Chronicles of a Falling Empire [Bloodstained, Bloodshed]

yet in her wrath, a lesson lies
a truth concealed from mortal eyes
that Fate and Time can never end
a circle stops, begins again

- "The Weaver," Verse 3

I open my eyes and find myself back in the nightmare, exactly where I left off last time. I'm on the bed tied to the headboard, shirtless, blood trickling down my chest. Leómadura's straddling my hips, gazing down at me through that creepy fucking deadcrow mask, the beak curled down over his nose. The weight of him pushes down against me—I can't move, don't want to squirm. I pull feebly at the knots around my wrist and find them just as tight as last time. I stare up into his gray-green eyes and find, to my horror and dismay, that he's smiling.

"The general is on his way," I say—my voice doesn't shake, doesn't waver, and I'm grateful for it. "You're done, Lanista. It's over."

"Is that so?" He looks bored, unsurprised—his fingernails rake down my chest, hard enough to form white lines on my brown skin. "You act as though I haven't been monitoring the situation. I'm aware of my predicament. How long do you think we have?"

His hands find my waistband.

Like Hel if I'm going to let Killián arrive here to find my pants down—like Hel. I have to stall, need to keep him talking.

"We're taking you to Yosif to stand trial," I say. "Are you afraid?"

"Not particularly." He snaps the waistband almost playfully—I flinch. "You're in a bit of a predicament here—and I think I can take Killián hand-to-hand. I have the advantage of home turf and am equipped with a knife. He'll be discombobulated, and that's if he makes it here at all—taking his soul was a neat trick, but at the end of the day, he'll go where you want him to go. Do you actually intend for him to see you like this?"

I don't have a response—no, I don't want Killián to find me tied to a damn headboard, but my alternative is being here alone. Escape isn't possible—I need reinforcements. I don't know how to bring him to this cabin, so I close my eyes and say a silent prayer. Bring him here, Yosif. Please, please bring him here.

Leómadura picks up the knife from where he tossed it—next to me on the pillow—and brings it beneath my chin. "Still breathing," he says musingly. "I suppose it went against the odds to hope he'd choke you to death. You're solid, though, and that surprises me—I felt your pain fade when our dear friend Bard put his hands on you. Perhaps—"

He doesn't have time to finish the sentence. Killián appears in the center of the room and slumps to the ground, eyes closed. Leómadura pushes himself off me and makes his way to Killián, checks his pulse, puts two fingers under his nostrils. The next thing I know he's taken rope from a nearby shelf and is binding Killián's hands and feet. "Your mind was still in the time web when you first showed up, too," Leómadura says as he secures the knots, sounding amused. "I don't suppose you thought to mention that to our general when he was pitching his latest scheme to you. Really—I should slit his throat. I wonder if that would kill him, or if he'd merely return to the Lands of My hands clench into fists. Panic rises in my chest, hot and heavy, coiling like a venombeast poised to strike. Leómadura takes an added length of rope, loops it around Killián's neck, and ties it to the table. If he starts moving, that noose is going to tighten—it won't be enough to hang him, but unless he's strong enough to drag the wood with him, it'll keep him in one place.

"No—I'd rather keep him alive," Leómadura decides. "I'm angry, see—I don't like what you both did to me. I was thinking about this, you know, as he was systematically breaking every bone in my body—thinking about what I'd do to you both if I ever had the opportunity. It kept me sane, kept me breathing through the pain. And now—lucky me—you're both here! We'll give him a bit of a show when he wakes up—whaddya think, Whoreson?" An idea comes to me—it's not a good idea, but it's something. I choose my left hand, tuck my thumb between my other fingers, jerk my wrist sharply down. It hurts, but I don't think it dislocated—and I'm going to need to dislocate it if I want to get out of these ropes. Now, while Leómadura is distracted. I try again, but I don't think I'm doing it hard enough—pulling my thumb out of its socket seems to be presenting me with some sort of mental block. Warm tears burn my eyes, but I blink them back, focus on the task at hand. I try again. And again.

Hurts like a bitch, but I never hear a pop.

Killián's coming to as Leómadura finishes knotting him around the table. His eyes blink open, unfocused and bleary, and he meets my eyes. Glances down at his bound wrists. Tries to sit up—the noose around his neck stops him, and he's jerked back. He's not gagged, though, and neither am I—when he speaks, his voice is low.

"Hello, Leó. Fate's clock is ticking."

"I hear nothing of the sort." Leómadura stands back and surveys his work. "What were you thinking, Killi? So desperate to save the whore you'd throw yourself into immediate peril? You're better than that—honestly, I don't know what you were thinking."

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"Untie me."

"So you can drag me to Yosif kicking and screaming?" Leómadura laughs a soft, light laugh. "I don't think so. How have you been, old friend?"

"No pleasantries." Killián's hands move beneath the ropes—there doesn't seem to be any give. "What do you want?"

"I want to be alive," Leómadura says immediately. "I want to have lived a long, happy life that ended with a natural death surrounded by my children—not that I had any, mind you, but if I'd just been given time…well. I suppose that's neither here nor there. I want to have lived a sin-free life that warranted a decked-out estate in the Lands of the Dead. I want to be free of L'Angly's voice, nagging and boasting and ridiculing me every time I close my eyes. What I really want, Killián, is to see you suffer. Are you ready to suffer?"

Killián doesn't answer. His Adam's apple bobs in his throat. In the pit of my stomach, I can feel the twinge of an emotion I'm certainly not feeling—it's like he's pushing calmness in my direction, thrusting it at me like he held out his scythe. Suddenly I'm able to breathe. The tears retreat. I'm not relaxed, not by a long shot, but I'm infinitely closer than I was before.

"Now." Leómadura returns to the bed, straddles me, touches my chest with the tip of his knife. "Where were we, Whoreson?"

I spit in his face. This time I really do manage it—I'm able to sit up as much as the ropes allow, and I use the momentum to project a glob of saliva and phlegm and whatever else I can manage onto his face. It hits him below the eye, on the mask—his expression contorts with disgust. He pulls it off, examines it, and tosses it on the floor beside my tattered shirt. Then he slaps me across the face with so much force that my neck tweaks. I bite my cheek—my mouth fills with the acidic twinge of blood. My eyes water. My nose runs.

"You really are disgusting, aren't you?" he says, and hits me again.

I don't cry out, and I blink rapidly to prevent wetness from spilling over onto my cheeks. Even if this gets worse—and it looks pretty damn bad from my angle—I'll take it with gritted teeth and dry eyes. I owe myself that much. I owe it to Killián.

Keep his attention on you. Killián's voice, in my mind. I think I can get free—I need time. Don't respond—this is a prayer, but he can hear when you think. Over and out.

"You took one of my fingers," Leómadura says—he's not looking at Killián, but he's clearly speaking to him. "I think I'll take something else from your whore."

His knife moves to my right nipple. As soon as I feel the kiss of steel I shriek, writhe, tug on my arms as hard as the rope allows. It does no good. The knife slices through, quick and clean, and heat explodes across my chest. It feels like I've been bitten by a venombeast—the blood is hot and thick, pooling at the wound's center, running down my chest. Leómadura digs his finger into it—I can't stop the scream that bursts from my lips—and touches it to his tongue. He looks at Killián, smiling. "I do hope Lefe doesn't use that helleborne too quickly," he says, lips red from my blood. "There's enough time for us to have a good deal of fun, don't you think?"

He rises just enough to tug the pants down my hips.

I don't have time to think, to breathe—I'm done. With a wrenching jerk that hurts only half as much as my throbbing nipple—or rather the gaping slash where it was a few seconds ago—I grab my thumb and jerk it down with as much force as I can muster. This time I hear a pop, and agony explodes around my right hand. Damn, damn, damn—why didn't I do the left? Tears streaming down my face, I tug my throbbing hand from the ropes, ignoring the burning flames around the maimed digit. I drive the fist into his nose—my vision goes white—and scream, a throat-splitting cry that cracks in my throat and throws out my ear drums. I drive my knee upward into the space between his legs, but the movement is stilted from my half-down pants. He recoils, hands flying to his face, blood spurting between his fingers. I fly to the ropes, trying to undo what's left of them with my injured hand—my fingers slip on the wax.

He shoves me down onto the mattress, grabs my free arm and twists it behind my back. My shoulder pops, and I scream again—this time it's barely more than a rasped slur of explosives. "You little shit," he hisses, and brings his elbow down on the back of my head—my vision fades to black. The next thing I know, Leómadura's no longer on top of me. There's a muffled thud as he hits the floor, and then the sound of flesh hitting flesh. I roll over, head pounding, do my best to tug up my pants with my maimed hand. Killián's bonds are loose on the ground, and he's punching Leómadura in the face, over and over, crouched over him like a wolf mid-hunt. Leómadura's lip is split, and his nose is gushing blood—I probably did that, though. His face is flushed from the blows, and the last one seems to knock him out—he sags, red streaming from his nose, his lips.

Killián rises, approaches me with Leómadura's knife in his hand. I flinch away from it, delirious and disoriented. It moves toward the ropes, and he slices through what's left of the binding with one clean swipe. "Can you sit up?" His voice is hoarse. "Are you…um."

He averts his eyes. My underwear are all the way up—thank Yosif for small miracles—but my pants are low on my hips. I use my good hand to adjust them. Then I sit up. One look at Killián's face lets me know that we are never, ever going to speak of this again.

Good.

"What now?" I can't meet his eyes.

"Now we summon Lady Death," he says. "Find some candles, will you?"

"You can't just snap?"

His smile is unpleasant.

"I'm not talking about Brid Naya'il—or another one of our Lady's incarnates," he says. "I speak of the Lady proper—she's our best chance at navigating the Lands of the Dead."

"I thought you said Yosif was coming."

"If he knew where we were, he'd be here by now," Killián says. "Find the candles, Ko."

I get up, glance down at my bloody chest, and vomit down my front.

My vision goes out.

I hit the ground.