Dawn of Ash (49 page)

“Go,” I snapped, grateful when Ovailia moved down the hall without question.

Bouncing against the wall with a thud as Ovailia pulled me around a corner, I increased my feigned cries in mockery as she continued to drag my stumbling form beside her, a low grumble of irritation seeping from her lips.

“Silence,” she hissed, but I simply cried louder.

One of Edmund’s guards looked up from where he stood, his lips twisting at the sight of us shuffling down the hall. His confusion from seeing us there was evident, but it didn’t matter. His presence had told me what I needed to know. Edmund was inside.

All we needed now was to get past that door.

“It’s up to you now,” I hissed to Ovailia between my sobs.

Her shoulders straightened, her desperate need to impress me shining through.

“Ovailia!” the man yelled, his confusion evident as he approached us. “Sain! What are you—”

“We need to see my father.”

My soul shook at the power in Ovailia’s voice, everything rippling over me in pride and lust as she did as I requested. My desire for her intensified with the power she displayed, my magic trying to fuse with hers as she smiled, the attempted connection obviously not lost on her.

“We have news.”

The man looked between us, and I cried a bit more, letting the sound flow out of me in a pathetic rumble as I pled for my life. It was a sound, a move I had perfected, and with one look, I knew it had done its job.

The man stepped back in disgust before he disappeared behind the door, emerging moments later to swing the door wide in silence.

Silence was always a bad sign with Edmund.

I could feel Ovailia’s hand begin to shake from where she held it against me, the soundless warning not lost on either of us. At any other time, I would run, find another way, but that was no longer an option. This was the only path left.

I wanted to tell her to calm. After all, Edmund had no idea what power was walking into the room. He was about to find out, exactly as Ovailia was.

“Ovailia, what brings you here?” Edmund greeted us before the door had even shut, his eyes hard as he tightened a white robe around himself, clearly upset at being bothered without warning. I could already see him planning some form of punishment as Ovailia dragged me over to him, throwing me at his feet like a dog.

I howled in feigned agony at the movement, rolling myself into a tight ball as I sobbed.

“Sain was trying to hide in my room. He’s back.”

Edmund took a step toward me, kicking me over to face him with his bare foot as I continued to moan. My eyes were wide as I came face-to-face with the powerhouse of a man I had created.

“Hiding…? Sain?” Edmund’s voice was hard, and I cowered more, whimpering pathetically as he squatted beside me. “I didn’t expect you back so soon … and alone. What happened?” His temper increased with each word, the warning digging into me as I sobbed, twisting my body around to tremble beneath him, my cries drumming abrasively off the stone floor I lay against.

“Ilyan,” I gasped, tears and snot dripping off my nose. “Ilyan killed them all. I barely escaped.”

“Míra!” His voice was a shout, his anger boiling over.

After all, I had given him this plan. I had told him of its success. It was one, little lie.

“She made it. I saw her. Ilyan took the bait.” I didn’t know if that was true, but it didn’t even matter anymore.

Edmund’s toes tapped over the floor in front of my face as he bounced on his heels, obviously weighing his options, weighing his prospects. I could only pray it would go in my direction.

“Good. I would say that would secure both your lives … but you lost me fifty men, Sain. Fifty men you insisted would be safe.” His voice was a heavy weight against my back that pressed into me, his magic strong as his anger increased, as he made his choice. “You leave me no other option.”

Unfortunately for him, it was the wrong one.

“No, Edmund.” I spoke the words clearly, all trace of my shake, all trace of the role I had played for centuries gone as I uncoiled before him, my body unfurling to its full height, to its full power in one elegant move. Eyes hard, I stood to face Edmund, looking him in the eyes the way I hadn’t done in centuries. “You left
me
no choice.”

His eyes widened at what he was seeing, his jaw slack as he stepped back, obviously ready to attack, to call his guard on me, to beat me down in defiance.

I gave him a chance for none of it.

Without warning, my magic flared, a stream of red smacking into him as I threw him into the wall, his body colliding with the old, stone masonry with a smack.

His scream echoed around us as his guards moved to attention, only to have my magic move into them, freezing them in place as I brought Edmund back to me. His body was little more than a rag doll as he hovered before me, frozen.

My hands moved slowly as I reached into my pocket and produced the sliver of Soul’s Blade that I had pulled from Ovailia’s body.

“I had hoped to connect all the pieces before I did this, but you left me no choice.” With one wide swing, the shard of red cut through the air, glinting in the light before it disappeared into Edmund, slicing through flesh and bone to embed itself into his heart.

With a sound like he had been punch, Edmund gasped, his blood spraying over me as he coughed, mouth and eyes wide in horror. My magic seeped from the guards in one quick movement, every inch of my power concentrated on the man before me, on the blade that was connecting with his magic, freezing his magic, his body, his soul right where it was. I left him staring at me as his life slowly seeped away.

“Father!” Ovailia shouted in disbelief as my magic surged to its full potential, the strength of the power flooding away in a volatile wind, shielding us from the attacks of the guards who came to life within moments of my magic leaving them.

“Take care of them, Ovailia,” I spat, not daring to look away from the man I held before me.

“But, Sain—”

“Now is the time to decide where your loyalty stands, Ovailia. You can be this man’s slave and let him continue to destroy you, or you can be my bride and let me show you what power, love, and royalty really are!” I roared, specks of saliva flying over Edmund’s face with my temper. “Decide who you stand with!”

There was a pause so silent I wasn’t sure anyone was left in the room. For a moment, it was just Edmund and me, his eyes wide as life left him, as he tried in vain to understand what had happened.

“I choose you, Sain.” Her answer came moments before sparks of green flew around us, Ovailia’s magic erupting as, one after another, Edmund’s guards fell. The men he had trained so well were felled by nothing more than a little poison.

“Wonderful,” I soothed as the second to last one fell.

The last man stared at us in fear, his eyes darting around as he obviously tried to decide if he should run.

“Incapacitate the last one. Make him watch. I need a witness.”

Without question, Ovailia stepped away from me, the barrier I had surrounded us with fell to the ground as her magic wrapped around the man, pinning him to the wall with a thud.

“Hello, Damek,” she said, the venom in her voice taking my breath away.

“She’s beautiful,” I sighed as I turned back to Edmund, the fear on his face making it obvious he could feel his magic seeping away, moving into the blade along with his soul, trapping him in there for eternity. “I have to thank you for making me such a beautiful woman. She was flawed before, but now…” I smiled, looking away from him as I licked my lips, my heart thundering through me with need.

Beautiful.

“Sain…” Edmund’s voice seeped through the pain, pulling my attention back to him as he fought the agony I had closeted him with, his soul and magic no more than a ghost of what they were. “Why…?”

“Why?” I echoed, my voice heightened in false mockery. “Why am I killing you?”

His mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air, a faint sound of liquid starting to gurgle from his throat.

He didn’t have long left.

“Because I am tired of being patient,” I hissed, moving closer to him, wanting to make certain he heard every word. “I have spent hundreds of years molding you into what you needed to be, but you didn’t do what I desired. You messed up my plan, which means I have to fix it. And if I have to fix it, then I have no use for you.”

His eyes widened as the truth of what was said hit him. His horror increased as he tried again to talk, but the sound of drowning came louder now, blood drizzling from the corners of his mouth as he tried to breath.

“When I have no use for someone anymore, I kill them. I’d normally have you do it, but I guess I am on my own now. I’m sorry, Edmund, but you’ve played your part. It’s time we throw you away.” With a jerk, I pulled the blade from his chest, his now lifeless body crumbling to the ground in a tangle of twitches and moans as my magic continued to move through him, the last of his life seeping away. “Pathetic.”

With one jerk of my magic, I sent a stream of fire into him, the magic infecting his useless body, burning him from the inside out, turning whatever made him the person he was into nothing more than useless ash. His body sagged under the loss before I stopped, knowing better than to get rid of the evidence completely.

“You,” I said to the man Ovailia still held against the wall. Everything about him shook as I started to move closer. “I have a job for you. Do it well, and I won’t kill you. Fail and your life will end in a much more painful way than poor Edmund finally found.”

I smiled, Ovailia laughed, and the man cowered as Ovailia released him from her magic, letting him fall to the ground.

“Stand,” I commanded, and he scuttled to his feet, his eyes darting away from mine in fear. “I want you to go and tell everyone what you saw here. Tell everyone of what Sain, the first of the Drak, really is. Can you do that?”

“Y-ye-yes…” he stuttered as he continued to shake, the smell of urine filling the air around us.

Ovailia laughed harder.

“Good. Then, when you are done, come back to me, and I’ll have another, little job for you. You have a new master now. Do you understand?”

The man nodded before he ran from us, his feet tripping over one another in his desperate need to find a way out.

“Do you think he will do it?” Ovailia asked as she stepped up to me, her body so close I could feel her warmth against my skin.

“Yes, I do. Now is when things really start to get interesting.” I pulled Ovailia to me, her eyes wide as I plastered her body against mine, my arms strong as I held her in place. “Now is when everything gets real.”

“Watch it!” the voice shouted in anger, but I kept running, weaving my way through the legs of people who lingered in the courtyard, making my way around the tents in a frantic need to find out if what everyone was saying was true.

That they had found a girl … about my age.

It wasn’t often kids showed up here or even survived what the Vilỳs had done to them. I guessed this one had. It was something I had to see for myself. Being the single one in a forest of adults was boring, even with magic.

Maybe that wouldn’t be the case for long.

Ducking behind a big, green tent, I moved to the little alley behind the makeshift emergency room Ilyan had put together, knowing I could get in through the window near the end. I had done it before.

Running past boarded up windows and that creepy, old door, I let my magic carefully wiggle open the pane of glass, wind moving around me as it moved me up and through.

Perfectly silent.

The first time I had done that, I had made so much noise one of the healers had scolded me for twenty minutes.

I had mastered silence quickly.

I didn’t even let myself touch the ground as I opened the door, the old, wooden thing creaking loudly as it opened to a hall lined with beds, the badly burned people covered by blankets and sheets. And there, at the end…

A little girl.

A few people hovered around her, their hands looking like birds’ wings as they talked or healed or did whatever they were doing. I knew that, if they saw me, I would get kicked out, and my better logic told me to run and hide, wait until they were gone. But I couldn’t, not with something this exciting.