Chapter 8

“Take her to the dungeon.” He told the last remaining soldiers after the deliberations had been completed. 

My eyes must have shown my astonishment because he smiled at me and added. “You killed one of my soldiers.” For a moment it looked like he was 
going to leave that as explanation enough but then he added. “And you tried to kill me. I think that is worth at least a few days in the dungeon with 
Barius's special love and attention.” The words struck a chord within my heart that was anything but pleasant.

I said nothing but my eyes held a world of meaning as I looked at him before I was dragged away. It seemed more and more of my time was being 
spent being dragged away by the same set of soldiers. I wondered how they enjoyed serving their master. What lovely gifts and punishments were 
they dealt for the simple mistakes? Why was it I had not been simply sentenced to die for the crimes I continued to commit? I did not know if I should 
feel relieved or frightened by the allowance of my continued existence. I was a threat, was I not? Perhaps that was just it. Perhaps Xenos did not see 
me as a threat. Perhaps to him I was merely a toy to be trifled with and when finished with the game, locked away in a box until next time, much like 
my trip to the dungeon was now.

The stench that reached my nose when the door that led down to the dungeon was opened made me wretch. I was dragged down into the dark 
depths without mercy, and soon it was not just the stench that filled my senses. Moans and cries, stifled sobs and clinking chains were only a few 
sounds that reached my ears. I could almost taste the filth and the pain on my tongue, and the overwhelming capacity of it all caused me to slip on the 
stone step and only the soldiers' grip on my arms kept me from a nasty spill down the rest of the passageway and quickening me on my way to what 
would be undoubtedly an unpleasant introduction.

“A new addition to your flock of lost souls, Barius.” One of the soldiers said as I was shoved unceremoniously forward into the middle of the torch-lit 
room.

“She's a pretty one.” An accented voice said and it took a strength of will to keep myself from gagging again as I took in the horrid sight of him. 

Perhaps he'd been punished by Xenos once, or perhaps it was a childhood mishap, but a face that should have been lovely was riddled with scars, as 
well as some fresher wounds that oozed puss and infection. One eye was covered with a cataract-like substance and the other was a clear, lovely green. 
It was the only spot of beauty within that ruined face and my eyes were drawn to the sight of his one good one as though to distract myself from the ruin 
the rest of him was.

His hands were covered with the same infected sores and I fancied that other parts of him were as well. He was not very old. Perhaps forty suns had 
passed during his life. Regardless, the gaze his one good eye gave me made me sick to my stomach. “Don't worry, lass, yer kind ain't to my liking.” He 
promised and he leered at me, revealing a mouth of brown, broken teeth. I sighed in relief to know that at least a woman's peril was not going to befall 
me in this place. When looking upon Barius, suddenly any torture did not seem as bad as invasion by such an illness-riddled body.

The grating sound of wood against stone was an ominous one as the lock was dropped into place when the soldiers departed. I was left there with 
Barius, and instantly the putrescent blend of smells, sights, and sounds sought to drag me down to a deep dark level of hopeless terror. It took every 
ounce of will in my body to keep me from collapsing into a screaming pile right there in the middle of the blood-soaked room. 

“Three days are you to be mine.” Barius said, rubbing infection-ridden hands together with anticipation. “What shall we do first, princess? I have a 
whole showroom of wonders for ye.”

My eyes darted around instinctively, attempting to discover some possible avenue of escape. “Ain't gonna happen.” Barius said as though reading my 
mind. “Even if you did manage to take me out, ye'd be stuck down here. Only way that door opens is from the other side.” He leered at me with his 
broken smile. “They'd let you rot down here for sure. This'll go much smoother for ye if ye cooperate.”

It was such a ludicrous logic that I found myself laughing at him. I do not know if the laughter bubbled forth from some inner fount that told me I was 
close to the brink of madness or if it was merely the stress of the last three years threatening to overcome me. But, I laughed and the look within 
Barius's one clear beautiful eye became something feral and most definitely unkind. 

“Think I'm funny, do ye?” He asked as he reached forward with a strength and speed I would not have suspected his body of possessing, grabbing my 
hair in a vice-like grip. It accomplished what the man had hoped: my peals of laughter were cut off and turned instead to a hiss of pain.

“All the pretty ones, they always laughed at me.” He commenced to tirade as he dragged me over to a contraption that was much like “racks” later 
came to be in the civilized societies. “Always laughed at the man with the oozing skin. Think I don't remember it all, princess? All you girls were the 
same. Never a kind word for Barius, no! Just yer spit and yer taunts, yer cries of terror and faints.” I was shoved down onto a flat bed made of 
board.

“Well, I ain't the little boy anymore.” The man continued and the look within his good eye was far away. It wasn't me necessarily that he was speaking 
to. He was speaking to a lifetime of jeers and disgust from those like me, women of beauty, of power. His touch was rough as he pulled my arms high 
above my head, forcing me to lie back on the board. Thick rope of the same rough-hewn material I was becoming accustomed to was wrapped 
around them securely and then fed into something that seemed horribly like a wench. He did the same with my feet.

“Sweet gods above me.” I whispered as I realized what the object of this machine was. I had no time to give it further thought before the experience 
itself was upon me. He turned first one wench and then moved casually to the end and turned the other. I winced in pain, feeling muscles and tendons 
drawn taught.

“No more laughing. No more spitting. Now it's Barius that deals the pain.” He growled and my stomach wrenched with disgust as he rubbed his hand 
over my arm, leaving in its wake a line of puss and infection. I prayed to whatever deity would listen that whatever illness he suffered from could not 
be passed to another. Then all prayer disappeared as he tightened the wenches a second revolution. 

I screamed.

It was a sensation I had never felt before and would feel again in the future. It was as though my muscles were on fire, my bones tight, threatening to 
pull from their sockets. I was a thing of agony, and my screams became a litany of wordless pain.

When the third revolution of the wench came into play, I felt the joints in my shoulder shift and my arm pop out of place. The scream replaced the 
others, and suddenly I wondered how many others had been stretched upon this tool of torture. I had heard the screams, had heard the stories from 
other maids in the temple. I never thought I would fail to the point of experiencing it, but I knew I had to endure it or I would have truly lost. Torture 
was not the ultimate failure. Losing oneself to it was.

I thought that when he had finished stretching he would release me, but I was wrong. I stayed bound and stretched upon the contraption for hours and 
I bled in and out of consciousness. Clarity escaped me as shock set in due to my injury and I saw a myriad of things, whispered a multitude of 
half-forgotten names. Perhaps I prayed. Perhaps I cried. I did not remember.

I was vaguely aware when the ropes were loosened and I was removed from the board. The next moment of wakefulness came…I am not certain 
when. I was seated upon a floor dusted with dirty hay and human refuse, long chains attached to my wrists and my ankles. I was not the only one 
there.

There were three other men placed along the wall. They all wore ragged remnants of high-ranking officials within the military. Members of Xenos's 
new regiment, people he should have trusted and instead had imprisoned. “Why are you here?” My voice was hoarse from screaming and when I 
attempted to move my arm I had to bite back another at the consuming pain.

“I questioned the placing of troops at the eastern border along the coast.” One man murmured, his voice equally hoarse. “I was sentenced to three 
moons here.”

“How many left?” I asked.

“Two.” Came the quiet answer.

“And you?” I asked a man who had surprisingly red hair that somehow kept its sheen despite the filth that covered it. 

He lifted brown eyes to mine. “I questioned an order.”

“As did I.” The other said from his corner, his hair the color of chestnuts.

“What of you?” The one with the red hair asked me.

“I attempted to kill him.” I said quietly.

“Did you succeed?” The voice was eager.

“No.” My voice was getting worse. “I killed another instead.”

“You are lucky you've been allowed to live.” The chestnut-haired man said.

“I do not know if I would refer to it as luck.” My voice sounded hollow in my own ears. I could not imagine how it was I came across to the rest of 
them. “I wish there was a way to begin a revolution.” I leaned back against the filth-coated wall, attempting to imagine that I was somewhere else 
and not succeeding.

“There are others who are unhappy with Xenos's rule.” The red-haired man said. “It is only that many are too fearful to disobey him.”

“Then how would they revolt?” I asked, unable to keep irritation from rising in my voice.

“They need a leader.” The dark-eyed man who had first spoken to me murmured. “Someone to give them faith. I know you, Cynara.” My eyes 
widened in shock. “I once worked alongside your father.”

“You knew him…” I trailed off, struggling to keep my composure.

“Perhaps you can give them that faith, Cynara.” He said. “I am Mathius. I will stand behind you if you truly wish to do this.” I could see his lips quirk 
into a smile even in the shadows. “If you have already attempted to kill him once and he is unwilling to simply have you sentenced to death, you must 
have a leverage you do not understand.”

“I will stand behind you as well. I am Adam.” Said the red-haired man.

“And I am Demetrion.” The chestnut-haired man said. “We will all be with you.”

“Perhaps together we can start something that will bring change to this land.” I said, that ever-present flame of hope flaring within my heart. 

“Somehow I think it will.” Mathius said and we all grew silent as we heard Barius moving about in the hall outside of our cramped cell.

~*~

Three days seemed three years. It was Mathius that reset my shoulder. “It will hurt.” He warned me as he placed his sandaled foot to the swollen, 
bruised flesh. I nodded and said nothing. I had no strength left to brace against the pain, and even the stab and sting seemed so far away. The water 
was dirty and wrenched our stomachs, filled our bowels with fluid. The food crawled with maggots and I refused to eat.

The light of day was garishly bright as I was dragged from those putrid walls at the end of my sentence. Whispers and promises were left behind me 
to the three men who still had moons of this torture left to them. If I'd had the strength to cry out for their sake, I would have, but I could do little else 
except lean against the shoulders of the soldiers who had come to fetch me and return me to Xenos's chamber. A strange smile quirked the edges of 
my cracked and bloodied lips. He would be curious as to whether or not he had broken me. I would never give him the satisfaction.

My golden hair was a rusted brown from blood and filth. My eyes were glassy with fever from the poisoned water. But, I could see him clearly in his 
dark beauty, his terrible presence. And I found that as I stared at him I was distracted by the light upon his hair, the way the shadows softened the 
angular features of his face and made him appear somehow young, somehow untainted.

He grabbed my chin between rough fingers and forced me to look at him. “There's still a spark of sanity in you, Euphemia.”
That smile upon my face widened, and I knew that it was a twisted thing that would contort my face into something ugly, something filled with mirthless humor.

“Get her cleaned up.” He said, releasing my chin. His expression was interestingly disturbed as he turned away and returned his attention to the 
unloading of crates within the courtyard. I was led away and blissfully found myself returned to a place where I knew soft furs and a hot bath lay.


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