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brITT

Britt knew better than to fight two soldats with determined stares in a teeming marketplace. A crowd circled the whipping stock and growing fervor guaranteed she’d create more problems. Her heart raced, worried for Denerfen and Tesserdress. Two soldats, and no Henrik in sight.

This couldn’t be good.

Her stomach twisted when they whisked her inside—no change of shoes, no veil—and through the Archives. The irate steam in the Matron’s eyes as they passed would have set every leaflet in the place on fire, but her compressed lips betrayed no sound. Two other Sisters of Stenberg watched in various stages of bewilderment and shock as the soldats marched by, carrying Britt between them.

On the second floor, they peeled to the right, away from the shelves she’d perused. A door, ensconced in a back corner, awaited. The soldat on the right tossed it open. They pitched her inside. She caught herself before slamming into the sharp corner of a table, veering away from Tesserdress taking the impact just in time.

Cerulean sky and brilliant sunshine spilled from a high window cut into sealstone walls. It silhouetted a broad-shouldered man. Hungry chants from bloodthirsty Stenbergians rang below. A deep voice drawled as she straightened, shoving hair out of her face.

“Britt, is it?”

The low voice was unfamiliar and tense. The man spun. His close-cropped hair and clean-shaven face indicated Stenbergian leadership. The raw force radiating from his powerful arms indicated a soldat. He didn’t need to say his name.

Britt elevated her chin.

“Ta.”

A flicker of his lips might have been a smile, but looked more like a grimace. “Miss Helsing, you may call me Captain Oliver.”

* * *

Captain Oliver had more fright and tempest built into his scowl than His Glory. Comparatively, one looked like a ghoul, and the other a goblin. She couldn’t decide which belonged where. Oliver’s deepening disregard and haughty irritation made for a more nefarious foe. His Glory had been far too curious, though it must all be an illusion.

The way Oliver regarded her made it obvious that fear was every bit as powerful as curiosity. She had the presence of mind to be grateful that the draguls remained in her pockets. Denerfen couldn’t bite the back of her neck and give her away, though hoping he remained quiet seemed a stretch.

A palpable vainglory in Oliver’s stare set her teeth on edge. With a tilt of his head, he commanded her to sit. She folded her arms over her chest and refused. Surprise halted his momentum. She couldn’t help but remember her first night in Henrik’s cottage when Henrik had done the same.

“You don’t want to sit?” he asked.

“Not if you tell me to.”

“You understand that I have brought you here to speak with me?”

“Yes.”

“Do you refuse to speak with me?”

“No. I refuse to be alone in this room with you and comply with your commands. I am not one of your soldats. If you want to speak with me, you may do so out there, in the Archives, with the Sisters of Stenberg to witness. Acting like a brute and forcing me into the Archives isn’t going to win my cooperation.”

A glacial smile curved his lips. Oliver regarded her for a full ten seconds before he said, in a much louder voice, “Oh, the tempestuous future of the dying draguls! Fading, one at a time, and putting the lives of all at risk. How are your Kapurnickkian leaders?—”

She silenced him with a hiss.

He ceased, triumph glazing his stone-cold stare. The tight fist of dread gripped her heart. She swallowed rising hysteria. Her tone was too controlled when she muttered, “Fine. I’ll speak with you.”

Her arms hung at her side while Oliver closed the door, angling himself inside the confined space. He didn’t attempt to close the gap, but she didn’t like the desperation hidden in those eyes.

“Britt Helsing, am I right?”

Hearing her full name from a Stenberg soldat commander set her senses awhirl. He smiled with too much of his teeth when she refused to answer.

“A pleasure, as you said,” he continued. “There’s always been rumors about General Helsing’s daughter—niece, is it?—but a lack of noteworthy accomplishment has failed to propel your name any farther from mediocrity.”

She curtsied.

He chuckled tonelessly. Oliver clasped a folded paper. Tucked inside were smaller, thinner leaflets. Very familiar leaflets. The same that Raquel had given to her days ago containing Selma’s name.

Had Raquel given her copies?

“By the look on your face, I don’t think I need to ask if you recognize these papers, Britt Helsing.”

She fought a yawn. “I’ve never seen them before.”

He flashed a smile, as if flattering her. “I’m not interested in wasting time or speaking to a Kapurnickkian spy. Certainly, this is not a debate. I know you have these same leaflets in your possession. Copies, in case you wondered.”

She almost choked. “Spy?” she cried.

“What else might we call you?”

“A tourist!”

“Let’s not be offensive.”

Her hands balled into fists at her side. She loathed that his flickering gaze noted her frustration, and he repeatedly used her full name.

“Britt Helsing, I have a deal for you. I know why you’re here on Stenberg. Information regarding the terrible state of the draguls has long reached His Glory’s ears. He knows the dire straits they’re in. He knows your brother is imprisoned on the Unseen island.” Oliver waved his arm in a half circle around his head. “His Glory orchestrated all of it.”

A creeping flush heated her from toes to cheeks. His Glory thought a lot about himself, but this was something else entirely.

“Why do you think the Sister of Stenberg gave you the paperwork Henrik sought?” he continued. “Why do you think you’ve been unmolested on our island? Given free reign in the Archives?”

The chilly grip extended all the way to her heart. Wrapping, squeezing, tightening. The clammy hold plunged through her chest with radiating panic. She couldn’t move. Barely managed a thought beyond, all of it was a lie.

Oliver considered her, little more than distantly interested. He had the power in this situation, and he knew it. Like everything else on Stenberg, this conversation was no accident. She had stepped right into his choking arms.

When he readjusted his stance, he engaged his thighs, as if bracing for a blow. She longed to provide one, right in his midsection. The resulting wheeze would be gratifying, if it did not end her life.

“Despite me counseling His Glory to use your presence for control over the draguls, and thus, our own fate, His Glory has chosen something else.”

Oliver’s jaw ticked, as if such an admission pained him. Britt couldn’t trust anything he said was real.

“A bargain,” he concluded. “An exchange, if you will. We will let you and your dragul go if you provide us with information. Nothing big,” he clarified with a musing voice. “Just . . . tidbits.”

Britt kept her hands away from her pockets by sheer willpower. The only bargaining chip she had was the draguls. Thus far, he’d given no indication he knew about Tesserdress, only that she had one dragul. If they had all the information, Stenberg wouldn’t want Tesserdress to die, but that didn’t mean they needed Britt alive. Though, if she survived this, General Helsing might kill her.

“Tidbits about what, Captain Oliver?”

“Your sweet tone doesn’t fool me, but a commendable attempt. You’ve been staying with Henrik all this time, have you not? Looking for your imprisoned brother, I presume.”

Gathering ice spiraled from her heavy-beating heart and into her veins. It crackled all the way down her chest, past her knotted stomach, and into the curved arches of her feet.

“Henrik?”

“Our most commendable soldat, though up-and-comers are proving as talented, if youthful. I’ve been preparing him to assume a Captain’s position for the last several years. One can’t be a soldat Captain without at least one reefer year under the belt,” he added, as if such should have been obvious. “Growing . . . unrest . . . among the soldats deemed it prudent to send Henrik away for a year. Let him see the islands, the context of jord shipments, and away from such . . . irritating ideas.”

Britt fought not to get lost in the details. Unrest amongst the soldats ? What a cad. He was grooming Henrik to be a leader, removing him from joining his fellow soldats in a bid for freedom, probably.

She understood all too well.

“All I hear you saying is that you don’t have control of your soldats,” she replied with a judgmental lift of her brow.

He failed to care. “Flatter yourself brave with mincing words if you wish, Miss Helsing, but I couldn’t care less about what you think is happening. Tell me about Henrik. Answer all my questions about our soldat and you’ll find your way onto a ship to find your brother and spare your dragul.”

“If I don’t?”

Oliver perked up. He motioned outside with a sweep of his hand, “How convenient that it’s a cleansing, is it not? There’s no one lined up for today’s whip as of yet, which would be unfortunate for such a large crowd. His Glory has ordered us to rid the vermin and scum from the island in order to make it clean for His Glory’s very presence. To prepare for greatness and the bodies of our enemies beneath our feet. To expunge evil and reveal our depth of gratitude to Norr, in his demanding and powerful wisdom. Only the chance to rid Stenberg of your presence permits me to stand in these hallowed archive halls today, you see. Cleansing, and all that.”

A prescient thud, thud, thud and the crackle of roving whips snapped outside. No accident. This room, with the open window, was on the side of the Archives that overlooked the street where the whipping post stood.

Her stomach bottomed out.

Whips.

Of course.

The blood that stained the streets would be flowing again soon, only this time it might be hers. His Glory purged anyone that didn’t agree with his strange and sometimes rabid dictates. Could she afford to fall into the ranks of Stenberg disobedience?

Betray Henrik and walk.

Seal her lips and endure.

A phantom whip bit through her shoulders with searing teeth. If Stenberg whipped her, it would do more than filet her skin and potentially hurt her draguls. The aggression would incite a war. If General Helsing didn’t immediately retaliate, Pedr would. Her pirate brother would avenge her with arcane fire on Stenberg. He certainly held the power of destruction in sheer arcane prowess and knowledge. Burning Beard’s torrential and wrathful rage would descend.

It didn’t have to be that way.

If she answered the questions, she was already prepared to depart. Draguls safe, bag on her back. She’d escape to Malcolm without sneaking away, imparting the silver, setting her life into the hands of a pirate, or hoping Malcolm was where Henrik believed.

But . . .

. . . Henrik.

His tortured eyes and living grief about Selma. The memories he whispered with softness in his voice. Such a tender touch for a wildly powerful man. He was so much more, and he didn’t know that. The beautiful world awaited.

He didn’t know that , either.

Why would Oliver want information on Henrik? Her mind roved fast, skimming over the strange divide between soldats during the grappling match. The tension in the air. Oliver briefly touched on a possible insurrection, but it must be deeper.

She wrapped her lips around her answer.

“No.”

His brow lifted, as if bored.

“No?”

She shook her head. “Deal with your soldat problems on your own, Oliver. You won’t hear a word about Henrik from me.”

He blinked so sluggishly that it appeared he’d fallen asleep standing. When his eyes opened again, fire consumed him. He might have expected resistance, or back-and-forth banter over what she received in exchange, but this was a man clearly unused to open rebellion.

She hoped he choked on it.

With hostility so suppressed it sounded like silk, he murmured, “Do you realize the ramifications?”

Britt squared her shoulders and glared.

“Beyond my sailor peeling the skin off your back with his whip, of course.” His upper lip curled in a feral smile. “Not to mention you rotting on a ship until we take you to the Unseen island for you to die. Will your dragul waste away without you?”

An uplifting of hope buoyed her.

He spoke only of Denerfen. He didn’t speak of the dire straits the draguls were in back at home, and believed she sought Malcolm because he was a prisoner, not because of Tesserdress’ weakness.

The realization spun the power back to her.

“Scary threats,” she said with equal chill and disdain. “Now, let me tell you what I know. I know that your island will be out of control if the soldats rebel. I know you’re their leader, and would probably be held responsible. You’re desperate, and desperate men make stupid decisions. I know that the moment that whip touches my back, Kapurnick will declare war. Hellfire and wrath will descend from all corners of the sea.” She tilted her chin up. “Whip me. I dare you.”

His expression, poised somewhere between curiosity and loathing, remained marbled glass.

“As you wish.”

He thudded on the door with the back of his boot. It cracked open, revealing the two soldats. When Oliver spoke, he addressed the soldat on his right.

“Prepare a letter for Kapurnick. Tell General Helsing that it’s regrettable that Miss Helsing snuck onto our shores, attempted to glean information as a spy, and planned to return to the Kapurnickkian isles with said information. Per our laws, she will be treated accordingly, and their islands will have no recourse for war. Such is the fault of the spy who embedded herself within our land.”

She didn’t have time for her outraged gasp. The soldats seized her, dragged her out of the room by her arms and her hair. Agony tore through her scalp, prickling down her neck in hot needles of pain. Panic instilled deep in her belly, a relentless, fighting force all its own.

She released it.

Her shrill shouts couldn’t cover his authoritative command.

“Take her away!” His voice rang through the Archives as the soldats whisked her from the room. No amount of protest removed his words. “Put her on the whipping block for removing sacred records from the Archives, violating the cleansing, spying on His Glory and the soldat subordinates. Fifty lashings.”

* * *

Fear became a molten thing inside her.

She kicked, shrieked, elbowed, to no avail. They held tight, her arms wrenched to the side and behind. Their hands dug into her flesh, making her fingertips tingle, her wrists ache. Only the draguls kept her from thrashing into pieces. None of the Sisters of Stenberg slowed their progress as the soldats shoved her outside.

Sultry air swarmed her, rife with sparkling sunshine. The gathered crowd had swollen to greater proportions. Thirty. Forty. Fifty? Didn’t matter. Too many, and their lust for pain lay thick in the air.

Denerfen went wild in her pocket, but the general roar of the crowd outside was too loud to distinguish his cries. Britt tripped over her feet, slashed her toe open on a rock, and bit back a cry of fear as the crowd parted. That hateful wooden structure appeared, flecked with blood, gore, bits of bone and shredded whip.

The whipping post.

A sailor stood nearby, bullwhip in hand. Five different thongs curved from the handle to the ground. Embedded stones skidded along the edges. How perfect that the whipping block was positioned exactly across the road from the Archives, considered one of the greatest treasures in His Glory’s famed arsenal.

The bloody bastid.

Fear bled to sheer panic. A whimper escaped her in a shaky breath. Fifty lashes? She’d never survive. One of the soldats chuckled, a dull, roaring thing. His breath smelled foul, like rancid bean paste.

“Change your mind?”

Words and breath failed her. Britt couldn’t conjure up a no any more than she could look away. The whip handler had meaty forearms, scars on his wrists, and a wide belly. He avoided her eyes. His gaze tilted to clouds as the soldats yanked her across the bloodstained cobblestone road.

The crowd roared, stamping. Hands clapped. Shouts echoed. Bets called back and forth, and the tinkle of coins exchanged.

Ye gods.

What filthy animals lived here?

Curses streamed off her tongue as she renewed her determination to break free. If this war would start, if His Glory would impose such a heinous situation, she wouldn’t go down without hurting one of them, at least.

One of the soldats cuffed her on the temple with an open palm. Her ears rang. The hit knocked her senseless for a moment, dulling the racing thoughts. The sharp edge of fear blunted. They shoved her against the post.

The sailor reached for the ropes to bind her. Bits of dried blood and skin ground into her dress. The pulse slowed in her ears as she realized there was no way out. She bit back a retch.

“Wait!” she pleaded to the sailor. “Let me remove my dress. It’s . . . my mother’s. It’s . . . special.”

The whip handler hesitated, nodded once.

The soldats took delight in ripping the dress from her body. The fabric tore in half, peeling to the side. Jeers, catcalling, and whistling rippled through the crowd. Frantic, she stumbled out, thankfully clad in her underdress. One soldat painfully gripped her arm while the dress bunched on the blood-clotted ground.

“Stay back!” she screamed at the dress. “Don’t you?—”

The soldats slammed Britt against the whipping post, smashing her nose. Struck dumb a second time, she had no breath to protest. Welling pain rose from the injury. Tears smarted her eyes from the impact. Terror over the anticipation of that giant bullwhip slicing through her muscles distracted her from the pain.

The whip handler kicked the dress off to the side and tied her wrists to the board.

“Sorry,” he hissed, then cranked the rope so hard the rough fibers dug into her skin. She let out another wasted cry. Thoroughly secured, sailors formed a circle to keep the crowd clear. A savage chant ballooned behind Britt, rippling.

How many amassed to watch? A hundred? More? The cool breeze danced across her almost-bare back, where the soldats had torn through her underdress with their hideous fists. Her skin puckered from exposure. She panted so fast the world spun. Britt pressed her forehead to the whipping board and braced for the thudding, tearing havoc to start. At least the draguls were in her discarded dress.

They’re not getting the whipe, she chanted in her mind. They’re not getting the whip.

Quiet descended.

A body stepped close, with the dull thud thud thud of heavy boots. A hard chest pressed too close to her spine, invading her space, grinding against her hips. A hot voice whispered in her ear.

“You don’t have to do this, Britt.”

Oliver.

The pig.

He trailed one finger down her shoulder, swirling and spiraling in circles that led to her elbow. She shuddered at his foul touch. Blooming filth must follow in his wake, like liquid black tattoos, marking her.

“You need only answer a few questions.”

She spat on his cheek. The spittle gathered just below his eye. “To the locker with you, pig-face bastid,” she hissed.

His lips twitched. He turned, shouted, “Beat the skin off of her back!” and strode away. Ravenous, bloodthirsty Stenberg islanders cheered, and she loathed every one of them. Britt’s fingers wrapped around the top of the board. She bent her knees, pressed her forehead to the top, and clenched.

A hush rolled free, roaring in her ears. A loosed tiger. A wild thing.

After an interminable pause, the crack of the bullwhip split the silence and searing heat sliced across her back. The shock was worse. The raw violence and aggravation stole her thoughts. At first, it startled her more than it ached.

The second lash followed.

A cry raced free. Pain sprouted, sparking along a thin line of skin, then disappeared. Heat dripped down her skin as she ground her molars together, choking on a sob. A third slammed into her ribs, creating a dumb confusion and numb disbelief, as if her body couldn’t keep up with what happened.

Reality joined the hellfire bane of the fourth stroke, alerting every tingling, terrified sense. Her nails dug into the wood. Splinters cut through her fingertips, but she felt nothing. Nothing except magma seething in bubbling wounds. The coppery taste of blood in her mouth from biting her tongue. The smell of sweat from sheer panic.

The fifth stroke brought ravaging fire.

Tempest.

Agony.

Agony.

Agony.