Chapter Forty Five #3
A stab of satisfaction hit her in the gut, but she suppressed it as quickly as it came. It gave her a tendril of hope to which she clung. He bought the act so far.
Where was Einar?
Onskar waved a dismissive hand. “You’re a horrifying disappointment in all the other regards, for I had hoped you proffered a fun challenge. This meeting is . . . lackluster. After years and years and years of preparing for the worst, it’s continually disappointing when the worst never comes.”
Mila assessed Onskar’s stance, the shelves where he stood.
If she could force him to step backward, he’d be closer to a shelf.
Get him against a shelf, Einar had said.
It’s the only thing we can be certain will be present.
I’ll approach from behind and stab him through the gap.
That would help Einar . . . if there was an Einar to help?
How could meek, na?ve Mila force Onskar to do anything without drawing suspicion? She tried to sidestep, but he cut a sharp, assessing glower her way. She immediately stalled and shrank. If she wasn’t careful, he would smell her curiosity.
Onskar’s eyes skated over the shelves behind her. His mouth closed when he stopped to sniff. Eyes roving from side to side, he swirled his nose around, released his breath with a shake of his head, and continued his slow, steady back-and-forth.
“Interesting that the worm Einar didn’t come with you. He had a soul I could sense fathoms away, the vermin. Not that he could survive that swim, even though he was strong enough to climb.”
All of Mila’s mind power went to keeping her face straight, suspicious, and not rearranging into blatant confusion. Meanwhile, a knife-like sensation savaged her heart with panic.
That worm Einar didn’t make it with you.
Yes, he did.
Unless he died while under the cloak, which was impossible.
The cloak had moved after she came to the middle, so Einar survived.
Mila tightened her neck, forcing her attention to remain straight ahead.
She wouldn’t fall for a trap and check on Einar.
Besides, she still couldn’t smell him, either.
If he had died, death would have lingered in the air.
But where would he have gone?
If Einar wasn’t angling toward her position, she had very big problems.
Dead ahead, she sensed movement. Or had she imagined it?
Mila curbed her irritation. If Onskar would stop pacing, she could angle them into the feint-and-switch position Einar desired.
Not that it would be easy for Einar to approach the middle of a circle, where all lay visible.
Unless she pressed Onskar up against the shelf with her body.
She dismissed the terrible idea as readily as it came. It would never work.
She had to think of something else.
“Mila,” Onskar intoned solemnly, “the time has come for you to decide whether you will cede your loyalty to me, or be obliterated.”
“Please!” she cried, dropping to a knee, her hands clasped in front of her. She threw herself at his feet, forcing him to backstep toward the shelves.
Her first win.
Pressing her knotted fingers to the space between her eyes, she gasped out a sob. Onskar must believe the act wholly, so she gave a second one. “Please! Please, just let me have Pedr’s soul! I don’t want to be an Arcanist, and I don’t want your position.”
Mila fed her dream of sailing away with Pedr. Recalled his strong arms fisting her clothes, the heat of his kiss. Desire and desperation thickened the air together, turning it sickly sweet.
Onskar tutted, the tsks exploding like bombs in the night. “Silly child, you reveal too much. You say you want Pedr, but that sounds like something Draven would have taught you to say. You must prove your desire.”
He stretched forth a pale hand. Steady, almost beckoning, the way his finger bones curved inward and the ends slotted together. He might have offered a supportive hand to a friend, holding it like that.
“Touch my hand, Mila, and grant me access to your foul, complicated soul. Let me understand your depth of loyalty to Pedr, your lacking motivation for my position. Reveal yourself to me, and I shall grant what you wish.”
Mila stared, as if she hadn’t caught his slip earlier.
It continued to surprise her now. The Arcanist of Souls didn’t have to ask souls for permission to understand them—he should sense them from afar.
That he asked implied a different rule for Mila.
Or did he pretend? Was it truly a test of loyalty?
A game?
Her fingers curled into her palms, nails biting tender flesh. She couldn’t take her distraction that far because Onskar would have all information, all power. Trepidation rocked her voice.
“N-no.”
A feline smile, smug and terrible, curled his lips.
“I thought not.”
Onskar lowered his hand, returning to the biting, clipped tone from before. “Fortunately, there are other souls who are entirely under my command, and those souls don’t require permission to understand. Perhaps they shall convince you. Shall I bring them forth?”
Spinning, coattails whirring in a circle, he called, “Himmel! Jordaire! The time for your glorious debut has dawned.”