Blood Lands (Savage Lands #5)(77)

Sitting up, the beat of my heart picked up in wild flutters.

Věrhăza.

“Welcome home, Brexley. To your final one.” The voice made me want to throw up. Istvan stepped into view, his arms behind his back, strolling at a leisurely pace outside my cell. His face was bruised and cut, still showing signs of what I did to him in the lab, only clarifying what I already knew. He was still human. Istvan was waiting to take the formula, using everyone else as guinea pigs. He would not risk his own life until it was perfected. “I can say, of all the things I imagined your life would lead you to, what you would grow up to be? This was not it.” He lifted one arm to me.

Automatically, I peered down, a narrow trail of air squeezing down my esophagus. Around my neck was an electric collar. The uniform they had put me in was no longer gray.

I wore black.

The color of nothing.

To Istvan, the color was a stain on me, my scarlet letter. Even if he was wrong about what I actually was, it didn’t matter. This turned me into even more of a traitor to HDF soldiers. They would go out of their way to target me because they would feel tricked, as if I knowingly duped them with my evil glamour, pushing aside the fact that they’d known me since I was a baby and watched me grow up.

“Do you like it?” He nodded as I touched the collar. “It is very rare and hard to get, but I only wanted the best goblin metal for you.”

Fuck. Not only could he electrocute me at any time, but goblin metal was almost impossible to break through and could be used the same as poison to all fae if it got into your bloodstream. It even affected humans, causing them to be lethargic and sick. They put goblin metal in fae bullets as well as iron. He wanted to contain my magic, keep me from doing what I did in the lab and the arena again. Because I was different. Like the faux-fae, my powers worked down here.

“All I have done for you.” Istvan shook his head. “Raised you, fed and clothed you, gave you the top education and training, treated you as one of my own.”

“You mean like property to sell to the highest bidder.” I snapped, rising to my feet, the drug in my system making me wobbly. “To use as an experiment. You used your wife and your own son as test subjects!”

Istvan’s boots stopped as he faced me, his mouth pinching in anger.

“Do not bring Caden into this. I only wanted the best for him. To be the greatest,” he replied evenly, trying to control his anger. “But the same as you, he seems to be another huge disappointment. I realized I can no longer save him.”

“What did you do to him?” Fear coated my throat. “Where is he?”

Istvan didn’t answer, his blank expression giving nothing away.

“Tell me!” I demanded, my veins filling with ice.

“Caden is no longer your concern.”

My molars crunched together, trying to hold back the emotion burning my throat and eyes and tearing into my heart.

“Is he dead?”

“If you had cared so much about him and not your fae lover, you wouldn’t have left him, would you?” I could feel the buzz between Warwick and me, knowing he was not only alive, but close by. “The boy you had declared only months ago you loved so deeply. How easily you turned away from him. But why should I be surprised? Fae are so fickle and cruel.”

My chin wobbled. “Andris was right. You have no capacity for love.”

Istvan jolted forward, grabbing the bars, his movement making me step back.

“Everything I did was for my family, my people.”

“Really?” I scoffed. “Locking Rebeka in a cage while you moved on to a young, vapid bitch for a political move was for her? Killing hundreds of fae and humans was in their best interest?”

“Yes!” he exclaimed. “Because what I am doing is for millions, not just a few. We are taking back our world. Fae need to be exterminated permanently.”

“Do the fae who work for you know that?”

“Sometimes you have to make alliances with the enemy to get where you need to.”

They probably felt the same about him, but when did it get to the point Istvan’s power became absolute?

“You are no longer one of those. Your life would have been safe if you did what I wanted, but since your blood has been proven useless for what I want... you have to be removed.” He pulled his arms behind his back once again, regaining his control. “The nectar is within my grasp. Everything is going exactly as I hoped.”

Not a muscle moved, not a twitch. I deflected his proclamation like a shield, trying to show no reaction.

Was he lying? Probably. I felt an inkling of terror, knowing Istvan so well. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to get it.

“Kalaraja.” He said his name with admiration. “He is exceptional at his job. He can track down anyone or anything.”

I kept still, giving nothing away, but my pulse pounded in my eardrums.

“It wasn’t a coincidence my men were waiting for you at the border. You were being followed and watched from not long after you escaped. For a few coins, someone tipped us off you were spotted at a seedy opium den. Kalaraja took it from there.” He tapped at his mouth, his lips curling, his feet moving again. “You know a few soldiers escaped from High Castle the night we found you, telling stories of a box and seven necromancers guarding it with their life.” He let out a chuckle. “I admit I didn’t believe them—until we got reports of exactly seven necromancers being seen traveling through the night, disappearing suddenly in the Gerecse Mountains to a particular area which was spelled to keep out intruders. Land owned by the last fae lord, which Killian would inherit. What was even more peculiar is you went to the same spot.”