Dawn of Ash (Imdalind, #6)(94)

I couldn’t help it; I shivered.

I wasn’t the only one. Míra shrank back at the movement, the guards tensed, and even Sain quieted.

The color and emotion in my father’s eyes were dead as he stared at me, the gentle touch of his fingers against my skin becoming a grip, a tight vise I cringed from, a sob seeping from behind my lips as the bite of his nails pressed into me.

“Where. Is. My. Bride?” He spat each word in my face, the grip of his nails against my forearm increasing, the sharp points digging into me, breaking the skin.

“I lost track of her,” I hissed out through the pain, trying my hardest to stand up straight before my father, to show him I could take it, but finding it hard when I knew what was coming. “I tried to find her … but we had to run … Something happened … They knew we were there.” The words came out in strained gasps, my chest heaving as his fingers pressed into me, spreading the tiny cuts in my skin apart, causing blood to flow down my arm in hot rivers, pooling against my wrist and in my palm.

“What happened, Ovailia?” he growled, leaning in to press his face against mine, his breath hot against my ear. “What could have possibly happened that made me lose my bride?”

“There was a sight,” I gasped in desperation as Sain’s cries faded to nothing.

The muscles in my back reacted as his free hand wrapped around the loose fabric of my shirt, the sheer purple cloth pulling against my abdomen for one brief moment before he ripped it from my body. His hand then moved immediately to claw, to dig into the scar that lined my spine.

Hot, wet rivers moved down my cheeks as I cried, their heat matching the blood that coursed down my arm. I tried to move away from him, but he held me in place, leaving me staring straight ahead, into the bathroom he had come from, the floor red with blood, a limp hand laying across the tiles.

“What sight?” Edmund’s voice was deep in my ear as his fingers pressed harder against the base of my spine, against the tip of the scar I had carried since the day he had made the first cut.

I gasped at the pressure, the warning understood. I opened my mouth, ready to tell him everything, what I had seen, how we had killed all of the Chosen. It was right there on the tip of my tongue, my heart thundering in desperation to get it all out, my chest heaving in dread of what would come if I did not.

Regardless, there was nothing to tell him, nothing I remembered. Nothing except a white room and a voice that echoed in my head, screaming at me, screaming through me.

“I will not permit you this. You are not a Drak.” The words were not mine, but they came, anyway. They came through me, and my father’s eyes widened in anger, my nerves twisting with the reality of what I had said. Of what had happened to me.

“What!” My father’s voice roared as his blood-covered hand moved to wrap around my hair, pulling me away from him, arching my back as I stared at the ceiling, his face moving. “You have no right to this! To tell me I am not a Drak! And you are? I made you what you are, you filthy, little half breed!” He spat the words as he threw me to the ground, my feet slipping in pools of my own blood as I fell. “I am the first of the Chosen. I hold all of the magic!”

His voice was a roar and a rumble as I lay on the floor, my breath coming in desperate inhales of anxiety, of fear I was quickly accepting. Emotions swelled as his foot pressed against my calf, the heavy weight increasing as he held me in place, as he pressed down, as the bone snapped underneath him, as his laugh boomed.

I screamed at the break. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stop the sound. It bled from me like a white flag; except, I knew this was a white flag Edmund would never accept. He reveled in the pain, loved the sound of punishment well met. With that one scream, I gave him what he wanted, but also the promise that more would be coming.

He fell on top of me as my scream reduced to a sob, the bulk of him sitting against my hips, holding me in place so that, even if I could run, I wouldn’t be able to.

I could already feel my magic working to repair the break in my leg, but it was pointless. More would come. I couldn’t stop it.

I had walked into this.

“What am I!” he screamed at me, the parallels of his chosen question a cruel joke. I tried to fight against the weight, simply to have it increase against me. His wide, barrel of a chest pressed against my bare back. “Am I a Drak?”

“Yes!” I screamed through the sobs, through the fear, as I felt his hand wind around my wrist, the weight against the joint intensifying as he bent it backward, the tendons straining with the unnatural movement.

“Are you a Drak!” he yelled as the tendons snapped when he pressed back even more.

My scream broke through the hiss of his anger, loud and abrasive, as everyone around us stepped away.

“Answer me!” he screamed again with more force, more ripping, more blood moving over my skin.

“Yes!” I could barely get the word out from above the pain.

He dropped my wrist with a laugh, moving away from me. However, I wasn’t dumb enough to think for a second that would be the end.

My eyes snapped open, a desperate part of my brain trying to formulate an escape plan as I gazed into the dark green of Sain’s eyes.

His focus did not deviate from mine, and the intensity of his gaze froze me in place. He should be cowering. He should be in pain, but he looked at me with the same power I had seen in him before. His eyes flashed from black to green again before his voice drifted over to me.