Chapter 2 – The Taste of Iron

The rusted hinges scream, a sound that vibrates through the rotting floorboards and straight into my aching molars.

I do not open my eyes immediately. I wait, listening to the heavy, deliberate scrape of Tadeo’s boots crossing the threshold. He does not carry the crimson lantern this time. Only the pale, bruised light of a winter morning filters through the high, barred grate near the ceiling, casting long, skeletal shadows across the dungeon floor.

He sets something down. A heavy wooden bowl scraping against stone. Water sloshing. The dull thud of stale bread.

"Eat," his voice commands, a low, gravelly scrape that offers no room for hesitation.

I keep my face pressed to the freezing floor, measuring the distance. Two paces. He is close enough that the heavy hem of his dark clerical robes brushes against my bare, bruised ankle. The heavy iron collar around my neck connects to a wall anchor via a thick chain, leaving me barely enough slack to reach the bowl.

He expects me to crawl. He expects a broken, shivering thing desperate for a drop of moisture.

I gather the slack of the chain in my right hand, coiling the rusted metal tightly around my knuckles until the iron bites into my flesh. My muscles, stiff and screaming from the cold, coil like a spring.

As Tadeo shifts his weight, turning slightly to inspect the locking mechanism on the heavy oak door, I lunge.

It is not a blind, panicked scramble. It is a calculated, full-body strike. I throw my entire weight forward, aiming the heavy, coiled iron around my fist directly for the side of his skull.

He does not flinch. He does not stumble backward in surprise.

His reaction is horrifyingly fast, the sheer physical reflex of a man who has survived far worse than a starving prisoner in a cage. Before my fist can connect, a heavy, leather-clad hand shoots out. His fingers clamp around my wrist like a steel vice, stopping my momentum entirely. The impact sends a jarring shockwave up my arm, dislocating nothing, but bruising the bone instantly.

With a brutal, fluid motion, Tadeo twists my arm downward. I gasp as the torque forces me to spin, slamming my back violently against the jagged stone wall. The breath leaves my lungs in a ragged hiss.

Before I can recover, he is on me. He steps fully into my space, using his sheer, immovable mass to pin me flat against the masonry. His knee presses between my thighs, locking my legs in place, while his free hand comes up to seize my jaw. Thick, cured leather grips my cheeks, forcing my head back against the stone, exposing the fragile line of my throat.

"Foolish," he whispers, his face mere inches from mine.

The heavy, cloying scent of myrrh and melting wax rolls off him, suffocating me. His dark eyes are void of anger; they are merely observant, calculating the exact amount of pressure needed to snap my jaw.

I cannot breathe. My lungs burn, fighting against the crushing weight of his chest pressing into mine. Panic, sharp and feral, claws at the edges of my vision.

His thumb shifts, pressing painfully into the soft tissue right beneath my cheekbone. He is looking at my mouth, waiting for the inevitable plea for mercy.

Instead, I part my lips.

As his leather-clad thumb grazes the corner of my mouth, I snap my teeth forward. I catch the thick fold of leather between his thumb and forefinger, and I bite down with every ounce of savage, desperate strength I possess. I grind my teeth, aiming for the bone beneath the thick hide, tasting the bitter cure of the leather and the coppery tang of dirt.

A sharp, sudden hiss of breath escapes his teeth.

His entire body goes rigid. For a fraction of a second, the immaculate, terrifying control of the High Priest fractures.

He does not strike me. Instead, his other hand abandons my pinned wrist and buries itself into my tangled, matted hair. With a violent jerk, he yanks my head back, forcing my jaw to open and release its grip on his hand. The movement is so forceful my skull cracks against the stone wall, sending an explosion of white stars across my vision.

I slide down the wall, gasping for air, the taste of leather and iron still thick on my tongue.

Tadeo takes a half-step back, his chest heaving with a sudden, uneven rhythm. He raises his right hand. The thick black glove is torn. A slow, dark bead of blood wells up from the puncture wound near his thumb, sliding down the dark leather to drip onto the freezing flagstones.

Clack.

The single drop of blood sounds deafening in the silence of the cell.

Tadeo stares at the blood on his glove. The absolute stillness that overtakes him is far more terrifying than any physical blow. The cold void in his eyes vanishes, replaced by a sudden, violent storm of something I cannot name. His breath hitches. His pupils dilate, swallowing the irises whole, and for a fleeting, inexplicable moment, he looks entirely, devastatingly shattered.

It lasts only a heartbeat.

The mask slams back into place, harder and more unforgiving than before.

He reaches into the folds of his robes and draws a heavy, polished oak baton. He slaps it rhythmically against his uninjured palm. The sound echoes off the vaulted ceiling like a death knell.

"You have spirit, Inés," he says, his voice devoid of all previous warmth, a flat, dead tone that chills me deeper than the winter air. "But the Sanctum does not require spirit. It requires submission."

He takes a slow step forward, looming over my crumpled form. He points the tip of the baton toward the wooden bowl of water on the floor.

"You are thirsty," Tadeo states. It is a fact, not a question. "Drink."

I stare up at him, my breathing ragged. I refuse to move.

Tadeo lowers the baton, letting it rest gently against the side of my right kneecap. The wood is hard, heavy.

"The ritual requires you to be alive," he murmurs, leaning down so his words brush against my ear. "It does not require you to walk. If you do not drop to your knees and drink from that bowl right now, I will shatter both of your patellas. You will crawl to the altar on broken bone."

He applies a fraction of pressure to the baton. A dull, terrifying ache radiates through my knee joint. He means it. There is no bluff in the obsidian void of his eyes.

My pride screams at me to spit at his boots. My survival instinct, honed by years of surviving my father’s cruelties, overrides it.

Slowly, agonizingly, I shift my weight. The cold stone bites into my bare skin as I lower myself. I drop to all fours, the rusted chain clinking softly against the floor. I lower my face toward the wooden bowl, the stagnant water reflecting the bruised, hollowed-out face of a stranger.

I press my lips to the freezing water and take a sip.

But I do not close my eyes. I turn my head slightly, glaring up through the tangled curtain of my hair, keeping my gaze locked entirely on the executioner standing above me. I kneel, but I do not bow.