“Your father removed your spine.”
I froze as Sain cut off my confusion, the question I had been about to ask lost in the shock of the words he had spoken, the painful reality shifting over me.
Shaking in fear as he lay over me, I recoiled from the sudden direction the conversation had taken, with the menacing warning his voice had adopted.
“I watched him rip it from your body, squeezing the bones as the Black Water dripped from it, burning you … here,” he informed as his hand pressed into my upper thigh with an agonizing burn. My body cringed in pain at the heat, at the way the fire shot through my blood. “And here.” He pressed again, this time on my back, and this time, I screamed, the sound loud and abrupt as fire shot from the welt and into my body, hot and aggressive, like a jolt of electricity. I couldn’t stop the scream if I tried.
Sain clamped his hand over my mouth with an abrupt desperation, his fingertips digging into my face as he hissed in my ear, “Shut up!” The scream stopped in an instant, even though the pain continued to intensify. “You are not healed enough for them to come yet.”
He froze over me as the scream dwindled to nothing, the sound of footsteps a hollow beat in the hall beyond the door, stopping right outside of it. I could hear the guard breathing, could feel his impatience seep through the door, impregnating the already tense space with more disgusting emotions.
Frozen, we waited, my mind counting the seconds, anticipating for the man to turn away, to leave Sain and me alone in the darkened room.
This room was as much a prison as the dungeons below, I realized. It didn’t matter where Edmund put us; we were still trapped, and I was still incapacitated. My fate, I realized with a jolt, was entirely in Sain’s hands.
Slowly, Sain’s grip against my mouth lessened as the guard moved away.
“What do you want from me?” I huffed the moment I knew it was safe, my voice pained and broken as I forced it out.
“I need your help.”
I froze. He could have said he wished me to be his bride, and I would have been less shocked by the response.
“How can you need my help? You have all the power you need. You’ve been playing us all along.”
His weight finally left me as he jumped over my back, the movement light as the man I had perceived as broken and worthless moved into my line of sight, his face hard and stern, even while his eyes shone brightly. I cringed.
“Not just you, gorgeous.” His magic flared as the massive chair slid across the floor without so much as a sound, his weight falling into it as it glided underneath him. “I’ve been playing everyone. I’m sure you’ve noticed. You’re smart. I know you have. That’s why you didn’t turn me in. You like it. You like me.” As he sat back in the chair, the deep blue ribbons of light and shadow moved over him, casting him in haunting shadows. “I let you see me.”
I stared at him, uncertain of what to say, uncertain of what he wanted. I could feel the heavy pull of fear, the heavy desire I had been trying in vain to control flaring up.
“What are you doing?” I gasped, my desperation for answers taking over.
“Orchestrating,” he said, his voice calm as he leaned forward, the playful glint in his eyes deepening, pulling me into them. “It’s like I told your father before … It’s like a perfectly planned game of chess … Oh! What did I say again?” He closed his eyes softly, his face calm and serene for the briefest moment before it melted into a blank slate, his eyes open with the encompassing blackness I had seen so many times before. “Two men stand; one will fall. Blood will drip. The game is played, and those with the most pawns will take the stage. Take your man and play the game, but be careful where your trust is laid.” His eyes faded back to green as the words seeped into the darkness surrounding us.
The memory of that moment dug into me, frightening me.
“Hmm,” he mused, more to himself than to me. “It seems that sight has changed. I guess we must play to match.” He looked off into the dark for a moment before his focus snapped right back to me, the sight repeating on his lips in a low hiss I could barely make out.
“Be careful where your trust is laid, Ovailia,” he whispered, the chair flying back into place as he stood, hovering over me like an oppressive bat. “I need your help. Will you help me?”
My eyes were hard as I looked into the man who, I realized, had more faces than my father. No, he had more pawns in the game. He was more than the king my father perceived himself as. He was the queen, and the game was in his hands, just as his sight had said.
“How can I trust you?”