A Throne of Flames || COMPLETED

Chapter 28

This chapter covers topics like abuse and torture, so please skip this chapter is this may trigger you in any way!

The room was thick with smoke from the torches. I could hardly breathe for it. The foulness of this place stifled my magic. I couldn't even summon an ember. Every movement I made caused it to rise up in eddying spirals. So beautiful. So pretty in contrast to what happened here, every hour, every day. Gods, I didn't even know what day it was, whether the sun or the moon was up, entombed in the stone cavens far below the surface.

I pulled on the chains, hearing the faint glinting noise as they shifted, but... nothing. To tight, to well secured. Footsteps sounded in the hallway outside, and I froze, hardly breathing, choking down a sob. The door swung open and they got closer. Not again. I couldn't take it. I couldn't keep from— I had to. For Risha. For Tyth and Adonnija. For all of them. I wouldn't break. I wouldn't bow.

My arms ached as they hung limp above my head, wrists rubbed sore from the shackles clamped tightly around them, dried blood itching as the skin around it pulled taunt. The cold stone cut into my knees as my head hung low. I did not have the strength to look up, did not have the strength to see what they had planned.

"Please." My rough voice sounded quietly through the room. I knew it was futile, but it was the only thing that kept me from breaking all those years in the mines, and it was what kept me from breaking now. "Please... don't."

The footsteps stopped next to me, just out of view. They chuckled, deep and throaty, full of such delight it made me sick. I relaxed, just for a moment. Human. Not Atrix. Maybe today would not be as hard.

"You have a guest."

No. No.

More footsteps. Echoing closer and closer. The light from the hallway in front of me suddenly fell into shadow. Darker than any other I had seen.

"Aren't you going to greet me, Kelsie? It's quite offensive not to, really. I wouldn't want us to get us off on... the wrong foot." His voice was smooth and song-like. I could tell he was smiling.

Oh Gods.

"Go to hell." I mumbled, shifting my arms slightly, trying to take the weight off them, to stop that ever present ache building. The chains rattling was the only sound for a few moments as silence hung over the room.

He chuckled, drawing closer. "Hell? I think you'll be there soon enough. In fact, you might find that you're already here, my dear."

He snapped his fingers and I jumped at the sound. A few seconds later, the man next to me grabbed my hair, yanking my head back. The sharp burning pain hit me, and I whimpered as I came face to face with the Atrix standing above me. More human than the others I had seen, no spines or claws, but still as terrifying. More, even. His eyes seemed to smolder with unrelenting ancient darkness, the black robe draped around him flickering and waving in a function breeze. As his eyes burned into me, my own come to rest on the ban of metal placed upon his head and the blue stone set in the center, ablaze with flickering light. He smiled, revealing those razor-like teeth that glinted in the torchlight.

"Who... who are you?" I croaked. The worlds came out broken, and I struggled to breathe as I was forced to stare up, up, up into those burning eyes.

He laughed. "Wouldn't you like to know." A flick of his wrist and my head was pushed further back into the wall, the sharp rough stone cutting into my skin. Tears stung my eyes and ran down my cheeks and the burning sensation grew more and more intense.

I cried out in pain as I felt blood slowly ooze down the side of my face. "Agh. You bastard! Get off!" The Atrix nodded his head, and the man's grip on my hair loosened as my head dropped to my chest again.