The Wellspring (Kaitlyn and the Highlander #12) - Diana Knightley Page 0,74
us, facing each other. It read in big letters: Padraig I vs Magnus I, Battle in the Arena. “Excellent poster, right, Magnus I? My graphic designer created it. I bring her with me everywhere I go.”
He admired it.
“I want you to fight these three usurpers. I want you to win. I want epic theater, I want you to show the kingdom how brutal you can be.” He stood up and pantomimed raising his fists in victory and taking bows, as if there was an adoring audience cheering him on.
“Then I walk out into the arena and you and I will fight, you will of course let me win, and then you will bow down to me. I will show you mercy. You are the father. I am the son. It will be perfect.” He kissed his fingers to the sky. “Our subjects will love us. You will make sure of it. I have seen your old videos, quite the fighter back in your day.” He sat back down in the chair, pleased with himself. “Fun, right?”
The videos on the wall showed tanks rolling through the countryside.
His smile faded. “Or you could ‘not’. You can ‘not’ fight in the arena. You can die, which is fine. You could lose, we can deal with it. You can refuse to cooperate, guess what happens?”
He waited for an answer then said, “Fine, I’ll answer for you. You die. I think you should choose the arena battles. Your daughter will have a much easier life.”
The words came to me as if they were down a long tunnel. “Ye married Isla…?”
“Isla Peace Barbara Campbell, your daughter, now Isla Stuart. I wonder if you’re even paying attention, old man? I am telling you how to survive.”
He sneered, “Ever since I married her my people have been rebellious. They like her you see, they do not see all her irritating qualities. She will not shut up, for instance. She will. Not. Learn. Her. Place.”
His slithery smile spread across his face. “You see the trouble it causes?” He waved a hand at the destroyed room. “She makes me angry and then this happens. I go to war and it is all her fault. I am king and they adore her, she makes me look bad in front of my people and they disrespect me, behaving like children.”
“What year did ye say? Where is m’son, Archie?” My hand clutched my chest. I could nae make sense of what he was saying.
He ignored me. “You will fight in the arena. You will become a brutal king, the kind that will terrify the people. You will give me your blessing, and you will welcome me into my rightful place as the next king of Riaghalbane, your heir. You will work for me, or die trying.”
I stared at the pill. My chest was filled with pain and twas as if a fog had drifted across my mind.
He watched me for a long moment.
Then he turned tae the desk. He had a glass box there beside the stack of papers. He shifted it slightly as if he wanted me tae notice it.
Inside the box was a pale, severed hand. He followed my eyes tae it and smiled. “Ah, you noticed my key.” He pulled the box into his lap. The hand was sealed at the wrist with one of the gold bands.
“Here’s a little joke I like to tell, Isla is not fond of it, but she does not have a sense of humor. It goes like this: Lady Mairead signed a contract giving me Isla’s hand in marriage, but I like Isla with all her parts… Isla’s mother, on the other hand,” he chuckled, “she tried to stop the marriage. She tried to lock me from the security systems. She was an absolute total bitch… but look who has a key with access to everything now?” He chuckled even more.
I clutched my chest, the pain was a wave, numbing my arms and legs.
“I will not say Isla has been a satisfying wife. She is not taking her lessons as she ought to. She can be a total bitch like her grandmother and her mother.” He shook his head sadly and dropped the box with the hand back onto my desk. “So you will fight and—”
“Where is Isla…?”
“I left her in 2422, she’s needing a rest, in the hospital. That girl, like you, really needs to toughen up.”
I folded over onto the ground and it all went dark.