Dawn of Ash (Imdalind, #6)(92)

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.