27. The Slave
THE SLAVE
Seraphina
Silver opens the door almost immediately, like he’s been standing there listening for my steps.
His gaze sweeps over me once, sharp at first, then softens in a way I pretend not to notice. “I’m sorry about Diana,” he says.
My eyes widen as they meet his.
I don’t know what I expected him to say about the game today, perhaps some snarky comment about how I’d survived it so I could come to our second healing session. The last thing I expected him to bring up is my friend, and certainly not offer his condolences.
“She didn’t deserve what happened to her,” I say as I step inside. “But thank you.”
Details of the third game have been stuck in my mind on a loop. Sometimes it’s the lyrics, sometimes it’s the whole lullaby with the tune, the exact way my mother used to sing it.
Other times it’s Diana’s screams that play over and over again.
I’d heard them the entire time we’d been at The Valley of Fallen Blades, Khali holding my hand while Az and Reiva said nice things about our fallen ally. The demonologist's apprentice who became far more qualified than her tutor thanks to her time here.
“You’re right,” Silver says. “She didn’t deserve it. But Lilliana didn’t break the rules either. When it comes to the games, especially as they reach this stage, there will be more foul play as cadets get more desperate and play dirtier.”
He grabs the top of my arm, stopping me in my tracks as I go to pass the map table. My breath catches. The dagger I took and now keep tucked under my mattress where the journal had once been left to air… Did he notice it missing when I left last night?
His eyes sweep over the remaining daggers before meeting mine, his grip on my arm tightening a little as though to make sure he has my full attention. “It’s not just your back they will stab you in. You’ve got to watch your back, sides and front moving forward, Scar.”
“Diana would have had my back.”
He shrugs, letting his hand drop, and I cross his room, needing to put as much space between me and the evidence of my theft as possible before the guilt consumes me.
It was a necessary theft, I remind myself.
The kind of theft I let my marks live for committing.
The rapists and murderers died every time, but theft or death is different to theft for gluttony or greed.
I understood them on a level my father couldn’t possibly have when he wrote their name on a piece of parchment and tucked it inside the envelope for me.
“She might have tried,” Silver says. “But don’t lie to yourself now she’s dead. Don’t try pretending she wasn’t a useless cadet. Some people are not cut out for this.”
‘This is a mistake, Little Nephilim.’
“Like me?” I ask, remembering his words to me on that first day.
He tilts his head, his gaze assessing me, tracing up and down my body from head to toe and all the parts in between. “I’m man enough to admit I might have been wrong about you, Little Nephilim.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I change the subject back to safer ground. “She was loyal,” I say. “Diana.”
“Loyalty only gets you so far,” he counters. “When it gets ugly, which it will, you need your closest allies to be both loyal and capable.”
I think about Khali, Az and Reiva. I’ve not got many allies left, but the ones I do, they are all the things Silver describes.
“I have that too,” I tell him, realizing I truly believe it.
Somehow, despite everything, I trust those three beings with demon blood in their veins as much as my own family.
That’s not true.
I shake my head.
No, it's not.
Because I actually trust them more than that. More than my own family, my own blood.
When did that happen?
I don’t know, but that makes it no less true.
“You mean the others, the ones you secretly train with? Khali and her group?”
I nod.
“I don’t know Thorne and Draven as well, but Khali’s a good girl.
And a good judge of character. She’s been raised to be that way.
She can be trusted. As loyal to the Sisters as I am.
” Something deep in the pit of my stomach reacts to his affection for my friend, right down in the ugly space reserved for jealousy.
“Keep those three close,” he says, then gestures toward the bed. “Now, same as before.”
He turns away to give me privacy, and I remove the nightshirt I changed into after visiting the bathhouse, right after getting back from mourning those lost in the third game.
I lie down on my stomach, the now familiar weight and scent of his space settling around me. “Okay. Ready.”
He moves toward the edge of the bed and for the first time all day it occurs to me, I’m here. I’m alive. I survived another game. And somehow, my recent wounds hadn’t been a hindrance during the game at all.
Thanks to him.
I manage not to flinch under his touch this time, but the goosebumps give away that I’m not immune to him.
It’s not flames at first, but pressure. Warm and firm, but not painful.
He works slowly along my spine, thumbs pressing into muscle that’s still tight with remembered pain. I suck in a breath before I can stop myself.
“Too much?” he asks quietly.
“No,” I murmur. “It’s… good.”
Really good.
His hands ease off, then continue, massaging carefully around the scars instead of directly over them. He didn’t seem to have an issue touching them last time. Doesn’t he have the stomach for the hideous lumpy scar tissue tonight? Has he seen too much ugliness for one day?
“I can remove them,” he says after a while, his voice low.
My heart stutters.
“The scars,” he clarifies. “With my magic.”
“Is there anything your magic can’t do?” I snark.
I don’t mean to, but it doesn’t seem fair that one person has everything. From his unrivaled physical strength, breathtakingly handsome face, to the brilliant power bubbling beneath his skin that can both destroy and rebuild.
Hurt and heal.
He doesn’t answer for several seconds. “It drains me,” he admits eventually. “Don’t get me wrong, it saved me from a dark place, made me feel alive at a time when I didn’t think I had anything to live for.”
“But?” I press before I can stop myself.
Again, it takes him several long moments to decide whether to tell me. I don’t have him pegged as the type who likes talking about his weaknesses, so when he clears his throat to carry on, I'm shocked.
“But I have a feeling, just as it saved me, it will likely kill me one day too.”
“How so?”
I feel rather than see his shoulders shrug. “If I ever need to use too much of it without a chance to rest in between.”
“Balance,” I mutter. “Everything always comes back to balance, doesn’t it?”
“Mmhmm,” he agrees as his hands carefully move over to caress the jagged, rough skin of the scars themselves. “Well?”
What had he asked me?
Oh, the scars.
My first instinct was yes. Angels, yes. Remove every last trace of them.
They’re ugly, twisted reminders of helplessness and loss and vulnerability. Of being pinned down and carved open. A victim.
But the word catches in my throat.
I turn my head slightly so I can see him. “Would you?” I ask. “Remove your markings?”
His hands still and I eye the veinlike patterns covering every inch of exposed skin. They aren’t tattoos, the ink that the likes of Khali and Az, Zaheer and Yuvi are covered in is different.
Silver’s markings are uniquely his, and more like lava veins meandering just beneath the surface, bubbling away and waiting for him to unleash the power within them.
For a long moment, I think I’ve said something really wrong.
Then he exhales slowly, and takes a few steps back.
“No.”
I wait, trying to ignore how my back feels frigid at the loss of his touch.
“They’re part of my story. I earned them.”
“In battle?”
“In survival.”
The veinlike patterns beneath his skin glow faintly, as if responding to the memory. Dull gray lines threading up his wrists, disappearing beneath his sleeves.
“What do you mean?” I press, knowing this could well be my last chance. My back feels as good, if not better, than before Lilliana’s attack.
“They appeared around a decade ago. Back when I was stuck in Luxuria’s citadel,” he says, voice even. Too even. “After years of being...” He shakes his head, like he can’t decide how to word it. “It doesn’t matter.”
I let him drop the subject, for now. I have other questions for him, so many other questions. “How do you control hellhounds?”
“They respect me.”
I scoff. “Of course they respect you. You’re strong, well trained and have powerful magic at your fingertips. Everyone respects you.”
“They haven’t always. Not before I earned it, or before I believed I deserved it.”
“Respect?” I frown. “There was a time you didn’t? I find that hard to believe Overlord. Silver Ardentis, The Iron Flame, Tamer of Beasts.”
He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “I wasn’t always those things. I was…”
He trails off again, shaking his head. But this time I push him. “You were what?”
“Owned,” he says, his eyes fixed on his arms, his gaze tracing the web of patterns there.
My chest tightens. The Overlord, Silver Ardentis, the Iron Flame, the Tamer of Beasts, feels shame.
“Owned?” I seethe. By the angels. “I’m so sorry.”
I can relate.
He nods, but his eyes stay on the markings. “Yep. You’re looking at the most expensive and lucrative thing Luxuria’s not-so-Noble family ever bought and owned.”
I go very still.
“You must know a bit about Luxuria by now?” he asks.
I nod, almost wishing I didn’t.
“Then I assume you can guess what they bought me for? What kind of slave I was?”
I nod.
“Say it.”
“A s-sex slave,” I choke out.
He nods, his eyes still locked on his arms and the vein-like swirls and sigils. “For women. Men. For her. And whoever could pay her enough.”
Angels, no.
“How old were you?”
“When it started? Not old enough.”
My mouth fills with saliva. I feel like I’m going to be sick right here over his sheets.
Silver actually lived the life that the Iron Isle saved Az and his siblings from.