With his foot, my father draws another circle, concentric to the smaller one around my body. “Put the rot between the two.”
With a nod, I concentrate and look down at my feet as I move the rot away from me. I push it out further to the other side of the line, sweat beading on my forehead as I struggle to make sure it stays contained.
My father nods in approval. At one point in my life, I would’ve been ecstatic at that. But I’m long past that now.
I loathe him.
Even though I’ve never seen him strike my mother since that day seven years ago, I remember.
I watch.
My beautiful, kind, strong mother, yanked from her world and looked down on by all fae, has to put up with a tyrant and yet still manages to love her sons. To find moments to smile for.
I learn this for her. Not for him.
I learn so that one day, I can be strong enough to take her away from him. So that I can bring her somewhere in Annwyn where no one’s heard of The Breaker. Where no one hates Oreans. Where we can be happy and free. But to do that, I have to learn to be strong. And who better to teach me than the male I want to beat?
“Tighten it at the back, Slade.”
I look over my shoulder to see where it’s slipped, but he snaps his fingers. “Eyes forward. You don’t need to see it to know where it is.”
My teeth grind together. But instead of opening my mouth and saying something that will piss him off, I close my eyes and sense my power. Even though my magic is external, I learned that I can feel it internally. The rotten veins beneath my skin are the same as the rotted lines I force into the ground. But although I can feel it, it doesn’t mean it always wants to listen to me.
My father draws another circle, and then another, and then another. He has me doing all sorts of new things I’ve never tried before, like making half the rot go in one section, the other half going somewhere else, spreading in opposite directions. It leaves the once lush grass dried and dead, with cracks of earth showing through. Despite the cool air, I start dripping sweat, my body shaking from the physical and mental exertion.
“You’re getting sloppy,” he says with a sigh. “Control, Slade. Are you some common fae to lose it so easily? Or are you going to be worthy of the blood in your rotted veins?”
“We’ve been going at this for hours,” I reply, though I’m careful to keep my tone neutral. The sun is going down, and something about being out here without it makes everything seem harder. “I’m tired.”
My father sneers at that word. Even though he’s hundreds of years old, even older than my mother, the only lines he has in his face are from the frowns dug between his brows and bracketed around his downturned mouth.
“You’re tired,” he mocks, practically spitting.
My stomach drops, because I know what’s coming next. In the next blink, he’s snapping a finger in front of me, and the ground shakes, splits,breaks.
I stumble, almost crashing down when the shaking relents. The ground is breaking in perfect circles, right where he drew my lines. Gaps in the earth surround me, making it seem like they could break all the way through to the world’s core, crumbling beneath my feet.
But he’s not done with his display.
With another snap of his finger, he makes the full tree just behind us break in half, the huge trunk snapping like a twig and falling over with a crash.
The ground barely stops shaking when he lifts his hand again.
Snap.
The sound is so loud, but I don’t register that it’s not only coming from him, it’s coming from me. Just like that, he’s snapped the bone in my finger exactly like he did to that tree.
A scream flings out of me, and my knees hit the ground in a plume of dust as I cradle my hand now searing with pain. My father peers down at me without expression while I try not to throw up.
All the spikes have torn from my body, ripping through my shirt, though at least they don’t make me bleed anymore. I look up at him from the ground, shaking in the shock of pain, but I say nothing. Nothing. Because I will not ask. I will not beg.
He lets me stay in that agonizing limbo for several long seconds. Then, he snaps his finger again, making me flinch. But as quick as the noise, the break in my bone is gone. So is the break in the tree. The ones on the ground.
My chest heaves as I look up at him, and he tilts his head, eyes flicking over my face with an indecipherable expression. His eyes drop down and then he grips my chin, his fingers even colder than the power running through my veins. He turns my head to the side roughly. Scrapes the side of my cheek. “Interesting,” he mutters before letting me go. He looks at me with great satisfaction. I don’t like it one bit.
“What?” I ask, bringing my own hand up to scratch the spot that feels oddly itchy. I don’t do it with my tender finger, though. The bone may not be broken any longer, but my nerves are still screaming, letting out ripples of confused pain.
Instead of answering me, he says, “Control. My father taught me, and I will teach you, and you will not fail.”
