The Book Eaters(88)
She grimaced. “How long do they spend in there?”
“In where? Their rooms?”
“That’s his personal room? They all sleep in that kind of place?!”
“When not on duty, yes. Which, at present, is most of the time.”
The dragon got up and padded over on bare feet, scrabbling anxiously at the viewing panel. He did not look at Ramsey at all, only Devon.
“That’s awful!”
“Typical princess mentality.” Ramsey rolled his eyes. “The lives they have now are strict, but it’s still a striding improvement from seventy years ago, when they’d just be dead.”
The dragon pressed his face to the viewing panel, tongue hanging flaccid. Saliva ran down the glass. He looked miserable, eyes red from frequent crying.
“This is cruel.” Devon pressed a palm to her side of the glass, trying hard not to imagine Cai in such a place. “There must be a better way to treat them.”
“Don’t be stupid.” Ramsey plucked her hand away and slammed the viewing panel shut, cutting off all sight of the dragon within. “Hunger is a powerful thing, especially when it is a hunger for dominance and violence. Few people can resist the temptation to abuse power.”
“The fucking irony of you saying that,” she snapped. “You don’t care about Cai, and you’re not talking to me out of kindness. Why are we here? Why were you coming to collect me yesterday?”
“Finally, some intelligent questions! Let’s get out of this area first. I do have a round table of sorts, to show you. Since you asked earlier.”
He shut the remaining viewing panels as they walked down. It didn’t escape Devon’s notice that most of the rooms were empty. Come to think of it, the whole building seemed a little empty. Hardly any other people walking around. Were knights leaving? Ramsey’s innocuous decision to not walk her past the barracks took on a new interpretation. Maybe he felt the need to obfuscate how bad things were for them.
Another door, followed by a set of stairs. Devon walked after, glad to leave behind the white corridor with its horrible white cells.
The stairwell exited into a raised viewing gallery, encased in glass and overlooking an operating theater. Surgeons and nurses moved around an oval table, passing instruments back and forth as they worked on their unconscious patient. Not just any patient; a small, dark figure—
“Cai!” Devon slammed herself against the glass, thumping with both fists. “Cai!”
One of the surgeons looked up, squinted, and went back to work. The rest didn’t appear to notice.
“I suggest you relax.” Ramsey took his own advice, flinging himself into a viewing chair. “The procedure will be done in less than an hour. Quick and painless, and your boy will never remember.”
She whirled, fists raised. “What are you doing to him?”
“Hit me and neither of you will live to find out.”
Devon counted to twenty, willing herself to calm incrementally. Everything was tipped against her and she had to push it all aside, survive moment by moment. She allowed herself a shudder, tamping down on the roiling emotions.
“Sit,” he said, as if she were a dog. “We talk like adults, aye?”
There was nothing else she could do. Sundered by impotent fury, Devon sat, not taking her eyes off the surgery below. Cai was half-buried beneath the medical equipment and gowns.
“Your son is being fitted with a surgically implanted explosive device, one that I can set off at a distance using satellite signals,” he said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “A harsher version of an old technique we used to employ against particularly resistant brides, on rare occasions.”
The air was missing from Devon’s throat, as if her lungs had suddenly calcified. At what point had her brother lost himself so badly? The answer came welling up, unwelcome and foul: the moment she’d condemned him to a life among knights, when they were children.
“I thought we should get that out of the way,” Ramsey went on. “Now you know why he’s down there. Put a foot wrong, give me reason to doubt you, and the trigger gets pressed. Try to take it out yourself, and you’ll set it off. No matter the distance, neither of you will be safe.” He crossed long legs with casual indifference. “If you want Cai to live past today, or if you ever want that device removed safely, then listen.”
“You haven’t told me what you want yet!”
“I want my order back,” he said. “Powerful, strong, protective. The way things are supposed to be. Through us, eaters have thrived in this country for the past century—”
“That’s due to the Ravenscars,” she retorted. “The knights had nothing to do with the drug being developed, you just benefited from it!”
He ignored her. “—and yet many of the patriarchs resent that. Even though we were the ones to enforce marriages, keep the species alive, and drag the older Families into modern times. They are not allowed to forget us so quickly. Do you understand?”
Devon certainly did understand. Ramsey was like a CEO trying to shore up a dying company, or a dictator refusing to surrender. It was always the same story, she thought tiredly. Just small, angry men, clinging to fading power. They feared living without privilege because they’d abused it against others, and were now terrified of suffering the same cruelty they’d routinely dealt out.