Page 28 of The Demon’s Collar (The Bard’s Demon #1)
A sour-faced woman whipped her hood back and yanked a leather bag from a pile of things. A hatchet hung on one side, a mallet on the other. All manner of bloody blades, fishhooks, and coiled wires dangled from the straps. Gods only knew what he kept inside the bag.
He bent and gathered the chain to hold my wrists together, yanking me to my feet. I briefly considered going limp and falling right back to the ground—but Elhamine moved in behind me, ready to hold me up. Her clammy fingers brushed my skin once and gave me a full-body chill. I kept my feet.
The captain gave me a once-over and scoffed under his breath when his gaze snagged on my collar. He cast another withering look at Miri. “Did you even search her?”
Miri looked at me—probably to see what her people had missed.
My eyes locked with hers. They had taken my lute, emptied my pockets, ferreted out every last one of my knives, and collected B?k’s things to boot—but one of them must have recognized the collar’s magic and wisely opted to leave it alone.
The captain apparently did not recognize it.
Miri and I weren’t friends, obviously. But I hoped she would read my silent request. After all, he couldn’t kill me if the Huntress wanted me. He couldn’t even really hurt me that badly if what Miri said was true.
So let me have this, I silently urged the woman.
“Please,” I said, looking up at him again with what I hoped was convincing anguish—rushing to answer before Miri could. “Please don’t touch it.”
His lips quirked in a cruel, anticipatory smile at my pleading. He reached greedily for the clasp.
The shock ripped through him, drawing convulsions in the most delicious show.
He fought to let go, but the angry enchantments didn’t allow it for several long seconds.
When they did, he tried to keep his feet.
He ended up on his knees anyway. For a moment, I towered over him.
The rush was immediate and strong. An inflated sense of invulnerability.
I laughed.
“It’s spelled,” Miri said, pouring the perfect amount of obviously and wait don’t in—but doing so purposely late.
I hated her, but for a minute I loved her too.
“Van!” Elhamine cried, leaping forward to help him.
He shoved her back, pushing himself to his feet. I knew the next however long would be unpleasant…but at least I would have the image of that rancid face twisted in pain to hold on to.
Hours later, I lay atop B?k’s liquefied corpse in a pool of my own blood and vomit, contemplating whether “worth it” was the right sentiment.
What remained of B?k’s head bobbed in a saltwater tub that pressed against my cheek.
In my bound position, the only way to avoid seeing it was to close my eyes.
They’d put me on my stomach with my chained arms stretched out and bowed up to attach to one tree, legs spread and tied to two separate trees behind me.
There wasn’t enough slack to relax into the ground, nor was the setup taut enough to suspend me.
It was expertly horrible.
If I’d had any hope that Captain Van was the lone problem in the party before, that’d been put soundly to rest. I didn’t understand Elhamine’s magic, but I hated it.
It felt like mud polluting a crystal stream.
It pulled from me wherever she touched, leaving only exhaustion and ache behind.
The others, whose names I never learned, came at me in rotation.
Asking about the muster point, imparting new wounds when I couldn’t answer.
Pressing me for details of the Fated’s larger plans in a way that implied I was far, far more important and high ranking than I actually was—and punishing me no matter how I answered.
Miri and the rest of her group never reappeared after the torture began. I tried to focus on that, primarily to keep my mind trained on anything whatsoever besides what was happening to my body.
What was the deal with the five women—or the four women and one girl? How had this odd dozen come to be? Why were they all stationed together when the division was so obvious even to an outsider?
That mystery kept me going.
When Van came again in the early morning, I sensed a shift. He was calm again, for starters. He also didn’t lead with cackle-faced threats this time. Instead, he settled by my head and leaned against B?k’s tank, bringing a waterskin to my lips.
I drank. Could he have laced the water with poison or some awful drug? Yes. But I needed water, and I still clung to that kernel of certainty that he couldn’t kill me if his warlord—for whatever bizarre reason—wanted me alive .
“We can go in the morning,” he said. His deep voice had a soothing quality that might have worked on another day, in another situation. “Or we can stay here, heal you, and do this all again.”
I said nothing, as it was painfully obvious which path he would point us down. I didn’t appreciate the false choice.
“Tell me about the Fated’s water elemental,” he said.
My pulse thundered in my aching skull. Aelith? What. The fuck.
I blinked stupidly. It wasn’t hard to look mystified, because he’d really caught me off guard. But I had to use every ounce of my scant energy to muster the bite I put into my response.
“My ink is still fresh, you fucking half-wit,” I gritted out. “If you think I know anything worth?—”
“Then the demon,” he said.
I looked up at him. My first impression came barreling back.
Lethal . And not as stupid as I wanted to believe, either.
Yes, he’d missed the collar’s enchantments and gotten his due for that mistake.
He’d asked a lot of useless questions with a fervor that suggested he expected answers when I couldn’t possibly give them.
But now…now he was circling like a panther, and all that bluster seemed to have been for show.
To wear me down? To exhaust me before the real questions began?
“What about him?” I mumbled.
“The Huntress heard that he’s in possession of a weapon,” Van said, propping himself up on one arm so his cheek rested against the tank mirroring mine. “We’ve been through his things and found nothing out of the ordinary.”
I searched his eyes. Hoping to read what he wasn’t saying so I could work out what he really wanted before I decided what to say. Maybe I would have had a chance, too—if I hadn’t been exhausted and starving and in several worlds of pain. But that was probably intentional.
“The collar is his,” I said. I blinked back a wince as a stomach cramp begged me to curl into a ball. I couldn’t, of course. The ropes wouldn’t allow it.
Van’s face remained impassive, not even reveling in my pain. It was like he’d become a different man—focused and hard. “It’s not the collar.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. I was going to vomit again. I racked my brain. I hadn’t seen B?k use any weapon but his own magic, had I?
Desperation clawed at me. Why had he asked about Aelith? And if I couldn’t give him what he wanted here, would he return to her? Did I know anything that could harm her?
Elhamine hovered in my periphery. Van motioned her over.
She bent, pressing her finger to his chest. Although my magic remained pinned and muted by the dampeners, it prickled at their connection.
I could feel the sickening, muddy energy flowing from her into him.
When she pulled back, the place ?she’d touched—a little tattoo of a mountain—glowed.
Next to it was a swirl of ink, like wind, which was also lit and glowing.
Beside those were a flame and then a water drop—each barely visible.
He was a siphon.
My tired mind groped clumsily at the clues. Is that what he wanted with Aelith? Did he have a collection going? Was someone here a fire elemental?
Elhamine tripped backward, her fierce eyes unfocused and dull now. She caught herself on a tree, and I felt the energy shift again, reviving her. But not much. Just enough to keep her upright. She stumbled away without looking back .
Van radiated power now. A sharp bronze energy lit the surrounding air.
The tank glowe?d translucent gray where he touched it. I stared. The grotesque hunk of head had melted entirely. Not a bit left. Just black, blood-tainted water.
Van flexed his hands. He reached for his hook. “What is the weapon, Princess?”
My breath quickened. I couldn’t help it. I could handle pain, but my body was at its limit.
Behind Van, the shadows stirred.