Dawn of Ash (Imdalind, #6)(25)

“I need you to arrange another meeting with him. If what I have done to you has allowed you to see this sight, then you can see more. Use it. If Sain won’t give us the information, then maybe you can get it for us.”

After all of his anger, after all of the fear he had bled into me, this was not what I had expected.

Pity? I had always been taught that pity was for the weak, and my father was not weak.

“He has lied to you, Father; do you think showing him mercy is wise?”

“Normally, no. Regardless, he has already shown he does not fear us, so we need to give him a reason to love us, a reason to work alongside us.”

“But, Father—”

“Then we will crush him,” he interrupted, a smile stretching so wide the white of his teeth bled through. “He is still as valuable a pawn to us as we are to him. It all depends on how we make our moves, who gets the king first, so to speak. I will use him to the very fullest until the moment he becomes disposable.”

“But how do—”

“Look to the pits, Ovailia,” he interrupted again, his tone, while kind, warning me of the storm beneath the surface.

My muscles tightening in fear of what I had almost unleashed, my focus shifted toward the pit for the first time, toward the children who circled, who lunged, who bled, who screamed. Who battled for one of the coveted places inside of Imdalind, in my father’s army.

I had heard their fight before, but now I saw it. Now I rejoiced in the beauty of the system my father had created.

“Take these children,” he began with a small gesture of his hand. “Young, innocent, they don’t want to hurt each other. They don’t want to kill. But they want to impress me, and they will do anything to gain that honor…” He looked at me, his grin still wide and haunting before he stood, the bright red cloak unfurling beneath him until he looked like the royal monarch he was.

With nothing more than that one movement, heads turned toward him, the stadium began to quiet, and even the children who fought below us slowed to a stop, their eyes turned toward their king in expectation, their backs bent in reverence.

“This fight is a good one”—his voice was loud; even I cringed against the weight of it—”so let’s up the ante, shall we!” His voice rumbled as the crowd went wild, and the tiny frames of the children shook in anticipation. “The victor of this fight will move beyond Imdalind and gain the right to be my new, personal bodyguard.”

Gasps, awe, cheers, they filled me as they did the crowd around us, a pride and exhilaration flowing freely at what was about to occur.

The children looked at each other in question. Even though they didn’t fully understand, they knew this was a greater prize than what they had originally been told. And before Edmund had taken his seat on the billowy nest, they had begun to fight again, this time with more fervor and desperation than before.

“Will you look at that?” Edmund’s voice was a calm torrent beside me, but I, like him, couldn’t look away from the way the children attacked each other, jumping and clawing and tearing and biting. “They were doing as they were told before, but now … with a promise of victory, a promise of a better goal, they truly fight. Their hearts are in it now.”

My head snapped from the children to my father, unsurprised to see him sitting there with that grim smile on his face, his eyes revealing all the knowledge and power he had.

“Tell me, Ovailia, how did his magic react to yours today? Did it try to connect again?”

“It did.” I was proud, and he was pleased, which increased the ecstasy inside of me.

“So his desire for you is strengthening?”

“Yes, Father, as you asked me to do.”

“Wonderful,” he cooed, his focus finally pulling back to the pits where a lone child stood over a lifeless shape, tiny fists smashing into bloodied flesh again and again. “Use him. Even go as far as completing the bond if you must. Anything to access his sight, to get the information we need.”

“Complete the bond?” An odd mixture of desire and disgust roared through me, the disgusting emotions making me feel vile.

“He has secrets we need, Ovailia, and with the magic I have embedded in you, once a bond is complete, you will have full access to whatever I wish. You just need to give him a greater reward. Give him a reason to fight to the death, and you have always been his reason. You just need to show him you still are.”

He looked away from me as the child was pulled off the heap of the body she had destroyed, her eyes wild and manic, everything so covered in blood and dirt it was difficult to tell if it was the boy or the girl. If it wasn’t for the clothing, I would have never known.

One thing was perfectly clear: she knew she had won. She knew she had gotten what she wanted. And all because my father had given her the opportunity.

“Give him a reason to do anything I say,” I whispered more to myself than to my father, but he heard, anyway.

His face broke out into a smile, the same mania in his eyes darting to me as the pit master brought the child to him. “Give him a reason to fight for it.”

He was right, and what was more, I knew I could. Sain had shown me something in himself I had never seen before. His eyes had become something different, someone I had never seen, a magic I had never felt. Even when we were bonded, I had always felt that something was missing from the man, something he kept so deeply hidden I had even convinced myself it wasn’t there.