Chapter 5 #2
He pushes off of the table and closes the distance between us in three long strides, cutting my words off quite efficiently.
I force myself not to flinch back, but my entire body tenses and goes cold, my Gift rearing up inside my chest. I swallow hard and crane my head up to meet his gaze and he narrows his eyes.
“Go ahead and try,” he growls. “I fucking dare you, Red.”
I want to. I want so fucking badly to freeze the bastard’s heart inside his chest and shatter the damn thing into dust. But I can’t, especially not with Odessa here to witness it.
I could kill her as well before she could strike, I’m sure, but there are hundreds of others outside.
I can’t possibly attack everyone at once.
I’ve never used my Gift for something of that scale.
I can make the glasses at the tavern nice and cool in the heat of summer.
I can coax a snowstorm from the clouds. I can slice men to ribbons with daggers of ice—but only two or three at once, at most. Taking on hundreds?
It’s out of the realm of possibilities for me.
Maybe Tesni could, but she’s had far more practice than I.
If I tried something so large, I’d push my Gifts past their limits.
I’d be ripped apart at the seams by the power of it.
“Come on, I know you’d love to burn me to ash, right here, right now, wouldn’t you?
” he taunts. “I’ve heard that you absolutely delight in the smell of burned flesh.
” His lip curls in disgust and my stomach roils at the thought, at the knowledge that deep down, he’s probably right about Tesni.
She has a blacker heart than even this man before me. “Not even a single flame?”
He smirks when I merely stare, jaw clenching so tightly that my teeth ache, as if he’s won some kind of battle. I want to scream in frustration but only stand there, mute and frozen.
“Well then,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest, that simmering darkness settling back into the shadows, the mocking levity back in his voice and eyes now. “If you ever decide to give it a go, know that you’re more than welcome.”
I narrow my eyes again, not sure what he’s getting at.
Why does he want me to try? Why does he think it will be so easy to stop me?
Unless…I nearly gasp, eyes going wide. Could it be possible?
I’ve never heard of such a thing, but it would make sense for an elite Hunter to be a Gifted himself, one who can block the Gifts of others.
No need for collars. No way for the Gifteds to fight back.
It would make his job infinitely easier. It’s genius, really.
So, he wants me to try just to show me that I can’t do a damn thing, to show me fully just how fucked I am in this place, that I am fully at his mercy and under his control.
I decide to test my theory another time when those stormy eyes aren’t studying me so intensely it’s as if I can feel it like a physical touch, a skating of claws over my skin.
I swallow hard and his gloating smile widens.
“We leave at dawn. Be ready to go, or I’ll drag you out of that tent myself, ready or not. You may go now.”
Effectively dismissed, Odessa gestures for me to walk in front of her out of the tent.
Though I’m surprised she doesn’t just grab my arm and steer me where she wants me to go like Turner did, I do appreciate her lack of intrusion.
I step out of the tent and breathe in deeply, letting the cool air fill my lungs and settle me.
“This way,” Odessa says, not entirely unkindly, but not warmly by any means either, as she turns to the left.
I follow a step behind her, letting her lead the way.
Her dark hair is in three thick plaits starting from her crown that hang down to the middle of her back, and it reminds me of something that I can’t quite place.
She’s taller than me by a head, and though she’s lean, she’s muscular.
Strong. Formidable. I have no doubts she can wield all of those blades strapped to her body with ease.
I wonder how she came to be a Hunter, what turns someone to a life of tracking down innocents.
She stops a few seconds later and I nearly run into her back.
“Here you are.”
I blink and turn my head to look back at Blackheart’s tent, merely feet away, then turn back to Odessa and arch a brow.
“I needed an escort for that?”
She gives me a look that says I need whatever the hells Blackheart says that I do, and reaches to pull up the flap, looping the circle of fabric around the hook attached to the outside of the tent to keep the doorway open.
She gestures for me to enter first so I sigh and walk inside.
It’s smaller than Blackheart’s, but clean at least. A cot sits on one side of the space, a small brazier on the other with a fire burning low within, and beside it a small table and water basin.
To my surprise the trunk of “my” belongings is beside the cot as well.
“Food will be brought to you shortly,” Odessa tells me. “There is water in the basin should you wish to wash up.”
“Thank you,” I say absently, exhaustion and despair trying to pull me under.
Odessa furrows her brows and I want to kick myself.
Tesni would never thank this woman. She would never thank anyone for anything.
I force more bite into my words when I add, “I’m fully aware of what a wash basin is for.
” I make a show of looking her up and down.
“Though I can’t be sure you could say the same.
” The words taste like ash on my tongue.
I’ve never been the type to be unnecessarily cruel.
She, in fact, looks like she could be Brienne herself made flesh, a gloriously beautiful and fearsome goddess, and she’s certainly far more put together than I must look right now with my ruined dress, tangled hair, and covered in dirt and blood.
Odessa clenches her jaw and her blue eyes flare brightly, like shards of ice with fire burning behind them. She looks as if she loathes me, which I guess is what I intended, but it doesn’t mean that I enjoy it. I tell myself that this cruelty is necessary. This is about survival.
“Don’t try anything stupid, princess,” she snaps, the word princess thrown like an insult, and leaves the tent, closing the flap behind her.
Once she’s gone, I start to pace, rubbing my temples as I try to sort through everything that has happened, but it’s too much.
Everything attacks my mind at once, all of the possibilities and consequences and emotions slamming into me over and over like lashes of a whip.
It’s hard to breathe and I hit my knees, wrapping my arms around myself as I break apart.
My sister betrayed me—again. She sent me off to be kidnapped and taken to a place known to be hells on earth for Gifteds, to a place where the king is cruel and sadistic and forces women to do unspeakable things.
I have no idea what will happen when we arrive—or even how long that might take—or what will become of me once the ransom goes “missing.” I wonder if I’ll ever see Math and Cece again, if they’re safe.
It feels as if my ribs are shrinking, pulling inward, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing.
Breathe, Thea, I tell myself. You have to breathe. You have to think. You have to fight.
Fight. Yes. I’ve fought my whole life and I won’t give up now.
I will get out of this. I will return to Math and Cece.
I will live the life I deserve, the one I made for myself against all odds.
I dig my fingers into the fabric of my dress, focusing on the feel of the thick wool.
Focus on what you can see and feel and smell.
I focus on the orange glow from the brazier, the soft, cold earth beneath my knees, the smell of snow in the air.
Slowly, so fucking slowly that I think I might suffocate, my ribs expand once more and I can finally suck in a deep, ragged breath.
I take four or five deep, controlled breaths after that, letting my body and mind settle.
After what could be minutes or hours, I can push myself up from the ground.
I move to the bed and sit on the edge, putting my head in my hands.
“Ok,” I whisper. “Ok. You can do this. One thing at a time.”
I try to think through everything again, this time forcing all of my thoughts into an orderly line the way Cece does with the sailors on particularly rowdy nights and they all rush the bar like a pack of wild dogs.
First things first: I need to see if my Gift is truly useless here.
I take a deep breath and let my power flow through me, cold filling every vein and making my heart flutter with excitement.
I can feel the cold beneath my skin in my palms, traveling up my fingers, and I try to force it outward and create a small icicle.
Nothing happens.
I try again, putting more strength into the command, willing my skin to turn to ice. Nothing. I try for a light frost. No luck. I try for dropping the temperature in the tent around me, but it remains warm and pleasant, the wood popping loudly in the fire as if to mock me.
“Fuck!” I spit through gritted teeth. So, he can block my Gift.
I wonder how far his power extends…and then my heart plummets.
If his Gift depends on proximity, I fear that I won’t be allowed to stray too far from him.
Desperate I try one more time, letting the power pool deep in my chest, pulling up from the depths of my soul.
I hold my palms out, willing ice to form, begging. ..
I scream through clamped teeth in frustration when once again, not a damn thing happens. I flop back onto the bed and bury my face in the pillow, not even bothering to move when someone slides a tray of food inside the flap of my tent a few minutes later.