Endure - Sara B. Larson Page 0,73

skin was even more pale than normal, and his thin mouth pressed into a terse line that all but made his lips disappear. He strode over to where I was still tied to the tree, my legs aching from exhaustion due to lack of use and lack of food, and ripped the ropes free, then jerked me toward the tent that had now been set up for him — for us.

Once he’d tied me to the tent pole yet again, binding my arms to my body so that I couldn’t struggle, he pulled out the device that I’d come to hate so much and yanked my sleeve up to remove the strip of fabric he’d tied around the open wounds that throbbed with every beat of my heart.

He muttered something in Dansiian as he attached the bottle already stained with my blood to the end of the metal tube.

“I don’t speak Dansiian, you know. If you’d like to make conversation, you’ll have to try Antionese.” Though I risked his wrath by baiting him, it made me feel as though I still had at least a small bit of power over my situation — over him. He stole my blood, he was slowly killing me, but at least I could get under his skin and irritate him until the day I died.

Unless Akio really was going to help me escape.

His eyes flickered to mine, and I quickly looked away. “We need more,” he said in my language, his voice mocking. “We need all of your blood.”

“But you haven’t even made it into Antion yet. How long will the effects last?” I didn’t believe my blood would do anything to help any of them, but there was no proof, since they hadn’t had to battle yet. Still, his words had sent a sudden schism of terror through my fragile hope. If he intended to take all my blood tonight, then this was it for me. Wall or no wall, I wasn’t going to survive until morning to cross through it.

Akio should have let me take my chances.

“I’m not going to take it all now, you fool girl,” he responded, and I released a shuddering breath of relief. “But soon. Soon, I will.” He stared down at the device, turning it over in his hands. I cringed, waiting for the blinding pain that would come when it gouged my skin and entered my veins. But instead of shoving it into my arm, he abruptly stood up and strode out of the tent.

I sat on the hard ground, trying to hold back the sudden sobs that threatened to rack my body. I’d been sure this was it. Though I knew my death was imminent, some part of me still had managed to cling to the hope that I would be able to escape. And now, after Akio’s strange interference with my one chance to try, that tiny seed of hope had blossomed into a pulsing root of belief that perhaps I truly could — that maybe I had somehow found an ally in this terrifying kingdom of black sorcery and blood-power and violence. The Summoner’s words had stolen all of that from me, leaving me shaken and struggling to breathe normally. Not tonight, I reminded myself. He said he wasn’t going to take all my blood tonight.

But soon, he would. The battle King Armando had been planning for decades — the fight to take control of our entire world and the hidden power Blevon still controlled — was looming in front of us.

If I didn’t escape, he was going to have The Summoner bleed me to death to try and ensure his victory.

Akio slipped beneath the tent right beside me only moments after The Summoner had left.

“He didn’t bleed you tonight?” he whispered, his voice quiet but urgent.

I shook my head.

Akio glanced at the tent flap in alarm. “Then I have no idea how long he will be gone.” He reached beneath his robe and pulled out a flagon and a small piece of cheese. “Here, hurry and eat this.”

I practically inhaled the cheese, which barely touched the gnawing, all-consuming hunger that made my belly burn all day and night, then I took three huge swallows of water from his flagon. The whole time Akio crouched beside me, his head cocked, listening intently for any warning that The Summoner was coming back. He’d just taken the flagon back when we both stiffened at the barely decipherable sound of boots crunching across the rocky patch