“You’re easily predicted,” he finally replied, finishing with the laces and tossing away my other boot.
He repositioned my foot and tugged on the string holding up Nette’s stocking. I pushed his hands away. He returned the favour, taking up the string again. I shoved his hand away and he spun me around so fast that my legs kicked out into the air. I landed in his lap, one muscled arm wrapped around my front in a band of unyielding muscle.
“You’re not a Vold,” I accused, struggling against his hold, leaking some of my magic into my limbs. “How are you so strong?”
The other masters had risen suddenly, surrounding the throne. I thought they were there to join in on the torture, but then I realised they were just blocking me from view. They were sanctioning Vidrol to grip the stocking with his free hand and rip it down my leg. I stopped struggling immediately, because it didn’t matter how many of my own clothes I ruined … I couldn’t return those stockings to Nette in anything less than perfect condition.
“Fjor could pluck that artefact out of your hair right now and destroy it in a single breath,” he growled against my ear, switching his grip on me to pull off the other stocking. “We’re playing along with this game of yours, but don’t expect us to roll over every time you stamp your feet.”
He dug his fingers into the seam of my cloak and prised it open, popping the little sword buttons and sending them scattering across the dais. He stood, taking me with him. He hooked his finger into the back collar and pulled it free from my body, letting it drop to the floor.
I glanced down at myself with a sigh, but then my breath was fleeing my chest on a gasp. The beads of my dress were lit like tiny fireflies, blinking sleepily in beautiful patterns that seemed stuck to the very skin of my body. I moved, and they rippled subtly. It was like wearing a constellation.
“Herra said this dress wasn’t an artefact,” I said, the mystery of it making me temporarily forget the fury I had been caught up in a moment ago.
“It’s a special kind of artefact.” Fjor was the one who spoke. “Only the most powerful Eloi can pull it off. The artefact is essentially a normal object, until it is in contact with its creator.”
It was hard to process Fjor’s silkily whispered words as their bodies crowded around me again, forming that tight circle of intimidation they loved so much.
“I already chose Vidrol,” I said, but they weren’t staring at me, exactly.
They were staring at the dress.
“Whose idea was this again?” Vidrol asked, reaching out to touch a sparkling dot near my shoulder. He pressed his thumb to it, suffocating the light, before dragging his touch lower, to the next dot. The straps of the dress weren’t wide, and it dipped low along my front, casting a strange glow over my skin. There was almost no barrier at all between Vidrol’s thumb and the skin of my chest, so I quickly turned around before he could move his hand any lower.
I found myself facing Andel, whose arms were folded, his eyes tracing patterns only he could see.
“Mine,” he muttered distractedly. “The lights will attract bugs. It will make the whole experience less pleasant.”
I waved my hand in front of his face, and those strange eyes crawled back up to my face.
“When, exactly, was the experience pleasant?” I asked angrily.
“Watching you shiver,” he answered, the violence in his eyes deepening, growing with a hunger that I didn’t recognise. The masters were changing, their reactions to me evolving, and I was starting to understand it less and less.
“Watching that dress whip about in the wind,” Vidrol muttered, stepping into my back. “Seeing your arms extended. A mystery on the edge of the world, a push away from obscurity.”
I shuddered and felt a touch against my neck—a touch that accompanied a familiar caress of magic. It was a whisper of silk and it tipped my head back and parted my lips on a small, short breath.
Fjor.
“Watching your skin turn blue.” A scratchy voice noted on my other side.
I quickly snapped my head in Vale’s direction, feeling the hair rise along my arms as I glimpsed his pale eyes through the shadow of his hood.
“Watching the fight drain out of you.” Helki stepped forward, his size somehow forcing me to turn fully to face him.
I refused to put that massive threat at my back. His body brushed my front as another of them pressed up behind me. I could barely tip my head back enough to see them, but as I glanced up, I had never felt so small. They towered over me—Vidrol and Helki—their heads bent together. Their hair slipped over their shoulders. Wild, chocolate-brown strands and neat, dark copper braids. Vidrol’s was long enough to brush my forehead. Their eyes shone, heavy with power—one of them poisonous, the other so heady my head began to spin.
“I think we all agree for once.” As soon as I heard Fjor’s voice, that feeling of magic returned, cajoling my attention his way again. “We’ve finally found an experience with you that we all found quite pleasant.”
His hand was at my hip, his fingers trailing up to the dip of my waist, and I realised that their power was affecting me. It was mixing all around me, a heady mist of scents and sensations, creeping across my skin and curling into my breath. I was getting drunk on it. I closed my eyes, a sound humming from my throat. It was supposed to be a fortifying breath, but they all pressed closer, somehow reacting to the sound I had made.
In a second, we all moved at once.
I grabbed the oyntille, shoving it back to the bruised skin of my chest, and they each jerked away so fast that my hair stirred against my neck. They were staring at each other, and I forgot to lower my hand from the beetle as I froze, the energy in the air changing and shifting. It cracked with angry, tense electricity. Helki was breathing heavily, murder in his gaze—though he didn’t seem to know which one of us he wanted to kill. Fjor’s face had transformed completely, and I found myself tripping into those endless dark eyes with mounting horror. There was something in Fjor’s eyes I had never witnessed before. It was the forecast of pain, a massacre of my soul that my body took on like a prophecy, forcing me to feel the echo of his punishment before it was even delivered.
“Thanks for the dance,” Vidrol snapped, grabbing my wrist. “But playtime is over.”
Eighteen
Light
When Vidrol set me back on my feet, it was dark all around us and the wind whipped through the pillars at the top of the Obelisk even more ferociously than the night before. The other masters appeared, but it was Helki who dragged me out through the gap and crushed me against the pillar.
Despite their cruel words earlier, none of them seemed to be enjoying themselves. It should have soothed me that they weren’t taking any obvious pleasure in the situation, but it only filled me with bitterness as I tried to press back against the pillar, the fear gathering swift and thick inside my gut. I wondered how Helki managed to stand on the very edge of the platform, balancing perfectly with only one arm wrapped around the pillar behind me. I considered pushing him off, as I had considered pushing Andel off.
It would possibly be something worth dying for.
Vale stretched out my arms again, tying the twine around my wrists, and then they were suddenly gone, disappearing into the air without a word. They were in such a rush to leave, they forgot to take my ring. I turned my head against the wind, glad that Nette had tied my hair partially up as it whipped in front of me, obscuring my vision. I would have to yank my hand to break the string, and it was hard enough to keep my balance against the wind without those kinds of jerky movements. I cursed, my eyes drifting back down to the Vilwood.