A soldier’s boot slammed down across the child’s back and halted their progress. A crack echoed in the cavernous space, signaling something had broken.
Air left the child’s fragile lungs in a loud oomph, and they whimpered on the floor.
The guards laughed.
I wanted to rip their spines. From the child’s thoughts, they were innocent. Young. Helpless. They didn’t understand why this was happening to them.
The fae guards were monsters, and the child viewed the woman as the worst of them all. Even with pain radiating from the broken bone in their back, the child was more afraid of the beautiful woman.
Their every thought was consumed with escaping her.
The child stuttered desperately, “I-I-I just f-forgot one l-l-line from a thousand-page book. I’m not slacking, Mother.” The voice was soft and feminine, and I jolted as I realized I was in the body of a young girl.
The sinking sensation became a plummet, and rage burned brighter inside me.
“Lies!” the woman screamed, and her pleasant expression dropped. Mania shone in her wide, glassy eyes as she smiled wider.
The girl reeled back and begged, “No, Mother. I promise I’ll be better. Please don’t. I promise. Please listen to—”
The woman snapped her fingers.
Blue flames everywhere.
Agony like I’d never experienced decimated the girl’s body, and it was so intense that her broken back cracked as it bowed. Mouth opened wide, she screamed silently as mind-numbing, paralyzing pain racked through her.
It was heinous.
Obscene.
She wanted to die.
I wanted to kill for her.
The flames stopped, and the girl threw up all over the floor as her muscles twitched in the aftermath. Embarrassment flooded through her as she realized she’d soiled herself.
The guards wrinkled their noses with disgust, and she groaned in shame.
Why won’t any of them help me? What did I do to deserve this? Her thoughts were despondent.
I wanted to smash the guards and woman to pieces; I wanted to make them suffer like they made this defenseless girl suffer.
They deserved to die.
At times like this, I was glad for my abilities because it would be too easy for my mates and I to hunt them down. I’d snap their puny necks with my bare hands.
It would be much easier than the efforts they were exerting to torment a child.
Consciousness pulled me away from the child’s form, but I forced myself to stay in the memory and not wake up.
I wanted to memorize faces.
I wanted names.
The cruel woman clucked her tongue and knelt next to the girl’s convulsing frame. “We’ve been over this, darling—you’re powerless, pathetic, and an embarrassment to my name. You will suffer until you learn.”
She snapped her fingers.
Blue flames.
