Fear has a taste.
The boy with hair like ink lay face-down. His bare back shone pale against the whispering candlelight like a slender moon and his eyes were curtained with raven-black locks, but Riff needn't see them to know the extent of terror that possessed them, dilating his pupils and causing a light fall of salt and water to spew beneath his pale, thickly-lashed lids.
The Earl took the iron whip from its stand.
Blossoms the hue of angry blood spilled from pedestal, on which the boy Riff knew as Master lay. Their perfume was dizzying, present like a sickly-sweet sea, making every movement laborious and flooding lungs with their stench.
Riff stood attentively at the chamber's entrance, his lips a thin white line.
"I love you, my son," said the Earl. His tone was void of emotion, and therefore, very cruel.
The boy – Riff's Master – had begun to shake. Riff watched as his thin shoulders trembled. His expression was as cold as the Earl's intonation, but there was no mistaking the snake's smile that crept across his lips, deadly in the deep shadow of the candles' light.
"And I will cleanse you of your sins."
He could taste it. It began in his teeth, souring them, and slid down his throat like venom. Riff could taste it. It was bitter. Metallic.
He could smell it, too: that sweet, gruesome stench.
The Earl stepped closer.