The fire in my neck would not subside. It pulsed in time with my heartbeat, searing away the remnants of consciousness. Every movement of my head sent flares of white pain through me, forcing my fingers to dig into the rotting straw of the mattress.
I forced my eyelids open. The gloom of the small room felt viscous, almost tangible. Through a narrow slit near the ceiling, the gray, deathly light of morning filtered in. For slaves, dawn smells of dampness and despair.
I tried to push myself up—a cramp seized my back. My muscles had turned into overtightened strings, ready to snap at the slightest effort. My fingers, trembling, touched the skin beneath my jaw. Hot. The skin there was swollen, turning into a ragged scar that still oozed lymph. The brand. His personal brand, driven into my flesh with such fury as if he wanted to reach the very bone.
Yesterday... Nausea welled up in my throat. Cale's cold eyes. His snarl. The feeling of complete, absolute helplessness, when one's will simply dissolves under the pressure of another's predatory power.
A quiet creak of the door made me flinch. My body instinctively curled into a ball, bracing for a new blow.
"Quiet, it's me." Liam slipped inside, clutching a tray to his chest. "Stay down. Don't move, or the stitches will tear—the ones I managed to put in."
He set the bowl on the floor. The sharp, bitter scent of wormwood and various salves hit my nose. Liam crouched down, fishing a wet cloth out of the bowl.
"Does it hurt?" He reached toward my face.
"Like... red-hot iron..." My voice broke into a rasp. "Why are you here?"
"Cale ordered it," Liam said, applying a cold compress to my neck. "He said he needs you alive. Though by the look of it, you wouldn't say he cares much about that."
I hissed as the decoction touched the wound. The cold turned into an icy burn.
"Alive..." I tried to push his hand away, but I only had enough strength for a weak gesture. "Just so he can continue?"
"Stop." Liam gripped my head firmly, forcing me to look directly at him. "Drink this. Go on."
He held a mug of murky sludge to my lips. Bitter. So bitter my jaw clenched.
"Liam..." I gazed into his face.
In the dim light of the cell, his features seemed strangely familiar. Not just familiar—mirrored. The same high cheekbones, the same eye shape, only his were full of weary wisdom, while mine were flooded with nothing but terror.
"Your eyes..." I faltered.
"The same as yours?" He didn't look away. The cloth in his hands slowly cleaned the dried blood from my skin. "I know."
"Where are we from?" Every word was a struggle. "Do you remember... home?"
"Forget about home, Alina." Liam turned away sharply, wringing the rag back into the bowl. "There is no home. There is only this castle and the master."
"You're lying." I propped myself up on an elbow, ignoring the flash of pain. "Do you remember Mother? Or... the forest? Those pines by the cliff?"
Liam froze. His shoulders tensed under his cheap canvas shirt. He slowly turned his head, and I saw his lips tremble.
"Too many questions for someone who can barely breathe," he whispered, leaning closer. "If Cale hears you digging into the past..."
"He's already taken everything!" I caught his wrist. My fingers were ice-cold. "Liam, look at me. We aren't here by accident, are we? You know who we are, don't you?"
He was silent, searching my pupils as if looking for confirmation of some terrible suspicion of his own. His hand momentarily touched my cheek—almost tenderly, almost truly.
"Do you remember the medallion?" he breathed. "Small, made of dull silver, with a wolf carved into it?"
"Yes..." My heart skipped a beat. "Mother said that it was..."
The air in the room suddenly grew heavy. The smell of Liam's herbs vanished, displaced by something acrid and stifling. Smoke. A bonfire. Cold steel.
Liam recoiled so sharply that the bowl overturned, spilling the dark liquid onto the straw.
"Go," I whispered, already knowing who was coming.
"Too late." Liam feverishly grabbed the tray, his eyes wide with fear. "Stay still. Don't look at him."
He rushed out of the cell, nearly colliding with someone in the corridor. Heavy, measured steps. Every strike of a sole against the stone echoed in my mark like an electric discharge.
The door didn't just open—it was kicked in. Cale filled the entire doorway. The light from the corridor outlined his powerful silhouette, making him look like a monument of black granite.
He didn't enter. He just stood there, inhaling the scent of the room.
"Out," he barked over his shoulder to Liam, who was still cowering against the wall in the corridor.
The sound of quick, retreating footsteps followed. Cale stepped inside. The smell of smoke became unbearable; it clogged my lungs, making it hard to breathe.
"You sent him to heal me," I tried to sit up straighter, but the sheet slipped, exposing a shoulder bruised with purple spots.
Cale ignored my words. He approached until he was right over me, towering above. His gaze traveled slowly, almost lazily over my body: from my bare feet to the swollen mark on my neck. It stopped on my eyes.
"I see your strength is returning," his voice vibrated in his chest. "Since you've found time for idle chatter with the servants."
"He was just..." I faltered when his hand suddenly shot up.
Cale roughly grabbed my chin, jerking my head up. The pain in my neck exploded with new force. I cried out, clutching his wrist, but he didn't even flinch.
"What were you talking about?" He squeezed his fingers tighter. "About freedom? About those fairy tales Liam feeds himself at night?"
"About family," I spat in his face, pushing through the agony. "About what I had before you..."
"You have nothing but this mark." He released my chin and slowly shifted his palm to my throat.
The pain from his touch was unbearable. The brand responded to his magic, to his presence, pulsing like molten lead. I gasped for air, looking into his eyes, cold as a winter sky.
"Do you think that because you survived yesterday, you've earned the right to memories?" Cale leaned lower. His breath touched my ear. "You are a shadow. You are property."
"Kill me then," I croaked. "If I'm just a thing... why do you need this?"
"Death is too easy an escape for you, Alina." His thumb pressed down on the very center of the inflamed brand. "You will feel me in every breath. In every thought. You will wake up with my name on your lips, because I will it so."
He pressed on my throat a bit harder, cutting off my oxygen. The world before my eyes began to blur with a black veil. I didn't resist. I just looked at him, trying to find even a drop of pity, but saw only obsession turned into law.
"Look at yourself," he whispered, a terrifying tenderness slipping into his voice. "You're trembling all over. Your body acknowledges me, even if your pathetic mind tries to fight."
"I hate you..." The words barely escaped my constricted throat.
"Hate is an excellent feeling. It keeps you sharp." Cale let go of my throat but didn't move away. "Remember this day. Remember this feeling."
He straightened up, adjusting his leather bracer.
"Liam won't be coming here anymore. From now on, you will be watched by those who do not know how to pity."
"Why? He was just helping!" I tried to grab the edge of his armor, but he easily caught my hand, twisting my wrist.
"Because I decided so." He threw my hand aside like trash. "You've thought too much of yourself, slave. Your past is dead. Your future belongs to me."
He turned to leave, but stopped at the threshold. A heavy silence hung in the air, broken only by my ragged breathing.
"Cale..." I didn't know why I called him.
He slowly turned his head. His gaze pierced right through me, pulling out my soul.
"You will never leave," he said in a quiet, emotionless voice. "Even if I ordered you to run, you would stay. Because you are me."
The door slammed shut with a deafening crash. The bolt latched, cutting me off from the world.
I remained in the darkness. The pain in my neck subsided to a dull ache, but something inside had finally snapped. I pulled my knees to my chest, staring at the spot where Liam had stood. There, on the floor, in the puddle of spilled decoction, the gray light from the window reflected.
I touched the mark. It was hot. It was alive. And it was the only thing that now connected me to reality.
He was right. I won't leave. Not because the walls are strong. But because he burned away everything in me that could have wanted freedom.
Only emptiness remained, and the smell of smoke that had soaked into my skin down to my very heart.