Lex searched my face for the truth of my words before squeezing my palm once and nodding his head.
“Very well. Rohak found me as a boy—destitute and alone, dying—and brought me to the Academy. This is common knowledge. What is not, are the horrors that happen beneath this Academy, how I am the only Mage to hold two affinities . . .whyI’m able to do that.” He shot a pointed look at me, and I felt sweat grow on the back of my neck as the hairs raised on my arms. I knew what he was going to say before he even said it.
“It was you, Fay. You gave me my second power.”
Chapter 80
Lex
EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO
My sweat-soaked chest heaved as I struggled to get air into my lungs.
Air I desperately needed.
It felt like my chest was going to explode—my innards painting the black walls a macabre shade of red.
Can’t do that. They’ll just clean it up within a few minutes.
I groaned and clenched my eyes shut, baring my teeth as a sharp dagger dug its way into my side.
The blade was short. Not long enough to kill, but certainly long enough to cause pain.
The man in black robes rested the sharpened edge against my skin, just above a rib, and began slowly pressing it inside.
Sweat poured down my forehead as I tried to steel myself against the utter pain that ripped through my body and mind.
He paused with the blade halfway inside my skin before quickly flicking his wrist down, cutting a two-inch gash in my side.
I hissed, a scream nearly escaping my sore and abused throat.
The man dug the blade all the way to its hilt at the end of the incision, and this time, I yelped at the sensation.
I felt, more than saw, his grin of satisfaction before he dug the blade, twisting it until it met the bone of my ribcage.
“FUCK!” I roared, my voice nearly breaking from the force. But no one heard my exclamation over their own sounds of pain and despair.
Sessions varied by time and day—we never knew if we’d be experiencing pain, pleasure, or a mixture of both at any given time. It was a way for our bodies to “naturally” respond to the stimulus. At least that’s what the men in the black robes said.
I thought it was just another way for them to control us. To remind us where our place truly was in this whole fucked-up scheme.
Weeks had passed since I was led down here to die, and I hadn’t seen the General or Lord d’Refan since.
The only people I had for company were in the men in black robes, the other subjects, and the whores who visited for the pleasure sessions.
I never bothered learning any of their names.
We were all dead bodies, anyway.
I quickly realized why no one else cared about the man who died while Awakening.
It was because they didn’t.
Or really couldn’t.
Each of the other test subjects down here with me were just washed-out faces. Completely forgettable.
And Iwantedto forget them—otherwise I’d live with the guilt of their deaths for the rest of my life.
