Fated

‘No.’ Rachel turned to me. ‘I never wanted to see you. I wouldn’t have, if Cinder hadn’t sniffed you out. Then you had to get involved with that girl. Why couldn’t you hide like the rest? Just looking at you makes me—’ Rachel clenched her fists and took a breath. ‘I hate you more than I could ever hate Morden. He’s just another man. You’re—’

Rachel trailed off. ‘I’m what?’ I asked.

‘You’re a memory,’ Rachel said, her voice low and intense. ‘Every time I look at you I have to remember. Stay away from me. I’ll kill you if that’s what I have to do to stop seeing your face.’

The sound of an opening door made us both turn and look. From the other side of the one-way glass, three people had entered the torture chamber. As soon as I saw them I understood what was going to happen, and why Morden had told us to stay.

Morden was at the front. Behind him were the two girls who’d been accompanying him at the ball: Lisa and the brunette. The brunette’s face was blank and she was pulling Lisa along by one wrist. Lisa was crying and begging, tears streaming down her face. Despite the one-way glass, we could hear everything she said clearly. ‘No, master, please. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll do anything. I didn’t mean to. Master, please, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t. Don’t put me in there. Master, please—’

There’s a kind of horrible fascination to these things. Even when you know what’s going to happen, there’s something that makes you look. I’d seen what was going to happen, knew how this was going to end, yet somehow I found myself staring through the one-way glass. To one side, I was conscious of Rachel standing motionless, watching as well.

As the other girl started strapping Lisa into the agoniser, Lisa stopped pleading and just started crying. ‘Lisa,’ Morden said. ‘Do you understand why you are here?’

Lisa mumbled something. ‘Louder, please,’ Morden said.

Lisa sniffed. ‘Dis-disloyalty.’ Her voice was shaky.

‘To whom?’

‘To you. Please, Master, I didn’t—’

Morden raised a hand and Lisa fell silent. The other girl had finished with the straps, leaving Lisa spread-eagled. ‘This is the punishment for disloyalty,’ Morden said. He looked at the brunette and nodded. The other girl’s face was still blank. She turned and activated the device.

I’m not going to describe what an agoniser does. You don’t want to know. After the first sixty seconds I couldn’t watch any more. Lisa’s voice gave out somewhere around the second minute, but she still kept trying to scream.

Rachel didn’t look away. She stood by the window and her face was so still it could have been carved from marble. The light of the agoniser lit up her face in reflected blue-and-white flashes. She didn’t move throughout the whole thing, standing like a statue.

When it finally ended, Lisa was a weeping heap of bloody rags. Morden said something that I didn’t listen to while the other girl took Lisa down and led her out of the room, supporting her to keep her from collapsing. Morden switched off the lights as they left. He hadn’t looked through the window at us once. After the screams, the silence was frightening.

‘Morden likes sending messages,’ I said at last. My voice sounded strange in my ears. I don’t think Rachel heard the tremble, but it was a near thing.

‘You think that was a message?’

I looked at Rachel. ‘The “punishment for disloyalty”?’

‘That was half of the message,’ Rachel said distantly. ‘That’s what he’ll do if we upset him. If we betray him,’ Rachel looked at me with cold eyes, ‘he’ll just kill us.’

We were shown back to our rooms and I was left alone in the small bedroom in which I’d woken up. Outside, the rain was still coming down, and night had fallen. All I could see through the darkness and the rain was the dim outlines of trees. The room was warm and cosy, keeping out the cold, but I knew the shelter was an illusion. You might freeze to death outside, but you’d still be safer than in here.

At last I had a chance to think. I walked up and down the small room, collecting my thoughts as the rain beat against the glass and the last traces of light faded from the sky.

If nothing else, at least I finally understood what had been going on. There had been two puppet-masters from the beginning: Levistus and Morden. Everything that had happened traced back to one of them. Levistus’ pawns were the investigation team; Morden’s were the three Dark mages. Levistus had control of the site, but Morden had the key.

And what about me? Somehow I’d managed to get myself hired by both. I was safe only as long as Levistus and Morden both thought I was on their side. That would last until Morden made his move and took control of the Precursor site. At that point, Levistus would decide I’d betrayed him as soon as I was seen with Morden’s troops, and Morden would decide I’d betrayed him as soon as he tried the key in the statue and woke up the lightning elemental for another round. At which point I could expect both of them to put me on their hit list.