Page 78 of Sword & Sacrifice

Understand how it was shaped. By nature? By someone’s hand?

The hemp would have been harvested first, then woven into the ropes.

Picture the process in reverse. The knot untying. The fibers untwisting.

Followed by a spell to help guide the process.

The gag muffled Valerian’s words, but the spell twisted around his tongue with the bitter taste of magic.

The ropes biting into skin loosened, then … snapped, their braids breaking into dozens of individual strands.

Valerian lurched to his feet and grabbed the whip from the air, allowing it to coil around his injured arm. The harsh sting of the impact made his arm tremble, but he grasped the whip firmly, refusing to let it go.

Maksim stared at him, his face frozen in brutal triumph. The memories were static, unchangeable. Maksim couldn’t react to something that never happened.

Valerian concentrated on the whip, the way it dug into his hand. The leather braid unwound itself, losing its structure and power. He yanked it out of Maksim’s hand and tossed it to the side.

“Axe,” Valerian snarled. Because the axe belonged in this scene, even if he was skipping a few steps, it quickly appeared in his hand. He threw it, and it lodged itself in Maksim’s chest.

Maksim unfroze as the memory began to play out as it should. “You—” blood sprayed from his lips as he stumbled to the side, catching himself on one of the posts he had bound Valerian to.

Valerian grabbed the axe with both hands and wrenched it out, releasing another spray of blood that painted his face. He grinned at his tormenter. The first time he’d done this, he’d been exhausted, desperate. This time, Valerian could finally enjoy it.

The axe came down a second time, lodging in Maksim’s upper arm.

“Sorry,” Valerian said. Crazed laughter filled his voice, which only energized him more. “Let me try that again.” A bloody scream accompanied the sound of tearing flesh as Valerian ripped the axe out. Then he brought it down again, this time severing the limb. “That’s better!”

He chopped and chopped and chopped long after Maksim’s screaming cut off. The only sounds now were the wet thump-squelch-splatter of the axe and Valerian’s own laughter.

Eventually, he stopped, the axe stuck in the ground underneath the mutilated corpse. “You know, Alistair,” he panted. “I might have to thank you for this one. That was much more satisfying than the first time around.”

It could have only been better if Alistair had still been possessing Maksim. Then Valerian could have killed two birds with one axe.

Though he’d killed Maksim, Valerian wasn’t spit back out into the forest. The memory didn’t end there. His gaze slowly turned to the manor a short distance away.

The home he’d grown up in.

The prison he’d escaped.

This time, he allowed himself to slip back into the old Valerian. The one who had entered the house, covered in blood, and told the servants to run. The one who had knocked over lamps as he walked, setting small fires everywhere. They weren’t enough, they weren’t what he wanted, but they were a start.

He found the storeroom, filled with barrels of oil to refill the lamps. Dragged a barrel out and rolled it down the hall. Watched as it crashed and burst, spilling its contents everywhere. Grabbed two more, making sure there was enough to go around. He was tempted to put one in Lord Endre’s study but knew that the second floor would fall on its own, as long as the flames were high enough.

The fires he’d already started found the slick oil and devoured it, growing larger, brighter. Heat licked his back as he finished the job and slowly strolled out of the manor, still holding one barrel.

His next step brought him into a familiar forest. He almost missed the place after being trapped in the same damn memory for so long.

Flames reflected in the mirror bark, the last vestiges of the burning memory.

Valerian popped the seal on the barrel, tipped it at an angle, and slowly walked around the tree. The oil spilled from the barrel in a slow, steady glug-glug that echoed through the empty forest. The spiders crawling through his mind were distracted elsewhere.

“Sloppy work, Alistair,” he said, a hint of the wild laughter still in his voice. “You should have left a guard.” He hefted the barrel higher, dribbling oil onto the tree’s trunk. The memory in the reflection warped and wobbled under the slick sheen, the flickering flames blurring into an orange haze.

Once the flow of oil dribbled to a stop, Valerian cast the barrel aside. It thumped heavily on the ground and the forest flinched away from it. Leaves scattered, roots retracted, even a branch rolled off into the distance.

The forest, once so eager to drag Valerian into its depths, now trembled in fear of him.

He laughed, the sound harsh in the empty space. What does it say about me that my own mind fears me?