"You have chosen this."
His bandaged hand closed around her jaw and forced her head up. The motion pulled at his stitches and fresh red bloomed through the linen at his shoulder, but the one eye that found hers was past caring about his own body.
"I will break your concentration and let the magic do its work the old-fashioned way."
Just as Aelindra needed Myrasyn alive to speak the words that would make her queen, Ragnar needed Black Fang alive to speak the words he wanted to hear. A dead woman couldn't answer questions. A collared one would answer every question he ever asked.
His fist drove into her stomach.
The impact was enough to crack ribs. Black Fang's body absorbed it the way centuries of pain had taught her to absorb everything: without movement, without sound, without a single thread of concentration leaving the war inside her channels. The venom kept its paths. The collar's pulse came and was eaten. Her breathing didn't change.
