Author's Fast and Furious Note: More violence up for this chapter—brace yourself. By the way, yesterday as I lay under the apple tree attempting a suicide (of course an apple would kill me if it fell on my head, you silly!) I thought: oh my god, bakers are like postmen, all criminal in disguise. I shared my horrified discovery with my family, but I can't say they were very understanding. Never mind. Just think about it, and read this horrendously horrible chapter and review.

Chapter Nineteen

Sage

It was hunger, throbbing through her whole body, that woke her up. She opened her eyes, and looked out at the window: the sky was blue, but the window pierced through a wall not reached by the sun. It was cool in the cell, and she was hungry. She had not eaten for now one whole day. She shivered, and shivered again. It was cold. And getting colder. At StonePort, there weren't really seasons: only mist and cold. But when she had traveled to GreenLands, it had been summer. And now, autumn was coming, bringing upon the white city its armies of golds and fawns, and breathing its fresh, chilling breath. When the winter would come, Arach realized with a shudder, she would suffer. She understood what the Prince had meant when he told her she wouldn't last in his dungeons. Arach snuggled in a corner, shuddering and shuddering again. She shut her eyes, and yet she wasn't tired. All her days from this instant would be spent thinking, doing nothing, she, who hated so much idleness.

At least, she was in a dungeon. Arach, suddenly, incongruously, thought about Roseeh. Roseeh kept her inn, huddled in StonePort, and she would never suffer what Arach was suffering, not one hundredth of what she had suffered. Arach felt miserable.

Three days passed, slow, interminable. And Arach each day, lost weigh, and colors. The cold was growing, and her hunger was so unbearable she started eating shreds of her own skirt. Her face, already so white and thin, grew whiter and thinner, if possible. Her hair seemed so black the contrast was startling, and her eyes, once narrow and glittery, were left lusterless, and wide as endless pits of black misery. She shivered and shuddered all day, between fitful scraps of sleep. She felt she didn't want to live anymore. The hunger, each single second she was conscious, tortured her body; and she was left alone, tormented in her coldness and hunger, her teeth shattering against each other as under her very eyes the Light-Less Forest grew golden and red, and the days shorter. Arach ached and suffered.

The fourth day, as she watched the sky darken as the sun set, her heavy eyes looking without seeing them at the pale blue turning from golden-amethyst to starry azure, she heard a noise from over her; slowly, she raised her half-shut eyes, shivering again as a hurl of wind came to chill her, her teeth clattering without her being able to do anything about it. The trap-door, opened, and an arm, clad in a silver gauntlet stretched in, grabbed her own arm, and dragged her up. She rose, scrambling up, so thin, so frail he could nearly carry her with the force of a single arm; and beheld a young guardsman. He looked so blank, so unfathomable she turned her look away immediately, looking around: she couldn't see anything, it was too dark. And cold, oh so cold. Shivering, shuddering, trembling all over her body, her teeth shaking against each other, she brushed her upper arms with her hands. The guardsman, trailing her behind him without a word, took her away from the dungeon room, and climbed a long series of stairs. Arach, behind him, dragged and staggered, tripping over herself. She suddenly asked, in a barely audible whisper: 'Where are you taking me?'

The man didn't answer.

'I know you heard me,' she whispered again.

Still he was mute, and went on taking her up stairs and narrow corridors, holding her by the arm. Finally he stopped before a tall, narrow black door, opened the panel, and withdrew, leaving her behind without a word.

Arach felt a sudden wave of warmth bursting from the threshold. She shivered as she felt the warmth that was so close, and yet fought with each single tiny bit of strength she could muster. Oh, she would die before entering the room.

And she went in.

It was a small, circular room, with walls entirely covered in bookcases, which rose to lose themselves in the darkness of the invisibly high ceiling. In a great, large fireplace, not far from the door, a roaring fire crackled and burned, sending the flaming light all over the room. The furniture was simple, rich, comfortable: luxurious rushes on the floor, two leather armchair scattered with fat cushions, a huge desk with towers of stacked parchments rising on it, and a straight backed chair behind it. And on the chair, his intensely beautiful face concentrated and tense, the Emperor sat, writing with a long, curly phoenix feather. When she came in, hesitant, shivering, blinking in the light, he raised his head.

When he saw her, his eyes widened in horror, and he paled, and rose from his chair so briskly it fell back. He contoured his desk, and stood, immobile, his glittery emerald eyes wide in utter shock, mortified.

'Oh! my love, what did I do?' he whispered faintly.

And he stretched out his arms, without moving, his face and eyes filled with sorrow and longing. And Arach, as much as she hated him and herself for this, ran to him, and hugged her skeletal, aching body to his own, finely muscled one.

'Oh! my love, what did I do?' he reiterated.

He hugged her against his heart, hard, and yet infinitely, unbearably afraid that she may vanish, so thin, so ethereal she looked. He caressed her mane of raven hair, murmuring in her cheek: 'Oh what did I do? Oh what did I do?'

He suffered, she could feel it, and she suffered. She hadn't been able to resist him, and when she fell in his arms, it was pleasure, contentment, and sorrow; no more hate and the desire to kill. Oh no; a stab to her honour: she would not be able to kill him.

He ordered food to be brought up, and helped her eat; she was nearly too weak to be able to raise a spoon to her mouth. She ate, nearly dying over the impossibly good feeling of the hot, fluid, creamy soup down her throat; the tearing burn of wine, other equally good sensations as she swallowed her food. When she was finished, he took her gently to a deep easy-chair next to the roaring fireplace, and wrapped a blanket around her frail shoulders, hugging her against his chest and sighing in her hair.

'Did you change your mind?' he asked, nearly inaudibly.

'No.'

He did nothing, just gripped her harder against his heart. Then he said:

'You will have to go back to the dungeons.'

'Do your worst,' she whispered.

Which he did.

If she had thought that those four first days she had suffered, it was nothing compared to what he made her suffer after the evening. He had spent it with her gathered to her chest, and had retained her there till deep in the night, and asked her one last time if she held on. She had told him she did, and he had called his guard to take her back to her dungeon.

There, she stayed for two more days, shivering in the cold, without eating once. At night fall the second day, the guard came back to take her out of the tiny chamber of pain, and took her up, in a different room—the Prince's bedchamber. Arach staggered on the threshold, tears running down her emaciated face, saying nothing, just leaning against the door-frame, sighing, her legs barely supporting her faded body. He was waiting for her, leaning at a window, and when he turned, it was cold eyes that fell upon her miserable body. Turning around, yet not really advancing toward her, he said evenly:

'Have you changed your mind, opaline?'

'N-no,' she said, her voice so hoarse he barely heard her.

He beat her.

He was good at it: he slapped her until she fell, and when she was on the floor he kicked her, hard, viciously, all over her body, especially in the chest. He kicked her until she reached the wall, against which he slammed her with a kick that knocked the breath brutally out of her. She gasped; scrambled to her knees, fell over so that she was on all four on the floor, her head bent, her hair trailing on the floor like a pool of raven silk, and started coughed, so hard she coughed blood. Then she fell back, unable to stand up again, unable to hold her own body—to control her own muscles. She just lay sprawled on the floor, looking up at him with glazed eyes.

He knelt beside her, and picked her up, gathering her against him and then lifting her effortlessly; she was so thin she weighted like a child in his arms, as he carried her towards the large dark bed, on which he gingerly lay her down.

'No,' she whispered.

She rolled over, falling on the floor, and clutching the covers to haul herself up; he didn't let her time, he said softly:

'You are killing yourself by being stubborn.'

'Never mind,' she said in her low, torn voice, 'I'll never give you what you want. I'd rather die.'

'This,' he said serenely, 'is what you are going to do.'

This night, she spent huddled in a cold corner, as he lay down in his bed, turning his back towards her. She noticed he slept with his slight armor on, and that there was a long dagger under his pillows. She shut her eyes, and tried to sleep, but her mind concentrated on her pain: she ached all over: her head, her eyes, her neck, her chest, her heart, her stomach, her arms and hands, her legs; and her soul. She felt burning, the pain like thousand of tiny white-hot needles piercing each single atom of her flesh and devouring her mind. She finally fell asleep, exhausted, unable to hold on any longer.

He kept her in his rooms after this: he left her alone most of the morning and noon, but towards the end of the day he came back, and would ask her if she had changed her mind—inevitably, she would say no, inevitably, he would beat her. He would beat her until she was breathless and immobile, unable to move, and then he would pick her up, and kiss her, on her ruby lips, or in her frail neck, from which the dress had been torn. He would carry her to the bed, lay her there, and let sleep alone when he was in a relatively good mood, or toss her back to the floor when he was angry.

One day, he beat her so hard, so long, so cruelly, mercilessly she finally collapsed under the blows; she lost consciousness. She woke up five hours later, to find herself alone, on the floor, in a pool of blood. She coughed out even more blood, splashing her dress with the hot red liquid, and tried to move away, but she couldn't control her body, she was paralyzed. She just lay there, her body not feeling any more, deliciously numb. And as Arach closed her bruised eyes, she thought: I want to die. Make me die, I beg you, I want to die. She nearly fell unconscious again, when the door briskly opened. Her eyes snapped open, and she struggled to scramble up, each movement a sharp blade in her body as she gathered herself on her knees to look up, through falling strands of silky black.

The Prince had just entered, followed by a young man about his age: the man was taller than the Prince, with a fit, slender frame, a pale face, silky silver-blond hair that fell down to his shoulders like mercury. He was dressed all in deep azure, with a slender silver dagger at his hip, and white gloves at his hands. His eyes were green-blue, like aqua-marinas, and scintillated bright and unreadable.

'Double-Game,' thought Arach, a grudging feeling of admiration rising to her dazed head.

'Here you go,' the Prince told his companion, gesturing wearily at her, 'I have been beating her for now eight days; with no results. What think you, Sage?'

Arach looked up at Sage, challenging him with her dark, bruised eyes, yet what she saw made her feel uncertain and slightly frightened; it was the ephemeral shadow of pity and horror, quickly drawn aside behind a misty curtain of blankness. He said, in his young, slow voice:

'Is she badly hurt?'

'She can barely stand up,' said the Prince, with mingled self-satisfaction and sorrow.

He strode up to her, and she instinctively curled into a protective ball; but he took her sharp elbows, and helped her to her feet, supporting her as she staggered up, her legs unable to hold her, her head spinning. She grasped his arm, seized by a tearing fit of cough; ducking her head, she coughed in her sleeve, drenching it with scarlet, burning blood. She gasped in a raucous scrap of breath, and tightened her hold on the Prince's arm not to collapse back to the hard floor.

'She is coughing blood. A few hours ago, she lost consciousness. She hasn't eaten for now four days; barely slept.'

'And she is still stubborn…'

'As much as the first day.'

The Prince grabbed Arach against him and hugged her fiercely to his heart. When he released her, she sank heavily on to the floor, off-balanced, and immediately tried to stand up again, but could not. She ragingly glared up at Sage's impassive, beautiful face, daring him to mock her pitiful state.

'You should get a healer. She is going to die,' said Sage.

'Yes!' gasped out Arach, hatefully, grabbing the Prince's sleeve and hauling herself painfully up, 'Yes! Let me die and be done with it!'

The Prince tossed her back on the floor, on which she brutally fell back, and strode out of the chamber.

'I am getting Tear,' he called back to his friend, 'look after her for me.'

Sage came up to kneel beside Arach, but she dragged herself away:

'Don't you dare touch me!' she cried, her voice ragged, hoarse, filled with hatred.

He ignored her; picked her delicately up in his arms, and carried her to the bed, where he laid her, carefully, gently. He then slowly undid her corset laces, opened it, and with his silver dagger, he cut open her torn bodice, pulling it off her even as she rasped out:

'Don't you dare! Don't you dare!'

He tossed the ripped, blood-soaked cloth away from them, and tenderly pulled his hands over her tear-filled eyes:

'You shouldn't have seen all this,' he whispered sadly.

'Don't touch me!' gasped Arach, trying to remove his hands from her eyes, 'I'll tell him!'

'What use would it be? He trusts me with his life. You wouldn't be able even to tell him I was with Thunderion.'

'Oh! Oh!' choked Arach, lying her hands still on his, 'Oh, I hate you! I hate you!'

'Me, or him more?'

'You! I hate you! Double-Game, ha!'

'You hate Double-Game, but you will never be able to hate Sage,' he murmured.

He removed his hands from her eyes, lowering them down over her twisted crimson lips, then in her slender white neck.

'Don't touch me!' she wailed, her voice breaking at the end, trying to catch and tear away his gentle hands. Sage smiled a sad smile at her, bent, kissing the corner of her mouth, and stood up, as she struggled to sit, sobbing with rage and the pain coursing through her bruised limbs. He stepped away, and behind them the door burst open, the Prince dashing in followed by an old man clad in flowing white robes, with a braid of colored silk around his wrinkled forehead.

'Oh,' said the old healer blankly, as he stared down at Arach.

She brought up her hands over her silken chemise, weeping with fury, when she saw the Prince's emerald eye upon her.

'She has been badly hurt, my Lord,' said the healer, Tear, 'I have never seen someone that badly beaten.'

'I want to die! Don't touch me!' howled Arach, dragging herself away form the healer as much as she could, and stumbling back in the pillows.

'She doesn't wish to be healed,' said Tear, turning towards the Emperor, 'I cannot give her a health she does not desire.'

'I do not care about this,' said the Prince, his voice low and dangerous, 'heal her.'

'You are making a mistake,' said the old man, boldly and sadly.

'If you weren't a healer, old man, I shall have slit your throat open and force you to drink form your own blood,' said the Prince.

Author's Pessimistic After-Note: Here we go. Another chapter I've just finished. You must admit that you probably rarely read something as horrifyingly gore as this. I bet you must be hating our Prince, now, mustn't you? Well, review, and tell me about him, and also, mind this, it's important for me, about Sage, aka Double-Game. Oh, and I just wanted to tell: I won't send the next chapter till I've received at least three reviews. Aha, I am so hellishly clever, niark niark niark…