Page 105 of The Silent
He didn’t look like her own father, who had appeared as a beautiful and powerful king. This creature was a monster. His skin was red and his eyes were bulging. Two horns adorned his head, and his muscled arms had wings growing from them. Snakes wrapped around his wrists, and human women curled over and around his naked body, massaging and pleasuring him as he spoke to Prija’s captors. He was like one of the deities the humans worshipped, but all the goodness had been stripped away and perverted. There was only power and greed in Arindam’sbearing.
“We have a gift for you, ourfather.”
The Fallen looked her up and down. “Whatisit?”
“A powerful daughter of Tenasserim. She is a weapon for you,mylord.”
“How?”
Her other captor, who was usually the quiet one, spoke. “She killed her ownfather.”
A Grigori on Arindam’s right side said, “What kind of female can kill one of theFallen?”
“She killed one of our brothers inMandalay.”
A troubled murmuraroundher.
Prija forced herself to look at the horrible eyes of theFallen.
He was measuring her with calculation. “Why doesshelive?”
“We told you, she is aweapon.”
“A weapon turnedagainstme.”
Her captor didn’t like that, but Prija forced herself to keep looking at Arindam. She had the creeping suspicion that the minute she looked away, she’d be lostforever.
Little one, you are more powerfulthanthey.
His whisper wasseductive.
Show me your power, and I shall make you myqueen.
It was a lie. She could hear it in his voice. But she showed himanyway.
The black fog helped her. It was malleable in her mind, and she narrowed her power to a pointed stick. She jabbed at the talkative Grigori, imagining his temple pierced by a black spear. She heard him cry out and crumple beside her. She jabbed at him over and over. By the time her first captor was silent, the whole temple had grownstill.
Arindam was smiling. “Now theother.”
Prija didn’t once look away from the Fallen. She kept her eyes on him when she heard the other Grigori go running. There was a scuffle, and he didn’t get far. Arindam’s attendants brought him back to Prija, who slowly wrapped the black fog around her second captor’s neck. She squeezed and wrung it out in her mind, keeping her eyes on Arindam while he watched gleefully as his child twistedbeforehim.
When the second captor was dead, he asked her, “How doyoufeel?”
Prija saidnothing.
How do you feel?he asked inhermind.
Empty.
Hollow.
Nothing. I feelnothing.
But Prija didn’t tell the angel those things. She wiped her thoughts, concealing them from the Fallen. Instead of words, she sank into the black fog. She sank into it and let it fillhermind.
“Take her away,” the Fallen said. “I’ll decide what do to with hertomorrow.”
Arindam’s sons took her away and locked her in a different room, away from the others. When the fog reached out, it feltnothing.
