Where my demons hide
Merlin awoke, and immediately wished that he hadn't. The numerous deep slices all over his chest and shoulders burned and stung with every breath. His broken ankle was now swollen, puffy and an angry red color, but he still couldn't feel it. But the worst pain of all was from his leg wound, when Merlin pulled apart the torn material of his trousers to inspect the bolt wound, he was nearly sick. The skin was torn, bloody, red and swollen, puss oozing out from it - the wound had become infected. So not good.
Merlin shifted himself until his aching back was resting against the stone wall of the tower; it felt a bit soothing to have the cool stone supporting him. The young warlock realized that he still had the gag tied around his mouth and pulled it down with a sigh. He knew that Cenred would probably pay him another visit soon, so he spent his "rest time" preparing himself for what was to come.
Despite himself - he wished that Arthur would come, but told that part of himself to shut up. If Arthur came after him, he would probably be walking straight into a trap. Merlin prayed that Arthur would see that trying to help him would be suicide - if Arthur had even figured out that Merlin had been taken. He might just assume that Merlin had wondered off or had been killed after the battle. Merlin hoped that he had anyway.
But all too soon, Cenred strode into the room, this time, bearing a flask of something in one hand and a long dagger in the other. Merlin steeled himself for what he feared was coming. "Sleep well?" asked Cenred. Merlin shifted on the floor so that he could look up at the king.
"I've had better, couldn't get me a pillow or something could you?" Cenred chuckled, as if they were just two friends having an everyday conversation.
"Glad to see you've got your smart mouth back, it'll make it more fun to beat it out of you."
"Oh come, when people say stuff like that it's never fun." protested the warlock. The two guards from before hoisted him to his feet, and attached his chains back to the ceiling, winching him up again. Merlin was pretty sure that they had put him up higher this time - just out of malicious pleasure. Cenred approached him, dropping the bottle to the floor and instead going for the boy with the knife.
This time Cenred instead went for Merlin's face. He ever-so carefully brought the knife across the boy's cheek, cutting across to his lips at a snails pace. Merlin let out a quiet cry of pain, it stung like hell and he instinctively leaned back as far as he could, but Cenred grinned evilly and grabbed a hold of Merlin's raven hair and jerked his head back into place. He continued to slice along the boy's face slowly until the knife cut across his lips, once he was there, the king scored several more, stinging lacerations onto Merlin's lips.
"Why are you doing this?" asked the boy, trying to distract himself from the pain and the blood coursing down his pale face.
"Its fun… Keep still." muttered Cenred, frowning slightly as he concentrated on a cut he was making along Merlin's jaw. The warlock swallowed, the blade was a bit too close to his throat for his liking.
"No, I meant why are you doing this - you've got lackeys to do it for you haven't you?"
Cenred continued to frown in concentration as he answered "Yes, I have, but I wanted to have the pleasure of breaking the Pendragon's servant myself. Now keep still." Cenred punctuated the last part with a sharp jab of the knife into the space just below Merlin's right eye; he let out a harsh cry of pain at the sharp agony. Blood trickled down his face in damp, crimson spirals. Merlin felt a bit sick.
"Why?" spat Merlin "Why should I keep still?" Cenred jerked the blade up until it was less than a quarter of an inch from Merlin's eye.
"Because my hand might just . . .slip if you don't and I really have no problems with returning you to your kingling with one less eye." And with that, Cenred's hand flicked the knife up and into Merlin's sapphire blue eye. He screamed.