Toren could barely lift his head. The last round with Aldreth’s whip-master had taken more from him than he could say. His back burned, an inferno of ragged flesh that threatened to sweep him over the edge of the volcano from which he’d never return. He had to remain alert, had to focus his mind on something else before he became lost to pain and madness. He could not give in. Could never give in. He turned his thoughts to intelligent violet eyes and puzzling speech. She said she would save him, yet held back her healing gifts and threw herself into his hastily conjured rift instead. He didn’t understand, just knew at that moment he couldn’t let her perish from the spell of the bands pulling him back. So he’d oblique the Healer Enchantress, using the last of his reserves and now paid the price for it beneath Aldreth’s lash and he did not even know why.
He could not really be certain that ‘twas not all trickery, another ploy of Aldreth’s to confuse him. Yet truth be confessed, he could not rid the maiden from his thoughts. There was something about her, something familiar, like awakening from a dream that he could not bring back to mind.
Charity. She had freely given her name, her true source of power. Yet she was clearly working for Aldreth or at least the witch had some sort of hold over her, otherwise she would have healed him, would she not?. ‘Twas a healer’s creed to heal all she could.
"I'm going to save you Toren Limont. I need you to trust me."
Trust her? She'd pretended to begin to heal him and then sabotaged his magic and used it for her own purposes—whatever they may be—and then slipped through time on the strength of his power. Strength that he desperately needed now to resist Aldreth.
Mayhap that had been the ploy. Trickery to siphon away his reserves. Well, it had worked. Yet…even still he was hard-pressed to belief the maiden, this Charity, had meant him harm.
It made no sense. The flush of fever heated his skin where the cold grainy stone dug into the whip lashes upon his back where he hung against it from his wrists. Aldreth had been livid upon his return. Mayhap he'd imagined the entire happening? Mayhap he had not really circumvented the hold on the spelled bands, short time that it lasted, and traveled through time at all? Aye, and mayhap Aldreth had set her whip master upon him for no other reason than it pleased her.
Which it did. She had watched each stripe of the lash with rapt attention, a heady excitement flush upon her features. She’d traced her finger along his bloody chest and brought it to her lips. ‘Twould not amaze him had she taken up the lash herself.
His sanity was slipping, no longer able to tell dreams from truth.
He must conserve his reserves, little that remained. Mayhap Shaw had already taken his family and clan to Reolin Skene and from there into the Shadowrood and they were beyond the witch’s reach. If that were so, if there was some way for him to know with certainty that they were safe, then holding out against Aldreth would be a moot point and at least his soul would have peace as the witch stripped the last of his humanity from him.
If only he had a way of knowing they were gone, safely within the realm of the Fae.
I'm going to save you.
Toren ground his head back against the wall.
Damn the healer and damn her soothing healer’s voice. He did not want to think on her because her lie pulled to him. He ached to believe her. Believe that there was something to do that could spare him. Those dark violet eyes had been so convincing, he’d almost fallen prey to her lies. He had fallen prey. He’d brought her here to his time. He’d let his guards down and let her magic touch upon his. Her magic had been weak, insignificant, yet he’d felt…something. An allure, something so right and familiar about her he’d opened his magic to hers.
And what had she done with it?
Used him.
She rode his magic back to his time and abandoned him.
To scurry off to Aldreth and comply with her mistress’s bidding.
‘Twas fitting that healers were also called enchantresses.
They took a man’s hope and belief only to stomp it into the ground like dust under her dainty traitorous feet.
Despair pressed into his heart.
Exhausted and shivering from fever, Toren let his head sink and tried to force the image of the beguiler’s sweet face out of his thoughts.