Queen of Hearts by Colleen Oakes

Author:Colleen Oakes [Oakes, Colleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SparkPress (a BookSparks imprint)
Published: 2014-02-11T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

It was hard to make out exactly what they were seeing in the shadowy light. Faina’s cell was dark, but once Dinah’s eyes adjusted, she could make out a stone slab for sleeping, a chamber pot, and a threadbare rug on the floor. From there, Dinah’s eyes traveled up the wall to Faina Baker’s face, all while fighting the horror rising up inside of her.

Faina was pressed against the wall, held tight by leather bonds that looped over her abdomen and chest. She writhed against them, her feet slipping in the black fluid that dripped down from above. Thin tendrils of black roots snaked out of the wall and into Faina Baker’s open mouth, nose, and ears. All down her body, the black roots circled and twisted, moving slowly, leaving a thin black film as they slithered inch by inch. Dinah gripped Wardley’s arm as a tendril crawled its way up Faina’s face.

Faina’s eyes were open, frozen in panic; a low moan came out of her mouth filled with black roots. Cray sauntered up to her and unhooked the leather straps from her torso, narrowly avoiding the roots that reached ever so slightly for his hand.

Wardley’s mouth twisted with anger. “What are doing to her? How can you allow this? What is . . . ?” He stepped forward, forgetting himself. Dinah could see he was unhinged, his hand on his sword hilt. Forgetting chivalry and honor was not an easy thing. Dinah yanked backwards on her chain and he remembered where he was. Cray untethered Faina and she slouched forward. The roots slithered back from her body, retreating from her nose, mouth, and ears with a revolting sucking sound. Finally, the roots released, and Faina Baker crumpled like a rag doll onto the dirty floor.

“You strap her to the tower!? That’s the torture for high treason?”

Cray gave a filthy, toothless grin. “Aye. What could be worse than being strapped to the very source of the poison that corrupts the towers? The roots take to the skin, and as you can tell, they love an opening. Eventually the poison seeps directly into the brain. It gives hallucinations and fevers, and some say the ability to see beyond the towers. The future and the past, and everything in between. The roots make you forget who you are, make you forget that you are human. What else could we do to these criminals that is worse than losing who they are?”

He laughed and Dinah imagined silencing him with the flat of her palm. There was a faint outline left on the wall where Faina had been strapped, a root twisting itself back into place. An oily mist condensed in the head area.

“Make it quick,” snapped Cray.

Dinah stepped forward. Faina Baker was a shred of a woman. Her arms were as thin as sticks, and thick gray veins ran the length of them. The roots left black dirt behind where they had been clinging to her face and torso, as if she had been burned.

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