Alistair thought back to the room of Welish prisoners, where he had wiped the muttering man's mind and had been about to take the woman's, too, before he'd spotted Cole from across the room.
He knew how they felt now. Two hands grappled at both his arms and lurched him to his feet, the bite in his calf screaming with pain, before he stumbled and slipped against the wet floor. The edges were caked in cracked ice and the ground was damp with melted snow. They had taken him to an underground holding space. A bit like a basement, although it was somehow colder, somehow clammier.
Now the two warriors that had previously greeted them were wrangling him by his arms again. They'd shrugged a few vegetable sacks over his hands, layered and layered, before tying his wrists together with a strip of thin rope. Even beneath all the rough fabric, warmth welled at his fingertips. The mindrenderer in him sensed the threat. It wanted to tear away at the two beating minds in front of him.
Breathing in, Alistair began to form another list:
1. Don't talk.
2. Don't make eye-contact.
3. And whatever you do, don't accidentally let go of the sparks building at your fingertips.
The memory of Emer crumpling to her knees, clawing at her skull, reopened in Alistair's mind like a wound. He hadn't used his abilities beyond skin on skin contact, and even then it was limited to whatever the army asked of him. It wasn't unheard of, a mindrenderer using their powers without physical contact, but it was rare.
And if word got to Tobias about it, he didn't know what would happen. Maybe they'd force him into months of training, submit him to tests and challenges beyond his current comprehension. Maybe they'd turn him into their perfectly wicked weapon.
He was kidding himself. No matter how much he wanted to trust Cole, Alistair didn't expect to survive in the hands of Clan Canale.
But instead of leading him through the snow and up to a pyre, instead of having a clustered crowd gather and cry kill the witch! Kill the witch! In eerie unison, Alistair was lead to a comfortable looking cottage with a trail of smoke rising from its chimney.
He was also surprised to discover that it was night. It had been midday when the three of them had reached the village.
The warriors pushed the front door open and threw him into the single-room cottage. They then shut the door unceremoniously behind them with a loud bang, leaving him standing completely alone in the warmer, orange-lit room.
Well, almost completely alone.
Cole startled up from his seat in front of the hearth, the fire burning inside. His mouth opened, closed, and then opened again. Strangely reminiscent of a fish struggling to breathe on land. He stared at him in silence from across the room, doe-eyed, although Alistair had no idea how the lanky, dark warrior was even capable of looking doe-eyed.
It was insufferable, because he didn't look shocked, or worried. He looked unsatisfyingly casual. It looked like he was silently bracing himself for Alistair's anger, and trying very hard not to let it show.
It was Alistair who spoke first, over the crackling fire. "How about you offer me a seat before you say whatever it is you're about to say. It's the gentlemanly thing to do."
Cole blinked and nodded, gesturing towards the chair opposite his own. He looked like he didn't know what to do with his hands. He looked flustered. "Yes, uh, have a seat?"
"Ah," Alistair sauntered forward and sunk into his chair, legs kicked up in front of him, still tied hands folded over his lap. "Such a gentlemen."
YOU ARE READING
WE BECOME THOUGHTLESS
FantasyA boy whose home was taken from him seeks freedom. A mindrenderer with dangerous hands hopes to undergo his own redemption arc. When Cole was younger, his mother told him about the men who played at being gods. Self-righteous, arrogant fools who st...
