Page 92 of The War of Wings
“Have you ever lost a fingernail, Malosym?” I asked, addressing him by his true name for the first time. “I have. When I was a kid, one of the fishermen down at the docks in Eserene gave Larka and I a silver each to pull a handcart full of fish to the shop on Gormill Road. Somewhere along the way, I tripped and Larka pulled the handcart over my little finger. Ripped the nail right out of the bed.” Though I couldn’t quite see it where his hands hung behind his chair, my focus homedin on the little finger on his right hand. “Of course, by the next day, it had healed and regrown, and at the time I didn’t know why. But let me tell you, that single day of pain was excruciating. You’d never think such a tiny little fingernail could cause so much pain.”
With nothing more than a thought, I willed the nail to lift only slightly. His face remained the same, but his body tensed the slightest bit.
“Tell me. Why did the Occulti in Eserene appear to be human?”
Once again, he remained silent. With a flick of my wrist, all five of the fingernails on his right hand lifted from the nail beds, the sound of them pinging against the stone floor obscured by his sharp intake of breath.
I fought the flinch that rippled through me, swallowing back more bile as it rose in my throat. I wasn’t cut out for this, for torturing, even a monster like Malosym. But like King Laion said, being royalty meant stepping on some toes. And as divinity, I supposed that burden was multiplied tenfold. Pulling out fingernails would suffice.
Grinding my jaw, I repeated my question, each word annunciated. “How did they appear to be human?” But the bastard still chose silence. “You have five more fingernails, Malosym, and ten toenails. I’ll be forced to move on to fingers after that.” I focused on his left hand, applying just enough pressure to his remaining fingernails to make him squirm against the chains that bound him.
“I didn’t have enough power to bring all of the Occulti over yet,” he spat.
I nodded. “And so, what, your Occulti used the Vacants as host bodies?”
“More or less.”
My focus zeroed in on his fingernails again, just enough to keep him talking. “More or less?”
“The Vacants had no free will. Not with the leechthorn in their veins. I had enough power to embed certain aspects of the Occulti into Vacant bodies. Their consciousness and some of their strength.” His body relaxed as I took the pressure off his fingernail once again.
Miles’ theory had been right, at least to a degree. The Vacants had been vessels for Occulti. How had he known that? But as I stared back at Malosym, his chest heaving, I realized one thing. “You can’t feed on your own pain. Interesting. And that was all just from a few measly fingernails. Maybe this next question will be easier for you to answer. So, Eserene. Was that the first time there were Occulti in the Human Realm?”
He hadn’t been expecting that question, because his eyes widened just the slightest bit. It had been just an educated guess until now, that the Vacants were humans possessed by Occulti demons. His surprise was confirmation enough.
“There were six here before then,” he finally said.
His face was expectant, as if he were urging me to put the pieces together. Six? Throughout the whole of the realm?
“Come on, Petra,” he urged, his voice taunting. “Use that clever little mind of yours. Six Occulti.”
Lords in the castle? No. What about the people who’d been hired to watch me my whole life? No, there had been far more than six.Think, Petra.The Board of Blood had seven members.
No.
The Board of Blood had Ludovicus as its leader — a human, ruined by blood magic — and six other members. “The Board of Blood… They weren’t Bloodsingers at all, were they?”
“I’ll admit I wanted them to look more human, but I could only muster so much power when I first created them.”
Fucking Saints. It all made sense. His standing in the kingdom. The Board of Blood. Initiation. The yearly ritual all Eserenian royalty had been forced to partake in. All the things Malosym had done to cause pain, on a scale small enough it would go unnoticed by the outside world. All in the name ofroyalty. All so the six Occulti demons walking the Human Realm could grow stronger, little by little. All so he could grow stronger.
“Women will do anything to be accepted by society,” he crooned as he watched me put the pieces together. “That includes being beaten almost to death.”
Here came the bile again, and I took a deep breath through my nose, hoping the smell wouldn’t push me over the edge. “And the annual ritual in the royal court? Kidnapping someone from Inkwell for everyone to torture?”
He snickered. “Physical pain for the sacrifice, and emotional pain for the ones forced to participate. Mostly from the newer initiates. The longer humans are alive, the more ignorant they become to the pain of others.”
“And all of this to get to me.”
“The prophesied Daughter of Katia,” he murmured with a sickening smile. His head fell back, as if he were reveling in the picture he was painting in his mind. “And your pain… There was so much of it. So much to feed on.”
It hit me like a fucking boulder to the chest, so monumental and substantial, I wasn’t sure how I hadn’t seen it before. “You’re not going to kill me, are you?”
He’d gone silent again, but my patience was wearing thin. I focused on his spine, willing it to straighten. He winced as he sat taller in his chair, but I didn’t let up. He cried out as his spine began to pull apart, his teeth gnashing together as his face contorted.
“Oh, that’s right,” I muttered. “Cal told me of the arrow wound in your back.”
“I was going to kill you!” he shouted, collapsing back in his chair as I let my powers ebb. His breath hissed through his teeth. “I’d planned on having Cal take your life. But then the bastard couldn’t separate his heart from his head, and when I saw the pain hisdeathcaused you, I thought it might do me better to keep you alive.”
