Descent

  Pain shot from his hand all the way through his body, and he screamed in agony, struggling to concentrate because, for some hideous reason, Vezzet was sawing slowly. The pain was worse than anything Bayard had ever known. The only tiny consolation was that Vezzet was focusing so hard on his gruesome job that he hadn’t yet noticed what Bayard was doing.

  The table was in reach. With only his fingers, Bayard grabbed hold of the side of the machine and deftly turned it to face him so that one of the cords was in reach. There was a force of desperation driving him now. Beyond losing his hand, he knew that if he didn’t get them out of here, he and Luca would both be dead before the night was over.

  Another scream was torn from him as the saw cut deeper. All thoughts of escape left his mind as the agony took over and he finally knew what it was like to be one of Vezzet’s torture victims.

  ‘Hold still,’ Vezzet muttered, pausing a moment to wipe the blood clear.

  Clenching his teeth, Bayard turned his head to the machine once more. The rope was biting deep into his flesh as he strained against it. His middle finger grazed the button, once, twice ... on the third time he pressed it properly and a tiny whirring noise began. Dark magic, this machine was. Evil magic. The only person in the world who deserved to have it used on him was its creator.

  All this time, the rope had been sawing against the side of the table, fraying and loosening. It tore through the skin, chafing it raw, but now Vezzet was down to the bone and Bayard couldn’t care less how badly the rope was hurting him. He didn’t know how much longer he was going to be able to stay conscious.

  Finally he managed to wrench his hand free and take hold of the machine’s cord. Then he flung the tip of the cord into Vezzet’s chest. A kind of spark ignited and Vezzet’s whole body began to shake. Bayard didn’t know much about what was happening; he knew only that there was some sort of force being sent through the man, setting every part of him alight from the inside. Vezzet screamed and dropped the saw, recoiling but unable to get away from the cord of his own machine. Bayard held the metal tip against the man’s chest for as long as he could before finally letting go. Vezzet fell to the floor, his body still twitching.

  Bayard sat up as best he could and looked at his hand. It was still there, still connected, though only just. Breathing heavily, he untied the rope and lifted his agonized hand to his chest, cradling it to try and stop the blood. There was a cloth that usually covered the machine, and he grabbed it quickly to tie around his wound. On shaking legs he moved to stand over Vezzet.

  ‘Don’t! Vezzet tried to say, his mouth slack, his eyes drooping as he stared up in terror.

  That crazed fury was inside Bayard again, but this time his left hand was steady as he sliced his sword straight into Vezzet’s heart.

  Bayard sheathed his sword, still bloody, and went to Luca’s side.

  His wrist was a mess; the pain was beyond anything he’d ever known, and as he stood he had to lean away to vomit onto the stone ground. But what was in his mind and heart was a deep despair for the boy lying on the table. Luca’s face was almost angelic where it lay untouched. The lad was so young.

  As gently as he could, the burly captain gathered the small, broken body into his arms, and carried him from that room of death. Tears welled in his eyes, his heart near to breaking with the horror of it.

  Chapter 31

  Through the gate, head covered by the cloak. Through the streets, keeping to the shadows, past the sleeping tradesmen, to the fortress. Around to the side, where there are no guards. Up the sheer brick wall, clasping at the slight gaps in the stones. Up to the only window. Silent now. Not even a whisper.

  You don’t know where he is. This time you are blind. Through the window into a bedroom. Check the bed—it isn’t him. Into the corridor, then through several other rooms, but none are lavish enough for the leader of this fortress. Finally, a large room decorated in royal purple, like the arrogant fool he is. No, there is no time for emotion.

  Over to the bed. Two people in it again: kill them both, but silently. Don’t slit the throat—too much blood. Stab straight into the heart, and leave the knife, for it carries a message in itself. Cover the corpses with the sheets— no! It isn’t him! But who else would be in such a room?

  Now there are guards grabbing you. Kill one, two—you cannot be caught. You’ve killed three, now another and another. You are captured. You have been careless, and foolish, and now you’re to pay for it. He is there, the right one. He’s smiling, and taking you down below. Down stairs and dripping hallways of cold stone. The knife has been taken, and you cannot reach the other blades in your boots.

  Past a steel door, and then into another room. The guards put you on a table—tie you to it—and there is some kind of machine next to you. Everyone leaves except two. Him, and one other. A torturer.

  ‘You shouldn’t have bothered, Luca,’ he says. ‘No one is good enough to kill me.’

  Stay silent. You cannot have emotion. Oh, but there is too much emotion in you now. Too much feeling. It is why you failed.

  They are hurting you now. But don’t scream. Don’t give them that.

  Pain. Pain like you’ve never felt, and you don’t even know what they’re doing. Except that they broke your fingers. Not your fingers, please! You scream now—you cannot stop it. Now it’s only about you, and the pain, and your broken hands. But don’t tell them anything. They will have nothing from you but your screams.

  Then there is the machine, and you know what it is now, better than anyone in this world. You and five others alone in Paragor have cause to understand.

  You are being electrocuted.

  It’s a different kind of pain. Deep within, reaching every crevice of you, seeking out every nerve ending in your body. Making it impossible to think about anything else, impossible to escape inside your mind.

  They keep hurting, and they are beginning to take away who you are. You must hang on, must not let them have it. You are Luca, and they cannot take that. But they are! No, don’t lose yourself, remember who you are.

  Remember who you are!

  More pain, and finally, only blackness. Space. Nothing.

  Part 5

  Luca

  ‘Don’t go in there!’

  The words were flung in desperation, and it was only the fact that she never spoke with such urgency that made him stop. He turned to look at the two of them.

  Amara was standing with her hands stretched out to him, and as he looked at her she dropped them to her sides. Harry was next to her, frowning deeply, his arms folded over his barrel chest.

  ‘I didn’t find you in that first battle,’ Harry said calmly, ‘and bring you to the palace in order to train with me so that you could throw your life away getting caught up in all of this.’

  ‘ All of this ?’ Luca repeated. ‘What are you talking about? The High King has asked me to help him. How do you expect me to deny the High King of Paragor?’

  Amara shook her head. ‘My father is not ... right, at the moment. You don’t need to do as he says. Not in this. Not in hurting people.’

  ‘Extracting information,’ Luca corrected bluntly. He looked away from her, from the judgement in her eyes, because he couldn’t bear it. Not from the woman he loved, had loved from the first moment he’d met her. Predictable, really. Everyone seemed to be in love with her a little bit.

  Her story was the most famous in the world. Who could have imagined that the High Princess would fall in love with the lowly son of a blacksmith? It could boggle the mind—until one actually came to meet that man. It didn’t matter what class he was born into—they were a match. It was impossible not to understand why Amara loved him, and impossible not to understand that he was the only one worthy of her.

  Luca sighed as the blacksmith’s son rounded the corner and approached them quickly.

  Fern stopped, his grey eyes darting from Luca to the people opposite him. ‘Is everything okay?’ he asked. ‘Am?’ he reached out to touch her sho
ulder in a way only he was allowed.

  Amara shook her head, never looking away from Luca. ‘Not really,’ she said. Fern took in her expression.

  ‘You’re helping the king after all?’ Fern asked flatly.

  ‘Of course I am.’ Luca replied.

  ‘Then you are lost.’

  Luca looked at the ground, something hurting inside him. The king saw something in him, a skill, a talent, and he needed that talent in this war. They all needed Luca’s talent, they just didn’t want to admit it.

  ‘None of you understand,’ Luca said softly. ‘This is a war. It’s bloody, and dark. There aren’t any heroes. There are only the people who die, and the people who survive.’ He paused, spreading his hands wide.

  ‘You look at me as though I’ve fallen. But we’ve all fallen, and we’re all lost amid this darkness. The only way to get through it is to act with as much decisiveness and brutality as our enemy. We need information. When we capture his spies, we have to be able to learn what they know. And if that job falls to me, then I’ll do it, no matter how distasteful you all find it.’

  This time he looked only at Amara. ‘We all have blood on our hands,’ he whispered. ‘The only difference is that you can see it on mine.’

  Slowly he turned and walked to the stairs that would lead him down into the belly of the palace, into the darkened room where he would begin to learn the arts of the torturer.

  Chapter 32

  The ride was a blur for Jane. She could vaguely remember the painful dash across the planes, thundering through towns and villages, Fern and Altor flanking her the whole way until finally, close to sunset, they came to Karangul. There was no resistance when they got there, only a strange pity in the eyes of the soldiers.

  ‘Where is he?’ she snapped when they came to the biggest building. The soldier standing guard pointed to the hallway behind him and stepped out of the way. Jane ran down the corridor until she came to a room at the end, heedless of Fern and Altor behind her. The door was open. Jane came to a halt, frozen by what she could see within.

  Anna wept softly by the side of the bed, looking near death herself. Ria stood by the window and a tall man with red hair was standing on the other side of the bed, his arm bandaged heavily. There was a man who looked like a healer there too, but Jane’s eyes were held by only one person.

  Luca was unconscious on the bed, looking small with the blankets piled around him.

  Ria gasped as she caught sight of Fern, and turned paler than she already was. She sat down heavily, transfixed as if he were a ghost. Anna barely noticed him—she was staring at Jane, who crossed the room quickly. They hung onto each other desperately.

  ‘It’s going to be fine,’ Jane whispered into her hair. ‘He’ll be fine, An, I promise.’

  Keeping her hand clasped tightly around Anna’s, Jane turned to the rest of the people in the room. ‘What happened?’ she asked roughly, looking for anyone who would answer her. Nobody did. ‘ What happened?’ she snapped more loudly.

  ‘My lady, he’s been tortured,’ the red-haired man said, running his good hand through his hair.

  ‘I can see that,’ Jane hissed. ‘By whom—and why?’

  ‘He came here to assassinate Vezzet, but he killed the wrong man and they captured him!’ Anna said, her voice shaking.

  The words resounded in her ears. Why the hell would Luca have tried to assassinate someone? Why would he have thought himself capable of that?

  ‘ Who captured him?’

  ‘Vezzet and his guards. I was only just in time to stop them killing him.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Captain Adon Bayard of Karangul, my lady,’ he replied. ‘And you?’

  ‘Jane—I’m a friend of Luca’s,’ she said. Bayard seemed to compose himself, and then nodded. He looked at Fern and Altor. ‘There will be time for our introductions later,’ Fern said quietly.

  ‘Captain, why did you save Luca if you work for Vezzet—and where is he?’ Jane went on briskly.

  ‘I realised, somewhat too late, my lady, that Vezzet’s cause was not my own, and I could not stand by and watch him torture an innocent man. Vezzet is dead.’

  ‘Are you all right?’ Blood was seeping through the bandaging on his arm.

  Bayard nodded firmly. ‘I’m fine. It is merely what I deserve for my own stupidity.’

  Jane took a breath. ‘What exactly has been done to Luca?’

  ‘Broken bones. Cuts and burns on his chest and back. And ... and something I don’t know how to name. A dark magic.’

  ‘They electrocuted him, Jane,’ Anna sobbed.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Altor asked quickly. Jane didn’t even know how to begin explaining.

  ‘And they broke his fingers,’ Ria whispered. Jane felt herself turn cold.

  Silently she knelt at Luca’s side. ‘What’s been done to help him?’ she asked faintly.

  ‘I’ve cleaned and stitched all the wounds, my lady,’ the healer said. ‘Physically he is healed, but he will not wake up. I fear he is too mentally scarred to recover.’

  Jane swallowed. ‘How long has it been?’

  ‘A day, almost.’

  Jane stood again. If she stayed brisk, if she focused on the problems at hand, then she might just be able to hold it together. ‘I need a moment alone with him.’

  ‘What can you do?’ Anna asked. ‘You aren’t a doctor!’

  ‘No. But I can try something.’ A thought had occurred to her, but she had no idea if it would work, nor if she would be strong enough to do it.

  No one moved. Jane threw a desperate look at the two princes by the door. It was Altor who came through in the end. His low voice snaked into the room, ‘ All of you out. Now.’

  They moved quickly then.

  Once she was alone, Jane pulled a stool up to the bed and sat down. Slowly she looked down at Luca. There were scars and burn marks all over his skin, but the broken bones and lacerations had been healed. Gently she ran her hands over the raw burns on his chest, and then up to his face, which was, strangely, perfectly untouched and just as handsome as ever.

  She looked at him, at her closest friend in all the worlds, in all her lives, and she felt ... wrecked. Because even more than the wounds he had been dealt last night, she could see the pain that had been there before. His face, even in sleep, held immeasurable pain.

  Jane ran her hand through his hair and kissed him gently. Then she moved her hands to take hold of his fingers. They weren’t the same as the rest of his wounds. Anguish was threaded throughout the broken pieces of bone. They may be functional one day; but no longer would he have the beautiful hands that so many women had fallen in love with. The hands that made such sounds on his guitar as she had never heard before.

  Hands that once upon a time—what seemed like a lifetime ago—Jane had told him she loved.

  ‘Then they are yours forever,’ he’d laughed and she had understood, in that moment, how he loved her.

  And now they lay before her, irreparable.

  Jane kissed them and willed them to straighten. But they didn’t change, they didn’t heal, and she knew they never would.

  Still holding his hands in her own, Jane moved so that her face was above his. Carefully, gently, using the link she and her friends had forged, she sent a probe from her mind to his. But as soon as it entered his mind, Jane was barraged with a series of images, sights that blasted her senses and terrified her. Dark slashings of colour, screams and blood and pain, a man’s cruel laughter, the sound of steel on steel and the crunch of bones. They pummelled into her mind, all the bad things in the world, all the images that haunted Luca. The boy she knew was gone. All there was instead was chaos and pain, fear and bitterness. Jane gasped, wrenching her mind away from his as she stumbled back from the bed. She realised then that she wouldn’t be able to do anything to help him, even with an ability like hers.

  Luca moaned. Jane stared at him, terrified, not sure if she wanted him to wake just yet, not sure how he wo
uld be with a mind like that.

  After a while she sat down next to his bed again and watched him sleep, waiting. She must have been beside him for hours by the time he woke. The only warning she had was a slight change in the rhythm of his breathing. Then his eyes snapped open, and they looked around the room, unable to focus. They came to rest on her, and there was confusion in them.

  ‘Luca?’ she said, uncertainly.

  He didn’t reply. Panic clutched at her. ‘Luca, it’s me, Jane. You know me.’

  He started to breathe faster, and she knew he was getting frightened.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said desperately, ‘I’m here, you’re safe now,’ but Luca had begun to scream. Guttural sounds tore through the room, loud and maniacal, and that was when Jane realised that Luca was insane.

  She recoiled in horror as he thrashed around the bed, trying to get away from her. Her shaking hand covered her mouth as she backed away from him, realising that he was petrified of her.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she tried to say again, but she could barely hear her voice over the sound of his screams.

  The door burst open and a swarm of people rushed into the room. Luca’s eyes bulged as he saw the bodies surging towards him. He moved from the bed and lunged towards the window.

  ‘Fern!’ Jane yelled. Fern moved to intercept Luca, taking his comparatively small body in his strong grip. The boy screamed in terror at the contact.