The room smelled of sweat and despair as my master lay on his bed, chest heaving, as he gasped for air. His eyes sought me out and there was something desperate in them--a familiar sight that I had yet to get bored of. He was dying and he knew it, but he still clung to the wisps of the curse that bound me to him.
"Save me," he said, words slightly slurred. "That's an order."
I stood up slowly and made my way to the side of the bed. His face glistened with sweat, his eyes were bloodshot, and his body had lost much of its substance over the past few weeks as the contract between us drained him. Now, he barely clung to his life, and yet he had the nerve to try and order me.
Unfortunately for him, the contract between us grew weaker the closer he came to death. There was nothing he could force me to do now.
I pushed sweat-soaked hair from his forehead--an action that might have seemed compassionate to an unrelated onlooker, but my master flinched from my touch. A smile graced my lips. Only a week earlier, I'd been forced to grovel at my master's feet; he'd laughed at my plight and made me do humiliating task after humiliating task simply for his own amusement. And now he feared me, as he should.
"Why should I save you?" I asked.
He swallowed and weakly lifted his hand where the cursed rune binding me to him glowed faintly.
"I still own you," he said. "You have to obey me."
Those words seemed to give him courage. He pushed himself up into a half-upright position and knocked my hand away from his face. His eyes were livid as he glared at me.
"I command you to save me, demon."
I could feel the curse stirring, straining to take hold of me, though it wouldn't do him much good. At best, I could prolong his life for a few more weeks, but in the end, he was going to die. I couldn't stop that no matter how strong the curse was.
I simply continued to smile at him, and his face twisted with uncertainty.
"Please," he said, sounding pained, like begging a demon was the worst thing he could possibly think of. "Please save me, demon."
I sighed. "All right. I'll save you."
My master looked shocked at my words, but then he smiled and pushed himself up further. I turned away from him and walked across the room to where the cursed knife that was the source of my imprisonment lay on a side table. I picked it up and returned to my master. He eyed me warily, the smile still on his face but stiff and unsure.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Saving you. You're going to die no matter what, so I'll save you from slowly wasting away." Not that I truly had any intention of doing so. As much as I would love to kill him, the contract between us still prevented it to a degree. I could kill him, but the consequences would be severe. Watching him slowly die, however, did have its perks.
His face became furious and as I lifted the knife toward him, he whacked it out of my hand. The weapon clattered to the floor and spun away toward the wall.
"You useless piece of garbage!" my master snarled. His body shook, though I figured it was less from the rage and more from the sickness. It was probably very difficult for him to even sit up right now.
I chuckled softly and sat on the edge of the bed.
"Fine then," I said, shrugging in an exaggerated show of nonchalance. "Die quickly or die slowly. Either way, you're a dead man."
My master wheezed loudly, and he suddenly grabbed onto my shoulder, using me as a handhold to pull himself out of the bed. He stood up on unsteady legs and stumbled over to where the knife lay on the floor. He picked it up and the rune on his hand as well as the ones on the blade flared brighter.
"You think you're clever, demon?" he asked. "If I'm going to die, don't think I'm going to let you get away with your insolence."
He stalked toward me. Maybe it was his anger that gave him strength or maybe it was the curse itself, still trying to force me into submission in whichever way possible. Maybe it was something else entirely, but whatever the reason, the return of his strength, albeit temporarily, also meant the return of his authority over me. And if he had it in his mind to torture me before he passed, there would be nothing I could do until weakness claimed him once again.
I watched him with trepidation, but I was careful to keep my face completely impassive. If I was going to have no choice in this, then at the very least I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of a reaction.
"Don't move," he said, voice laced with poisonous undertones.
I could feel my body stilling, and a couple of tests to move my arm proved that the curse was still strong enough to not be able to fight at all.
My master pushed his hand against my chest, shoving me backward against the bed, and then the knife was against my face, the blade trailing across my cheekbone.
"Don't forget your place, demon," my master sneered. "You're nothing but a tool, and right now, you're my tool."
The blade sliced through my skin, drawing a deep cut down over my cheek and to my chin. I could feel the blood leaking down my face.
My master pulled back and lifted the knife above his head before bringing it down with a vengeance into my stomach.
Despite my best efforts to remain silent, the pain was enough to force a groan from me. This sound drew a grin from my master, and he stabbed me twice more, seeming to delight in the blood that splashed over his hands and lower arms. He lowered his face close to mine until all I could smell was the reek of sweat and sickness.
"Nothing to say?" he said, forcing me to endure his breath as it washed over me since I couldn't turn my head away. "Hm? Nothing at all?"
I just glowered at him until he straightened back up before slamming the knife back into my stomach and leaving it there. His face was red and his eyes shimmered feverishly. I tested the grip of the curse again, but I was still stuck fast.
"You don't look so good," my master said. His gaze was directed at my stomach where I could feel my blood flowing from the stab wounds; the blanket beneath me was already soaked and sticky against my skin.
"Perhaps you'd like to apologize," he continued, and when I remained silent, his eyes narrowed. "Apologize."
I tried to clamp my mouth shut, but the curse forced the words from my mouth.
"I'm sorry," I said.
My master frowned. "You don't sound sorry."
I strained against the curse for a moment before giving up once more.
"It sounds to me," he said, "like you're just trying to placate me." He leaned forward, putting his hand on the hilt of the knife planted in my stomach. "So why don't you say that again with a little more contrition."
Once again, the words came out of me without my consent, but this time my tone was gentler and far more repentant-sounding.
My master smiled, but that smile quickly turned to a grimace and he stumbled backward, coughing loudly, a spray of blood flying from his mouth. He turned his livid eyes on me.
"If you want me to have mercy on you, tell me how to cure this sickness," he said.
"You can't cure it," I said. "It's not possible."
His expression twisted in anger and he reached for the knife, but before he could get a hold of it, he fell forward, face contorting and eyes rolling backward. Immediately, I felt the curse's bonds release me and I twisted to the side before he landed on top of me. My master was still, and when I rolled his body over, his face was slack, a line of bloody drool dripping from the corner of his mouth.
Dead. Finally.
I stood up and gripped the hilt of the knife, pulling it from my stomach in one quick motion before flinging the blade to the floor. I stumbled over to a chair on the opposite side of the room from the bed and sat down, breathing heavily. These wounds wouldn't kill me, but that didn't make the pain any easier to bear, and they wouldn't heal now that my master was dead. Without someone controlling the curse, I was without even my passive magic.
Thus, I would have to wait for someone to find the knife.
I closed my eyes and listened to the quiet plink of blood dripping on the floor.
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