“Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug. “I’m not even sure the Oak King’s still alive.”
Chapter 22
My heart stopped.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I demanded.
The guard remained blasé. “Some of the torturers were a little too zealous in their art, it seems. When Her Majesty discovered this, she graciously decided to allow you the opportunity to visit before the Oak King passes. I don’t know his current status. It’s not really my job.”
“There’s nothing gracious about that!” I exclaimed. “And that wasn’t part of the plan. Varia told me he was going to be executed later.”
“Our lady doesn’t answer to you, nor is she required to keep her word to her inferiors. She may do whatever she likes.”
My heart was working again, only to start beating in double-time. In deviating from her plan, Varia was ruining mine. Dorian ... dead? I’d known he was in danger, but in the back of my mind, that danger had always been “later.” And, with the way I normally operated, “later” always meant I had a chance to intervene. An internal voice kept saying Stick to the plan, stick to the plan. If Dorian was dead, there was nothing I could do. If he was still alive, then Kiyo and the others could rescue him.
And yet ...
“I’ll go,” I said.
It went against every kind of logic. It played into Varia’s hands. And yet, there was no way I could abandon Dorian if he was near his last breath.
They took me to the torturers’ chamber, which was every bit as terrible as one might imagine. Wicked-looking weapons—most of which seemed to favor spikes—lined the walls. But when they took me to Dorian, I didn’t see a single mark on him—aside from the ones inflicted earlier—making me think gentry forms of torture were far more insidious than I knew. He lay on his back, on a long stone table, like a corpse in a morgue. I hurried to his side, and even without any ostensible signs of injury, it was obvious he wasn’t in good shape.
Dorian had always been pale, but it was the natural marble complexion that came with red hair and caution with the sun. This ... this was something different altogether. It was the unhealthy white of near death. His skin was clammy, and his breathing was shallow. Still, that last one filled me with hope. He was breathing. I rested a couple fingers on the side of his neck and felt a faint pulse. That was about the extent of my medical knowledge, but again, the fact that there was a pulse had to be a good sign.
I glared around at the others in the room, unsure of whom I should direct my righteous fury to since Varia apparently couldn’t be troubled to come see me. Probably it was the dogs’ bath time. My contingent of guards had received reinforcements, but they were mostly there as precautions to keep me in line. The real culprits, I assumed, were two gentry standing in long brown robes with gold embroidery, watching me in silence. One was a man, one was a woman.
“What did you do to him?” I asked.
The male torturer spread his hands out in an absurdly serene way. “What our queen asked of us. She wished to make a point.”
“What, that she’s a raging psychopathic bitch? She made that point a long time ago when she started exploiting other kingdoms.”
A few of the guards frowned at my language, but no one came forward to stop me. “She wished merely to show her power,” said the female torturer. “And encourage you to choose a wise course of action.”
“I am not helping her with her insane plans,” I said. “And she damned well knows it. Where is she anyway?”
“At afternoon tea,” said one of the guards. “We are to relay your message to her.”
“You can tell her to go fuck herself,” I replied. I turned back to Dorian and gently brushed hair away from his face. “Stay with me,” I murmured. “It was bad enough with the dryads. You can’t keep doing this to me.”
“If that is your ‘answer,’” said another of the guards coldly, “then we are to return you to your cell.”
“Fine,” I said, still not looking at any of them. “What about Dorian?”
“He stays with us,” said the female torturer.
My head jerked up. “What? He needs a healer! You’ve already pushed him to the edge. He’ll die if you keep at it.”
“I believe that is the point,” said the male torturer. He arched an eyebrow. “What exactly did you expect? That you could refuse and Her Majesty would free him? If you want him healed, comply with her requests. Those are your only choices.”
No, I actually had a couple of other choices. One was to fake them out and claim I would give in to Varia. After all, that was hardly the kind of decision I had to immediately act on. I didn’t have the Iron Crown with me. It was hidden far away in my own lands. If I claimed I would give it to her, I had plenty of time to figure out the rest of this before I actually had to produce said crown.
Just then, Dorian started coughing. No, not coughing. Gasping. Like he couldn’t get enough air. His eyes fluttered open, a frantic and desperate look in them as he fought to breathe.
“Dorian!” I cried, grabbing hold of him. “Dorian, breathe! Relax. You can do it.”
Yet, it was clear he couldn’t hear me or see me. He was somewhere else, somewhere locked in pain that had done so much damage, it was now about to finish him off. I looked up at all the gathered people in the room, unable to believe they were all just standing around.
“Ah,” remarked one of the torturers. “I wondered when his lungs would give out.”
“Do something!” I yelled. “Help him.”
Dorian suddenly stilled, a look of horror on his face. I shared his feelings because I realized he was no longer breathing. A new sort of panic shot through me, as well as frustration and a terrible aching sadness. I possessed a power that could bring many to their knees, a power that was widely envied. What good was it, I wondered angrily, when it left me completely helpless to defend those I cared about?
“We do nothing until you make your choice,” replied the male torturer.
Choice? Yeah. I was going to make my choice—and it wasn’t going to be giving in to Varia. It wouldn’t even be faking her out. It was going to be the choice I’d wanted to make from the very beginning.
I was going to blow this room apart and get Dorian out of here.
Magic surged within me, the power of water and air that surrounded all living things. The room grew thick with humidity as the air swelled and tensed, just as it had in my morning meeting with Varia. Now, I went further. The scent of ozone spread around us, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up from the electrical charges in the air. Some of those gathered sensed me pulling on my magic. Everyone else simply felt the obvious signs of a storm about to break loose. People tensed, weapons were drawn. Good luck with that, I thought.
A huge burst of air, reaching a breaking point, suddenly exploded and took out one of the room’s walls. Stone and debris flew everywhere, and I barely had the presence of mind to lean over and shield Dorian with my body. My own injury didn’t matter. Others in the room didn’t have such protection.
The funny thing was, though, I wasn’t the one who’d blown the wall apart.
From a now-visible room next door, Kiyo and Rurik surged in, the rest of our soldiers right behind them, along with some Hemlock fighters. And behind them were Jasmine and Pagiel, tipping me off about what had happened to the wall. Immediately, the Yew soldiers jumped forward to engage this new threat, forgetting all about me.
“Alistir!” I yelled, somehow making my voice heard above the fray.
Dorian’s soldier jerked his head toward me. I beckoned him over. He gave a curt nod, after first dispatching a Yew warrior. Dodging a few others, Alistir soon made his way to me. I gestured frantically to Dorian.