place, every strip of exposed flesh, every nerve the whip laid bare. It’s not just pain, it’s fire in my blood, demons dancing through every open wound.

My body writhes against the chains with such force that something in my shoulder tears loose, not only muscle but the joint coming apart. The movement tears open wounds across my back that had barely begun to close, rips away stitches the healers had sewn so they could be torn free again.

My vision shatters. For a moment, I see ghosts in these chains, other prisoners, other times, all wearing the same mask of endless agony.

“Six.”

More salt water, thrown directly across my back in a steady stream. The torturer empties the bucket, ensuring no wound is missed. The pain is so intense that reality itself seems to splinter. I’m drowning and burning at the same time, my back a map of fire that extends through every nerve in my body. My muscles spasm, creating a feedback loop as each movement tears wounds wider. The taste of copper and salt fills my mouth. I’m biting through my tongue again, unable to control the convulsions that rack my frame.

The chamber tilts. Darkness creeps in from the edges of my vision. Sweet unconsciousness beckons?—

“Don’t lose him,” Sereven warns when my head lolls forward.

The salt water hits like liquid fire, finding its way into every cut on my face, behind my swollen eyelids, into the torn corners of my mouth. The pain is so intense my stomach tries to vomit, but there’s nothing left to bring up except bile that burns my throat raw.

My body spasms, chains rattling above me like bones. I’m drowning in sensation, overwhelmed by input my mind can’t process.

There’s a technique to this torture. A careful balance Sereven has clearly studied, perhaps even perfected, over years of practice. Maximum suffering, minimal risk of death. Keep the subject conscious. Keep them aware. Keep them breaking, piece by piece.

“You know why you’re still alive, don’t you?” He grips my hair and wrenches my head up again. “Why I didn’t simply execute you when they found you?”

I can’t answer. I can barely focus on his face through my one functioning eye. Blood fills my mouth, making speech impossible even if I had the strength for it.

“A quick death would be too merciful.” His voice drops, becoming almost instructional. “After Thornreave, when they dragged you off the battlefield wounded and chained, I wanted you executed immediately. A public display of Authority power, your head on a pike outside Ashenvale for all to see. Clean, simple, final.”

He releases my hair, letting my head fall forward. The movement sends fresh waves of pain through my neck, my shoulders, along pathways already blazing with torment. I taste blood, salt, the foulness of infection spreading through my body.

“But the former High Commander proposed something else.‘Let them think he’s dead,’ he said.‘They’ll mourn, disperse, lose hope. Meanwhile, we keep him contained where he can never escape or inspire anyone again.’ He was right. Your public execution was a masterpiece of theater, staged and witnessed, mourned by your followers. They scattered, believing their leader was gone forever.”

He pauses, waiting for my reaction. I don’t give him one.

“And the tower? It wasn’t only your prison, Sacha. It was a harvester. Every moment you spent there, every shadow you tried to reach ... it all fed our work. You can die knowing that your powers helped purge the remaining ones of your kind.”

Sereven’s smile turns cold, but there’s something almost reverent in how he delivers the next words. “The irony is perfect. The Shadowvein Lord’s own power, used to hunt down the last Veinbloods.”

The words penetrate the fog of pain, and understanding blooms like blood from a fresh wound. They used me. While preaching against the very magic they harvested, they drained me like a resource. Every moment I spent believing I was simply imprisoned, I was actually feeding their genocide. My own shadows, perverted into tools of extermination.

How many Veinbloods died because of power they stole from me? How many children never manifested abilities because my harvested essence was used to hunt their parents?

The irony would be laughable if anything about this situation allowed for humor. But it’s not funny. It’s monstrous. Beautiful in its perversity, like watching a poem written in blood.

Sereven’s eyes gleam as he watches understanding dawn. He’s been waiting for this moment. Not just to break my body, but to show me the truth of my captivity.

I think of the tower. Of the constant drain I never fully understood. The way my connection to shadow seemed alwaysjust beyond reach. Now it makes sense. The binding wasn’t restraining my power. It was redirecting it. Channeling it elsewhere.

“The Authority.” The words come out as a broken whisper, harsh against my ruined throat. “Hypocrites.”

For a moment, a heartbeat, something flickers across Sereven’s face. Not the righteous fury I expect, but something more complex. Guilt? No, that’s too simple. It’s the expression of a man who knows exactly what he’s become and has made peace with it.

His hand cracks across my face with enough force to snap my head sideways. Fresh blood fills my mouth from a split lip and loosened teeth. My vision darkens, then returns in a kaleidoscope of pain and disorientation.