Chương 218: Chapter 75: The Trembling Messenger

Selena watched him, her face an impassive mask that showed not the slightest emotion. When the spasms subsided a little, leaving the man panting, covered in drool and tears of pain, she approached again. —Yes, you are an idiot. There is no doubt —she said, her voice as clear and cold as glass. With another dagger, she pierced the thigh of his other healthy leg. The flesh resisted and she could feel how the blade touched the bone before going all the way through. The man's scream was weaker, broken by shock.

—Understand. I do not give a shit about your money. I do not give a shit about your name. Your status is nothing more than shit. —She took him by the head, her fingers digging into the greasy bald head, and brought the blade of the hot dagger close to his face— This is a reminder. For every morning of your life. So that when you wake up… Then she marked a superficial but visible line from the temple to the corner of his mouth, the skin sizzling faintly with the pass of the blade.

—You think about holding your tongue. The man, lost in a sea of pain and terror, began to swallow saliva with difficulty, as if trying to regain some sanity or moisture in a mouth dry from screaming. His consciousness, clouded by agony, clung to survival with desperate claws. —She will kill me if you do not do it —he stammered, this time his tears were not just from physical pain, but from a deeper panic, from the certainty of being caught between two fires— It is not really a choice.

Selena leaned over him, her shadow enveloping him. Her breath touching his skin, the man shook his head upon feeling it. —She would kill you, yes —the marchioness acknowledged, her voice a metallic whisper— But I… She paused, letting the silence become loaded with worse possibilities, then took his arm and pressed the nerve at the elbow; immediately he felt a current. —I could sever your tendons. Leave you unable to walk, unable to move your hands.

I could leave you in such a way that you can only move your eyes, a prison of flesh that not even could your wife stand to look at. You would die like what you have always been: a beast trapped in its own pit. She spat in his face again, a gesture of total disgust. Her saliva this time mixed with the blood on the man's face. —But perhaps it is better to do it to your beloved twins. To the one who sleeps with the Sandstrohm slaves… I think she would like me to torture her; she has a tendency toward masochism.

Or perhaps to the one who sleeps with the servant girl, she might like me to leave her without eyes; so that she can never, ever look at her lover again. I understand she enjoys looking at the pain of others very much, I am curious what face she would make when I take her eyes out… Scargoth trembled with a new violence. His face, already deformed by the pain and the marks, took on a strange expression, a crucible of clashing emotions.

There was shock at seeing his daughters' most intimate and sordid secrets revealed, as if someone had torn away a veil that not even he himself had wanted to lift completely. Although there was also a more immediate, visceral terror. Selena could not distinguish which of the two threats terrified him more: the mutilation of his own daughters or his own reduction to a conscious vegetable. Both were unbearable, each monstrous in its own way; but that man seemed to hesitate for the first time. —I will speak!

—he gasped, but immediately shook his head, as if a part of him was still fighting to maintain some control— Only if… only if you promise me that you will leave me alive. He made an attempt to look at her, but his eyes, clouded by the pain and the Tears of Saint Vitus, only saw a blurry, dark figure, a silhouette from his worst nightmares. Selena studied him for a moment, measuring the surrender in his voice. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

—So be it —she conceded, her tone neutral, as if closing a business deal— I will set you free; but you must send the letter to a certain point and you must do it yourself. She paused, and then added, lowering her voice until it became a frozen promise and threat. —You must know that if you do not do it… She knelt down and touched a puddle of dried blood on the stone floor, near the baron's foot.

Her lips moved first, it was a spoken word, a word without sound that only existed in the gesture of speech and in the pure intent of her will. The blood on the floor, and only the blood, burst into green flames; from that word the fire was born. A cold, silent fire that rose in emerald columns of about thirty centimeters, consuming the vital fluid with a dull crackle.

The heat was palpable, a dry wave that made Scargoth's skin sweat, but the flames did not spread, they did not touch his flesh, they did not burn the rope that held him. They only devoured the evidence of his suffering with terrifying precision. —… I will burn you to death, wherever you are —Selena concluded, her green eyes reflecting the spectral gleam— Tonight itself. Here, in this cave or in your silk bed if you prefer. Bring me the letter, and you will live. Scargoth nodded slowly, mechanically.

The spectacle of directed magic, of that power that could discriminate between blood and flesh, between intent and accident, had broken any last remnant of resistance. A man with connections to the Omnipresent Shadow was no stranger to the supernatural, but seeing it up close, used as a tool of torture and promise, was different, different in a way he only now understood. —I will tell you everything, I swear it. Her name is…

—the baron began, and the words came out as if he were chewing them, letter by letter, soaked in a living and ancient terror— Isabella Elizabeth Selena of Solendra. The former crown duchess. She gave me the mission. That is why I have a letter from House Solendra. The name fell in the cave like a stone in a frozen pond. Isabella Elizabeth Selena of Solendra. Her name. The name of the woman whose body she inhabited, whose title she bore, whose life had been taken away.

Selena hesitated for a second, a sudden emptiness in her mind where only that set of syllables echoed. She shook her head slowly, not in denial, but in a gesture of deep disbelief. It was not her name, not really. It was Isabella's, the original one. Then, the question arose that had haunted her dreams, her meditations, her moments of quietness: What were you looking for, Isabella? What led you to this? She snapped out of her self-absorption with a visible effort, recovering from the momentary shock.

Her expression hardened again, the operational void covering the emotional crack. —It is a deal —she said, her voice regaining its usual coldness. Fjora was looking at her strangely, her eyes maintaining an disbelief that she had learned to read. It was not time for questions now and both knew it, Selena sealed the open wounds with the red-hot knife, it was necessary so he would not die from blood loss. So once done they untied him, not out of compassion, but out of pragmatism.

Scargoth, staggering, with his vision still blurry and his body bruised, was taken to the entrance of the cave. They indicated the direction, gave him an implicit deadline in the loaded silence, and watched him limp away into the darkness, a broken silhouette merging with the shadows of the incipient dawn. Fjora took up position atop the hill that sheltered the cave, a motionless sentinel against the sky that was beginning to turn pearl gray. Selena stayed inside, patience turned into a still flame.

Time passed slow and tense. The sounds of the forest awakening, the song of the first birds, the whisper of the wind in the grass, were a surreal contrast to the recent violence, and she looked at her hands stained with that man's crimson while her head would not give her peace. It was after five hours, when the sun was beginning to gild the zenith and the night had retreated like a defeated army, that they saw a solitary man walking toward the hill.

He was going straight, without hesitating, but his step was tired, dragged. He carried a thick parchment envelope in one hand, and in the other, a small dark wooden jewelry box with mother-of-pearl inlays. Now he wore clothes befitting his rank: a fine linen tunic, a cloak with the coat of arms blurred by mud and dust, leather boots. Baron Scargoth, reduced to a trembling messenger. When he reached the mouth of the cave, he stopped. His gaze, still reddened and pained, sought Selena in gloom.

He placed the envelope and the jewelry box on the ground, in front of the entrance, as if it were an offering to an ancestral beast. —Here is the letter —he said, his voice hoarse and broken. However, his eyes betrayed him, filled with tears— She said that I should deliver, in addition, the jewelry box with the envelope. He sighed, a deep sound that seemed to draw out the last of his pride. Then he bowed with the grace of nobility. —Thank you… for sparing my life. The man did not wait for an answer.

Scargoth turned around and moved away, first walking, then awkwardly trotting due to the persistent limp, until he vanished into the brush, fleeing from the cave and from the woman who had turned his night into a hell.