jerked, but I swallowed my scream of pain, refusing to give him the satisfaction. He’d shoved one of the sharp, narrow devices into the bend of my elbow, into the thick blue vein that pulsed beneath the thin layer of my skin. My blood began to run into a bottle that he held beneath the strange metal dagger. The sight of my life flowing out of my arm, into that glass jar, made my head swim. Instinct urged me to yank my arm away, to force him to stop, but I couldn’t do anything except struggle against the manacles that held me to the wall.
“The king ordered me to wait until you were conscious before taking the first sample. He wanted you to watch us using your blood to strengthen my creations.”
“They’re not your creations,” I mumbled, my mouth horribly dry. My tongue felt engorged, as though it had swelled to twice its normal size, filling my whole mouth. Had I been drugged? Or was I just severely dehydrated?
“They were nothing before me. Sorcerers — nothing more. Armando didn’t do anything. I did. I am the one who summoned the power necessary to create all of this.”
That explained his name, then. I wondered if he’d given it to himself.
When the bottle was halfway full and spots had begun to dance in front of my eyes, he ripped the blade out of my arm, letting my blood run freely for a moment. I’d seen blood many times before — I’d been the cause of death more times than I cared to count. But this was something entirely different. To take blood from subjects willfully, to use it in horrific and disgusting ways … If there had been anything in my stomach I probably would have vomited all over him, adding to the smell in the room. Finally, he took a scrap of fabric and pressed it to the wound, stanching the flow.
“Do you know what Manu de Reich os Deos means?” he asked me suddenly, his voice soft but threatening, like silk sliding over the sharp edge of a blade.
I shook my head, turning my face away from him and the arm he’d tied a strip of fabric around to stop the bleeding.
“In your language it means ‘The Right Hand of God.’ That’s what he was. I gave him his name because he was at my right side, helping me create sorcerers strong enough to take what is rightfully ours. I am as the Gods, turning their creations into something even greater, making them stronger and better than they could ever have been alone.”
I swallowed hard, refusing to respond to him.
“You killed him” — he leaned forward to hiss in my ear — “and you will pay for it. I will bleed you slowly, until you writhe in pain, until every last drop of your life belongs to me.” I flinched when he ran a finger down my cheek, past my jaw, and down my neck. “Whether the king is right about your blood or not, I will use you and I will make you suffer for taking away the greatest creation I ever achieved, besides myself.”
“Whatever you did to make yourself like this, it is no achievement,” I spat back at him. “You will pay for what you have done, mark my words. I don’t know why you aren’t Dish yet, but you will be. That or worse. You will die a thousand horrible deaths for the horrors you’ve brought into our world.”
His fingers curled to encircle my neck, slowly choking me. “How do you know that word? How do you know anything about such sacred knowledge?” His hand pressed against my throat, crushing my windpipe, rendering me unable to respond.
“Evocon, stop at once!”
The king’s shout startled us both. The Summoner pushed his hand into my throat harder for a split second, but then he released me and stood up straight, turning to face King Armando. I gasped for air, my breathing reduced to a harsh, choking cough.
The king strode toward us, wearing all black as usual, his long robe tied with a sash of gold. The jewels in his crown flashed in the firelight of the burning altars, where two men in black robes bent over their work, wisps of smoke curling around their heads and rising to the ceiling high above us in the cavernous room.
“You killed my men.” The king stopped next to the cot I sat on, reaching past The Summoner to pick up the sharp