It would be a cold summer night that I sat cross stitching to compartmentalize the events of the last three months. The events leading up to now made me miss home more than ever, wondering endlessly why I hadn’t received a single letter from Mother and Father. I wondered if Fatiha was happily married, yet; how her sisters were doing, and even hoping Jamila was happier than I was. I’d tried to think as little about Idris as possible, but any blue thing that crossed my line of sight reminded me of his eyes. I was lucky that the sky remained as grey as I felt—else I’d look up at the sky and be reminded of him. I remembered his teasing tone so often, it was a blessing to dream of it instead of the past three months’ encounters with Shahin. I sat, humming a lullaby from Mahsul as the fireplace crackled. I hated the sound of fire by now, but the house got so cold without one going. As I finished the green of a Camellia leaf, I heard my door click open. My eyes rose from the Aida, and met Shahin’s.


    Lutrov, Lutrov, Lutrov.


    The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I observed his face—he had been drinking, that much was apparent. It was long past midnight, and I thought he’d gone to bed by now after a business meeting. His face was stone cold as he approached my bed.


    “Darling, would you come with me?” He asked, his voice eerily calm.


    Run, run, run.


    I stood from the bed, as he offered a hand out to me. I laced my fingers in his, feeling a slight warmth pulling through them. Something was wrong. There was a problem somewhere. His hands were never this warm, even when they clamped onto my wrists during his violent throes of sex. The Duke began leading me through the palace, with not so much as a floorboard creaking as we made our way to the marble flooring of the library. The clicking of Shahin’s boots echoed through the hall as he opened the door to the deck, and I walked outside. The winter chill made my body tense, and I instantly wanted to go back inside. Every time Shahin looked at me, he seemed ready to pounce.


    Lutrov, Lutrov, Lutrov.


    I steeled my resolve as he took my hand again, seeing my own breath as he lead me through the garden. I hadn’t grabbed a shawl, or any shoes before coming out, and I felt the cold numbing each limb but the fingers in his hand. Otlak had freezing nights—even in the summer months; I’d seen snow pile up on our window panes this time last year. He walked me far past the phosphorescent fungi, towards the dilapidated shack in the back of the property. I tried to steady my breathing, praying to God that mercy would be had upon me. I couldn’t bear any more loss of vision, or bruises. If I could go back, I’d have kicked him in his family jewels and ran as fast as I could—somewhere into the woods, to find that Child of Calamity Pavel had told me about—but I walked with Shahin holding my hand, instead. Just as we stopped before the old barrack building, the urge to run was about to fire. Before I knew it, I’d been knocked out cold.


    I awoke in a fury, trying to sit up and take in the darkness surrounding me. My limbs were held in place, as something kept me secured to whatever I laid upon. The surface was cold against my robe—a table? My fingers were numb, and so were my toes. My face was burning, and I shivered violently as I turned my head around thrashing. There he was; Shahin, standing before me, cloaked in shadows. His smile was the only thing I saw in the darkness, as he stepped closer.


    “Shahin.” I barked. “What is the meaning of this?”


    I sounded more like Father in that moment than ever, trying to contain his temper and failing miserably. I slipped tongues back to Otlank, repeating my question as I tried to free myself from the restraints.


    “I’ve learned some new tricks, Dear. I’d like you to answer some questions for me.” He said.


    I furrowed my brows in response, his cryptic answer was just as distressing as the truth. With each second that passed, my fingers and toes grew colder. The possibilities of what Shahin was planning sent me into a blind panic.


    “Tricks? This is hardly a trick. What do you want?” I swear I was yelling, but I’m sure I was barely above a whisper as I spoke. I tried jerking my arms free from the ropes, to no avail. My chest was hurting, so badly it felt like I’d stepped into the mountain range further East.


    “Tell me.” Shahin began. “Tell me what you’ve been doing with that eunuch.”


    I almost lost it, Shahin’s obsession with Pavel was more enraging than panic-inducing. My mind raced with things to say. I could only muster the truth.


    “I’ve been having tea with him and talking. That’s all.”


    Wrong choice.


    Shahin chuckled darkly as he took out a small blade from his pocket, and I wriggled furiously to try and free myself from the restraints. The possibility of him slitting my throat open became a reality, and I tried to scream to the best of my ability.


    “Is that it?” He asked as the knife sliced into my robe. I felt the cold air truly hit my back, and what little warmth I had fled from the cloth that shielded me from the elements.


    “I’m beginning to feel like I’m not being shown enough love, Blisovnyiy.” His words were sickeningly sweet as the term of endearment left his mouth, as I felt a burning sensation prick at my back. Something warm, that became colder than the chill in the air formed on my back as I watched his pupils dilate and constrict with pleasure. Blood. I was a mouse under a cat’s claw.


    “Yes, Shahin! That’s all! Nothing is happening!” I shrieked. I watched him with as pleading of an expression I could muster, whimpering as the ropes burned my skin with each wriggle.


    “Please, Dear, this isn’t right.” I returned to a hushed tone.


    If I could just reach his sense of humanity, if I could just get to him—


    The tip of the knife moved my robe aside now, and pressed into my back a bit harder than before. I froze in place, horrified.


    “Shh…” Shahin cooed. “Just tell me what happened, and we can work past this, Song Bird.”


    “There’s nothing that happened, Shahin! Please!”


    The knife made its first incision, and I screamed out, I was sure of it that time. I yowled louder than an injured tigress, as the stinging sensation traveled through the incision.


    “Shahin…!” I roared, clenching my fists in pain. “You can’t do this! What of my Mother and Father?! What if they find out about this?!”This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    “Your Mother and Father…?” Shahin asked mockingly, making his second cut with a smile as he drew away. “They told me I could do with you as I please, Song Bird. Your Father won’t be saving you, and your Mother is much too fragile to do anything.”


    The second cut was worse than the first, making me scream even louder as the burning went deep into my spinal column. I wanted to run, I wanted to cry, I wanted to throw up. The pain was so bad, but I wasn’t freezing anymore. The pain was consuming me. Making my body hot and sticky as sweat pilled on the back of my neck. He was wrong. If Father saw what Shahin was doing to me right now—that bastard would be as good as dead. I kept screaming until the pain died down, until the sobbing began.


    “You’re hurting me, Beloved…!” I choked out. “Please…stop!”


    I knew better than to call him a liar. That would be a surefire death wish. I wanted to reach a part of him somewhere, anywhere, to make him stop—to make him lose interest.


    “All you need to do is tell me he’s been fucking you.” Shahin proposed as he met my eyes again.


    I furrowed my brows, feeling my anger as hot as it could go. I’d never felt so insulted, so belittled, and disgusted in all my life. Jamila couldn’t come close to this—nothing could come close to this pure rage within me.


    “He can’t fuck me, imbecile.” I spat, my voice hoarse and thick with emotion.


    Wrong answer.


    Three more burning sensations littered my back, and I screamed out again. Shahin chuckled at the sound of my screams, and I tried once more to free myself. I screamed as loud as I could, praying someone could hear me.


    “If only you’d tell the truth for once in your goddamned life.” He muttered, cutting into the second laceration again.


    I fought the restraints again and again, feeling my wrists and ankles begin to burn as badly as my back did.


    “This is wrong, Shahin! You have it all wrong!” I yelled as I struggled.


    “Do I?” Shahin asked as he drew away, seeming to admire the injuries he’d given me. “I told you not to call me a liar.” He hissed as he plunged the knife down once more.


    Desperate, exhausted cries left my mouth—and I could only repeat a single phrase in my mind.


    Fakhlah Torazeh.


    This is Torture.


    I couldn’t remember how much time had passed—minutes, hours, seconds all bled together as I was tied to that table. The interrogation quickly turned into a test of my limits, and my body was—unfortunately, very resilient. I sobbed and wailed as the broken boards of the building whistled with the wind, and the small voice in my head repeating that phrase over and over again also wondered how Shahin was even capable of withstanding the cold for so long to carry out such acts. It felt like next Spring should have come at that point, I’d been suffering and agonizing for so long.


    “You’re too beautiful to be so disgusting, Song Bird. It’s quite sad, really, how worthless and disposable you’ve become to me.”


    “My next slice will be along this…nerve…” He instructed, tracing the second cut he’d made along my lower back. “Since you’re not even worth fucking to bear me an heir…” he muttered.


    I could barely muster half a plea from my mouth as the knife plunged into my once more. He leaned down to look me in the eyes again—joy. There was genuine joy in his eyes. Something I’d never seen, even in the three years of happiness we’d shared together; nights we’d spent making love in what I thought to be a genuine bond between two souls. I was mortified—what if he was right? All those years ago, he’d discussed those nerves on our trip back to Otlak when we wedded. He knew the anatomy of my back better than any doctor, and in my mind: that man had just taken my ability to produce an heir. I mourned both my innocence, and my fertility in the same cry as he cut into the same spot. A violent jerk of my arm came from that slice. He whispered words of vitriol to me as he continued.


    “Your body is wretched. If only you could see how pathetic you look right now.”


    “You may have a beautiful face, but I’ll make sure each man who sees that horrid body of yours knows you belong to me.”


    “Struggling only makes it worse, Song Bird.”


    “With a face like that, I’d enjoy to see how you’d react to paralysis.”


    Fakhlah torazeh, fakhlah torazeh, fakhlah torazeh, fakhlah torazeh.


    I didn’t care anymore. The pain was so bad I could hardly cry out anymore, my throat was dry and rougher than sand paper. I was over it, I was over living at that point.


    Finally, Shahin stepped back and cleaned the knife in his hand off. I shuddered with pain and horror, as he untied me. I wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball, to warm myself up—but moving was pure devastation at that point. He picked me up by the hair, and I yelped out once more as he barked at me.


    “Walk. You’re fine.”


    I had to walk. I had no choice. One step, and another; one foot, in front of the other. One tear, and another rolled down my cheeks in silence as I tried not to fall. My knees were so weak by the first quarter of a meter that Shahin held my hair wadded in a fist as he supported most of my weight. Everything hurt. My breathing sputtered as we made it in, and my robe was a tattered mess. It must have been the cold air, because the blood on my back had dried by the time I’d made it to my room. I was amazed that he hadn’t struck any major arteries, as he all but threw me in.


    “Strip.” He spat. “And sit on the bed.”


    He left me alone in the room, and I fell to the ground as I shook violently. Strip? Strip? I could hardly move, and he expected me to strip? I wanted to know what kind of sick fucking fantasy he was playing out in his head as I began to pull each half robe off of my body with heavy limbs. It felt like I’d slammed into a wall at superhuman speed, and topped it off with high-end liqueur as I moved my arms to finish peeling the clothing from my arms. I fell into the bed, there was no sitting for me.


    Time moved slowly until Shahin returned, carrying a pail of water as he leaned over me. I felt him check my neck for a pulse—Bastard—before he started wiping my back off with a rag from the water. Each dab from the cloth felt like another slice in my back, but I was too exhausted to cry or fight back. As he wiped, I managed a raspy cry as my shoulders shuddered.


    “Why would you do this?” I asked through tears.


    “To hear my little Song Bird sing, of course.” He replied in the sweetest voice I’d heard since our wedding.


    ————————————————————————————————————


    Six years. Six long years, I endured the agony of Shahin’s abuse. He starved me, and sliced into my back like some prisoner; I was nothing more than butcher’s meat to the monster. I was stupid. I was such a stupid girl to believe I’d been in good hands when I was shipped off with him. I was even dumber for believing that it was his way of showing that he loved me. His voice, so sickeningly sweet when he demeaned and belittled me, was the only thing keeping me conscious.


    “How does it feel? Being so worthless and pathetic for me?”


    “I see you’ve grown to enjoy your punishment for being a disgusting little whore. Won’t you sing just a little for me?”


    “Seeing you look so frail makes me wonder if you’re even related to Al’Namir. If only your Daddy could see you now.”


    “Is it blood, or are you just excited to see me, Song Bird?”


    Butcher’s meat—a sex toy, no difference. I was his to play with, to break and destroy. The worst part was my enjoyment of it—thinking that love was shown by brutal pain and torture. I could never look myself in the mirror during the day, now a husk of my former self. I didn’t want to see how gray my face was, or how thin I’d become. I knew that whatever looked back at me wasn’t actually me—it was a ghost, a Fiid, a damned wretch; but it wasn’t me. It was Shahin’s Thing. I slept most days, even through Pavel trying to visit me. On the rare occasion that I was awake, I managed to stumble to the door and curse him away. I broke several expensive vases that way, and was punished tenfold for it. I felt so bad, both for being so mean to Pavel; and from my body’s condition. The different pains would pull my attention at different points of the day; my stomach would hurt from hunger, distracting me from the back pain—the pain in my ankles would distract from the hunger; the pain in my back would distract me from that; and the pain in my back would distract me from the pain in my ankles. My body screamed for help more than my voice box after the first year, and I hardly screamed anymore.


    The pain became meditative, I was at its will—it had complete power over me. The pain of Shahin’s psychological abuse was worse than the physical abuse, at times. What would happen if Father ever saw me? Would he cry, and kill Shahin—or was it as Shahin said; could he do whatever he wished with me? Was I truly as disgusting as he said? A whore? I knew I was worthless; unable to bear any children meant no heirs, no heirs meant no worth. I was stupid. But I wasn’t that stupid.


    The comments wormed their way into my sleep—whenever I actually slept. Nowhere was safe, and that’s why I just laid in bed anticipating the sun setting. I grew accustomed to the danger of my life fading, and it was the only thing making me feel alive.