Dawn of Ash (Imdalind, #6)(95)
“I know another way.” Sain’s voice was an unheard whisper, the repeated promise stuck inside of me as my father wrapped his hand around the ankle of the already broken leg.
With one yank, the bone separated, my desperate scream drowning out Sain’s plea, my body sliding across the floor and back over the pool of my own blood.
“You cost me the fire magic, Ovailia,” he hissed as he dropped me in the middle of the floor, the rhythmic grinding of metal against stone flinching through me as he sharpened a knife. “You cost me a mate. Imagine the magic we could have created.”
“I’m sorry,” I sobbed, knowing the words would never be enough, knowing he didn’t care anymore.
“Yes,” he barked, the sound of stone and metal abruptly stopping as he moved to stand beside me, his bloodstained shoes inches from my face. “So I have heard. Again and again. You are sorry.” He sighed, the sound beating into me as he crouched down, the blade swinging before my eyes, reflecting the light of the room against me as he twirled it. “I’m getting tired of your excuses.”
I flinched, expecting the knife to make contact, expecting a gash against my cheek, against my arm, against my back. I waited for it, but it never came. He knelt there beside me, the knife twirling between us in warning.
“I made a decision. I am going to send Míra to do the job you could not. I will send her into the cathedral to kill them all. It will be her first, real task, and I’d like to offer you a deal.” He paused, but all I could do was sob.
I couldn’t find the words in me to formulate any kind of response. He just laughed, the sound deep and hollow as it resonated through the silence.
He finally stood, his steps vibrating through my body from where I lay on the cold, stone floor, the smell of iron and salt increasing.
“If she survives, if she succeeds, then I will let you live.” He paused, everything tensing in me as the sound of my pained gasps increased. I knew him too well to believe it was that easy, that I would get out of this unscathed, if not alive. “If she fails, you die. That is, of course, if you survive this.”
He had barely spoken before I felt the icy chill of the knife, the sharp point pressing against the base of my spine.
I screamed before I felt the pain, before I felt the cut, knowing what was coming. The sound of my scream, of my pain, mounted as the blade sliced through me, splitting open the scar he had made centuries before, opening up the flesh all the way down my back. I felt the cold of the knife, felt the heat of my blood, and felt the burn of the water as it was released from its prison. Regardless of all that, all I could hear was the scream of my pain and the sound of his laugh increasing. All I could feel was the grip of his servants as they rushed to hold me down.
“You are not a Drak.”
I didn’t know if it was the pain or the sound of my own scream that pulled me out of the black of my unconsciousness, but now that I was out of the blissful, pain-free prison, I wanted to go back.
Everything hurt. Everything ached and throbbed and burned in a low rumble that had wrapped around my body, pressing against me, trapping me in place.
I tried to move, my mind desperate to escape the pain, but every shift of my weight brought more agony. Every flinch, another flare of my already weakened magic tried in vain to heal me.
“Shut up!” a voice hissed in my ear, the tone so low that I didn’t recognize it for a moment. “If you keep screaming like that, they are going to come back here, and neither of us really needs that right now. We aren’t ready yet.” The voice hissed through the air like a snake, cold hands pressing against my back. The agonizing pain increased before his magic moved into me, a wave of heat and warmth that flooded me in moments, numbing the pain and leaving me heaving, face down on a bed, unable to move.
His magic took control, my own moving right alongside his, feeling every broken bone, every ripped muscle, everything my father had done to me. I was very glad I had blacked out early on.
“Good,” Sain whispered.
My eyes fluttered open to the sight of a dimly lit room, everything cast in shadows so deep I couldn’t really make anything out. Even the man who sat beside me on a bed I recognized as my own was covered in shadow and dread. Although, why we were here and not in my father’s preferred dungeon, I had no idea. It wasn’t like him to keep people comfortable.
“I don’t want to keep putting you back together. You are of no use to me broken.”
I cringed at the phrasing, so similar to what my father had spat at me before. Although the hatred in Edmund’s voice was missing from Sain’s, the infliction was still there, and I cringed, hating how weak and out of control I felt.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I should be scared, knew I should try to formulate a way to get out of this situation, to make it to Ilyan. I had done it before. However, I highly doubted he would forgive me this time, that he would give me sanctuary.
Not after everything I had done.
Even if I could escape, I would simply be walking from one death sentence to another. At least I knew that death at the hands of my elder brother would be pain free.
“What use am I to you, Sain?” I asked, each word sending pain over my spine, each word shaking out as I pushed past the agony to deliver them.
I expected a harsh rebuttal, expected some form of punishment for my retort. To my surprise, however, he laughed, the sound deep and rich as he rose from the bed. His magic left me as he walked away, and my body rippled with pain that I tried my best to ignore, my teeth clenched in stubborn defiance.