Okay, I forgot to put this in the last A/N, but I wanted to ask you if I should rewrite the first two chapters in the same format as the new ones? Please tell me what you think in the reviews!
Sepulchure is torn. The pesky Sword is locked away in the weapons room, and he grips the stone railing tightly, trying to clear him mind. Waves and sea mist pass beneath the castle, and the air smells clean and salty, and the smell makes him cringe.
He has no reason to feel uncomfortable about the soul-weaver's capture. After all, isn't this what he'd been after since day one? His orders had been to capture and dispose of the 'saviour of the people', make sure she didn't interfere in his Master's plans anymore that she already had. She's made his life much harder with all her meddling, so why in the seven hells does he feel so bloody protective of her? Why does his heart drop every time he hears her screams from the dungeons?
Is it lust?
…Or is it something much, much worse?
X
Some people get a certain sick pleasure from inflicting pain.
Some people from bearing it.
Even so, there is a limit to how much pain the human body can take before it consumes the mind, a limit to how much pain can translate into pleasure.
There are certain kinds of pain that she relishes.
The ache of muscles after a long day. The soreness of a fresh bruise. The startling heat from being a lick too close to a flame.
Not this.
Every morning, and lately whenever she passes out from pain or blood loss, Drakath likes to douse her in cold water to wake her up. He likes to watch her wet and shivering and defenceless.
Drakath has a cruel streak that contorts his face into something truly grotesque. He flays the skin from her back and carves runes onto her arms and laughs at her tears, but she won't beg for mercy. Some days he traces over the runes and opening up the same wounds over and over and over again, making sure they will scar, though he doesn't think she'll live long enough for the flesh to heal enough. He sits and tells her what they mean. He tells her stories of wars and terrible things that humankind does to its own, the things people are capable of doing, as he does them to her. "People change on the battlefield." He mutters, stroking his fingers through her hair. "They become shells of themselves, and they'll do anything to survive. The will hurt and kill and maim, but once they return home, it haunts them, you see." He trails the tip of his knife over her cheek. "People are weak."
"Only the strong deserve to live. Only the strong can do this," He crushes her right arm beneath his foot, and she shrieks in agony, flailing and trying to get away, "to the people that get in their way."
"You deserve this. You think you've save so many lives, helped so many people, and that makes you strong… does it make you feel good about yourself to help people in need? Does it satisfy your childish want for validation to be praised and loved by strangers?" He leans in close. "Strangers who turned on you in a second?"
"They turned on me because I made it so." Misaki manages to choke out. "You know nothing about me-" He kicks her in the face and she crashes over onto the ground with a thud and a clatter of chains.
When he slowly, torturously burns the soles of her feet and the tips of her fingers, she screams and screams because her vocal chords have a mind of their own and there is only so much she can reign herself in, but she has not really surrendered. Drakath realises that it is not about physical pain. It's about pride.
He takes a rusty, blood-stained knife to her hair and cuts it off in brutal chunks. He carries it back to his chambers and keeps it in a box as a prize.
Misaki lays in a pool of her own blood and filthy water, bits of fabric still stuck in the gashes on her back and something fades in her eyes.
If I lay here…
If I just lay here…