Endure - Sara B. Larson Page 0,55

so I poisoned him. Just as I will eventually kill you. But it will be a worthy sacrifice, Alexa. You will die to serve a greater purpose.”

I knew without asking that he meant his father. He’d killed his own father. Not out of necessity, as Damian had been forced to do, but out of anger. Out of spite.

Out of greed.

And I was next — once they were done with me.

As I watched, the robed man took the bottle partially filled with crimson liquid over to one of the girls, who looked a few years younger than me. He had wrapped his arm in a cloth that was stained with his own blood. I stared at that stain as he lifted her head with one hand and pressed the bottle to the barely conscious girl’s lips with the other, making her drink. Acid boiled through my stomach, threatening to rise up into my throat, as I watched her swallow his blood with her eyes only half-open, some of it dribbling out to drip down her chin. Was this how Armando had created Rafe and Vera? How Manu and the man who still watched me from across the room with the same silver eyes had been created? Or did he have other, even more terrible secrets?

“I will never submit to you,” I said quietly, my voice mutinous.

Rather than yell or hit me again, as I was afraid he might do, Armando only turned and smiled. “You say that now, but then again, that’s what they all say, at first,” the king said. “You’ll find that I am a patient man. And I have a knack for persuading people. I have spent decades creating my sorcerers, building my army. Putting events into motion that cannot be stopped. I can wait a few more days to finish what I started.”

And with that, he turned his back to me again and waved his hand toward Akio. “Take her away. And only give her water for the next day and night. No food. Perhaps that will help her start to see reason.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

So much for having me in perfect health, I thought as Akio took my chain from the king and dragged me out of the horrifying room, back to my opulent prison.

Hunger gnawed at my belly by sundown the next day, but I refused to ask for food. Instead, I stared out my window, wondering what had become of Eljin and Rylan. They had to be alive. After making it this far, I couldn’t have lost them. I convinced myself that King Armando would have kept them alive to manipulate me if necessary. I couldn’t bear to think of Rylan somewhere in the depths of the dungeon, his leg growing infected, his blood turning to poison in his veins, slowly killing him.

Finally, shortly after the sun dropped below the horizon, the door opened. I spun around but then quickly shrank back against my bed.

“I’m to be your escort tonight,” Rafe said, striding over to where the chain was anchored to the middle of the floor, then he unlocked it and jerked me to my feet. He wore a white patch over his eye with a strip of fabric tied around it to keep it on his face. A small stain of russet was beginning to seep through the material. His empty socket must have still been weeping blood. Apparently, the king hadn’t allowed Akio to heal it for him.

“What are you staring at?” he barked at me. He yanked on the chain viciously, forcing me to lunge forward after him as he dragged me out into the hallway. The ever-present hooded guards immediately flanked me, discouraging any attempt at attacking Rafe, even though every instinct in me screamed to do something. It had taken every bit of training and ability I had to defeat Iker; there was no chance of my success and survival if I tried to take on two black sorcerers and Rafe, while shackled.

And of course, there was the small matter that he’d made it so that I was unable to hurt him. I dreamed of bludgeoning him in the head with the iron bars around my wrist, but when I let the image get too solidified in my mind, a haze of confusion came over me, erasing the desire to hurt him. With a sigh I looked away from him as we rushed through the halls of the palace in the quickly dimming light of sunset. I caught a