ᴅᴇx ʀᴇᴛᴜʀɴꜱ ᴀʟᴏɴᴇ 「 ˢᵒʳᵘʸ 」

15 || the dinner

Marella was so happy that the food came when it did. Dex was just about to burst, saying something that he was going to regret later. It was peaceful for barely five minutes when Dex looked like a lightbulb ignited.

He gave her a sinister look that she rolled her eyes at, this was not going to be good. She tracked his gaze to Kerys or Jodee or Sophie. She herself wore enough masks to see when someone was wearing them too, on that first day she knew it was her friend--Dex did too, she never told him that she knew though.

She always knew that Sophie couldn't just be dead--or she had prayed, and it seemed the gods had answered. She just didn't know if it was for the better. Sophie was definitely with the Black Swan, that much was obvious. But she didn't know much more than that, the girl must have had some major connections. Showing up with an Exiled who is the adopted son of Tiergan--she didn't think it was a coincidence.

Dex gave an evil grin, he cleared his throat drawing attention to himself. His face morphed into something that looked like sympathy, "Oh dear, My Lady," He said to Sophie who looked confused, "However did you acquire those scars?"

Sophie looked down--she actually looked...hurt. Marella didn't know if it was real or fake, but she looked so hurt that it had to be real. Everyone knew that she was 'The Rebel' as they called her, but she could tell that everyone was taken aback by Dex's abrupt question. Dex himself even looked taken back by her reaction.

When she was held captive nothing worked, nothing got an emotion out of her. It was off setting to see so much emotion in her face. Maybe during the interrogation they were asking her the wrong questions that she was prepared for. Sophie was not in the least ready to hear that, much less my Dex.

Everyone at the table stilled, and all the men at the table glared at Dex. Including Ruy, which was surprising because of how much he didn't like Sophie. She honestly couldn't believe Dex said that herself. If looks could kill all of Sophie's friends would have murdered him. None of the gazes were more potent than Wylie's companion, Linette's.

She saw Lord Thomas's hand grip Sophie's, but she shook it off. She reigned in her stupor and cocked her head at Dex. She smiled a little, not something that anyone expected, "This is what happens when bad men have power."

She snapped her fingers and a flame started, everyone backed up surprised. The flame traveled up and down her body, not burning--it did burn something off. Her clear skin turned into something twisted and ugly. She looked all the men, right in the eye, and held them. Marella could have sworn that she saw Bronte grin at the next table over.

"Did you know," She said in a low voice that made people strain to hear, it was a power seduction trick. "That these aren't even the worst of the scars? And did you know that the scars aren't even the worst part, it's the fact that the men who did this are more innocent than some men here. That even though my father did this to me--a man so bad...so bad that he would think to harm his own daughter to turn her evil--there are worse men."

Marella remembered the scars on her body when she had that fever thing with the Limbium. This was much more than just the gash down her neck, burn marks, whip marks, and the crude belittling writing. Scars covered basically ninety percent of her body. Only a true sadist could have done this to anyone.

She snapped her fingers again and the scars below her waist started to show. Sophie pushed down the front part of her dress, giving them a clear view of the top of the word forsaken. Then she pushed aside her skirts and showed them rings of scars around her thighs.

"I was tied to a chair for days, being used as a punching bag, to get information out of me, for sick amusement."

Marella saw that Dex's face went as pale as a paper, she was about to say more when Ruy spoke up, "Were they punished?"