“You were the one who should have died!” his father shouted, his fist flying at Dominic’s face.
The taste of copper filled Dominic’s mouth as he turned his head back to his father. He spat blood on the man’s grimy boots. His mouth hung agape as he breathed heavily through the agony sluicing through him. Running his tongue over his blood-stained teeth, Dominic said, “If she was just a child then why did you let her do everything for this family? That was practicallybeggingfor her death.Youwere the one who murdered her in cold blood.”
Nostrils flaring, his father argued, “She was more than capable of doing things on her own. She was proud to take care of us.”
“Saige wanted nothing to do with you,” Dominic cut in. “She told me stories every night to drown out the sound of the war, to give me hope in this bleak life. She took me outside to play in the dunes so I wouldn’t see what a drunken, pathetic piece of shit our father was. I asked her if we could run away, and she was more than happy to go.” His voice came out in a rough pant, hardly standing the sheer pain coursing through him.
His father stepped back, taken by surprise. Then his face contorted in rage, muscles twitching in his jaw. “Lying bastard!” he shouted, fisting Dominic’s tunic in a tight grip. “That’s not true!”
Dominic stifled a wince, the man’s hold shifting him forward onto his injured leg, and chuckled darkly. “Oh, but it is.”
“You’re lying!” he yelled, spit flying from his mouth.
Dominic grimaced. His dagger shot to Dominic’s throat, blade shallowly slicing into his skin, sending a sharp sting across his neck. The King of Keys only grinned in response. It was so satisfying to see his father squirming at the truth. Saige had taken the blame for Dominic, saying it was her idea to run away, and it was her demise. He’d give anything to watch his father struggle the way they fought to survive his wrath.
“Three days, Saige told me,” Dominic said. “She would give you three days to listen to her demands. To stop drinking and find work somewhere. When those three days came to an end and nothing changed, we would leave.” Dominic swallowed a knot of sorrow rising in his throat. “All you had to do was listen to her.”
“You brutally murdered me and left my body to be picked apart by the vile creatures of this land. I will do the same to you,” his father threatened.
Dominic barked a laugh. “Brutally murdered you? That was nothing compared to what I should have done.” Dominic, being too young and scared to do anything else, did the only thinghe could think of to get away with it. He went out into the wastelands and extracted poison from corpses, pouring small amounts into his father’s alcohol bottles until he drank himself to death. “I poisoned your drinks,” Dominic admitted, though he felt nothing victorious within, only more despair. “One wouldn’t have killed you, but multiple . . . All you had to do was stop drinking.”
“I’ll do to you what you were too much of a coward to do to me,” his father snarled.
Dominic narrowed his eyes with a valorous smirk on his face. “Do your worst.”
But all that cruel confidence faded in a flash as his father unfurled a whip in his hands and Dominic was reduced to nothing but the little boy he used to be, cowering before his father’s drunken rage.
He squeezed his eyes shut at the first crack of the whip, teeth piercing his lips. He would not give his father the satisfaction of hearing him scream.This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real,Dominic tried to convince himself. But every time he thought it, the crack of the whip followed, the sting of his skin splitting apart in its wake. Again, and again, and again.
It would be a slow, agonizing torture. Dominic pulled on the bonds holding him hostage, but they wouldn’t budge. It only made his wrists ache more, skin red and raw from the rope. Running wasn’t an option even if he wasn’t tied up. Searing pain shot through his right leg. Magic—his last resort—hummed in his veins but would not break through, the result of the Ruins stifling it.
Just like old times, he was powerless against his father, unable to fight back.
Dominic could do nothing but bite his tongue, masking his cries of pain.
Chapter 38
Theskylefther,drifting higher and higher as the sand fell away beneath her. The world tilted, and Adara fell into a dark chasm. Her mouth opened to scream, but clamped shut at the thought of what monsters it would attract. Her arms flailed, desperate to cling to anything that would stop her plunge.
Pain shot through her entire body, albeit dull compared to what she was expecting. Everything spun as she rolled, momentum from the fall carrying her down the slope of another sand dune. It felt like forever before she finally rolled to a stop.
Forcing herself to stand on shaking legs, Adara spat sand from her lips, brushed it out of her face, hair, and clothes. She craned her neck to peer up. A gaping hole split the cavern wide, the slightest bit of light illuminating the void she’d fallen into. She cursed frantically, seeing no way up to the opening through which she fell. Her pulse quickened, stomach churning. Another scream ripped through the air. It echoed through the cavern, followed by a mocking cackle of laughter that had her trembling.
I’m coming Dom.
That mocking laughter sounded again. So uncannily familiar. “You’re really going to risk your life trying to save him?”
Adara’s head swiveled back and forth, searching the place.
Beneath her feet was an old marble floor that would have been polished and extravagant for a royal ball if it had not been cracked and worn with desolation, covered in dust. A broken chandelier lay in a heap next to her, glass scattered about like fractured bones. A grand staircase in front of her ascended into where a wide corridor should be, but in its place was a gaping hole. Decrepit pillars precariously leaned against one another on either side of the opening. Light from the outside could be seen on the other side.
Adara started in its direction.
“I mean, you hardly even know the bastard,” the voice said in disbelief.
She halted, squinting through the dim light. Was that—No, it couldn’t be him.
“Take it from me, you’d be better off escaping on your own.” A dark figure stood at the top of the stairs. It began to descend, carefully sizing her up, avoiding the fissures within the structure. Unable to help herself, she started toward him. She needed to be closer, needed to see his face.
