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Kamaria can tell just how ticked off Roderick is by the way his fingers dig into her arm as he herds her into the guardhouse. He doesn’t normally drag her at all when she’s going for punishments. She’s pretty sure he enjoys how she walks there on her own, such a well-trained little punching bag for him.
Maybe the fact that she’s been missing for days has something to do with it. It’ll be a miracle if she can ever win back his and her father’s trust. All because that stupid mercenary had to involve himself in her business and insist on playing nursemaid. Yeah, maybe he’d saved her life from the infection. But if she’s going to die by Roderick’s hands, anyway, then she’d rather have just died back there in the forest.
When they reach the door to her usual cell, he shoves her inside. Pain spears through her leg - still far from healed from the bullet hole through the thigh - and it nearly gives out. She doesn’t dare react aloud. Since she’s facing away from him, she does allow herself the freedom to clench her jaw as the pain recedes, subtly shifting her weight onto her good leg.
“Where should I even start on your list of infractions?” he sneers, following her into the cell and slamming the door. “Going missing is an obvious one. This was far beyond being late to report back, this was abandonment of your post.”
“I was on my way back.” Kamaria turns to face him, keeping her voice low and even and her chin held high.
“Oh, sure you were,” he retorts. “And bringing your new friend with you, too, I suppose?” His hand gestures sharply in the direction of the Commander’s tent, where Bruno has been taken. “You know better than to socialize, to make allies. That’s not your job. It remains to be seen if your punishments will multiply once we find out for sure who the man is.”
“I told you, he kidnapped me while I was injured and couldn’t get away.”
Roderick storms up to her, furious face inches from hers and hand locking around her throat. “You’re The Shadow of Death. You’re not allowed to get kidnapped . I don’t care if you were actively dying, if he was really trying to kidnap you, he should have been dead .”
She has no argument for that. He’s right, she should have killed Bruno on multiple occasions. She chose not to, and now she’ll suffer the consequences.
His hand tightens, cutting off part of her air, before he lets go. Kamaria sucks in a breath but tries to keep it quiet, unnoticeable. She can’t seem affected.
“But you bring up a good point. Let’s start with your injury . Not only did you fail to report back, but first you screwed up your mission badly enough to get shot .” His hand shoots back out to grab a fistful of her hair, using it as a handle to steer her across the cell toward the wall. “I think I know a good way to punish you for that.”
Leaving her there, he grabs coils of rope from the corner, which is never a good sign. “Arms behind your back. Cross them.” He yanks off her gauntlets, tossing them to the side, and begins winding the rope around her wrists and elbows. She grimaces a little as the rough fibers scrape against her skin.
Once her arms are locked together, he coils the next piece around her waist, then takes the other end and ties it around the ankle of her good leg. She can’t tell yet what exactly he’s planning. Dread is growing in her stomach, though. They’ve been through this enough times by now for her to know it’ll be bad.
Sure enough, his next step is to pull the foot up and secure it as high as it will bend, leaving her balancing on her injured leg. Immediately the pain increases. It’s not terrible yet, but she knows it will be by the time this is over.
Punishing her for getting injured by putting strain on the injury. It’s a typical Roderick move, she should have seen it coming.
Of course he’s not done, either. From his pocket, he whips out a piece of cloth that she’s seen many times before, and her stomach does a little flip. Whether he’s doing this part to further throw off her balance, or just because he knows she hates it, she’ll probably never know. He makes quick work of tying the fabric around her eyes. Kamaria squeezes them shut behind it. Somehow it’s better to not be able to see because her eyes are closed than to stare endlessly into the black cloth.
She hears the jingle of chains and knows there’s still more to come. A moment later, cold metal clamps around her throat, followed by the grinding sound of metal on metal as the chain is pulled taut. It tugs her up toward the ceiling, forcing her heel to leave the ground as the band starts cutting into her.
“There,” Roderick declares, clearly satisfied with himself. She can sense him moving near her and has to steel herself against a flinch. He doesn’t touch her, though, surprisingly. She wouldn’t at all put it past him to knock her off balance just to see her suffer. “That should do nicely.”
Her body fights to find a position it can maintain, toes twisting against the floor as she wobbles dangerously. Every movement sends stabs of pain through the wound. Without her sight, it’s harder to find equilibrium, and she’s struggling to tell where Roderick is in the room.
She gets the answer to that, at least, a moment later when his foul breath hits her cheek. This time she does flinch a little, much to her frustration, and has to strain her muscles again to keep from falling.
“This is just the beginning, half-breed,” he hisses. “You are going to seriously regret your choices by the time I’m done with you.”
Joke’s on him, she’s been seriously regretting her choices ever since the mission went wrong. But she remains stoic, refusing to engage with him.
He backs away, thankfully, and she can hear him tossing away the rest of the rope and opening the cell door. “Time to go see what your father has turned up about your mysterious new friend. Don’t worry, I’ll be back to check on you in…oh, sometime.”
The door closes again and locks - as if she’s going to escape somehow - and his footsteps fade away. Kamaria is left in the consuming darkness of the blindfold, all of her focus pouring into not falling or letting her leg give out.