I took a step closer.
He backed up, fear finally sparking to life on his once smug face. He furrowed his brow and said, louder this time, “Raynella, you will release your fire and stand quietly without moving.”
“What was it you said?” I asked mockingly, “Oh right. You do not understand, do you?” I lifted one flaming hand to my face and made a show of inspecting my fiery talons, letting him see in my eyes exactly what I was going to do to him. “You don’t control me anymore, Gramps.”
“You're a vitiate,” he breathed out with equal parts horror and awe.
“If that means that I’m immune to mental powers, then yes, I do believe I am a vitiate. Looks like this ignorant human is more than you expected.”
His fear morphed into anger before sliding into something worse—arrogance. “You are forgetting one thing, Raynella. You may be a vitiate, but Dreisin is not.”
My eyes widened and shot over to Sin still standing by the wall, completely unmoving, fully entrapped by Belarius’ compulsion.
“Dreisin,” Belarius called out. “Climb up onto the parapet.”
To my horror, Sin obeyed. I gasped and lunged forward as he teetered slightly before catching his balance.
“What are you doing?” I demanded. “You have no reason to hurt him.”
“I have every reason to hurt him!” Belarius snarled. “Do you have any idea how much effort I put into constructing my perfect plan for you? How many compulsions I put into place? Dey seducing you so love would make you compliant to anything Ihad him ask. Camden and Ramset taking you into Civi Adasa with that damn shroud on to an area where I knew some of the more fanatical court members would be. Your father holding off saving you until the brink of death as I assumed that a vicious beating would keep you inside the castle. Corym witholding the language so you would never learn anything I didn’t want you to learn. And Josira, well, she was the lynchpin.”
A sickening feeling settled into the pit of my stomach.
“I compelled her to become your friend and report to me everything she observed. So you see, Raynella, I have been moving the pieces around the board since before you were even born. The only thing I never saw coming was your love for him.” He jerked his chin at Sin. “He ruined everything. Every one of my carefully laid out plans was destroyed because he did everything in his power to fight my compulsion and help you.”
As he spoke, he moved leisurely over toward Sin. “Remove your jacket and vest,” he ordered.
Sin complied, robotically removing his clothing, and it killed me to see him so helpless.
Belarius twirled his finger. “Now turn around.” Sin did, giving us a perfect view of his scarred back and the faintest hints of black ramentum beginning to reappear.
“I always suspected, you know,” Belarius said, turning back to me. “...that my abilities didn’t work on him quite as well as they should. I only just realized that it was his concealed illusion power mucking things up. Two mental casters with the same ability tend to cancel each other out, so he saw right through the veil of Verren’s illusion. Every time I gave him an order, I compelled him to forget about me, but then he would see me, whispering in Verren’s ear, and I imagine he realized things were more than they seemed. If he had been a little stronger he might have been able to break my compulsion all together.” Belarius glanced back to Sin, an evil smile spreading across his face. “ButI don’t think he entirely wanted to, did you, Dreisin? You didn’t want her to know about all the awful things you’ve done.”
“It wasn’t his fault,” I said, the love I felt for Sin flooding back into my heart. “You forced him to do all of it.”
Belarius let out a sinister chuckle. “You know nothing, Raynella. You have no idea what he is capable of. His powerful magic isn’t the only reason I’ve kept him around this long, but I find myself in need of a new plan. My son served his final purpose well enough. He got the other kings alone in a room with me, so I don’t even mind that you killed him. Saves me the effort. You, however, are still very much pivotal to my end goal.”
I struggled to wrap my brain around Belarius' words. “Why do you even want me to restore the ley lines? I can’t imagine you actually want to see the people of Rivella have access to their magic again.”
He chuckled, and the hideous sound sent a cold, ominous feeling creeping down my spine. “Now when did I ever say that I wanted you to restore the ley lines?”
I blinked. “What else could you possibly need from me?”
“You didn’t think I was going to tell you everything, did you? I have plans for the Onyx Palace, but you don’t don’t need to worry about that. Right now, all I want is for you to do exactly as I say.” He swept his hand toward Sin, and a gust of air magic lifted him from the edge of the wall to hold him out over the thousand-foot drop.
“No!” I screamed, rushing toward him.
“Stop, Raynella, or I will let Dreisin fall.”
Fear locked my feet in place. “Don’t hurt him,” I begged, staring into Sin’s sorrow-filled eyes. There was such resignation in them, as if he knew he wouldn’t survive this.
All he ever did was love me and try to help me as best he could despite the compulsion. Telling me to visit the Laneum at night which led to finding Corym and receiving the language. Takingme to Yanda to learn the truth about my mother. Telling me to look for the man behind the curtain. He did it all to prevent this from happening, and I had treated him like he was no better than the monster in front of me.
I couldn’t let him die.
“I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t hurt him.”
“Now there’s a good girl. Let us start by dropping your flames.”
