Episode 226: An Exceptional Case of Torture (Aadya)

The pain was exceptional. It was consuming, her body recoiling from her bond, aching for the distance to be bridged between Greg and herself.

Her stomach burned as the skin fused together from the c-section. Her heart thudded as her body used what blood it had left. It was almost cruel that she hadn’t lost enough to be unconscious.

She was with Greg. Every step of the c-section and every moment of his torture, they were bound and together in body and soul.

She wanted to throw up. Her body arched forward then recoiled back in agony of her still open stomach. She hadn’t had Spaden bother with stitches or glue, it would have to heal despite the torture.

Rhyss was there, his hand easing her back against the bed.

“What magic do you have?” she asked.

“Wicca.” He looked her over, then sat. “What do you need? Anything, whatever.”

“A travel pack.”

He hesitated. She almost repeated herself, insisted, demanded because she was a queen.

She knew if she demanded, ordered, she was going nowhere. She wanted to laugh at the idea but a dozen pricks surrounding her heart prevented her from breathing much.

Her stomach still hurt, beyond any other pain. She felt remorse for subjecting Greg to it, for delivering the babies that night.

“Okay.” Rhyss glanced at the cabinets and the open door, that led to the room full of supplies. “I can make one.”

He left, for a moment. In that moment, she felt a heavy object collide with Greg’s body. She bit her tongue to the point of drawing blood, to avoid yelling. Clay hopped next to her and nuzzled against her hand.

She couldn’t – didn’t have it in herself – to massage his ears. She pinched her nails into her palm.

She released all tense points. Greg didn’t need more pain, even if Aadya did. She would bear this in silence, without protest from her own body.

When Rhyss returned, she could see on his face that she had yelled, despite her attempts not to.

“I don’t want Talise listening to this while she’s in labor,” Aadya explained.

“Okay. Where are we going?”

“A beach.”

Rhyss handed her a travel pack. She clasped it in her hand then looked at him, meeting his warm eyes.

“We have to go to the conference room.”

It was just down the hall from these rooms, a two minute crawl.

“Oh you know what? Hang on.” Rhyss left to make another travel pack. She knew it was necessary, but her body was coiled with tension. Whatever was coming, Greg was terrified of it.

“Okay. Can you walk?” Rhyss asked.

She tried to stand, knowing better but wanting out – away.

Her entire body shook, pain scouring every inch of her leading from her gut.

She knew she had screamed, though she hadn’t registered it. Rhyss picked her up, cradling her in his arms. “It’s okay.”

Tears fell, the pain vibrating through her. Heat, the sensation of burning in a very unique way, and the intensity where each prick filled her skin amplifying the pain a thousand times over was too much. She couldn’t… anything. If she had been alone, she wasn’t sure she could survive what was coming. Not on her own.

She gave Rhyss her magic, everything she had at once.  “It’s going to get worse.”
He walked down the hall and opened the conference room with the hand that supported her back. “Don’t forget two things and I’m probably going to say them too much.”

“Hm?”

As soon as they were in the room, she transported him. She was at the beach, a safe place even if her body was in misery.

“One, this isn’t actually happening to you. Your body is okay. And he chose this. And he’s going to be fine, in the end. So three things.”

She laughed a little, which hurt more. Her stomach was struggling to heal and she could feel herself losing blood, too much blood. She set her hand to her abdomen and burned the flesh shut.

She winced at the smell, but Rhyss kept holding her against his chest. Then she felt a pang; her heart being shredded not physically but in another way. She felt cheating through the elixir for the first time.

She cut the bond before the withered cord could reach her, kill her.

She cried, knowing it wasn’t his choice but feeling like a mess of a person. She could have died. She was there, on an island with her best friend’s son and scared and alone and more vulnerable than she had been in almost two decades. Rhyss held her against him, his arms wrapped around her and her legs draped over his, while she figured out how to move on from whatever had happened. The elixir had been betrayed; whoever had done it would be dead now.

When she could feel again, she felt even Greg relax in a sort of fear and wonder. She tried to figure out what was going on, but the dragons could not communicate between realms. He was still held there, still captive to the whims of whoever came in next.

She tried to breathe, steady breaths.

“I know,” she replied to Rhyss. “This won’t be as bad as last time.”

Last time, she had felt the heat of Drey burning for days. Her body couldn’t shake the sensation. She’d found solace with Meldrick, solace in ice.

“Last time?” Rhyss asked. He brushed her matted hair away from her face, trying out the new water magic to get it to cooperate more.

“When Drey died, he burned himself to death and I nearly did too. If I do burn, you can pull the fire out.”

“Okay. I will.”

Aadya slid from his lap to his side, now that the pain was only a dull ache. She felt stronger with her stomach shut, glad that she hadn’t kept Spaden any longer. He didn’t need to see what she was going through, performing the c-section was enough for him to go through in one night.

She watched the waves, and let them carry her away by matching her breaths to them.

Rhyss was there, ever present.

“So…” Rhyss began. “He was Talise’s dad?”

“Drey? Yes.”

“How long have you known my parents?” He asked.

“Eighteen years. Drey knew Indigo when she was a fairy, Nell is her brother. We helped them.” The distraction was useful. She was thankful he was there, not pitying her or acting as though she needed to push through now. He was just there, trying and succeeding at being useful.

“You dated Talise,” she asked, because Talise still hadn’t been forthcoming about it. “How long?”

“A few weeks. Like…maybe a dozen dates overall, maybe not even. It’s weird that she has kids that are mine. That I have kids.”

His voice sounded more distant, and he leaned back on his palms.

Aadya tried to figure out what was bothering him, something big.

She couldn’t figure it out, so she asked. “What happened tonight?”

“Emily stopped by. She had to go back, and I stayed here.”

She let her hand slide over to his, hoping some touch would offer comfort. “Greg had to go too.”

“I know.” He laughed, hollow and distant. “They suck.”

Aadya leaned against his shoulder, their hands still touching. It did suck, and even in a beautiful place like the island the pain of the loss was something she couldn’t ignore. Something that extended beyond the physical pain.

For now.

She knew more physical pain was coming, pain she wouldn’t be able to resist.

As for the emotional loss, it was a pain she was going to have to live with after this night, one Rhyss was going to have to live with.

And he’d lost two years of Ella and Jax. Now he was losing time with Emily’s babies. Shared was rarely the same.

If Aadya had tried harder, perhaps she could have anticipated this evening. It wasn’t the upcoming attack, but it laid the framework. It was an expensive lesson in warfare. An expensive lesson in love extending too deeply when there was work to do.

She looked up at Rhyss. He was there, the most odd addition to her evening.
“Thank you for helping.” She tried to move away, but when she winced from the lingering pain of her molten abdomen, he pulled her closer.

She let herself settle. If not now, she would be there soon.

She watched the stars, twinkling above. The sky was different from the Dells. It was brighter. The thick band of their galaxy stretched across the sky like a scar, ripping at the seams of existence.

The stars were an infinite distraction, just as the attack had been.

If she were planning an attack, she would use another large event to mask it. Perhaps tonight was just a mask, something she was supposed to miss.

“I was too blinded by tomorrow to see today,” she admitted.

“Yeah.” His hand ran down her back. “I bet all that stress is distracting.”

It was. Everything was distracting, distractions.

Her job was never to see the bigger picture. Others handled that.

“Did he stop being tortured or is it easier because you’re further away or something?” Rhyss asked.

“The person torturing him made an advance on him, and as the elixir punishes the person you cheat with, she may need a few minutes to recover.”

It answered a question, that the elixir did work without intent to cheat.

Unless Greg was into more kinky things than she had anticipated.

It was a hopeful thought, an inaccurate thought.

He laughed and held her closer.

“They aren’t done with him yet,” she continued.

“That is a weird way to come on to someone,” he joked.

She laughed too, and rested down so her head was cradled in his lap. Whatever came next, she would give herself to Rhyss. She would let him be her strength tonight. She had handled the c-section, she had fought when Drey had died.

Tonight, under the stars, she wanted to breathe. To be held.

Held in a way she had never been before.

“There are these sharp things all over his body,” she explained. “They’re pressed into his skin. They conduct electricity and when you pull on them they stick, like they have barbs on them hooked into his skin, but small.”

“So not totally better.”

Not totally better, but if she had felt complete relief the pain would be even more unbearable.

Rhyss’s trailed his fingers along her arm, his gaze fixated on the stars. She followed his eyes. Even in the Dells, the sky was not as brilliant as here. She’d long wished Drey was alive to share the starry night with. Instead, she was with Rhyss.

She closed her eyes, her mind entranced by the sensation of the pads of his fingers.

“Once when I was a kid, some guys hurt me. I just told myself at the beginning that it was going to be bad, but then it was going to be over.”

“How bad was it?”

“I got dragged down a road full of potholes and broken glass, with no shirt on.”

She took his hand in hers. “What did they want from you?”

“Cult stuff. That’s all anyone in Sylem wants. I think they would’ve tried a lot harder if they knew who I was.”

“The benefits of a false identity,” she mused.

His hand fell from hers, continuing to trail her skin in a soothing sensation.

“My real name isn’t Aadya. It isn’t even Elaira.”

He looked down at her. “Yeah? What is it?”

“I don’t know.” She just knew, by luck, that there was more to her past than just Elaira.

“Well I didn’t know mine until a couple weeks ago. And I found out I have kids.”

She knew how he felt, knew so much what he was going through. The had her scars too. She knew what it was like to meet your own kids, beyond their infancy.

“If…” Rhyss’s body tensed and he held her, still for a moment. “Anything happens to me, will you tell them I wanted to know them more?”

She almost laughed, because she had the same sentiment toward Palila and Rhen. “I will,” she agreed. “But Talise should hear that. I won’t be here too long, I think.”

“Maybe Niels. If I told Talise, she’d argue with me.”

Aadya laughed. Again, the same sentiment. It felt like being inside their own globe, looking at one another as though they were mirrors.

“Where are you going?” Rhyss asked.

The same place as him – a death more permanent than her own line could protect her against. They’d been brought together for a reason, she could sense it. She could sense her bond, entangled with him.

“The same place as you.”

She wasn’t sure Nell would be there for Palila and Rhen like others would. She knew he had good intentions, but that his intentions didn’t always translate.

She knew what she wanted, to know with confidence that he would be there every day. That Konrad and Meldrick would be there too. At least Konrad.

She hoped Rhyss needed the same thing, because she could offer it.

“Niels was there most of the pregnancy,” she began. “He will always love them as his own. No unique treatment.”

It set Niels apart. Meldrick and Konrad got along well enough, but Niels excelled at parenting children that weren’t biologically his. It was one of the reasons she knew he would be an amazing king someday, probably soon. His capacity to love…

She screamed.

Mid sentiment her eye began to hurt. The pain confused her, rubbing. She blinked, again and again, but the pressure was a shared sensation.

Her skin blazed. Unexpected, unrelenting, the scratching continued on and on.

“You’re here on this island place,” Rhyss whispered.

“This is my island,” she repeated back. She wasn’t there, the pain wasn’t real.

The pain was real, the cause wasn’t real to her.

She said, through through staggering breaths. “This is where i go when I can’t be anywhere else.”

He was worried, maybe about her and the way her body reacted, maybe about Ella and Jax. Maybe about it all.

“It’s really nice,” he said. “How’d you find it?”

A few years ago, she had retreated to the island to scream. The need for space, for an outlet, had come when Jasmine had been found.

“It came to me,” she explained. Apa gave me a vision of it.” She had transported in desperation. She’d been held as a prostitute. Konrad had destroyed her captors and she had destroyed Jasmine’s memories, despite promising she would never do that to someone. She’d gone to the island and screamed until her voice was gone.

“You’re actually my first guest.”

“Maybe we can come back sometime when you aren’t wishing you were dead.”

Maybe.

She focused on her breathing. The pain in her eye was present, excruciating but tolerable.

An idea formed in her mind. She pushed through the pain and focused. The bond could work two ways, she could do this.

Aadya met his eyes. “I’m going to do something. Something to give Greg one second of peace. And you need to help. When I’m done, pull all the fire out. You can freeze me too, whatever works.  It will be one quick burst.”

“Will you warn me?”

Her other eye began to burn. Before it could escalate, she pulled Rhyss’s hand to her. “Now.”

She pulled the air from around them and all the heat, she filled herself and in one burst let it go.

The air sent her away from Rhyss, just as the flames began to burn blue. He pulled her back, using his own magic to remove the heat and hold her there.

Her eye stopped hurting beyond an ache. Her plan, her transfer of magic or ideas or whatever she had done had staved off Greg’s suffering.

“They will be mad, but it was worth it.” she took a deep breath. There seemed to be a line in luck, between inevitable and inevitable because you made it so.

Greg, she knew, was going to die. To hasten his death was not changing the end result.

She began to pull heat into her, like Drey had done years ago. “I can kill Greg, if you can help me. “

“Okay, what do you need.”

She continued to draw heat in, to let it grow inside her.

“I gave you luck. You’re going to let me burn, control it as luck tells you to, and when luck says stop me – stop me.”

She laid her entire being in his arms. Then, she let it go.

Burning wasn’t the right choice.

She pushed the heat out. She focused on removing it, on ensuring every bit of heat had left her body.

Rhyss looked at her, puzzled. She smiled, and continued to push heat into him, into the world.

Her skin grew colder. Everything grew colder. She felt her heart slow until each beat lasted longer than a thought. She let the cold encompass her mind until each thought was a sluggish trail masked in fatigue.  

It grew, until she felt the elixir break, shattered like glass into a million pieces. She was too close to death herself to cry, to cold for tears to flow.

She was still.

Then, heat filled her. Rhyss worked in a slow way, not overheating her or shocking her body beyond what it already felt.

She blinked, her eyes encrusted from the ice. “Thank you.”

Her eyes, free of pain, flickered closed. She gave him her all, her body limp as it melted against his.

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