Scorched Treachery (Imdalind, #3)(34)

“Perfect,” he sighed. “I never thought I would say this about him, but he is perfect. If he cannot fight beside me, then I will use him as a weapon. With the power he has, and his lust for Joclyn, he is the perfect weapon.”

Edmund reached through the cage as Ryland continued to fight to get at them. His hand ran along his son’s face, a wicked gleam shining in his bright blue eyes, a gleam I hadn’t seen in over a hundred years.

“Are you going to go kill your brother, son?” he asked. I froze, my eyes flashing to Sain who looked just as shocked as I felt.

“I’m gonna kill him!” he howled, his head knocking against the bars. “Kill…kill…kill…”

“And what of Joclyn?” Edmund asked, his hand leaving his son’s face to curl around the chain that attached to his wrist. “Are you going to make her pay? Pay for hurting you?”

“Hurt her!” Ryland howled, his fingers clenching and unclenching in a halo around his head. “She’s hurt me… hurt…she’s gonna hurt…”

Ryland hit his head repeatedly in his agony, and the group in front of him laughed.

I couldn’t watch anymore, I couldn’t. I couldn’t watch the beautiful boy who had been destroyed by his own family and turned into a weapon against the only person he ever loved, the only person who had ever loved him back.

I tried to drown out the sounds of his suffering, the sounds of his torment, but they kept coming. Ovailia’s squeals of joy, Edmund’s chuckles of pride, and Cail’s constant taunts broke through the general cacophony.

I wished I could cry. I wished I had enough water in me to do so. Ryland needed someone to mourn over what he had lost, what he could never get back. I wished I could do that for him; there weren’t many left who would.

“Let’s finish this,” Edmund suddenly announced. I heard two iron-barred doors open simultaneously, the grind of the metal closely followed by the clatter of chains.

“Are you ready to go kill your mate, son?” Edmund asked, the chains rattling as Ryland was led writhing and screaming, out of the prison.

“Kill!” Ryland screamed. “She…she has to pay!”

“Come on, Sain,” Ovailia spat, her voice so full of hate I could taste it on my own tongue. “I want to show you what I should have done to you in the first place.”

“I hold no hatred for you in my heart, Ovi,” Sain said.

“Don’t call me that,” Ovailia snapped as she led Sain out of his cell, his hands still shackled and chained.

“I am happy to see your love life has improved,” Sain said, his voice light, as if he was talking to a long lost friend and not his former lover. “Cail is a much better match for you.”

“Anyone is better for me then you were.” Ovailia turned on him, her finger sparking as she shoved one long nailed pointer in his face. I would have expected Sain to flinch away, but he stood still, his eyes focused on her and not the warning that flared only millimeters from his face.

“I quite agree; Angela Despain was a remarkable woman.”

Ovailia’s finger sparked; her face hardening as she jerked on his chains. His torso jolted down until her finger pressed against the skin between his eyes.

“Leave my love life alone, Sain.”

“Then leave my daughter alone,” he replied. Ovailia released her hold on Sain. I would have assumed the strength in Sain’s voice to startle her, but I knew better.

“Haven’t you been listening?” she asked, moving her face closer to him. “Ryland is going to take care of her for us. Well, after he kills Ilyan anyway.”

“We’ll see,” Sain whispered, his calm voice not missing a beat.

Ovailia’s eyes widened for a just a moment before they softened. “You act like you actually control your sight, Sain.” Ovailia laughed at the idea and left the cell, dragging the old man behind her.

“Oh,” Cail scoffed once the sound of Sain’s chains had ebbed away to nothing, “I almost forgot.”

He laughed and threw something at me as the light began to fade. I stared at the loaf of bread he had tossed into my cell, unable to move toward it, my stomach rolling with need.

“Bon appétit, Wynifred,” Cail spoke from the steps, his body already disappearing around the stairs. The shackles around my wrists opened, sending me tumbling down, and I landed on my chest right in front of the dinner-plate sized loaf of bread. The stale, mostly green surface crawled with maggots.

Bon appétit, indeed. I reached toward the loaf, my weak fingers curling around what was sure to be the only food I would see for another week.





Ilyan





Chapter Ten





I could hear her. Joclyn’s voice echoed within my head from the memory I had had since the first day I heard it, eight hundred years ago. The rise and fall of her tone, the way she said her r’s – it was an accent I wouldn’t hear for hundreds of years after that day.

I had dwelled on her voice for centuries, allowed the memory of her to be my light in my darkest times, and hundreds of years later, I had basked in her voice when I heard it in my ears again. It came as no surprise that the first thing I could remember thinking about, that the first thing I had heard when the darkness came after the stutter had injured me, was her voice.