Bone-cleaver's Kiss
*Proceed with Caution*
Tugging on the curtains, a metal cage falls from the ceiling. Ensnaring the High King of Elfhame in his once regal throne. Those words still shook him. More than Balekin's belt ever will. He remembered the flash of taunting laughter on Ashen's face as the cage enclosed upon him.
Cardan was aching-no, dying with bruises, gashes, slashes. Millenia passed, and Ashen finally spoke, her voice dripping venom, demanding the location of the Greenbriar heirloom. Every instinct told him to grovel, but Cardan imagined what Nicasia would do…and decided against it. A futile defiance that earns him fresh waves of torment.
There were lengths of supple rattan, fine leather whips, and spiked metal chains. Each implement more sadistic, calculated to inflict maximum pain. Thin and flexible vine was more agonizing than most, and Cardan learnt that the hard way. Ashen would display her collection of knives and other instruments of torture being conducting the spilling of precious fae blood. Ashen gleefully showcases her gory collection, her eyes lingering on the flogger crafted from wyvern-hide.
Nicasia's voice echoes in his mind, hinting that inept tormentors could hurt themselves. But Ashen is no novice. She knows the art of pain, the obscene volume of blood fae hold.
The stone floor drinks in his lifeblood, thirsting for more. His back, once moon-pale, was now blurred flesh. A graffiti of whips and delicate knifework, as Ashen would like to describe it. The dooming silence, the suffering of his every inch of skin, the thought of never seeing Nicasia again,was tormenting.
"Balekin's tender in comparison, isn't he?" She would say in that high-pitched tone. But Cardan would only manage a grunt of response. Perhaps Balekin's earlier abuses were a twisted form of preparation.
He had also asked how she got glamoured to stay silent as a faerie. And a cold kiss of Bone-cleaver, Ashen's most prized blade, had to be answer enough.
"Hello, darling." She was wearing long robes this time, almost whispering her unearthly voice. "Now, don't your wounds look a little faded?"
Cardan ignored her.
She kneeled down and pinched a blade-wound on his shoulder, making him grit his teeth, but unable to take back a flinch. "This one would be so pretty painted red."
"Anyways," satisfied with Cardan's reaction, Ashen said half-to-herself "I've thought about being selfish and keeping you as my own."
Cardan felt a glimmer of hope, a tunnel of light leading out of hell. He knew he was slowly going insane, his mating bond with Nicasia the only thread keeping his sanity intact. No decent folk would sight anything but darkness.
"And found out that I rather like this relationship between you and I."
But then…all he saw now… was darkness. Cardan bit down hard on his tongue and felt the too-familiar coppery tang. She must have mistaken his silence for defiance. The sharp sensation of pain in his stomach, as if rats were burrowing in his flesh, was excruciating. He didn't know if it was hunger overtaking him, or another thwack of that spike-covered cane.
"Sorry about that, you were getting too spirited for your own good." Twisting in his cage of horrors, Cardan saw her standing in the dim light, a demoness.
My name is Cardan Greenbriar and I will not be afraid.