Magda’s muscles locked stiff as the searing pain ignited in her head. It felt as if half a dozen hot needles were all at the same time being thrust into her ears, through her temples, and up into the base of her skull.

A razor-sharp spike of pain lanced into the nerves just below her ears as if yet more of the searing-hot needles were being thrust in right behind her jaw on either side. Her eyes watered and her mouth opened wide, but she couldn’t make a scream. She couldn’t draw a breath. The weight of the terrible agony locked her muscles rigid.

Lord Rahl frowned. “Magda?”

She could see the puzzled concern on his face, but she couldn’t speak to tell him what was happening. She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t do that, either. Mostly, she wanted to somehow make the unexpected, savage pain stop.

She couldn’t endure it for another moment. As much as she wanted to live, she welcomed death if only it would bring her release.

In that helpless, desolate instant, she knew.

The initial violence of the pain unexpectedly eased up just a bit. She didn’t know if it was a depraved game, or if the crushing hurt was going to ram back in at her again with even more force. In that brief break, Magda gasped a breath.

Before she could cry out, the pain slammed into her again, but with immensely more force than the first time. She hadn’t thought it possible for it to hurt more, but it did. The startling power of it left her senseless.

Staggered, she began to lose her awareness of where she was. Her skull felt as if it were being slowly crushed.

A powerful blow came out of nowhere like a bolt of lightning, striking her in the middle, doubling her over. Her muscles strained against a force squeezing her chest. She heard snapping and felt her ribs break, sending yet another kind of pain ripping through her.

In insufferable torment, her eyes wide, she saw Lord Rahl rushing toward her, yet his movements seemed impossibly slow. He almost looked to be a statue, unable to make any headway. At the slow, dreamlike rate at which he appeared to be moving, she didn’t think he would reach her before she was dead.

She felt something warm and wet running from her ears and down along her jaw. She saw bright blood splattering on the stone floor under her.

Magda dropped heavily to her knees.

Her vision narrowed to a dark tunnel. Everything seemed far away. She thought she heard voices but she couldn’t make them out over the piercing, painful, high-pitched noise she was hearing.

Just at the dark edge of her restricted vision, she saw Lord Rahl’s two big guards draw their swords as they, too, started toward her. She knew that they now saw her as a threat.