Dawn of Ash (39 page)

My heart beat with the unfamiliar indecision, a painful force against my ribs that brought me to a stop. The turn in the cave was ahead, the one that would take us right to the hall that led to my father’s chambers where he would be waiting for us, waiting for a report.

Sain’s broken gait stopped no more than a moment after mine, the echo of our steps fading into nothing as I stood, unwilling to move.

“What are you?” I hissed into the silence, unsure if I was talking to myself or to the scapegoat behind me.

“I am a Drak.” His reply was heavy and commanding, the tempo of it much stronger than I had ever heard from him. The tap of his shoes resonated as he moved closer, a shiver moving through me at the missing sound of his false step. “I am the first of my kind. What are you?”

Without warning, his hand moved over my hair, his fingers soft as they ran down the long locks. It was a move that could have easily been confused with romance. My magic certainly pulled that way, his own connecting with mine in a move that had been nothing other than an act before, but suddenly, I wasn’t so positive.

With a shiver, I pulled away, turning to face the man who, as I had seen in the cathedral, looked neither weak nor old. He stared at me with a confidence and power that, before that moment, I would have never expected to see in him. My magic continued to pull toward him as if it could sense the change, as if it hungered for the strength he held.

My soul bristled angrily at the purposed heresy, heart pounding in my chest with all the irritation and fear I had in that moment.

It was a look that would send even my father’s most powerful servants into a cowering mess. It had definitely done Cail in on a number of occasions, but Sain stood there. He smiled, his body not so much as deviating a millimeter, the power behind his eyes rising.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he cooed, his voice a raging torrent as he moved forward, his gait strong and consistent as he closed the gap I had left between us.

My heart raced with each step he took, my mind begging me to attack him, to end this. My magic wanted anything but.

“What are you?” he parroted back to me. His face was now so close to mine all I could see was the deep green of his eyes.

The powerful mass of his magic pressed up against my own, trying to infiltrate, trying to connect with me. As I heaved from the proximity, my soul was keenly aware of the powerful change that affected him so deeply even his magic was different.

“Are you your father’s pet?” he asked.

“I am not his pet,” I barked, the anger finally plowing through the desire and painting my words with a dire warning.

“No? So you are his servant, then?” He spoke slowly as he moved closer, a smile creeping around his lips as he pushed against me, his hand hard against my hip.

“No.”

“So, you are like all the other Chosen. You are his slave.”

This time, I erupted, my anger boiling right to the surface as I rushed him. My skin heated against his in warning as I wrapped my hand around his neck, pushing him into the rough, stone wall we stood beside with a jolt of force and power.

His eyes widened in shock at the force, his smile still a grating insinuation as he looked down at me, not a drop of fear lining his face.

Clenching my teeth together in a foolish attempt to control my anger, I pressed him against the wall again, slamming his head against the stone. Again, the force didn’t even seem to bother him.

“I am not his servant,” I hissed, my anger continuing to boil due to his obvious lack of response.

“Then what are you?” His voice was strained as he heaved through the pressure I was placing on his neck, the deep rumble of his voice sounding like a laugh in my ears. “Because you seem like his slave. You do his dirty work. You take the punishments for each failure without question. You dote on him, and he what? Spits on you? Slices down that beautiful back of yours?”

Without warning, his hand snaked around me, even from where I held him against the wall. His fingers were soft as they moved under my shirt and up my spine, his magic a deep, powerful rumble as it moved into me. I sighed at the caress, my magic reacting with a powerful flare.

Attempting to focus, I stared at him, the glare fading as the Black Water within me reacted to his magic. The poison pressed against my spine as it tried to connect with the man who was the first of its power.

The pleasurable warmth his magic gave me shifted to pain as the magic reacted, my body jerking away from his in an attempt to escape the agony.

“Don’t touch me,” I barked in warning, my magic pressing against him aggressively and slamming him back into the wall again. A dull thud boomed through the cave at the impact, something I knew should have cracked his bone. However, his smile didn’t leave his face, his eyes bright with greed as he pushed my magic off him, his own ability pushing back with as much, if not more, force.

“So that is how you can
see. He put the water inside of you … Beautiful.” His eyes grew wide and greedy as he took a step toward me, his fingers twitching as if he was holding back from grabbing me, from taking control of something that was his all along.

I stood before him, my heart thundering in my chest, back straight, as I tried to decide if I should attack him or not. It would be easier to turn him into my father and be done with it. But I couldn’t think, the pressure in my chest increasing with either option.

“So, a servant,” he mused, and my gut twisted at the insinuation. “But more than that, you are a science experiment, as well. He doesn’t value your existence at all.”

“Don’t spread such lies, Sain!” I shouted, my magic seeping from my fingers to spark against the stone in railroad tracks of lightning.

Sain didn’t even seem to notice my anger, notice the warning of my magic as it left me.

“You are worth so much more than that,” Sain whispered over the noise, his smile distorting his face as he took another step back. “So much more.”

“No!”

Sain’s eyes widened at my shout, his focus leaving me for no more than a second as he looked to the hall behind us. Fear was clear on his face before he stepped away, his back arching into the familiar cower, his shoulders hunching, his foot turning in.

The powerful man I had stood in front of a moment before wilted into what I had perceived as a pathetic weakling previously, the disguise one that had fooled me for centuries. Sain, I realized with a start, was more than a man giving false sights, more than a man manipulating the leaders on either side of this war, more than some pathetic game played by a pathetic man.

He was power.

Sain looked up at me as the loud, hollow noise of footsteps echoed through the hall behind us, the sound mounting as one of my father’s guards came to investigate the noise.

“Ovi,” Sain whispered, his voice deep and strong as he looked up at me from his folded position. “The water within you is strong, as strong as you are. No one else could hold that and use it like you have, like you can. He doesn’t see that. He doesn’t value that. He doesn’t care. But I see what you truly are. I see what you can become. Be alert, Ovi. No matter what you say, he will only use you. Don’t let him. I know another way.”

Frozen in place, I watched him, his voice echoing through me as the rhythm of the steps behind me ripped against my pulse. Sain had barely ceased to speak when he collapsed to the ground in body-seizing sobs.

“Ovailia!” Damek’s voice cut through the cries unexpectedly, my spine jerking as I turned toward him, all of the confusing emotions swirling though me as I fought the need to take everything out on the man before me. It was something that was a real possibility, and judging by the fear that overtook the despicable man’s face, it was something he expected.

He withdrew under my gaze, his eyes wide with fear as the sound of Sain’s forced sobs continued to ring around us.

I couldn’t help smiling at the fear that crossed over Damek’s face. At least I knew I could still make people wilt before me.

“How many times have I told you,” I snarled, the fear on his face increasing with each word, “not to call me that?”

“Yes, my lady.” He cowered, his back moving into a curve so low I was certain he had been practicing.

Damek recoiled in a movement so eerily similar to the man who lay whimpering on the cave floor behind me that I stiffened. My magic flitted between the two of them with the same confusion I had been fighting, a decision I never thought I would have to make becoming clear.

“I’ll be a good servant,” Sain sobbed, the words so clear through his cries that I knew what his intentions were. I knew what he was trying to do. More than that, I knew what
I
had to do.

Sain’s twisted game weaved around me as I stepped toward him, kicking the point of my heel into his ribs with such force that I was confident I heard something crack.

His pain screamed against the rock and ricocheted back to me even louder than before.

“I’ll be good. Trust me. Trust me.”

“Pick him up,” I ordered my father’s guard who still cowered behind me like the mongrel he was. “I am certain my father is expecting us.”

Damek nodded before he walked over to the old man, his magic surging powerfully as Sain jumped and screamed in pain, his body writhing with whatever the sadistic man was doing to him.

Unexpectedly, my heart jerked, an unfamiliar knot in my stomach springing to life at the sound of his pain, a remorse I never thought I would feel digging into me.

I tried to ignore it, but with each scream, it strengthened until I was sure I would kill Damek and run if I had to endure another moment of his games.

“Damek, don’t play with the food,” I spat, my voice shaking uncontrollably at what I had done, at the emotion that had taken over me.

I tried to hide the shake, tried to hide the emotion, but Damek heard, anyway, his eyes a thin line as he turned to face me, the lapse in judgment unmissed.

“I’m not the only one who’s playing with him, it seems.” Eyes narrowing in warning, he stood before me, even though, this time, he did not recoil.

The twist in my stomach intensified.

“I don’t like having to constantly remind you of your role with me, Damek,” I hissed, my voice a hard line as I pushed the emotion away, spitting his name out like acid. “You do what I say. You listen to what I ask.”

“No offense,
my lady
”—his words were as hard as my own, his eyes digging into me as he took a step closer—”but I am your father’s guard, not yours.”

Damek’s smile was wide and greasy as he moved away, Sain dragged behind him on a tow of magic. His voice was loud as he howled in what I assumed was genuine pain. That was, until he looked up at me, his eyes wide and strong even as he cried.

Tension bound me as my magic stretched to him, as his eyes locked me in place, the words he had said before echoing through me with the force of a drum. “
Trust me!
”

Sain’s sobs returned as we turned the corner, his body joining the panic again as we moved through the wide hall that led to my father’s quarters. The hall was as destroyed and disheveled as it had been for the last few months. Ilyan’s former belongings were thrown about, piled in ripped and broken heaps of rubbish, smears of blood and who knew what else splattered over them. It was all foreshadowing what I was really walking into.

As I entered my father’s quarters, the destruction from before was gone. The sterile space was even more frightening after the hall we had left, because here, everything was in its place, everything the way he liked it—from the perfectly made bed to the tables covered with trinkets collected from his kills to the little girl who cried in a pool of blood.

My heart seized at the image, this one unfamiliar for the perfection he always demanded.

The child looked up at me as we entered, her eyes wide and full of confusion and betrayal, her life meaning little more than the rags she wore. The shards of fabric were drenched in the bright color I was convinced was her own.

The reality of what I had walked into became frighteningly clear.

Sain’s sobs silenced as the tense weight of fear moved over both of us, Damek continuing to drag him over the floor behind him, as if he had forgotten he was there.

“Master!” Damek yelled as he ran into the room, his pride seeping off him. “I found her lurking in the halls.”

“Wonderful,” Edmund’s voice resonated from the bathroom where the sound of running water seeped from behind the wide door, the dark crack of the entry looming.

The door behind me closed with a snap, the guards who leaned against each wall shifting their placement as if on orders. The broad man who had been so kind to me the other day inconspicuously stepped before the door we had come in through. His face was grim as his eyes met mine, his lips a tight line.

With my own lips pursed in frustration, the frantic pace of my heart increased until the water from the bathroom stopped, and my father emerged from behind the door like a shadow, his hands still wet.

“Wonderful,” he repeated as he extended his hands out, letting little Míra dry them off while his eyes focused on me, digging into me.

I cowered. I shivered, and I fought the need to step away, fought the need to run. The intensity of his stare grew with each beat of my heart that passed, each low draw of air.

He smiled, patting Míra on the head roughly, her back arching painfully at the pressure. A small sob seeped from her as she fell to the ground, her body folding into itself. He didn’t even seem to notice; he just looked at me, his steps slow and calculated as he moved toward me, a wide smile spreading over his face.

In the hall, Sain had smiled at me, but his was not like this. Sain’s smile was in power within the game I was in no doubt he understood. Edmund’s was in eagerness for what he was about to do, for the blood he was about to spill. It was a look I hadn’t seen directed at me for hundreds of years. My back ached with the memory, my heart tensing with apprehension so intense I had forgotten such an emotion was possible.

“I’m surprised to see you, Ovailia,” Edmund cooed, his voice low and deep, the rumble of it infecting me. “I thought for sure you would have defected back to your brother after your failure.”