Snow Like Ashes (Snow Like Ashes, #1)(81)

“Report,” he growls.

The soldier on my right snaps to attention. “She brought down the work ramp at the wall and killed and injured many of our men. She also—” He stops, his eyes darting to my face and pulling away like I might strike him dead with just a stare. “She healed a slave.”

My lungs refuse to let in more air, tightening like they know how hopeless it is to continue breathing. I don’t know what I am, what I can do, but Angra will torture me until he either finds out or I die.

Angra stands. “Dismissed,” he says. Both soldiers spin away, the sound of their boots on the obsidian floor fading into silence. The doors shut behind them.

It’s just Angra and me now. Angra and me and the dull, empty thudding of my pulse echoing off the heavy black rock of the throne room. I tighten every muscle against the fear in the back of my mind.

No matter what happens, no matter what he does, I am part of the bigger current of Winter, and that is something he can never take from me.

Angra’s fingers play idly on his staff. “Brought down a ramp, did you? And healed a slave?” His face is impassive, and that lack of emotion is somehow more terrifying than anything else. I surprised him. And he doesn’t like being surprised.

Angra steps forward. He smiles, composed, in control, analyzing me with taunting words until he can figure out what I did, how to stop me from surprising him again. “Clearly you have not learned a Winterian’s place if you think you can do such things without repercussions. But fear not—Herod will be more than happy to show you how a slave should act. Maybe I should have had him tutor you in etiquette from the start.”

The mention of Herod is like a bolt of lightning on a clear day, sharp and jolting. I stumble backward, eyes popping open, and draw in a quick inhale of breath. Angra’s smile widens. He can tell he found a weakness.

“Killed my men,” he muses, half to himself. “And healed a slave. It won’t take long to figure out how you did one, but the other? You came here with nothing but that stone, so what, exactly, gave you the power to heal someone?” Angra takes one step down the dais. “Has a little dead queen been helping you? Is she feeding you information in the hope that you will succeed where even her son has failed?”

I gape at him. Hannah. How did he know—

But Angra steps the rest of the way down, stopping close enough that I can see the anger lingering behind his expression, the threat of explosion should I press the wrong button or refuse to play along. “I see everything,” he hisses. “I control everything. I know she’s still connected to Winter’s magic, but I didn’t think she’d be stupid enough to use her power in my kingdom, especially through a worthless girl. You’re going to tell me what Hannah has said to you, how she is feeding you magic, then I’m going to squeeze every bit of that magic out of your body.”

I swallow, my throat tight. The little boy’s eyes appear in my mind, so wide and awed and relieved, his small back healed.

“I don’t know,” I whisper. My own words shock me. I didn’t mean to speak. I just—I did something. I’m powerful.

“I think you do,” Angra disagrees. He lifts an eyebrow and looks at the orb on his staff. Darkness leaches out of it, one long string of shadow that swerves through the air, wrapping around his hand like a vine hugging a tree branch. The line of shadow uncurls from his hand and makes one great swoop arcing in a wide circle around my head. Toying with me, taunting me with how close the magic lingers to my face. Its darkness plays off the beams of sun that fall down through the holes in the ceiling.

I gape at it. I’ve never seen magic before. This—this isn’t magic.

This is the Decay.

“And I’m sure Hannah’s put some rather interesting bits of information in your head,” he continues. “I’d like to see what she’s been doing to you.”

I’m panting now, the shadow hovering in front of my nose. “All your power, and you don’t already know?”

Angra’s face twitches, revealing his true boiling anger beneath his smug facade. “You were put in a cage with—who was it? 1-3219, 1-3218, and 1-2072. What I do know, R-19, is that my need to know what is in your head is greater than my need to keep them alive. Should I bring them here? Because I’m guessing you care whether or not they live.”

I bite my tongue to keep from reacting. Angra’s forehead relaxes in a pleased realization. The shadow line pulses before my face, the manifestation of his threat.

“Ah, you do care. I thought so.” He steps closer, too close, less than an arm’s length away with only the shadow line hovering between us. “You probably would also care,” he continues, voice a low purr, “if I ordered my soldiers not to bother bringing them here. If I had them killed where they stand. Or even better, if I let Herod torture them. Maybe I should—”

“I’ll kill you,” I spit, and lunge forward a beat before flailing back from the swirling line of dark magic, my hands clenching into fists. I can’t stop my frantic desire to tear Angra’s heart out, but I know it’s useless; I can’t stop him from making Nessa or Conall or Garrigan Herod’s next toy, can’t evade that pulsing rope of darkness that creeps closer and closer to me, until I’m afraid to breathe too deeply lest I suck it inside me.

“Will you? Because I think you don’t have a choice. No one does.”