43. Katya
43
T his is why Raiden freed me. He wanted me to watch Aemon die.
Bastard.
Aemon’s head spins around, searching the stands for me. When he pauses, gaze directed my way, I’m sure he’s seen me. Then, my head whips back and my feet stumble along, moving backwards, as Raiden pulls me into the utility room by the hair. I’m barely through the door when he slams me into the wall. Pain shoots across my chest and down my left arm as my shoulder strikes the stone, taking the bulk of the impact before my skull hits soon after. Head aching and disoriented, I’m completely unprepared when—a split second later—Raiden’s fist connects with my cheek. I careen to the floor, taking a couple of mops and a pail with me. Agony explodes across my face and clouds my vision.
Another strike, this one to the midsection, has me folding in on myself. Then another to the hip, then the shin and forearms where they’re covering my face, and all I can do is curl up into a ball and pray for it to stop.
“See what you make me do,” Leodin chides as the cane cracks across my bare back. I bite my cheek to stop myself screaming. It’ll only make him strike harder. “Your mother should have left you to the boggart instead of saddling me with a worthless, powerless—”
“Katya.” A voice pulls me from my fugue. Hands grip my shoulders. Someone is shaking me. “Katya,” they say again. “Please, wake up.”
I blink my eyes open. Leina is crouched over me, tears running rivulets down her terror-stricken face.
My head feels like it's been cracked wide open, my cheek crushed. The coppery taste of my own blood coats my tongue, but the gods only know where it’s coming from. I reach for my pounding head, but the movement sends a shooting pain down my arm and into my ribs. I try to sink back down to the floor, but even that sets off a flurry of pain all over my body. “Leodin? Where did he…” I begin but trail off as my gaze falls on the body sprawled across the floor. Not Leodin. “Raiden.”
“He wouldn’t stop hitting you,” Leina says, the words coming too fast, her pitch too high. “He was going to kill you. I didn’t know what to do.”
I push up onto my elbows. Raiden is lying sprawled on the floor next to me, blood dripping from his scalp.
“Shh-shh-shh.” I grab her hand and gently pry the broomstick from her fingers. Then I drop it on the floor with a thwack.
“What are we going to do?” Leina asks.
I take a deep breath, trying to clear my head. My ribs ache something awful, but they don’t feel broken, thank the gods. “We’re going to get out of here, Leina. I need you to trust me. Can you do that?”
She nods vehemently.
I drag myself across the floor on my belly to where Raiden is unconscious. “Aemon?” I ask.
Leina stops wringing her hands just long enough to peek over her shoulder at the door. “I don’t know. I heard you screaming, and I came ov—” She gasps, hand going to her mouth. “I left the commissioner back there. What if he—”
“He’ll be fine,” I say as I pull myself on top of Raiden’s body in search of his ashari. I find it dangling from the nail of his index finger. “I need you to hold Raiden.”
“What?”
“Hold him. Quick. We don’t have time for explanations. You’re just going to have to trust me. Now, please, hold him in case he wakes up.”
She still appears unconvinced, but at least she does what I ask and grabs Raiden by the wrists.
Slipping the ashari over my finger, I stare down at this insignificant little person who has caused so much suffering, and I can’t help but smile. I tilt his head, exposing the column of his throat and say, “I really hope this hurts.”
Then I stab him in the jugular.