Chapter 33 Damia #2
He looks up, his dark eyes finding mine. I fight the urge to step back. To run.
“Sophos,” he says, and wraps a hand around my shoulder.
Pain—excruciating, burning agony—rips through me. It’s like I’m being torn in two, like I’m being set on fire and drowned all at once.
“Please,” I manage to make my lips work, even as they feel like they’re being peeled away from my face. “I have to tell you—”
Caledon lets go of me, and I collapse onto my knees, as weak as if I’ve just spent months suffering from a wasting sickness. My limbs are too heavy to lift, and my lungs burn with every breath. When I look up, my eyes feel like sandpaper in their sockets.
“You have to tell me what, Sophos? That you are a wretched worm, not fit to touch the dirt beneath my shoe?” Caledon spits on me.
His expression is icy cold, almost serene, but his eyes are burning with a rage I’ve seen a handful of times, but never before directed at me.
“Did you think I wouldn’t know that you betrayed me?
I heard all about your little performance at court.
So what is it you want to tell me? Why should I delay killing you? ”
“It’s true, I spoke at the court in Elmere,” I admit, my throat protesting every word I manage to rasp out. “But I immediately realized I’d made a grave mistake, Your Grace. I was confused, thinking I knew better, but I was just intimidated by your power.”
I don’t know if Caledon believes anything I’m saying. Still, I have to try. I let the words pour out of me. “I see now it’s simply because I’m so inferior that I was afraid. You truly have become a god, and I beg for your divine mercy.”
Caledon leans down, his face inches from mine. I try not to meet his eyes, worried that I’ll get sucked into the evil lurking there.
“I suppose you consider yourself a good liar, Sophos, but I see through every pathetic word. I could kill you in seconds, but I’ll make this slow, for both our sakes.”
His hand grips my shoulder again, and I’m plunged back into that pit of agony, my nerves searing as he rips my magic from every fiber of my being.
With the small shred of clarity I have left, I call out to the gods to give me strength.
I cannot surrender to the darkness yet. There’s still something I must do—to save my family.
To save all the gods’ creations from this man.
“Yes, I lied!” I scream, finding the words muffled by the blood in my mouth where my teeth have bitten through my tongue. “I lied to trick you. But it doesn’t matter. Because you’ll never have the power she does!”
I manage the words in quick, short sentences between my shrieks of pain, unsure if Caledon even hears them.
Then the pain stops, and I realize he’s laughing. I’ve heard it so rarely before. It’s a hard, cruel sound that turns my stomach.
“All those years in the most privileged position at my side, Sophos, and look at you now. A disfigured, dying cockroach, too stupid to realize how wrong he is. I’m immortal,” he emphasizes every syllable of the word. “I’m a god. What power does that sniveling bitch have that I could possibly want?”
For once, I let every ounce of loathing I have for this man shine through on my face. All the months I’ve hated him, the times when I’ve had to smile and nod as I wished him dead for his crimes, rise up within me. His brow twitches, the only sign that he’s surprised by the look I give him.
“Your power is so much less than hers. You drain people’s magic and then, of course, they die.
But it’s no more miraculous than a petty thief shoving a knife between someone’s ribs until they bleed their life away.
You can’t even manage it without touching them.
But Morgana Angevire? She can snuff someone’s life out just by looking at them. That is truly the power of a god.”
Caledon’s lips twist into a sneer. “Goad me all you want, fool. But she cannot touch me, and soon both you and she will see exactly how deadly my power can be.”
Despite his words, I see a hint of insecurity beneath the arrogance, and I jab out at it again.
“You have been afraid of that girl since you first learned of her existence, and now she’s proven that fear right. She’s gained a new power that surpasses even yours,” I gasp.
His lips draw back in a snarl, and his fingers snatch at me, like he’s about to kill me at last. Blood rushes in my ears as I wonder if I’ve pushed him too far, but he stops just short of my shoulder, hand hovering in the air.
“What do you mean, gained?” he asks, his voice is dangerously steady. I’m worried he hears it when my heartbeat skips. He’s falling for it.
“I—n-nothing,” I stutter. “I didn’t mean anything.”
His eyes flare. “Maggot. A worthless child like her would never have been born with such talent. This ability is new to her—she found it somewhere, just like that potion increased her power. You will tell me how she got it.”
I use the very real fear clutching at my chest, letting it show on my face.
“No,” I say. “I won’t.”
“I can make your death quick, Sophos—or keep you in agony for longer than you can possibly imagine,” Caledon’s fingers curl against my throat.
I hesitate. While I yearn for a quick death—to slip swiftly and quietly into the next life—I wonder if I should put up more resistance before I tell him the lie. He needs to be certain I’m giving him the information against my will.
My hesitation lasts too long, and my train of thought is lost in my own scream as he pulls more magic from me.
After what feels like an eternity, the pain stops once more, but my body is already failing me. My heart stutters as I slip from my knees onto my side, the soft earth of the forest floor nestling against my cheek.
“Tell. Me,” Caledon barks.
I have nothing left now—no fronts to put on or role to play—only a single lie that I must tell more convincingly than any I’ve told before.
“She found it in Starfall,” I gasp, my eyes finding Caledon’s black gaze. “The stars are hidden there, beneath the tallest tower. She’s using their power.”
The Grand Bearer smiles, and something releases inside me. It’s done now. I’ve succeeded. I can rest.
I hope I have done enough to make it to the Eternal Realm. But I will accept the gods’ judgment. They shall decide what fate I’m worthy of.
The black of Caledon’s eyes expands, stretching out across the sky until it blocks every scrap of light and dappled tree. I close my own eyes, floating away into the dark.