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“I am not afraid to lose!” Armand pridefully shouts.
But Kai finishes, “—to engage in activity that might taint the image of your high status.”
The overlord’s mouth snaps shut with a clack of his teeth, and he’s clearly embarrassed by his premature outburst. He lost his cool before Kai was even done talking, and now he’s working his jaw and tightly gripping the arms of his throne.
For once, he’s the one squirming, and I like it. I like it a lot.
Kai scans Armand up and down, observing, “You’re clean, and you said Ro had the option to bathe, but how is that possible in a world with no water?”
Obviously not having fun with this interrogation, Armand gives a straightforward answer instead of teasing or talking in riddles. “The treaty your kings made with the Overlord of the West trickles down to us here in the east. We trade with Vaeront, and we receive food and barrels of water sometimes.”
Kai turns back to me. “I have a feeling you had good reason to abstain from washing yourself?”
Leaning back in his chair, Armand stares me down because he wants me to stay quiet on this one. He cracks his knuckles one by one on his right hand while rubbing his amulet with his left.
That awful amulet.
The worst of Armand’s abuse has come from what he’s shown me inside that crystal. The light-blue gem is magical, and it displays visions.
Of the past—horrible events I’ve experienced.
Of the present—heart wrenching scenes that I don’t want to believe are real.
Last time Armand made me gaze into the amulet, tempting me with the promise of seeing my family as they are now, I saw my granddaughter’s face. She was pale and her eyes were closed. She was so still, and when the vision zoomed out on Zaylee, I realized she was in a glass casket. Dead.
The overwhelming grief I felt was the last straw for my already splintered mental state. Caring was too painful, and I willingly surrendered myself to the apathy of the Lost Land after that.
With that vision, Armand broke me, his favorite toy.
When I first came here, I was exactly what Armand and Yugo needed. I reacted to their cruelty. I cried and yelled. I sobbed so hard I couldn’t breathe.
And they laughed.
I can still hear their evil cackling in my mind.
The frequency of their harassment has subsided, and I’m sure it’s because I’m too damaged to give them what they want.
Honestly, Armand doesn’t deserve my compliant silence. I’m already willing to die, so I have nothing to lose, and this might be the one chance I have to spill the truth.
“Armand invited his minions to watch my sponge baths,” I tattle. “They surrounded me as I kneeled, naked, next to the bucket. Getting clean was a long process because I had so little water to work with, and I spent the entire time wondering when one of them would attack me. I couldn’t go through that on a regular basis.”
“You sexually assaulted her,” Kai accuses Armand with an eerie calmness in his voice.
“I did not.” Armand is aghast. “I wasn’t even in the room, and no one touched her.”
“It doesn’t matter. You violated her just by putting her in that situation.”
Kai’s rage has increased, and it’s hot.
Not hot as in sexy—though itissexy—but it’s actually warm. Heat ripples from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
I wonder if Armand can feel it, too.
“Go on, then.” Shifting in his uncomfortable chair, the overlord’s jaw ticks with impatience. “Offer me a bargain for the woman’s freedom.”
Kai tilts his head, and I can almost read his mind. He’s probably thinking,are we seriously going to act like that conversation didn’t just happen?
Both men stare blankly at each other for several seconds, and I can tell the instant Kai decides he’s just so done with this shit already.
