Something With a Prince

Chapter Thirty-Two: Little One

Tallethea

She had one thing right, this was war.

After willing the strength to stand, I was meant to walk back to my room, but not before we made a stop. Saorla had insisted on showing me exactly what my actions had cost. Another test I suspected, but let her, nonetheless. If only to see...no, no more of that.

Anything that could make me vulnerable, could hurt Lansing further, was the wrong choice. I had to be smart, calculated even, if I was going to get us out of this alive. I made a promise to Arlyn, to his mother, and I made a promise to Lansing. I would get him out of here and home safely.

We stopped at a door in the back of the church, nothing but a candle illuminating the door handle. I could hear the shuffling behind it, the clattering of something metal, and muffled voices speaking calmly. Despite having tortured someone seconds ago. The wood creaked under my feet, and I balled my hands at my side. All that dust seemed to permeate the air once more; salt in the wound for not demanding to see him before dinner. For getting us stuck here in the first place.

This is war.

Saorla was staring at me through the light of the candle, a knowing sort of smirk curling her lips. Her eyes flicked to the handle, then back to me, eyebrow raising.

This is war.

I tried to stop thinking, to stop letting her get to my thoughts in general. In battle there is only enough time to act. My vocal cords felt like sandpaper. "Take me to my room."

The smirk unfurled into a smile, her expression shifting further into amusement, "Really, now you don't care what's happened to him? You don't wish to see?"

"Why should I?" Every word was a bite, a pointed end.

"You're being very contradictory, Little One." Her hands wrapped around the handle. The tips of her nails scraping against it into a sharp noise that coiled in my ears painfully. Sickening in it's way of both screeching and harmonizing.

"Well, there's no use fighting you on this. You've made that very clear." I tried not to look at her fingers. "Like you said...I can choose what to feel, So I chose."

Without warning, she threw open the door, light spilling into the hallway and into my eyes as the room came into focus. Every wall, every ounce of that thing that rampaged in my brain, anything I could feel, was reinforced for what I was about to see.

He was hanging by his wrists, strapped to the ceiling by some pulley system of chains, with his bare feet scraping the ground. His shirt was balled in a mess next to a chair facing him, blood soaked. Head down, limbs heavy, and, thankfully, unconscious. All over his chest, shoulders, torso, arms, even his knuckles were brutalized. Everything rushed to the surface, I shoved it back down.

Saorla was still standing beside me. Waiting for me to rush in and break down into tears, but I knew what that would cost. How much worse would she have made it on him if I had kept fighting? No, I was trained for this, how to disassociate from the person, the gore, the violence of war. My reactions could be, would be, that of a soldier— blind, and duty bound.

Then Lansing raised his head and met my eyes. The same hopeful eyes from my dream, and from the forest, and from my youth. Except they were exhausted and ringed with pain, painted yellow and green. His bottom lip was busted. A breath fluttered out of him, his lungs working the best they could under the trauma. His throat bobbed and it was torture to see his lips move and have nothing come out. Just a scratchy noise and a wince. I didn't dare swallow or breathe. Instead, I raised my chin and walked into the room, staring at the totality of what occurred here. Lansing's body shifted toward me, lips moving again in an attempt to speak. Once I reached him, Saorla followed a few feet behind me, that is when I made my move.

All it took was an expression, a single look, and Saorla would know everything she needed about my feelings, my vulnerabilities. Not a look from me, but a look from Lansing.

Lansing worked up enough sound to gurgle out my name. He was sweating and fighting to keep his lids open. The once angular lines of his jaw, the soft slope of his cheekbones, even his nose, so much like Arlyn's in its proud but simple line---swollen, mangled, unrecognizable. Blood and perspiration collected in the subtle curve of his eyebrows, darkening the light brown hair into something matted and crimson. It went sliding down his temples as he panted for breath. And golden curls. All that was left of him was golden curls and golden skin. But I couldn't be sure he even had that anymore, as my eyes trailed down. She was everywhere, in pinpricks and scratches and lesions of red, turning his body from a sculpture of artistic shapes and muscle, into scarlet rubble. Pulling my gaze back to his, I shut my thoughts down for the final time. He whispered my name.

Slowly, I sharpened my eyes into that perfect glare. The one he made me perfect over the years and passed over his wounds as if in apathy. Going back on my every word in the cellar, I made him feel it. Hate, disdain, disrespect, all of it pouring into my face at the same time. Every spiteful thing I ever thought toward him. The look I had when we fought by the fire. I hate you. You deserve this. You are nothing to me. Then a scoff, and it was over.

His eyes died out, slowly and with disbelief. Any hope that clung on inside shriveled up and he blinked, as if this were all just another one of his nightmares. I made sure he knew that it wasn't. That voice from the shadows inserted itself into my mind, grinning. Murderer.

Saorla closed the distance, placing her hand on my shoulder and smiling brightly. Lansing didn't look away from me, betrayal thick in his every feature, drowning all that was good and bright inside.

"Oh, dear," The witch was practically grinning, "How tragic."

I said nothing, just maintained the face I was meant to wear. Saorla took this as her cue to say a few words. "Well, Your Highness, there's your answer. I must say, I didn't believe it at first, but this..." Her words were marked, deadly. "Even I would call this despicable." She passed one more look between us, then heaved a sigh, "I guess your dream was just that, Tallethea...a dream."

Saorla started to walk around Lansing, dragging her hands along his stomach, drawing lines in the blood with her fingers. She took a deep inhale, curling those talons over his hip then upward to his neck, then spoke something into his ear. Lansing's eyes closed tight, and he slightly nodded his head. The witch grinned wickedly.

Just like that, his wounds began to seal up, the blood coagulating in place instantly and scabbing over. He began to breathe easier, the gore of his face slowly vanishing until his features came back into focus. Finally, he was fine, he was Lansing, in front of me...I just wished he was as unharmed as he looked. He cast his eyes downward, no longer looking in my direction.

Saorla left him hanging there to stand between us, irises flooded red, "You know, I just can't choose...which version of our little prince do you prefer? This one, all clean and tidy or the other...painful, sad... " She moaned, "All hope lost."

"It's your plaything," Was my cool reply, despite knowing what it would do to him, as I met her gaze evenly, "Not mine."

I pretended not to see his head come back up and those amber eyes sink further into the hell I was putting him through, like I didn't perceive the acid filling my limbs from the inside. One more glance, just to know he was alive.

Then I walked out of the room.