“How am I supposed to infiltrate the drakin grounds without anyone noticing?” I asked, having no idea how he expected me to find out anything about Hael.
“You won’t. You’ll be going to King Elion’s castle.”
He took a sip from his goblet as I waited for him to continue, my mind conjuring every catastrophic scenario of this going horribly wrong.
“Time works in our favor,” he drawled after an exaggerated pause, and I swore it was just to test my patience. “The Vargothi is about to start. It’ll be the only time Hael is guaranteed to be at Elion’s castle.” He grinned at me, really grinned, and I realized it might have been the only time I’d ever seen his raw smile. “You’re going to attend, little ghost.”
I’d completely forgotten about my dinner. Shock was coursing through me. I was staying in Viven for a week, if not more, and I’d get to see the dragon tournament. The Vargothi was a week-long tournament that ended with the Drakin Initiation. I knew it was coming up—the tournament occurred every century as a way to replenish King Elion’s drakins—but I had no idea it washappening so soon. Being trapped inside Dahes’ castle made it easy to lose track of time, especially when all my days were the same endless cycle stuck on repeat.
I started eating again, only because Dahes was staring at my forgotten plate. I knew him well enough that he’d only entertain dinner with me for as long as I was eating, and I needed to know more.
“Isn’t the tournament invitation only?” I asked after I swallowed my next bite of food. Then, I started slowly cutting into the next piece.
“Yes.”
I looked up at him. “How am I going to get an invite?”
“I’m going to set up a trap. King Elion informed me that a drakin rider will be doing another criminal drop off at the Senith Border in two days. You’re going to be a damsel that needs saving.”
I tried to mask my emotion, to hide my fear at whatever his idea of being a damsel meant. “How will that get me an invite to the tournament?” I asked, carefully.
“You’ll tell the drakin rider that you escaped Moriann and that I sent one of my beasts to hunt you. Elion will be intrigued enough to bring you into his palace. Anything that’s mine he covets.”
“So I’m going to tell him I’m your?—”
“You’re not going to tell him you’remyanything,” his voice was chilling as he cut me off. “He cannot know you’re my slave, Magnolia. You have a…reputationhere.”
I had no idea what he meant by that. In the past seven years I hadn’t talked to anyone except for Dahes. And in the short times I’d been permitted to speak during these dinners, I barely spoke at all. I was pretty sure that no one ever saw me except for him and his sentries, and there was only one person on the streets who knew me from before, and Masin probably thought I was dead by now…
“You will tell Elion you’re a Moriann civilian that escaped. He can know you’re a Wielder, and that you were born into Moriann by outcast poverty, not exile, but nothing more. Tell him you decided to try fleeing when your Token manifested.”
I sucked in a breath, trying not to think about my Token and how it manifested.
“With your ability,” Dahes continued, “it’ll be a believable enough reason to climb the cliffs.”
I chewed the piece of food in my mouth, trying to carefully think of how to phrase my next question. “I understand how that might get me into his castle for a meeting. I don’t understand how it’s enough to get me to stay for the tournament.”
“Elion has a weakness for pretty things,” he crooned as he stared at me. “It’s why I let you keep both your eyes the other night.” I froze, memories of the throne room came crashing back to me. Kip’s screams, the blood, thetexture?—
It wasn’t the first time I let my emotions slip and Dahes read into them. It also wasn’t the first time he’d forced me to do the very thing I was dreading because of it.
This week, ripping someone’s eye out, wasn’t the worst thing I’d done. Not even close.
I had killed before—multiple times. And the faces of the lives I took haunted me as soon as I closed my eyes at night. It was worse knowing they were below the castle now, waiting for me.
The first time he forced me to take a life, I didn’t eat for a week. It wasn’t until he threatened me with killing more that I learned to suck it up and force the food down.
I wasn’t numb to it, but I tried to be. Ihadto be or it’d drown me.
But who was I kidding? I was already drowning, just in frozen, dead air instead of water. Being Dahes’ slave was slowly killing me, slowly taking oxygen from my lungs, slowly draining me of my will to live.
And if I didn’t die from Dahes or from his hunts, the countless souls I killed would finish the job for him.
Someday.
Dahes was watching me, and I knew he was probably reading my thoughts. I forced another bite into my mouth and focused on chewing, waiting for him to speak again.
Chew. Chew. Chew. Chew.
