Victory or Sovngarde

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Ylva

Would the pain ever stop?

It was the same every day. They came, they tortured me until I passed out, and when I woke back up, they started again. They had used every tool in their extensive arsenal against me. Twice.

When the damage they had done became life-threatening, they sent down a healer to ensure I would live until I could talk. The healers never completely restored my injuries; they only ever healed the worst of the damage, the most dangerous of the damage. It was a tactic that both kept me alive and kept me submissive.

Elenwen rarely did any of the tormenting herself anymore. She knew better than to get close to me, after all. After being burned so severely by my Fire Breath Shout, she had been keeping a safe distance between herself and me. Her healers had managed to mend her, but there was still evidence of her unfortunate accident.

However, she oversaw all of the torture sessions. She stood just outside my cell, sneering with sick glee, and asked me the same question, over and over.

"Do you concede?!"

"No!" I shouted back, screaming as the Thalmor torturer screwed another blade into my side. My bloody nails dug into my palms, and I bit my lip so hard, it bled, but I refused to give in.

Elenwen sighed, brushing her fingers through the one-half of her head of hair. The other half, though growing back, was kept shaved, and it gave my captor an even more menacing look.

Maybe that was what she was going for.

"That's enough for now," she said, motioning for the torturer to step back. "I'll send a healer down here to make sure your knives didn't puncture too deeply."

"You insult me, Madame Ambassador," said the torturer, whose grin matched his crooked personality. "My knives never critically injure. I know exactly where to stab to cause both the most pain and the least damage."

"All the same, she is too valuable to lose. If you'll please stand aside. I'll have the healer pull the knives from her when she arrives."

"Yes, Madame."

Then, Elenwen turned to me. "As for you, we will continue this shortly. You've been here for three weeks now. You are going to break."

I spat blood at her, but it only hit the floor in front of her. "We'll see about that."

Without another word, the pair left.

Panting, I closed my one good eye—my other one had swollen shut from the beating I sustained yesterday—and tried to ignore the pain in my sides and legs. Tried to ignore the weak voice in the back of my mind begging me to submit. Tried to ignore the nagging fear that I would be trapped here until my heart gave out or they broke me.

Elenwen had said I had been here for three weeks, but to me, an era had passed. An era filled with pain and suffering.

I only opened my eye when the door to the prison had creaked open, and it was only to make sure that Elenwen had not come back to inflict even more pain on me.

Instead, I saw a friendly face staring back at me.

"Faerie?" I croaked. Was she really here with me, or was my mind playing tricks?

"It's me, General," she said as she opened the cell door. "Gods, what have they done to you?"

"Are we getting out of here?"

She smiled. "Yes, General. First, though, I've got something for you." She reached into the folds of her healing robes and produced a small, red vial. "I couldn't smuggle much in, since they're already suspicious of me, but this is a really powerful healing potion. I'll remove those knives, then you can take it."