Three pale hands reached out for it. I looked at Doyle. He was, after all, captain of the Guard. He nodded, as if he approved of my looking to him for the choice rather than making it myself. I knew who I liked the best of the three, but I wasn't sure who was the best with a blade.
"Give it to Frost," Doyle said.
I handed the knife to him handle first. He took it with a small bow. I noticed for the first time that there were faint blood stains on his pretty shirt. He'd been pressed against Galen's back wounds. He'd need to soak the shirt or the bloodstains would set.
"I realize that Frost is worth a stare or two tonight, Meredith, but you are stalling," Doyle said.
I nodded. "I suppose I am." I looked up at the dangling thorns. My stomach was tight, my hands cold. I was afraid.
"Hold your wrist out to the vine that is the lowest. We will protect you to the last breath in our bodies. You know that."
I nodded. "I know that." I did know that. I even believed it, but still... I watched the thorns and my gaze slid upward into the dimness. Vines as wide as my leg twisted and turned upon themselves like a knot of sea serpents. Some of the thorns were as big as my hand, catching the light in a dull black gleam.
I brought my gaze back down to the thin tiny thorns on the vines directly over my head. They were small, but there were a lot of them, like a bristling armor of tiny pins.
I took a deep breath and blew it out. I started raising my hand slowly upward, hand balled into a tight fist. My hand was barely even with my forehead when the vine poured downward like a snake down a hole. The brown thing wrapped around my wrist, and the thorns set in my skin like hooks in a fish's mouth. The pain was sharp and immediate, coming a second before the first trickle of blood slid onto my wrist. The blood tickled down my skin like tiny fingers caressing the skin. A fine crimson rain began to glide down my wrist, thick and slow.
Galen hovered by me, hands fluttering around me as if he wanted to touch me but was afraid to.
"Isn't that enough?" he asked.
"Apparently not," Doyle said.
I looked where his gaze was fixed and found a second thin tendril hanging above my head. It stopped as the first one had stopped-waiting. Waiting for my invitation to come closer.
I looked at Doyle. "You must be joking."
"It has been long since it fed, Meredith."
"You've endured more pain than a few thorns," Rhys said.
"You even enjoyed it," Galen said.
"The context was different," I said.
"The context is everything," he said, softly. There was something in his voice, but I didn't have time to decipher it.
"I would give my wrist in your place, but I am not heir," Doyle said.
"Neither yet am I."
The vine moved lower, tickling against my hair like a lover trying to caress his way to the promised land. I offered my other arm, fist closed. The vine wrapped around my wrist with an eager speed. The thorns sank into my flesh. The vine pulled tight. It brought a gasp from my throat. Rhys was right. I'd endured greater pain, but every pain is singular, a unique torture. The vines pulled themselves taut, raising my hands tight above my head. There were so many thorns that it felt like some small animal was trying to bite through my wrists.
Blood ran down my arms in a fine, continuous rain. I'd been able to feel each individual line of blood at first, but my skin grew dead to so much sensation. The pain in my wrists drew all my attention. The vines raised me up on tiptoe, until their grip was all that kept me from falling. The sharp biting pain began to fade into a burning. It wasn't poison. It was just my body reacting to the damage.
I heard Galen's voice as if from a distance. "That's enough, Doyle." It wasn't until he spoke that I realized I'd closed my eyes. Closed my eyes and given myself to the pain, because only by embracing it could I rise above it, travel through it, to the place where there was no pain and I floated on a sea of blackness. His voice brought me back, wrenched into the kiss of thorns and the spill of my own blood. My body jerked with the suddenness of it, and the thorns answered that movement by jerking me into the air, free of ground.
I cried out.
Someone grabbed my legs, supporting my weight. I blinked down to find Galen holding me. "It's enough, Doyle," he said.
"They never drank so long from the queen," Frost said. He'd moved up to us, my knife in his hand.
"If we cut the vines, they will attack us," Doyle said.
"We have to do something," Rhys said.
Doyle nodded.
The sleeves of my jacket were blood-soaked. I thought vaguely that I wished I'd worn black. It
didn't show blood as badly. The thought made me giggle. The grey light seemed to be swimming around us. I was dizzy, light-headed. I wanted the blood loss stopped before I got nauseated. There was nothing like nausea induced by blood loss. You felt too weak to move and still wanted to spill your stomach onto the floor. My fear was fading into a light, almost shining, sensation, as if the world were edged with fog.
I was perilously close to passing out. I'd had enough of the thorns. I tried to say "enough," but no sound came out. I concentrated on my lips and they moved, forming the word, but there was no sound.
Then there was a sound, but it wasn't my voice. The vines hissed and shivered above me. I looked upward, my head falling back bonelessly. The vines rolled above me like a black sea made of rope. The thorns around my wrist pulled upward with a sharp hiss. Only Galen's arms on my legs kept me from being lifted into the nest of thorns. The vines at my wrists pulled, and Galen held, and my wrists bled.
I screamed. I screamed one word: "Enough!"