Vincent's hand tightened on my hair as he yanked me down the hall. I whimpered at his roughness and was certain that my head was bleeding by now.

"Get me the breaker," he said harshly to a guard standing at the side. The guard nodded and dipped into a back room.

We entered another room and my grip on his wrist loosened as I realized where we were. Dungeons. Specifically, a torture chamber. The air was damp and cold, as if the very walls were intent on pressing you down. I could smell blood.

He yanked my hair, forcing me to straighten as another guard shoved me down in a chair and tied a chain across my waist.

"Let go of me!" I screeched, the air feeling thin. I dug my nails into Vincent's arm, but he didn't seem to notice. Vincent let go of my hair only to get a firmer grip on it. I yelped and the guard tied a chain over my shoulder, under my arm and around the chair. He crisscrossed my chest, pinning me against the cold metal chair where I had been thrust. "Please," I begged. "Please stop!"

Vincent just grinned. "You can stop this at any time, if you agree to heal the king," he said simply.

The guard entered with a strange contraption with several bolts that rose out of it. Vincent nodded to another guard who took a small metal table from the side and slid it against my waist. The guard who brough the contraption screwed it into the table.

There were two holes facing me. A metal bar could be lowered by a screw, pressing the metal bar, coated in strange bumps into the hole. A thumbscrew.

The air was impossibly thin, and I felt like I was falling backward with panic. The guards grabbed each of my hands. As much as I tried to resist, they were using both arms on one of mine. They grabbed my index finger and forced it through the holes facing me.

"Stop!" I screamed. "Please!" I thrashed in the chair, but no one seemed fazed.

They held onto my wrist and Vincent sauntered up, twisting the simple mechanism. Sure enough, the bar began lowering until it was pressed tightly against the middle of my fingers. He twisted it again. And again.

My body was shaking. I could feel the metal resting directly on the bone, ready to snap it.

Vincent stopped and gestured for the guard to let go of my hand. When they did, I pulled, but the joint stopped me from freedom. I cast a panicked look at Vincent.

He smiled again. "You have a problem with authority," he said smugly. "We told you to heal the king and...you refused," he said softly. "And now there will be consequences."

"Please," I whimpered.

He smirked and placed his hand on the thumbscrew. "Please," he mocked me. "Your pathetic whimpers are like music to my ears. I think I did a good job grabbing you," he said softly. "I think my reward will be keeping you as my fugging little breeder." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I think I'll tie you to my bed. Then, every night, I'll fugging slam my seed into you so fugging deep, you'll be popping out children for the rest of your whimpering, pathetic life."

I was shaking, hard.

He twisted the screw again and I yelped. "You know, breaking a finger is just as easy a breaking a carrot," Vincent said casually. He turned the knob again and I gasped.

Then, he spun the crank a full rotation and I heard the bone in my finger snap.

Then, I felt it.

I screamed as pain shot down my arm. I had endured beatings before, but something about this was far more dreadful. Sweat began pouring down my face and I gritted my teeth, hard.

"Next finger," he commanded. I screamed as the two guard yanked my hand out, the edge of the broken bone getting caught in the machine. The pain was horrible. They slid my middle finger inside the machine. Tears began pouring down my face.

I couldn't heal the king. I couldn't. I bit down as hard as I could. I just had to die.

Vincent wasted no time before snapping my middle fingers as well. Dark spots dancing in front of my face. I was burning up.

"Next!" Vincent screeched. The guards moved my hand again, threading my ring finger through the hole.

I couldn't heal the king. If I did, I would be responsible for so many deaths. I couldn't do it. I couldn't.

Vincent turned the knob again, more slowly this time. As it rested against the bone, he paused and watched me writhe in agony. "What..." he asked slowly, "should I do next? Break a leg? Twist an ankle?" He twisted the knob again and I sobbed.

"Fugg you," I swore, shaking.

"Watch your mouth," he reprimanded lightly. He leaned in close. "You will not win. You can either heal the king with your pretty face still intact or with a mangled face. If you still refuse, I break your jaw, then I'll cut off an arm. Then the next. You only need stumps to heal."

My heart was thudding out of my chest. My body hurt so bad.

I couldn't heal the king.

I couldn't.

I'd do it to make the pain stop.

"I'll do it."

"Ah, ah, ah," he stopped. "I know you will. But first I want you to be fully aware of what disobedience looks like. You may be a beautiful, powerful Slate, but you are still a fugging dewlos," he said, accentuating his words by grabbing a fistful of my hair and jerking my head back violently. Tears streamed down my face. "And I will not tolerate a little whore making her own decisions." He tossed my head forward and let go of my hair.

"Please," I said, tears streaming down my face. Please.

He smirked. "No," he said. "Not yet. I want you to know exactly how much pain I am capable of causing," he said. "I want you to fall asleep tonight knowing that if you say another word—another syllable that I don't like, I will break all your fingers, one by one, until your hand is nothing but a useless claw. Then, I'll have it healed and we will start all over again," he threatened. "Understood?"

I swallowed as the room spun. I nodded.

"Say, 'Yes, master,'" he commanded.

"Yes, master," I choked out.

He smiled. "Good girl."

He twisted the thumbscrew again and my rings fingers snapped. I yelped and groaned as the guards removed my fingers and took the device away. I felt like I was spinning.

"Now, we'll go heal the king," Vincent said. "Untie her," he commanded. The guards came and began removing the chains. My eyes locked on my fingers, and I almost passed out at their distorted angle.

Before I could process what was happening, the guards dragged me out of the room. He yanked me up the steps as a fierce headache compounded with the horrible pain in my hands. I wanted to scream but knew that any noise would put the rest of my hand at risk.

We made our way back to the king's chambers and I saw that Vincent's father was still there. Vincent threw me into the room, and I landed on my hands, shifting my broken fingers. I whimpered again, rolling back on my knees as soon as possible.

"Get up," Vincent snarled and yanked me to my feet. He threw me closer to the king. "Heal him, magetrix."

I nodded and slowly reached out my hand, trying to avoid staring at my hand that was ballooning in size. I was going to throw up.

My shaky palm landed on the king's exposed arm and one of the servants quickly shoved a chair underneath me, where I gratefully collapsed.

Heal him.

I closed my eyes and felt for the disparate threads of pain in him. How was he alive? It looked like someone had tried to bind together some meaning in his pain but wasn't able to complete the strand. I sat there, trying to bind them unsuccessfully.

Finally, I realized that a string had been bound into the wrong space, making a complete healing impossible. I unwound the strand carefully and tied it back together.

Maybe ten minutes later, I leaned back. My eyelids began to dip low in exhaustion, and Vincent seized my hair again, forcing me awake.

"I did it," I gasped. I wanted to knock his grip away, but my hands were clutched against my chest. I caught sympathetic glances from the servants, but Vincent's grip loosened when he heard someone shuffling. I glanced up and saw someone standing at the door as the king started to stand.

Nobel.

What was Nobel doing here?

I stared at him, and he looked at me in confusion before his eyes locked onto the king. Nobel rushed over to the king as Vincent let me go.

"M'lord?" Vincent asked as his grip on my hair loosened. I glanced up and saw the king of the south rise from his bed. He stretched and my eyes widened.

What had I just done?

Vincent immediately sank to his knees, and I sat there, terror pounding through me.

The king stood up and a servant helped him slip on a coat. Finally, he turned, and I locked eyes with him. There was nothing particularly menacing about this man.

Yet, he was the one who lodged a magestone into Ember's chest. He was opposed to everything that I loved.

"M'lord, I have brought you a gift," Vincent stammered. "A gift of healing. This dewlos has an incredible power—"

"She isn't a dewlos," the king said. His voice was strong, almost as if he hadn't been laying helplessly in bed for years. "Bring her to me tomorrow."

Vincent nodded and burst up. He grabbed hold of my hair again and I yelped, hoping for kinder treatment—I had done exactly what he asked.

He yanked me out of the room, and it took everything in me not to go limp. Nobel's face was burned into my eyes. We walked down the same set of stairs and I realized we were going back to the dungeon. I started crying in fear and used that adrenaline to push through my pain and fight against his grip. In response, he landed a punch in my stomach, knocking the breath out of me.

He pulled open a metal door and shoved me inside. I managed to land on my feet, panting for air. He closed the door and slid the key into his jacket.

"See you tomorrow," Vincent muttered. Then, he spun off. I sat down quickly as the world began to spin. I caught sight of my fingers, which were rapidly turning purple. I lay down, trying to regain some sense of anything. Instead, the world went black.