Nightsworn | The Whispering Wall #2

Eighty Five: Hatred

She couldn't breathe. Of all the things she had been through, having someone kneeling on her throat was definitely one of the worst. Nova's nails scrabbled against the leather of her captor's boot as she tried to ease the pressure on her throat, and was rewarded for her efforts with a light jab in the side with a knife. She gasped and then choked as the pressure cut off her breath.

"You know what Lucifer does to traitors," Evangeline said from somewhere nearby. Through the black spots in her vision, Nova couldn't work out where. One of her lackeys was the one kneeling on her throat; she'd lost track of the assassin a while ago. She didn't even know if the lord was dead or not, too preoccupied with keeping herself alive. "Especially traitors to their own kind."

The knee eased down again, cutting off the little air she'd been pulling in. The bed had been a mistake; her balance had been too tenuous on the mattress, the lord's prone form too much of an obstacle. Such basic training she'd forgotten. Not that she had been given the chance to practice in the previous decade. If it hadn't been the bed, it would've been her strength that let her down.

Evangeline had dodged neatly out of the way of her swinging blade, allowing her companions to step forward and corner her while the assassin prowled like a satisfied cat in the shadows and watched. One of the others had simply dragged her off the bed by the leg, the second chivvying her off with a blade from the other side. She had tried to fight them, and had her forearms shredded for the trouble, and before she knew it she'd been tackled and pinned and now she was suffocating. No free death, and no quick death. Killed defending the owner who had abused her, by the servants of the man who had tried to kill her several times before. If she'd had any breath she would have laughed. Or perhaps sobbing would have come out instead.

Black closed in on her vision, blood pulsing tightly around her skull. The strength faded from her fingers and she felt heavy all over.

Just as she began to wind down into oblivion, the knee left her throat. Hearing returned to her in a deafening rush and her eyes and face ached with the sudden free flow of blood. She lay stunned on her back, heaving in breaths through a throat that still felt half-closed, like someone had tied a knot in it. Her slave collar lay by her face, wide open like a claw, a petty revenge. Evangeline had unlocked it deliberately. Now her sores and her cracked skin wept, a sharp high note to the ache in her throat and face.

Sounds whirled at her in conflicting waves, different tones and pitches, different volumes through the clanging in her ears. Breathing was so difficult she thought fainting might have been a mercy. She didn't dare sit up, but rolling onto her side might ease the tightness.

A boot landed hard in her midriff, and all her hard-won breath gusted from her again. She made no noise. She'd trained herself a long time ago not to give tormentors the satisfaction of her pain. She curled up tighter, protected her face with her forearms.

"Kill him, kill him quickly!" Evangeline's voice passed behind her. Footsteps, felt more as vibrations than heard. "Before they get up here!"

She smiled into the damp darkness behind her arms, but it contorted into a grimace as someone grabbed her by the hair and dragged her aside. She landed hard against something that rattled, and a book fell down off of Nika's teetering research pile and clipped her on its way down. A heavy book, bound in thick leather. If only the pain would fade so she could uncurl from around her midriff.

"Indulgence is always a mistake," she said hoarsely. The dim silhouette of Evangeline's back stiffened. It was a quote from one of the judges at her court case. Though she had never met Evangeline before, she suspected that her sister Mercy had the assassin's loyalties. Evangeline had probably witnessed the trial. "Now you will pay for it."