“Why do you do this, Inmate?” Fearghas’s voice rang out from behind me. “Follow the rules of Slykhelm and you can live out the rest of your days without harm.”

Dropping my head forward, I released a low moan.

His boots made scraping sounds over the stone flooring as he made his way around to face me. Eyes trained on the ground in front of me, I had the unpleasure of seeing his brown shoes first. A pale hand reached up and gripped my chin, tipping my bowed head up slightly to meet his. Hard to be intimidating when the person you were trying to intimidate was taller than you, my lips quirked at the thought but I quickly suppressed it. 

He squeezed my chin roughly as the fingertips of his other hand trailed from my cheek to my collarbone. Disgust rolled harshly in my gut from the sensation of his touch but I was careful. Pain was the only clear expression to be seen on my face. Dull brown eyes spent a few seconds on each part of my face, trying to piece together my features through the haze spell. Once Mab realized that she couldn’t strip me of my internal identity like she almost had when I was child, she did the next best thing. She stripped me of my outer identity. After all, it was harder for the guards to treat me humanely when they didn’t have a face to look at.

“You’ve only been here for a few years and already, your starting trouble. What was the point of attacking another inmate, hmmm?” Fearghas asked, his grip on my chin tightening further. 

Twisting my wrists, I gripped the chains in my hands and muttered inaudibly. 

He tilted his head with a smirk, “What was that?” 

“Come closer.” I whispered, blinking heavily. 

Stepping into my personal space, Fearghas’s nose was almost touching mine as he murmured, “That’s a good girl.”

Ugh, repulsive asshole. 

Licking my lips, I breathed, “Because the crazy little blue fish was talking.” And then I headbudded the son of a bitch. 

Laughing I watched as he stumbled backwards, blood pouring between his fingers from his freshly broken nose. 

Quick as a snake, Fearghas brought his left fist back and delivered a heavy blow to my right cheekbone. “You just don’t know when to quit do you?”

Taking a beat, I straightened my spine and shook off all pretenses of exhaustion while rolling my jaw around. The pain was a dull throb that was already disappearing, without his tools the man was weak and pathetic. I’d be buried before I let him ‘break me in’. 

“What are you talking about, Ugly?” I rolled my eyes dramatically. “I answered your question.”

His brown eyes narrowed before he grabbed my jaw again, “Let’s try this one more time. Why did you attack that inmate?”

“He got in the way of my movie.” I shrugged. 

“You beat a man unconscious because he ruined your movie?”

“Why are you judging me? He’ll live. Besides, he learned a very important lesson today. Don’t interrupt Macha’s favorite fish movie.”

Shoving my head away, he gave me his back as he turned in small circles presumably thinking over what I’d just said. His head started shaking and then he strode to the wall behind me. Unable to see, I listened to his boots crossing the stones followed by a swishing sound that I was positive was the whip. Tilting my chin up, I literally looked down my nose at him as he moved around to stand in front of me. Pain from the earlier lashes still sung an excruciating tune but I was never one to take the easy way out. 

“I don’t believe you. You like to play the crazy card, Inmate. But I think there’s another reason you attacked him.” 

Yea, he said I’d be sucking his cock for the rest of his prison sentence. 

“I just told you what happened,” I sighed. “That’s not my fault if you’re too stupid to understand that.” 

He cracked the lash across the ground, the end of it connecting with the top of my foot. The spikes drilled between the delicate bones and had me cracking a tooth in an effort to stop my scream of agony. Rivers of blood snaked down my body from seemingly everywhere but it was the hit to my foot that had me wanting to give in. Fuck that. Nothing short of another iron stake to my chest will ever make me scream in pain again. And also, I flat out refused to give this waste of space that honor. 

Fearghas tutted, “Tell the truth or things will only get worse for you.”

“You have serious trust issues, don’t you? How worse could you honestly make things for me? These injuries won’t last, as soon as you knock me out and take the cuffs off so I can heal they’ll be gone. I’m in this shit hole until my scheduled execution, you have no power.” 

Instead of answering, he flipped the whip back over his shoulder tearing the flesh from my foot in the process. “I think we’re going to have a lot of fun for the duration of your sentence, Inmate. And I can’t wait to show you just how much worse it can be.” 

Squeezing the chains, I grinned, “You can try.” 

A long gash ripped across my abdomen, dark red blood soaking the small gray shorts covering my privates. The next hit wrapped around my upper thigh, stripping away skin and muscle as it was pulled back. Fresh tears quickly streamed down my face mixing with the sweat and blood coding my body. 

“You know, I might be willing to overlook all this if you apologized.”

I kicked out with my good leg and rebroke his nose with the heel of my foot sending him flying back on his ass. “Fuck you and your mole rat ancestors, Warden. I’m not apologizing for shit.” And then I spit blood and pieces of my cracked teeth at his feet. 

Scrambling up, his face twisted into an enraged snarl at the insult. Without the means to protect myself, I could only turn my head away to minimize the damage. From the corner of my vision, I watched the tip closing in on my eye and then felt the agonizing squish-

“NO!” 

Panting, I cupped my left eye and scrambled back from the whip speeding towards me. It was only when my back rammed into the headboard that I realized where I was. Chills of relief raced up my arms and I smothered gasping breaths while trying to figure out if anyone had heard me. The sound of rushing blood was thunderous in my ears making it difficult to hear anything else. You’re fine, Macha. You’re in camp full of allies. It was just a dream. He’s dead. You killed him on your way out. He’s nothing.

When a shadow passed in front of the tent flap, I stilled my features into a calm if slightly embarrassed mask. Thankfully, I wasn’t drenched in sweat this time. A woman in a blue soldier’s uniform with pastel green hair and brown skin pushed the flap back and stepped inside. Her eyes searched the room first with a hand on the hilt of her sword that fell away once she realized there was no danger. 

Looking me over, she asked, “Everything alright, My Queen?” 

“Everything’s fine, woke up with a derrem beetle in my face. You know how it is, Babes.” I replied, ignoring the urge to deny the title she’d given me without question.

Green eyes narrowed a bit before understanding took over, “Yes, those can be quite huge. I’ll make sure the others know it’s nothing to worry about.” 

“Thank you, …”

“Bria.”

“Thank you, Bria.” 

She nodded and moved as if to leave but stopped instead in the doorway. Bria opened her mouth a few times looking uncertain. Not wanting to have the conversation she was probably going to start, I stayed quite. Standing there for another moment, she finally left after bowing her head and murmuring, “My Queen.” 

Releasing a heavy breath, my brows furrowed at the sharp pain in my jaw making itself known. Pressing the tips of my fingers against both sides, I searched for the source of the ache but it didn’t seem to be from the outside. Tentatively, I stuck my pointer finger inside my mouth to gently feel around. The pad of my finger came across a knife like edge and with the help of my tongue, I nudged it loose. Pulling the piece from my mouth, I let it roll into my palm in order to get a good look at it. Blood inked the tips of my fingers while in my palm laid a good sized piece of my back molar. 

For a long time, I could only stare at the jagged shard of tooth and then I dug in for more. Piece after piece was pulled from my gums and placed into my increasingly bloody palm. The ach in my jaw was already lessening significantly as my healing abilities kicked in. Teeth normally took about an hour to regenerate which was much longer than cuts or scratches. Which meant I now had the joyful experience of finding out how to eat with two missing back teeth. 

The shattered teeth clinked in my palm as I shook them lightly. Bloody scratches to my wrists, thighs, and face weren’t new to me but cracked teeth were. In fact, I haven’t thought about that particular memory in a very long time. The torture of that day was memorable but the man who inflicted it wasn’t. Fearghas was an unremarkable man with deep seeded personal issues carrying out Mab’s orders to make my life a living hell. Making him mean anything more than a person from my past would give him a power over me that he didn’t deserve. He didn’t mean anything to me when he was ripping me apart and he didn’t mean anything to me now. My emotional talk with Dougal must have dredged that memory from the deepest pit of my mind. 

I did love that movie, though. How could I forget about it?

As the sounds of the waking camp penetrated the thin tent walls, I flipped the fur covering back and slid from the bed. Crouching by the side of the short bed post, I pulled back the white rug from the tent lining to see the grass beneath. With a small nudge of my will a thick square of earth rose to hover in the air as I tossed the evidence of my cracked teeth into the hole. A two finger tap on the hovering earth sent it falling back into the hole and looking as if it was never touched. 

Releasing the rug, I stood and crossed over to the side of the tent blocked by the changing screen. Taking an outfit from the chest by the empty tub, I tugged the long sleeved white tunic over my head and then shimmied my way into the brown breeches. Once my boots were on, I glanced at the mirror hanging on the changing screen. The bags under my eyes looked better than they had the other day but not by much. Pulling the metal band from my hair, I combed through the knotted strands and undid the small braids. 

With the little metal rings in my hands, I twisted them into straight needles and then went about twisting them around the frizzier blue strands. When my long hair looked semi-decent, I stared down at the last thin needle laying in my palm. What if…What if I was locked in another cell? What if we lost again and Mab took me hostage? No, no. I couldn’t do that again. I needed a back up plan and it wasn’t like the metal would poison my blood. Could I really do this though? Oh, who was I kidding. If it helped me escape by death or by lock picking, I was going to do it. 

Carefully, I angled the needle and pushed it under the fleshy part of my right wrist. The slight bulge of it under my skin was nearly invisible and a small bead of blood the only tell. Swiping it away with the pad of my thumb, I strapped my swords to my back and strided to the doorway. My silver waist chains locked around my hips as I went but my feet stalled out just in front of the thin tent opening, Nope. Can’t do it. Can’t do it. Spinning on my heel, I began to pace from the desk to the very thin barrier between me and all those Fae. 

As soon as I leave this tent all I’m going to hear is ‘My Queen’ this and ‘My Queen’ that. Was I really prepared for that? Oh, Divines. Am I sweating? 

Taking deep breaths, I flapped the front of my tunic to try and cool myself down. Relax, Macha. You’ve literally laughed in the face of torture. You can make it through today, no problem. Just whatever you do, do not explode. You need to tell them the truth, yes. But you need to do it in a way that doesn’t paint yourself to be the villain they already believe you to be. Because let’s face it, you explode and tell the truth like that. You’re going to purposely tank yourself. 

Blowing out a long breath, I closed my eyes and counted to fifteen in a slow rhythm. At fifteen, I straightened my shoulders and nodded my head. Yea. I can do this. What did that little blue fish always say? Just keep swimming? Yes. Aright, bitch. Just keep swimming, don’t drown. Just keep swimming. 

Amazingly, I could feel my muscles relax and my breathing even out while a small smile made its home on my face. Holy shit! This is actually working! Why haven’t I been doing this before? Humming the tune of the crazy little blue fish under my breath, I walked to the door and out into the bright sunlight of the morning. 

Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, Just keep swimming.

——————————————————————————-

Another flash of what life was like for Macha in Slykhelm, sorry if that was too graphic but I do love me some bloody scenes. Anyone starting to hate Cillian for putting her in there yet? Lol. 

As always, feel free to leave a comment on whatever you liked on the chapter! 

Smooches, Verbage 💋