Before I could get a chance to answer, the look changed, her eyes drifting in and out of focus until they were a million miles away, the anger falling from her face to be replaced by a deep understanding that scared me.
I knew that look. I knew that movement. It had happened to me enough over my life and even more in the last few days. She had received her instructions from Edmund.
I couldn’t help the odd mix of eagerness and fear that took over my body. The idea of playing the game was hauntingly desirable.
“What does he want of me?”
Ovailia smiled at the depth of my knowledge, her hand lifting as she brushed the back of it against the bare skin of my jawbone, her fingers running through my beard in a touch so soft I couldn’t help the shiver that jerked through me.
Our magic connected, the skin contact giving the power free range to move between us, to try to connect. It was something that, by the look in her eyes, she enjoyed.
“What do you want of me?” I couldn’t help the question. I couldn’t help the low grumble of my voice, the twisting of my stomach making a powerful play.
She smiled more, her eyes dancing as her magic continued to penetrate, and the chill of the wintry breeze became a distant memory as the warmth of her hand heated my insides like a hot water bottle.
“I want the same thing my father wants.” The honey of her voice melted into me, despite knowing what was coming. “Information.”
My magic attempted to curl back into me in disappointment, but I kept it there, inside of her, a strong force as magic and souls danced in a tango that could never be completed.
“Haven’t I given you enough?”
“There is always more.”
This time, it was my turn to smile.
She was right. There was always more, so much more than even she could ever understand.
I had been playing this game for centuries before she was even conceived. Her birth and our bonding had played perfectly into my web as everything else had.
She leaned into me, her breath hot on my lips as the depth of her blue eyes attempted to swallow me whole, and my gut twisted at the whispers of the connection I was still fighting.
“Give me more.” Her request was a whisper, a flutter of heat over my lips, a twist of pleasure against my heart. I was sure anyone else would have caved.
I knew that was what she wanted.
I wasn’t as weak-willed as she assumed me to be. She didn’t know me well enough to recognize the difference.
She knew what I let her see, and what I let her see now was the reaction she had expected of the person she thought she knew: the buckle, the giving in, the whimpering plaything she could mold. But it wasn’t who I was, not really.
“Anything.” The word was more a moan than an agreement as it leaked from me.
She smiled, and thankfully, I was able to keep mine restrained this time.
“We need to know more of Joclyn’s magic, specifically her sight: how it works, how it connects to Ilyan, or even if it does.” The honey slipped from her voice as Edmund’s instructions rattled through the air.
The warmth that had settled in my stomach disappeared into vapor as the air became lead.
Of course it had to be Joclyn’s power.
It was no secret Joclyn was insanely powerful, and I knew from the beginning that Edmund would want her power for himself. I had hoped he would see more use for her dead—as I had intended—but that was obviously not the case.
But this information, this tiny bit of knowledge, was mine. I needed it. The way their magic worked, the way their souls had connected was a key piece to how I was going to destroy Ilyan’s regality. It didn’t take much to know that, if Edmund knew how their magic connected, he would use it in the same way I intended. I couldn’t let that happen.
My lips pressed into a tight line as my mind immediately moved around the demand, around the information I had, trying hastily to find the smallest bit of information I could give him.
“Do we have a problem?”
The harshness of Ovailia’s voice pulled me right out of contemplation and back to the beautiful woman before me, the graceful dance of her hair in the wind the only movement amongst the frozen and dead world.
I didn’t have a choice. I had to give them something. I would just have to figure out what I could sacrifice that didn’t give them too much of an upper hand in this delicate game.
“Sain.”
My magic reacted to the sound of my name on her lips, to the touch of her fingers against my cheek as she brought me back under her spell.
“Please don’t forget. I hold the cards. I always have. I can control your magic.”
No, you can’t.
“I can control your sight.” But you couldn’t see what I truly saw.
“I hold the key to Thom’s life in my hands.”
Thom.
The word, the reality that was clenched behind it, was a knife twisting into my spine, the bones straightening as I righted to my full height, the fearful, broken man I always played gone for a moment.