“Are you your father’s pet?” he asked.
“I am not his pet,” I barked, the anger finally plowing through the desire and painting my words with a dire warning.
“No? So you are his servant, then?” He spoke slowly as he moved closer, a smile creeping around his lips as he pushed against me, his hand hard against my hip.
“No.”
“So, you are like all the other Chosen. You are his slave.”
This time, I erupted, my anger boiling right to the surface as I rushed him. My skin heated against his in warning as I wrapped my hand around his neck, pushing him into the rough, stone wall we stood beside with a jolt of force and power.
His eyes widened in shock at the force, his smile still a grating insinuation as he looked down at me, not a drop of fear lining his face.
Clenching my teeth together in a foolish attempt to control my anger, I pressed him against the wall again, slamming his head against the stone. Again, the force didn’t even seem to bother him.
“I am not his servant,” I hissed, my anger continuing to boil due to his obvious lack of response.
“Then what are you?” His voice was strained as he heaved through the pressure I was placing on his neck, the deep rumble of his voice sounding like a laugh in my ears. “Because you seem like his slave. You do his dirty work. You take the punishments for each failure without question. You dote on him, and he what? Spits on you? Slices down that beautiful back of yours?”
Without warning, his hand snaked around me, even from where I held him against the wall. His fingers were soft as they moved under my shirt and up my spine, his magic a deep, powerful rumble as it moved into me. I sighed at the caress, my magic reacting with a powerful flare.
Attempting to focus, I stared at him, the glare fading as the Black Water within me reacted to his magic. The poison pressed against my spine as it tried to connect with the man who was the first of its power.
The pleasurable warmth his magic gave me shifted to pain as the magic reacted, my body jerking away from his in an attempt to escape the agony.
“Don’t touch me,” I barked in warning, my magic pressing against him aggressively and slamming him back into the wall again. A dull thud boomed through the cave at the impact, something I knew should have cracked his bone. However, his smile didn’t leave his face, his eyes bright with greed as he pushed my magic off him, his own ability pushing back with as much, if not more, force.
“So that is how you can see. He put the water inside of you … Beautiful.” His eyes grew wide and greedy as he took a step toward me, his fingers twitching as if he was holding back from grabbing me, from taking control of something that was his all along.
I stood before him, my heart thundering in my chest, back straight, as I tried to decide if I should attack him or not. It would be easier to turn him into my father and be done with it. But I couldn’t think, the pressure in my chest increasing with either option.
“So, a servant,” he mused, and my gut twisted at the insinuation. “But more than that, you are a science experiment, as well. He doesn’t value your existence at all.”
“Don’t spread such lies, Sain!” I shouted, my magic seeping from my fingers to spark against the stone in railroad tracks of lightning.
Sain didn’t even seem to notice my anger, notice the warning of my magic as it left me.
“You are worth so much more than that,” Sain whispered over the noise, his smile distorting his face as he took another step back. “So much more.”
“No!”
Sain’s eyes widened at my shout, his focus leaving me for no more than a second as he looked to the hall behind us. Fear was clear on his face before he stepped away, his back arching into the familiar cower, his shoulders hunching, his foot turning in.
The powerful man I had stood in front of a moment before wilted into what I had perceived as a pathetic weakling previously, the disguise one that had fooled me for centuries. Sain, I realized with a start, was more than a man giving false sights, more than a man manipulating the leaders on either side of this war, more than some pathetic game played by a pathetic man.
He was power.
Sain looked up at me as the loud, hollow noise of footsteps echoed through the hall behind us, the sound mounting as one of my father’s guards came to investigate the noise.
“Ovi,” Sain whispered, his voice deep and strong as he looked up at me from his folded position. “The water within you is strong, as strong as you are. No one else could hold that and use it like you have, like you can. He doesn’t see that. He doesn’t value that. He doesn’t care. But I see what you truly are. I see what you can become. Be alert, Ovi. No matter what you say, he will only use you. Don’t let him. I know another way.”