I snort. “Giving power to all is a recipe for disaster.Clearly.” I wave my hand at the generál.
“Is it? Or are you afraid of what that would mean for you? How it would feel to be as ordinary as the rest of us? There’s no denying the strength that comes from struggle. Tell me, Commander, who is the better warrior: One with natural abilities but a poor work ethic, since they’ve never had to try, or a naturally weaker warrior who throws everything they have into training, who finds ways to counteract their shortcomings, who has to fight, tooth and nail, for every little success? Who would you rather have at your side in battle?”
When I don’t answer, Kartok crouches in front of me. I can smell the dust and sweat of the road on his robes, the overpowering tang of garlic on his breath. I press myself against the wall and turn my head. But that only draws him closer. His face hovers a finger’s breadth from mine.
“All ‘power’ is created by someone or something initially,” he says. “What does it matter if it was born of the Lady and Father or one of Their children? In the end, they are one flesh. Zemya’s power is Their power. She shouldn’t have been condemned and banished.”
I look directly into his unsettling blue eyes. “Zemya got what She deserved. And I don’t see what any of this has to do with me.”
He grabs a fistful of my hair, wrenches my head back, and forces the waterskin into my mouth. The liquid gushes down my throat, thick and warm and sulfuric. Like the sweltering rot that hangs over a battlefield. I cough and heave and spit, suddenly boiling inside my skin. Yet my body twitches and shivers. My tongue is drier than the stale jerky in the disgusting ration sacks reserved for lesser warriors.
Kartok chuckles as I claw at the neckline of my tunic. “Do you feel anything unusual?”
“If your hot-spring water is so precious and powerful,” I finally growl through the pain, “why give it to me? Why bestow me with more power?”
Kartok touches the heel of his palm to the bottom of his chin in a strange religious gesture I’ve seen many times at the war front. “Because I have perfect faith in my goddess. I know that Zemya would never allow Her magic to strengthen you. In fact, I predict it will do the opposite.”
“I thought She wants ‘all people to be equal,’ ” I retort.
Kartok slaps my cheek. “Summon your ice.”
“Now I don’t want to.”
“Summon. Your. Power.”
“I’d rather die.”
The truth is, I don’t know if I could summon the ice even if I wanted to. I was hot and depleted and exhausted before Kartok poisoned me with his goddess’s magic. But I’m not about to give him the satisfaction of thinking he won. And part of me is terrified to know if it worked—if his hot-spring water can actually strip me of my gift. So I focus on the blue vein bulging in the center of Kartok’s forehead, and smirk. I have an insatiable desire to pinch it between my fingers and pop it like a bloated leech.
“You do not want to anger me, Commander,” he warns.
“Oh, but I do.”
His hands fly toward me, and the same wrenching pain that incapacitated me in the prison wagon grips my tongue. Only now I don’t crumple. Because I know it isn’t real. If I don’t believe his lies, they won’t be able to hurt me. Kartok’s invisible grip tightens, but the pain doesn’t increase. It doesn’t lessen, either, but I am slowly gaining ground against the illusion. Learning to fight it.
“Very well.” Kartok whips a long double-edge blade from his robes and throws it at my face. It flies faster than I can react, even if I wasn’t injured and exhausted, and the razor tip sinks deep into my right eye. Pain detonates through my skull, shooting and stabbing. I scream and clutch the wound, certain it’s deep enough to kill me. But blood doesn’t wet my fingers. And there’s no hilt protruding from my skull.
Another illusion. This one ten times more painful than his trick with my tongue. It almost makes me feel a twinge of guilt for the thousands of icy daggers I’ve rammed into Zemyan skulls over the years. Except, of course, they deserved them.
“Next time the knife won’t be an illusion,” Kartok warns, drawing back the folds of his azure robe to reveal an identical weapon. Only, this one rings as the steel leaves the scabbard and the edge is cold and sharp as he jabs it beneath my chin.
I lick my chapped lips and stare into his unnaturally blue eyes. Demon eyes. “We both know you’re not going to kill me.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t make you wish you were dead.”
“I have an extremely high tolerance for pain.”
Kartok leans against the blade, and drops of blood trickle from my throat. “There’s more than one type of pain, Commander.” He returns the knife to his hip and fiddles with little knobs hidden in the wall until the glass passageway reappears behind him. “Get some rest.”
A dangerous smile steals across his lips, and as the throne room solidifies between us, the low rumble of laughter fills the room.
My stomach lurches into my chest.
Because the laughter isn’t Kartok’s.
It’s the Sky King’s.
I’d recognize his voice anywhere.
