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Kamaria opens bleary eyes as the cell door squeaks loudly, announcing Roderick’s entrance. She fully intended to be up and ready to face him again when he came back. Instead, she’s lying on her side, half-conscious and pathetic.
She knew she was in for a nightmare as soon as she made the choice to fail her mission, and Roderick has certainly delivered. All of this pain…all these injuries, and none of it is even the punishment yet. She’s still waiting to hear whether or not that will be death.
There’s part of her that hopes it will be, just so she doesn’t have to keep going through this. But she has a promise to keep, and though she was willing to forfeit it for the few morals she has left, she still hopes that she’ll be allowed to live.
“Wake up, half-breed.” She isn’t aware that her eyes have drifted shut again until Roderick’s boot slams into her stomach. Every broken rib lights up and she curls in on herself, stretching the few-day-old lash marks covering her back.
Grabbing a fistful of her hair, which has long since escaped from its braids, he wrenches her head back so he can look into her eyes. “I’ve spoken to your father. Guess what? You get to live…this time.”
She can’t help the relief that floods her, though her mind knows better than to dwell on it. Living just means they’ll make her wish even harder that she was dead.
A smile spreads across his face as if he can read her thoughts. “I’ve got a very special surprise for you, instead.”
Releasing her hair, he grabs the chain connecting her to the wall and yanks. The metal band around her throat cuts into her neck. Kamaria gags, struggling to follow the pull upward so that she can breathe, even though every part of her hurts when she moves. He drags her all the way to her feet, where she sways and tries to keep her weight off of her broken ankle.
While he removes the cuff, she adjusts to being upright and conscious. There’s something different about the room. She’s supposed to notice these things immediately, but she’s slow from a head injury and blood loss. It’s…warm. There’s some kind of heat emanating from the front of the guardhouse, beyond the barred door of the cell. She knows there’s a fireplace out there. It’s never been used while she was in here, though. Freezing is just part of the punishment process.
Roderick pushes her backwards, and she stumbles, unprepared for stepping on the injured ankle. Thankfully it’s only a couple of steps to the wall that she falls against. The lashes on her back protest.
“Turn around. Arms up.”
She complies, and he clasps manacles around both her wrists, keeping her pressed against the stones. Her blouse still hangs open in the back from where he cut it open for the whipping on the first day.
“I’ve got something special for you,” he repeats. “It’s prepping right now, but I wanna make sure you see it before I use it.”
She listens to his footsteps walk away, followed by a scraping of metal. Her stomach twists into a knot of dread. Whatever this is, it’s clearly something he’s never done before. All she knows is that it’s going to be awful .
He walks back into the cell, coming up behind her and grabbing her hair again to direct her head to one side so she can see him. “Recognize this?”
At first she doesn’t at all. What he holds up is a chunk of metal attached to a long rod, and her attention is much more taken up by the fact that the end is glowing orange and putting off waves of heat than by what it looks like. The knot in her stomach twists a bit tighter.
“Come on, half-breed, look .” He shoves it closer to her face, and Kamaria barely refrains from flinching backwards.
There’s a tree carved into the metal. The tree that is the crest of Ethorcon, to be exact - the same symbol that the soldiers get tattooed onto their arms when they enlist. As something less than a soldier - an asset , her father calls her - she’s never received one.
But this one isn’t exactly the same as the tattoo. The tree has a slash right through the middle of it. She hasn’t seen this version of the symbol but maybe once or twice, as it’s quite rare that it’s used.
The slash denotes a traitor to Ethorcon. They add it to the tattoo of soldiers who defect, and it’s sometimes used in a tattoo on certain criminals who have betrayed their kingdom.
And on the very worst of offenders, it’s branded instead of tattooed.
Roderick breaks into a grin as he sees the understanding fill her expression. “See, this is what happens. Choose not to complete your missions - as if someone like you has the right to take the moral high ground - and you get to be known as a traitor for the rest of your life.”
She really doesn’t care, she tells herself. Her loyalty has always been to her people, not to Ethorcon. The kingdom that she currently works for is just a means to an end for her, so why should she care if everyone thinks she betrayed it?
She doesn’t. The shame that seeps into her chest is only because it’s an insult, after she’s given nearly half her life and so much blood and pain to this place.
Stepping back, he lets the brand swing away. “Got to make sure this is nice and hot now that you’ve seen it.” As he walks off toward the fireplace again, his voice trails back to her. “It took me a while to decide on the placement. At first, I of course wanted it in the traditional spot, on your arm for everyone to enjoy. But the Commander had other ideas about that, said it would make you too visible on your missions. Which, in the end, I had to concur. But then there were so many other possibilities…”
The sound of the brand grating against the stone floor as he adjusts it has anxiety crawling up her throat. It’s just pain. You can handle more pain. The kind of pain, though, is what has her dreading it. She knows as soon as her skin starts to burn, the memories are going to start trying to take over. The last thing she wants is to become a writhing, screaming mess in front of Roderick…because it’s exactly what he wants.
“In the end -” his voice is getting closer again, he’s coming back with the brand -“I decided my favorite idea was to give you almost a matching set.”
Her mind is too slow, she can’t decipher his meaning. She can tell it’s coming, can tell that he’ll give no further warning, but she doesn’t know where and there’s no way to truly prepare herself for the pain, anyway.
An instant later, the metal sears into the back of her shoulder. Kamaria jerks forward as if her body thinks it can escape the pain, knocking her head into the wall. A shout gets caught in her throat, strangling her. The smell is awful. The fire eating its way through to her bone, lighting her entire arm and back in flames, is worse.
A matching set, he said. He’s burning a brand into the opposite shoulder from the burn scar she already bears. Somehow both now hurt with the same intensity. She can feel her dress catching fire from the burning pieces of roof that fell on her, can smell the smoke of the village being destroyed, can hear the screams of her people as they’re slaughtered…
Suddenly she’s aware of Roderick laughing. Her shoulders still burn, she can’t even tell if he’s taken the brand away or not. It still feels like it’s pressing in, charring, each branch of the tree of Ethorcon sealing into her skin for eternity.
It takes a moment for her to realize that at some point, her legs buckled beneath her. She’s dangling from her wrists, knees nearly dragging the ground, and oh yes, one of her shoulders dislocated when she fell, no surprise there.
“Priceless,” Roderick chuckles. “I love it. That’s showing up really nicely, too, can’t wait to see what it looks like after it heals.”
Kamaria can’t even care too much right now that she gave him what he wanted. The burn throbs incessantly, and the memories of the fire are still pressing at all the corners of her mind, threatening to drag her back under.
She manages to get her good foot underneath her and heaves herself back upright, wincing into the privacy of the wall. Her heart is pounding too fast. It makes her breathing harsh, and each breath sends ripples of pain across her skin.
Just as she’s steadied herself, Roderick presses a finger into the brand, and the world goes white again. She throws her head back, choking on a gasp.
He lets out another loud laugh. “I’ll be back in a bit to let you know if that’s everything.”
Please, let that be everything.
There’s no way she can handle more.