Scorched Treachery (Imdalind, #3)(17)

"And what about her?" Cail asked, his voice still containing that menacing taunt. "Are you going to hurt her? Make her pay?"

"Yes!" Ryland yelled, and Cail smiled more. “Hurt her…hurt her!”

"She hurt you!" Cail yelled, his voice moving into a taunt, and I knew at once what they were doing. Cail had gained full control of Ryland’s mind. He was manipulating Ryland into believing things that he wouldn't believe otherwise. The lines of reality and manipulated horror were so blurred I could tell Ryland had no idea what was what anymore. .

"Are you going to kill her?" Cail asked, the final brick in his bridgework laid.

"Yes!" Ryland yelled, his feral growling against the bars increasing for a moment before it dropped, before Sain's hand, unseen by both Cail and my father, touched his back. The touch brought him back down to earth. The frantic movements slowed. Ryland’s body settled back onto the damp floor of the prison, his hands shaking as his fingers curled around his head.

"No," Ryland gasped, his face horrified at what had just happened. “Nonononono.”

"No?" Cail asked, even though his anger at the temporary glitch was obvious, his voice still held that manipulative tone. He didn't miss a beat, and Ryland began second-guessing himself.

"But she hurt you," Cail stated, moving himself closer to the bars again.

"It wasn't her," Ryland said, yelling as he tried to convince himself as well as Cail. “Wasn’t her, wasn’t her, wasn’t her.”

"How can you be so sure?"

"I know." Ryland lunged at the bars again, but Cail didn't even flinch, even though the raw aggression had returned to Ryland’s face.

"The way she knows you didn't just try to kill her, for the second time?"

Ryland's jaw moved as he tried to get the words out, but nothing came. Finally, two words left him, the conviction almost gone from his voice, "She knows."

"How?"

"She knows, she knows," he repeated.

"Why don't you show her?" Cail asked, his lips twitching with a pleased sneer.

Ryland's eyes widened as Cail pulled a double sided blade from his pocket, the metal of the blade bright red. It had no handle and no finger hold. It almost looked like a shard of jagged stone, sharpened to a point on both sides.

Ryland looked at it as Cail extended it to him through the bars, his fingers twitching as he slowly reached to grab it. I couldn't take my eyes off the blade. I had seen these many times before I escaped, and seeing one again made my stomach turn. It was a knife made of blood and bits of soul. It had dark magic at its core, but I wasn’t sure what they were doing with the knife. I didn’t want to find out. I pulled against my chains, the metal clanking as I tried to move away, knowing there was nowhere to go. I couldn’t take my eyes off the blade, my breath coming in short little spurts as Cail held it between his fingers.

"Tell her the truth, Ryland," Cail whispered, the last words all Ryland needed to hear before he snatched the blade from Cail's hand.

Ryland held it confidently, knowing exactly what to do with it. He lifted his shirt to reveal his chest, the skin over his heart pock marked with line after line of stab wounds.

Sain reached forward and placed his hand over Ryland's heart, the skin of his hand equally as scarred. I only looked at it for a moment before Ryland plunged the blade through Sain's hand and into his own chest. Both men called out in pain, and my screams joined them until the pair passed out, leaving my screams to fill the prison.

Timothy took the final steps toward me, his body coming to stand right before the now open door of my cell. I barely saw him. I couldn't look away from Sain and Ryland's frozen bodies. I couldn't stop screaming. I expected my father to punch me again. What I didn't expect was for him to unchain me.

“Why don’t you join them, princess?” Timothy’s voice was icy as he grabbed the chains that connected to the shackles on my wrist, one yank sending me to the ground as he pulled me over the cold uneven floor.

I didn’t have to ask what he was doing. I knew. I skirted away from him in my panic, trying to ignore the frantic beating of my heart and the tension that had moved its way to fill every nerve ending in my body. If I could have moved into the wall to get away from him, I would have.

I kicked and fought as he tried to take me toward them. My voice caught and screamed as I pleaded with him to leave me alone, to save me. It was useless. My fear seized into me in my desperation. Timothy ignored my pleas, pulling me by my chains, my body dragging against the stone floor as my feet kicked in desperation. I screamed again as he plowed my flailing body toward the collapsed forms of Sain and Ryland, my pained body trying to fight him but unable to.

"Are we ready?" I barely heard Edmund’s voice over my screams as my father pulled my hand toward the protruding edge of the dagger. My body was unable to fight him, so my screams were the only defense I had against what was coming.

"Almost, Master." My brother’s voice was cold, distanced, and almost excited.

My screams turned to pleas as I felt the sharp point of the dagger press against the skin of my palm.

"No," I begged. "No, Daddy, please no."

"Sorry, princess," he said, although he didn't really mean it. "But you'll like this, I promise."