‘HIS WORKSHOP IS AN ABOMINATION. ITS SOLE PURPOSE IS TO CREATE MORE ABOMINATIONS LIKE ITSELF AND THE CORRUPTION. ONCE MY CHILDREN ARE SAFE, I WILL DESTROY IT AND HIM WITH IT.’
The lack of doubt in their minds reassured and horrified her.
Day 100
On this anniversary of this project’s birth, it is only fitting that I now have three spirits bound to me. Tremendous progress. I wish I had thought of it sooner—Elsbet’s two handmaidens came looking for her, worried because they hadn’t heard from her. Elsbet no longer needs them, so it makes sense that they would serve me instead.
I no longer notice the smell. I have bound so many; more servants come every day. My cook. Other cleaners. Another messenger returned from Hjeva. I have sent them away from me without losing the connection. Never for long though, and never too many at once. I need to reaffirm the connection every hour or I lose them, but I’m working on it.
Once I have perfected my hold over them, I will leave my castle and move into Dirlein.
Ceidir will be safe because my subjects will protect it.
Chapter 6 – Ash
The first time they had dragged him into the arena, Ash had dug his heels into the cold stones and resisted with every optimistic bone in his body. But he had no energy left, no fight remaining to defend his dying willpower. So, he let them drag him all the way from his prison to the heavy doors that would close behind him until either he or his opponent was dead or too injured to continue.
A growing part of him wished for the former.
He’d never get out of here himself, and even Doran wouldn’t get two steps into this prison, let alone walk back out with Ash over his shoulder—because that’s how he’d leave after this fight, he was sure of it.
Ash didn’t know why the guards still picked him up in pairs. It wasn’t like he could fight back. They loved to talk about how they’d beat him up, so that was probably it; although, he’d stopped listening after the first vivid description of how the dogs would drag his entrails across the arena’s sand.
One of the two guards picked him up by the scruff of his filthy prisoner’s shirt and shoved him out the door. They said something, but he didn’t pay any attention. He didn’t want their voices to be the last he heard, so he focussed on something Ora had said to him instead: I just wanted to know where you were. It wasn’t much comfort, but it had been the first sign that she cared about him, even if part of it had been that she’d wanted to know why he’d melted that bandit’s face off. It was miles better than the guards’ gloating.
Ash’s heart missed a beat when they reached the arena’s entrance. The guards had led him through the dark corridor linking the rest of the prison with the hell pit, but no matter how often they pushed and dragged him through, he’d always reach the doors too soon—or never again after today, if Mengha showed mercy. Something wet touched his bare feet, and his toes curled. He tried not to think about what it was, but he doubted someone had spilled their vodka. At least it was no longer warm, but the foul smell of decaying blood turned his stomach all the same.
The heavy doors opened, their rolling mechanism the cart that would wheel him out of here. A stronger smell of death hit him. It was a dark, sickening kind of sweet with overwhelming undertones of rot, and several decades’ worth soaked the arena. Ash gagged when it hit him. His fate had never felt more out of his hands. His vision blurred and he swayed on his feet, but he blinked and forced himself to steady. Not that it would do him much good, but he felt like he should put at least the minimum effort into his survival.
‘Oi, rat.’ One guard pulled him up by his throat. ‘Stand straight, yeah? Can’t have you dying too fast or the crowd won’t be happy.’
Mengha, like he gave a shit. Had they bet on him? What was his death worth these days? And the pricks called him a rat.
The guard shoved him into the arena. Ash fell face-first into the dirt and tasted blood—not his own, but that of hundreds of matches soaked into the ground; although, some of that was definitely his. There were some other things he didn’t want to consider, but he smelled them well enough. They never cleaned the arena, so it reeked of terror, desperation, and bodies shutting down.
The other prisoner entered the arena like he owned it and every one of its bloodstains. He wasn’t muscular, but he walked straight with his head held high, and that put him far above Ash’s ability.
Still, Ash refused to die with his face in someone else’s fluids. He pushed himself up, wobbled a little to the right, and watched as his executioner approached. Must have been the guy’s first fight—he was grinning like he’d already won, and his bare arms and chest were mostly unscarred. Lucky him for getting Ash as his first match.
No-scars walked up to him. By the time Ash’s exhausted mind had made sense of it, No-scars stood before him and punched Ash square in the jaw.
The crowd roared. Ash hit the ground hard and spat blood. Nothing broke, but it’d be a bruise to be proud of tomorrow, assuming he survived.
He coughed and forced himself up on shaking legs. No-scars rammed into him and tackled him with an arm against Ash’s throat. Ash hit the ground spine-first, and the impact knocked the air out of him and wet sand into his hair. He gulped for air, but his squeezed lungs only burned more from the effort. He scratched at No-scars’s face, kicked at his shins, and clawed at his scalp, but No-scars didn’t move. Every one of Ash’s movements drained a little more strength from him.
Slow shadows closed in from the corners of his eyes. How long before he’d suffocate? The crowd sounded happy, so at least he’d die to cheering.
To get No-scars off him, Ash closed his legs around the man’s waist and rolled—tried to roll—to the side, but No-scars laughed in his face. Spit shot towards his eyes, and Ash closed them to welcome the growing shadows.
But then he felt something.
It scratched against his leg, small but sharp, and possibly deadly. If he could get to it, use it against No-scars… But then the guards would question where the puncture wounds came from, and Ash could never lie his way out of that. Unless he destroyed No-scars’s skull enough to make the guards discard his body without checking… But then he’d risk destroying his little find, and he’d be back to zero. If he wanted to make the most of his discovery, he’d have to get rid of No-scars with his hands alone. It was a tiny chance, but it was more than he’d had a moment ago, and it made Ash realise that he very much wanted to live.
No-scars was too busy suffocating him to notice, but Ash moved with care, regardless. He had one chance to survive this, and the shadows were no longer just at the edge of his vision.
No time to mess this up.
Ash slid his hand into No-scars’s trousers. No-scars took his arm off Ash’s throat—he gulped for air while he could—and wrapped his hands around Ash’s windpipe.
Where was the blasted thing? Ash was sure he’d felt—Mengha. Seriously? The guy kept it where?
Ash saw stars. Not the time to be picky. He fumbled against No-scars’s underwear…