| Chapter Thirteen | Hand of Truth |

  Adara could not sleep, she could not close her eyes as the troll and orc men surrounded her.  Her arms and legs were bent in unnatural ways, ways that made her whole body ache with pain.

  The gag was tight against her lips, which were cracking and the corners of her mouth, which were bleeding.

  They laid her in the sand, the right side of her body sunk into it.  She had to breathe carefully through her mouth, for when she tried to breathe through her nose, she would only breathe the flaming hot sand.  No matter how hard she struggled to roll over, she remained immobile.  That was what they craved.

  Power.  They had it, and she did not.  They had so much of it, that they did not bother chaining her to the ground, because they knew she would not run.  There would be no use.

  She could not run if she wanted to, and if she could, she would not get far.  Maybe a foot or two before someone stuck her in the back with an arrow.

The sound of crunching sand under thick boots fills her ears, a large shadow on the ground engulfs her as large hands grip her arm.  She wants to scream.  Don't touch me.  She wants to cry.  Let me go.  But instead she lies there and allows him to drag her.  Drag her by her arms, through the sand. 

  She is hurled into the hard sand, her should thuds painfully and she grits her teeth.  Spit dribbles down her chin as she pushes her head back, twisting her body.  A hand drags itself down her shin, but she cannot see who it is.  She can just feel the rough fingertips and smell the faint scent of copper.

  "What exactly do you call yourself now?" The gravelly voice asks.  "Adara?" He asks again, "we both know that this is not your name."

  Adara can hear the blood flowing through her veins, her ears thumping like drums.  She wants to scream.  Stop.  She just lies there, her eyes peeled back and non-blinking.  She flinches as his laugh lifts through the air, those around him embrace his cool mocking chuckle and echo him.  Like they were mindless beings.

  "We also have a unique opportunity to finish this before it goes too far," the man says, and moves closer.  She stares up into familiar eyes, but an unfamiliar face.  "My father always said that out of all of his students, you were his favorite, and yet I do not see why."

  The orc man comes closer, dragging his fingertips up her thighs and over her stomach.  Over her sides and gingerly over her collarbones.  He stops at her lips, taking the gag out of her mouth delicately, as though he held an infant in one hand and a vase in the other.  She licks her lips, her entire mouth tasted foreign, her mouth sore.

  "One word and all of this will be over, Jasper," he says, staring at her.  He looked too much like his father.  She could remember hearing that name on his tongue, right when he would teach her new lessons.  "Just say it," he smiles, a twisted, beast-like grin.

  She stares dully into his eyes that remained hate-filled while the rest of him was tranquil and relaxed.  Just like his father.  She presses her lips together, her gaze never wavers.  He stared at her intently, disbelief clouds his mind as he realizes what she is doing.

  "My father always said you were a quiet soul," he takes his finger and grabs her chin gently between his two large fingers.  "Now is not the time to express your solitude, we need you to say that fucking word." He grips her harder.  She glances briefly down at his hip, a small dirk attached itself to him. 

  "Fuck you," Adara spits in his face.

  He immediately brings his hand up to his face, wiping the mess from his eyelid.  He looks down at his hand.  He reaches behind her and cuts her arms free, taking her left hand gently into his own hands.  She stiffens as he runs his fingers over the top of her palm. 

  "My father always said you were difficult," he whispers as he breaks her hand.

  Her screams filled the air for what felt like an eternity, but they were silenced with a hand.  He clamped his thick hand over her mouth, smacking the side of her head roughly, her ear ringing.  Her eyes no longer meet his as she stares down at her hand, her bones visibly misshapen and protruding in the wrong ways under the skin. 

  "Say the goddamned word," he hisses, smacking her over the ear again.  She cries out into his hand, her free hand grabs his wrist and pushes him off. 

  "No," she hisses, reaching quickly for the dirk with her free hand.  She slices the ropes quickly that bound her legs and she kicks the rest orc backwards.  Standing quickly, she gazes up at the sun that loomed above.  Closing her eyes, she thought she could see her mother and father, in Juula, sitting for a picnic that was never interrupted.  Sighing, she brings the dirk down into her gut.  She never felt it.

  The prince sucked in a sharp breath as he grabs Adara's shoulder with one hand, the other hand laid limply as the dirk went through his forearm.  He looked at her slowly, her eyes open slowly, like she was waking from a dream.  Her eyes flicker down to his hand, then back up to his face.  He gazes down at her hand, how it already began to turn black and green and purple with blue veiny streaks. 

  They only get to stand there a moment before hands pull them away from each other.  The prince is drug to the ground, arms holding him still as several men grab Adara, holding her down.  He could hear every groan and grunt of pain, and he watches her eyes widen as they come forward with a drink. 

  "My father always said that you liked everything rough," the man grunts, and for a moment, the prince freezes.  He can understand them.  He could organize peace, perhaps.  Adara's words split his skull in half, telling him not to speak.  He grits his teeth as the man grips her head in his hands and claps his hand over her ear.  Her cries silence, as soon as her mouth opens, he shoves the liquid down her throat, "let us find out if that is true."

  She does not have a chance to react as they pull the cup away, two men holding her arms back and another watching guard.  She was so small compared to them, like a mouse surrounded by elephants.  Her mouth slowly closes, her chest stops heaving, and her eyes roll back into her head as her body convulses in spasms, her body falls to the ground.

  The prince tries to pull away, fists clenched.  A twang of pain rockets down his arm, blood dripping from the dirk that remained in his arm.  Blood leaked from her ear, and her body slowly stopped moving.  She looked dead, and the prince hung his head.  He told himself that he could not like her, she was his enemy.

He was unsure as to if he still believed that.

  He let out quick gasp as the orc rips the dagger from his arm, tearing the flesh, blood pouring from his arm.  A wave of nausea washes over him as he pushes his hand on the wound, trying to staunch the bleeding, but blood bubbled through his fingers.  He did not look at his arm though, he just stares as they tie Adara's mangled hand to the other, and her ankles together.

  A hand grips the prince's hair, pulling his head back, exposing his neck to the already bloodied dirk.  "You care for her," the orc laughs, pushing the tip deeper into his skin until it barely cuts through, blood rising to the surface.  "She must care for you," he laughs, "considering she risked her life for you before."

  "That means you are leverage," another troll pipes in, his lips curled back in a bearlike way.

  He almost laughed.  She would not hesitate to save herself over him.  His mind skipped over the time she threw herself in front of him to save him.  The day he was leverage would be the day his father told him that he would be king.

  "Let us see if you and your friend are useful," the orc laughs, dragging him backwards by his hair.  He has to let go of his arm, trying to reach behind him, to crawl.  He grunts in pain as he drags him through the sand, a trail of red behind them.  The prince grimaces as he is slung into the ground.  "Fix him, do not let him die," the orc orders.

  As soon as the large orc man was out of earshot, the prince turned to Octavian.  "Nightsong, what happened to her?" Octavian asks.  The prince brings his shirt to his mouth, using his teeth to rip a strip of the shirt free.  "I could hear her scream."

  "They hurt her," the prince chokes as Octavian uses the strip, tying it above the holes in his arm.  The prince wallows in the pain, groaning to avoid screaming.  "They know her, they want something from her," the prince whispers.

  "What would they want from her?" Octavian asks.

  "We do not know her life before we met her," the prince whispers.  "There is no telling what kind of mess she got herself into, obviously some bad deal of some kind."

  "What makes you say that?"

  "They broke her hand," the prince whispers, "just because she wouldn't say something, and they plan to do worse."  He can still see her shaking, how deathly pale she looked.  "They want her alive to get something from her, and they want us alive to get it from her."

  "We are pawns," Octavian whispers.

  "I am no pawn," the prince grinds his teeth together as he shifts to a kneeling position.  "They speak our language, we have an upper-hand, we can understand them now."

  "Yes, but we are human, my prince."

  "They do not know that," the prince hushes him, glancing around at the group of orcs and trolls feasting together.  "As far as they know, we are elves who had their ears cut off and became mute," the prince says.

  "So we keep it that way," Octavian smiles.

  "No matter what they do, or what they say," The Prince whispers, "we must not tell them who we are or why we are with Adara."  He glances back at the group of glass fiends.  "No matter what they threaten us with."

  Octavian nods, his lips pressed thinly. 

  It reminded him of Aehlsy, his sister.  Whenever she disproved of something or was unsure of something, she would flatten her lips together.  He smiles as he thinks of her, remembering watching her bounce down the stairs with her cat, her ebony hair in tangles as mother screamed at her to go to her room and act like a lady. 

  He did not figure he would ever get to see her again, or his mother, or his father.

  "No matter what mother or father says, do not tell them anything," Aehlsy begged, pulling the bottom of her dress down. 

  Her face was flushed, almost as cherry red as Cassidy's.

  "Why him?" The prince asked plainly.  He had been with women before, he expected better of his sister though.  He had not thought that she would disobey mother and father so boldly. 

  "I love him more than I love myself, brother," Aehlsy smiled simply.  Her hair was uncharacteristically out of a ponytail or braid.  It was whipping gently at the wind that blew through an open window. 

  "They will marry you off," the prince leans against a doorframe, "lover boy will not matter then, but if they find out you are impure they will cast you out."

  "No matter what they threaten, I will never leave Cassidy," she smiles, tying the ribbon that held her dress together across her chest.  "I will never say a word, and I suggest you do do the same."

  He never said a word about it to anyone.

  He paid for it dearly.  His father cornered him inside of the stables, interrogating him for what felt like hours.

  "I do not know what you are speaking of," the prince grunts as he lifts one of the leather saddles into his arms, hanging it on the wall.  He nearly falls as his fathers fist collides with his bare side. 

  The orc man glides over towards them, thick ropes with metal barbs lie in his hands.  The prince makes no effort to fight as they take his hands and wrap his wrists.  The barbs dig into his skin, tearing it as they pull him and Octavian through the sand. 

  "Tal'anga," a troll joins the orc, taking Octavian's ropes.  "We can not wake her," he says quietly.

  "You were under the impression that you could?" Tal'anga asks, scoffing.  "What did you do, ask her to wake?" He laughed.

  "I some other methods," the troll says, when they stop moving.  Tal'anga stops in his tracks, the prince almost ran into his large back that was covered with a hard leather. 

  "And what might those methods be?" Tal'anga asks.

  "Well," the troll pursed his lips, "I hit her with one of the scorpion whips, tried squeezing her hand, but she never woke, just cried."

  The man could not finish his sentence before Tal'anga grabbed an axe from another, swinging it with all his might, it sunk through the troll.  Clear through.  There was barely a noise until the head smacked into the ground, the body slumped next.  Blood pooled around their feet, hot and dark.

  "No one hurts Jasper but me," Tal'anga growls, pointing the large axe that would take the prince both hands to swing with only one hand, pointing it at the body that twitched and spasmed.  "Let this be a lesson to all."

  "Let this be a lesson to all," his father growled, throwing the prince onto his sisters' bedroom floor.  His lip was busted, the iron taste flooded his tastebuds.  His ribs were sore as he rolled onto his back.

  "Father, stop," Aehlsy screamed as the prince was kicked in the gut.

  "You two are as thick as thieves," he points between the siblings, "you keep us involved or you get punished," their father spat.  "Have anything to share, son?" He says the last word like it was a treasonous word, like saying the word would poison him and he would die then and there.

  "Come on," Tal'anga pulls them back, leading them to a small wagon like the one they were in before.  The difference now was that there was no top, and it was filled with cages.  Two empty, two full.  Exriam and Adada curled in two cages, the other two meant for the prince and Octavian. 

  As they neared, Exriam lifted his head and began to chuff, under his skin a faint red glow could be seen as smoke billowed from his nostrils.  He moved to the other side of the cage as Tal'anga smacked it with the end of his axe, Exriam curls as close to Adara as he could. 

  "Get in," Tal'anga orders, lifting one of the sides up so one of them could crawl inside.

  Octavian makes no move, watching his prince to see what he does.  If his prince revolts, he must revolt.  If he obeys, he must obey.  He watches as his prince crawls silently into the cage.  His eyes downcast.  A shadowy face.  Octavian thought it was funny that they thought they had tamed a sheep but in reality the wolf was hiding under the sheep's woolen cloak.

  The prince watches Octavian climb in slowly, Tal'anga shoves him with the end of his axe, knocking him into the back of the cage.  They put thick sacks over their heads, blinding them, tying them tight around their necks to avoid any possibility of them seeing what lied ahead. 

  It was swelteringly hot inside of the bags.  Perspiration dripped down their forehead and dropped off the tip of their noses.  Their eyes closed to avoid the salty sweat from blinding them and scorching their eyes.  The carts moved and they felt every bump, curve and turn.  None of them made a noise until the carts stopped moving.

  The prince's head was pounding with an ache, he thought he could feel his heartbeat in his temples.  His arms and legs were sore, but his neck was stiff as he was hunched over to fit in the small cage.  He listened as one of the cages was opened and someone made a loud gasp as they hit the ground.  Adara.

  His ache was suddenly dulled as his cage opened and he was pulled out by his feet.  He landed on the ground back-first.  It knocked the wind out of him as he tried to roll over.  He grimaces as a fist connected with his jaw, knocking him down.  His teeth clenched together painfully as his eyes flickered closed, before opening again, slower. 

  He grunted as a hand grabbed his shirt, dragging him to his knees and positioning him with his head hung low.  Much like a prayer. 

  Sunlight blinds him as the bag is ripped off, his hair protrudes in several directions.  He pays no mind to it as he looked at Adara to his right.  She was being held up by a troll, her head slumped to the side, her eyes graze lazily over the dull scenery. 

  They were behind a grey building as tall as a castle.  It had metal grating over what once was windows, it was so silent that he could hear a rat chew on a husk of corn.  There was a large fence around them, taller than most trees are, but behind the fence was what looked like homes and markets, he could not tell. 

  "Put them together, him near," Tal'anga smiles, walking towards Adara.  The prince shrugs his shoulders, fists clenching as the orc grabs her face that had begun to fall.  "We have an appointment in the classroom later," he laughs as he runs a thumb across her throat.  He jerks his hand away and her head dropped.  Whatever they gave her was still in her system, she was fighting for consciousness.

  They are all lifted, drug into the large grey building with no sounds.  Once they are inside, it grew loud.  Crying.  Screaming.  Begging.  Pleading.  As they drug the prince down the hall he looked to his left and saw a man holding the bars, reaching out, he was missing a hand and had no eyes anymore. 

  They walk until there is a split, left and right.  They prince and Adara are pulled to the left while Octavian is pulled right.  The prince pulls his arms, but the troll holding him tightens his grip. 

  "Come on," One troll laughs as he pulls the prince in.  He reaches above them and clicks his hands into large metal cuffs, securing him to the ceiling.  His shoulders burn with pain as his toes barely reach the floor, his back pressed against the wall. 

  One of the trolls carried Adara in, laying her on the floor somewhat gently.  He took her hand and began to move it in different ways until there were no more crunching or popping sounds.  She groaned in pain, but she never opened her eyes.  He wraps it gently with white linen cloth and then wraps a chain around it, looping it around the other at well.

  Instead of chaining her to the ceiling, he chained her to the floor, her arms tight behind her.  She could not move, but she just lied limply, her hair drops in front of her face as her head slumps down.  The troll glances back them before closing the metal gate and locking it. 

  The prince closes his eyes, his head pressed against the dank stones behind him. 

  "No," the prince grimaces, "I have nothing to say to you or you," he spits at his mother.

  "Have it your way," the king raises a powerful hand.

  Several guards step forward, trying to grab him.  The prince takes his sword and unsheathes it. 

  "Take him to the dungeon," the king turns and walks away, leaving his son bloodied and unconscious.

  The prince listens to a small sigh, his eyes peep open slowly, Adara's eyes slits.  She opens her mouth slowly, tears pour down her face.  He was unsure as to why.  Her pain, sadness, despair, he was not sure anymore.

  "You should have let me do it," she whispers, her voice shook as she shifts slowly, grimacing as her hand was riddled with pain and uncontrollable spasms.  "You should have let me do it."

  "I should have let you kill yourself?" He asks, "No, I was not going to let you die."

  "You dumb fool," she laughs, "You are going to want to die soon enough."  She stares numbly at the wall ahead of her.  "Then you are going to wish I had killed you instead."