Ellysetta spat a mouthful of blood. She’d wanted to beg. She’d wanted it so bad, she’d bit a hole through the inside of her cheek to keep from it. The screams of her parents still echoed in her head. They’d known she was there. And even as their guts were being ripped from their bodies, they were shouting for her not to give in, to be strong.

Telling her to be strong. Her. When she was the reason they were being tortured.

When she was the one upon whom the Mage had yet to lay the first unkind finger.

“I think there must be more Darkness in you than you want to admit,” Maur continued. “It’s doubtless one of the gifts you gained when I engineered your birth. You should thank me, Ellysetta, because without that gift, you’d be just another of those useless Fey females, as helpless as a rose without thorns. Instead, you’re strong, powerful. More like me than you care to admit.”

She gave him a baleful glare and remained silent. She wanted to tell him he was a liar, but she couldn’t. No matter how vile his claims, they contained at least a grain of truth. She was different from other Fey women. She could kill without destroying herself. Not only that, she could enjoy it. She remembered Kreppes, and the grim satisfaction, the barbarous thrill, of gutting her enemy, hearing his scream, feeling the hot spew of his blood upon her flesh. There had to be something in her, some hardness, some Darkness, some bit of evil that spawned such a dreadful trait and such macabre joy.

One thing was certain. That core of Darkness hiding inside her must never be released—not for her parents’ sake. Not for anyone else’s sake either.

“If you think your stoicism has saved them even a moment of pain, think again,” Maur said, misinterpreting her continued silence. “They will suffer for a long, long time for their part in keeping you away from me all these years.” He leaned back to the pipe leading to both rooms, and said, “Summon the healer. When she’s done, begin again.”

He nodded to the guards holding Ellysetta’s chains and turned towards the exit. A hard shove from behind sent Ellysetta stumbling after him. They went down four more levels, until they reached the bottom of Boura Fell. A long, dark corridor, narrower than the ones above, stretched into the shadows in both directions. Vadim Maur turned right and led the way to the very end of the corridor. There, next to a shuttered opening that reeked of refuse, a dark, narrow tunnel curved off to the left. The Mage took a torch from a stand bolted to the wall and lit it on one of the sconce lights.

As he led Ellysetta and her guards into the tunnel, the damp, narrow, black walls closed in around them. A terrible rotting smell made her shudder. The place smelled like death.

“Perhaps for ancient Fey you’ve never known, who long ago accepted their fate, you can stay strong,” the High Mage said as they walked. The tunnel twisted back around to the right, and the awful stench grew stronger. “But what about someone you love more dearly? Someone more fragile, more helpless? I think you will find it much more difficult to let them suffer.”

The tunnel opened up to a gaping black maw of a chamber. A black stone promontory, railed with twisting vines of sel’dor, extended out over the abyss. The air was cold and dank, thick with the odor of putrefaction.

The Mage raised his torch to a shallow gutter overhead. Light flared as whatever the gutter contained caught fire, and flame raced along the gutter’s path, into the blackness. The gaping maw was a dark pit, and even before the fire concluded its circuit and fully illuminated the floor of the pit half a tairen length below, Ellysetta knew what was coming. She’d seen it before, in her nightmares.

She gripped the sel’dor railing, uncaring of the hot burn of the hated metal on her flesh. Her sisters sat huddled together in the midst of the dark, stinking pit, tethered by chains in the center of a nest of bones and other rotting scraps. The sudden brightness of the flames made them look up, shielding their eyes with their hands.

She wanted to scream the twins’ names. She wanted to throw herself on her knees and beg the High Mage for mercy, just as she had in her dream. She dared do neither. She knew why he’d brought her, knew that no matter what she did, Lillis and Lorelle were doomed. If she refused to accept a sixth Mark, Lillis and Lorelle would die. If she did accept the Mark, Vadim Maur would own her soul; and he would use her to enslave her sisters. They would become those Azrahn-eyed imps of Darkness from her nightmares, their souls bound to evil.

Oh, gods, gods. Why have you done this? They are innocent. They are children!

She didn’t think she had the strength to stand firm. Her sisters were the children she’d loved and cared for all her life, twin beacons of Light in a life full of fear and self-doubt.

“Will you not call to them, Ellysetta?” the Mage prodded. “Will you not tell them everything will be all right? I know you feel their fear.”

She closed her eyes, trying to shut him out. Aiyah, she sensed their fear. It burned worse than the sel’dor that pierced her flesh. She could not even spin a simple Spirit weave to whisper of her love and beg their forgiveness for bringing them into such danger.

“You were so brave, watching your parents suffer so nobly on your behalf. But will you be so brave now, watching your sisters eaten alive? Hearing their shrieks of pain and terror?”

Ellysetta’s head whipped around, her jaw going lax. Eaten alive?

The Mage leaned over the railing and raised his voice. “Your sister Ellysetta is here, little ones. Beg her to save you. She can, you know. All she has to do is give me what I want, and you will be released from the pit.”