Nairi (part 6)

Bam!
I banged against the cell again. Who knows how long I had done so.
"You're going to hurt yourself.   Y-you should sit down," Anakis whispered, concern in her voice.
"But...I..."   I gave up and slumped against the wall, burying my face in my knees. I hope Adonis is okay. I remembered him tumbling out of the sky with the dragon who had taken me.
A door opening interrupted my thoughts. "So," a voice sneered in the darkness, "you're the little girl my nephew has feelings for." A torch was lit and a man with red hair and a swollen eye with a deep gash cut into it, the other piercing gold glared down at me.
"Do you know who I am?" he said.
I realized with a shock that this was the dragon Adonis had attacked. "You."   I stopped before I said any more realizing, that if he was alive, Adonis was most likely dead.
My horror must have shown on my face, for he grimaced "Sadly, my nephew isn't dead.   Though next time I get a chance, I will kill him.   Don't you worry."   I gasped.   The dragon was Adonis' uncle!
I suppressed my surprise "I wouldn't worry for him, I would worry for you," I told him.   "Next time I don't think you will be so lucky."
I must have struck a nerve because he grabbed the bars of the cell with such force that they nearly bent. I heard Anakis move farther back into the corners of the cell. "You insolent little," He took a deep breath and tried to calm down.   "I believe that that he wore his luck thin with our last battle, and I believe I will need none to win the next."
"Sure, keep telling yourself that scaly."
"Shut up, you idiotic child!"
"Maybe you should stop bothering him." Anakis mumbled from the corner
"Shut up you idiotic child." I mimicked, completely ignoring Anakis
He looked like he was about to blow "Mark my words girl, you will regret this." He stormed out of the dungeons.
"That probably wasn't a good idea." Anakis whispered.
"Yeah, well, I don't like him. Besides, seeing as they kidnapped us, they probably need us alive, so he can't kill me."
"No, b-but they can probably torture you."
The thought hit me like a rock, and my stomach had a fast sinking feeling "I didn't think about that." I croaked.
Anakis put her head to her knees and kind of curled up and stopped speaking. I never expected to get much talk out of her, anyway.  She never did much of it to begin with.
We sat in the prison for what felt like hours, with no way to judge time. The dungeon was dark, cold, and damp. All you could hear was the moaning of other prisoners, the occasional scream, and water dripping.
Suddenly I heard the loud screech of rusty metal on rusty metal that could only be associated with the dungeon door being opened.
I saw torch light slowly descending the hallway of stairs that were the only entrance and exit of the horrid place.
The light made it to the end, illuminating the cells and the face of it's holder. Adonis's uncle. He marched over to our cell with his lips curled up into a gruesome smile.
"Turns out the king does not care what I do with you as long as you don't die, so..."   He cracked open the cell door. "Do your best not to die." He grabbed me by the hair and drug me out of the cell. I let out a scream of pain and desperation as he yanked me up.
I pulled water from all around me and bombarded him with it. He grunted, threw me to the ground, and flung the cage door shut. "Big mistake girl." He slapped this weird bracelet on me and I felt my powers forced back. Like a massive river held back by a dam. I moaned and crumpled. I felt like all my strength had fled from my body. "Seems Andromeda's toys work nicely." The last thing I saw before I blacked out was Anakis at the bars of the cell, staring at me on the floor with horror.
                                                       ********************************
I opened my eyes and my vision blurred. I let out a small grunt and tried to move my feet, but soon realized they weren't touching the ground. I kicked and tried to feel the ground but couldn't and every time I moved my arms felt like they would come out of there sockets.
"I see you're awake." I let my head fall for I did not want to look into the eyes, the cold gold eyes of this man. "If I recall we have not been properly introduced." I could here the humor in his voice. He was enjoying this. How could someone enjoy bringing pain to another, how could hurting someone bring you joy? "To start off my name is Malum, I know you know my little coward of a nephew."
"He isn't," I mumbled.
"Excuse me." The humor was gone.
I lifted my head and looked him in the eyes. "He isn't a coward, Adonis isn't.   He may be annoying and inconsiderate of others, but he has the kindest heart when it comes down to it. He is sympathetic when someone is hurting, and protects people when they need it. And I can assure you he is no coward.   You may be his uncle, but you of all people have absolutely no right to speak ill of him!"
"I see," He walked over to me "You have feelings for him as well." He laughed. "Well, if you like to talk him up so much where is he right now while you are strung up here, hmm? Probably sitting on a hospital bed wishing he had never opposed me." He smiled "And he will probably be to late to do anything to save y-"
I spit on him interrupting his stupid rant. "Why you little..." He smacked me so hard he cut my cheek, I felt the blood trickling down my jaw line. "If you are so eager for your punishment, why don't we begin."
He walked over to a wall full of so many terrible things, I was terrified of what he would choose. There where whips with glass woven throughout it, weird things that looked so grotesque I didn't even want to imagine what they did, and other various things I do not wish to describe.
His hand brushed over all the evil things before he settled on one. A knife. He meandered over to me sharpening the knife, which already looked sharp. "You know I heard that Ceridwen women don't cut there hair." He ran the knife across my jaw line and I sucked in my breath. It wasn't true. Ceridwen women cut there hair, my mother had short hair. Mine was just this long because I never bothered to cut it.
But seeing as he didn't know that I was willing to bluff if the situation called, "I hear it is a terrible thing to cut it. It means eternal shame." I have no idea how this rumor spread and I didn't care, because just as he said shame he grabbed all of my hair in his hands and hacked it off with the knife. I let out a scream, not because the hair was gone but because the pain of the knife tugging at my hair felt like every hair on my head was being yanked out.
He pulled away with a satisfied look on his face. I felt my hair brush my shoulders but not my back. I glanced at his hands as he dropped a huge pile of black hair onto the floor. "Now, I don't know if it was true or not, but that was a nice scream you let out there." He smiled "Now, shall we truly begin?"
I felt the tears prickle my eyes but I suppressed them. I would not let this man get the best of me.
"What?  No response?" He frowned. "Oh, I know, would you like to choose your next form of pain?" He gave a huge smile. I grunted at the pain of my arms being held up above me by the shackles made for the height of a grown man. He must have taken that for a no. "No.  I see." His hands hovered over the pile of torture devices with his eyes closed. "Let's leave it to chance, shall we?" He moved his hands over them with his eyes closed and his head facing up.
After about a minute his hand stopped over a whip, and to my utter horror, the one with the glass. "No, please." I begged before I could catch myself.
He whipped his head over to me with shock then smiled. Smiled so coldly I thought I might freeze from his gaze. "Oh yes, I do love it when they beg. Especially when they are as strong willed as you. It is so much fun to break them." He picked up the whip and I closed my eyes, it was better if I couldn't see it. That's what I thought...I was dead wrong.
I felt the searing pain of the whip and the glass tearing at my flesh and let out a scream of sure terror and pain. I had never screamed like that. I never thought something could hurt this bad. I couldn't keep them the tears ran down my face in streams, like the warm blood I felt running down my side. "Please," I breathed "Please no more, please."
I heard him laugh, though I couldn't see him through the tears. "Oh, the joy, she is begging. I think I win. But winning is never fun without an after party because this just hasn't been long enough for my tastes." He set the whip down dripping with blood. My blood. he picked up one thing after another and finally...didn't pick up anything. "You know," he walked over to me and held my chin up so he could look directly at me. "I wonder how you would fare if I just used my fire? Hmm, shall we try?" He lit his hands up, and for one terrible moment he looked just like Adonis. If it weren't for the huge scar running along his eye I probably would have thought it was him in my delirium.
My thoughts were yet again interrupted by a searing pain in my side. I let out another scream, and the pain didn't stop. Malum held his hand there until I fainted and everything went black.