Chapter 664: A new - (1)
"It hurts. It hurts. Fuck—it hurts."
Thalien would have screamed if not for his wrist jammed between his teeth, muffling the sounds of agony that surged from the pit of his stomach like a curse. Blood welled where his teeth broke skin, but he didn’t care.
Pain was pain—it was just that, it could pass if the mind was strong enough.
He knelt hunched over like a broken thing, fingers trembling as they clutched the rim of a stained bucket that stank of bile and ruin. The contents within were a grotesque swirl of yellow froth and half-digested scraps—the last meal he would ever romanticize. Bread, meat, maybe a bit of carrot—it all swam in the acid froth like flotsam from a wrecked ship.
"Too slow," he muttered hoarsely, "Too fucking slow in rejecting it, I shouldn’t have wasted that much time ..."
Desperate, he jabbed his fingers down his throat again, clawing past his tongue, trying to summon anything left. His uvula danced with irritation, but nothing came now—only choking, spit, and the sour tang of helplessness. His body had given all it could. It would not be cleansed.
Once again punished by his inadequacy, he laughed at that.
It came low, then rose, shaky at first like a stringed instrument stretched too far... then louder, higher, shriller, until it rattled the small, dark chamber around him like a dying bell.
He laughed at the chunks of bread floating in vomit.He laughed at the stench clinging to his sleeves.He laughed as he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing bile upon it.
He laughed at the gods—those bastard sky-dwellers he’d cursed his whole life and mocked with every step.
He laughed at them and dared them to strike him down.
The man who would make fool of all their sacred laws.