Page 118 of Realm of Wind and Vines
Whimpers escape Mama Osteria’s lips as Alistair efficiently ties their hands behind their backs. Once they’re all tied up, he walks back around them so that he is standing in front of them. I join him and then increase their fear a little more as Alistair summons a crackling ball of flame in his palm.
“Stay on your knees and keep your mouths shut,” he orders. The fire in his palm grows larger. “I would hate to have to burn this house down with you in it.”
Terrified whimpers spill from their lips, and they cower down before us.
A rush of power soars through me. I drink it in greedily. Thisis how it’s supposed to be. Them, on their knees, before us. Beforeme. It’s their turn to be afraid. It’s their turn to kneel and bow and grovel. It’s their turn to feel what it’s like to be truly powerless.
Alistair strolls over to the table and pulls out a chair. It scrapes loudly against the floor in the otherwise dead silent room. I join him. Dropping down on a chair, I swing my feet up and cross my ankles as I rest my boots on the edge of the table.
“And now, we wait,” Alistair says to me in a low voice.
I nod.And now, we wait.
Ferver should be coming here in less than thirty minutes.
And there it is again.
Should.
Heshouldbe coming.
My heart starts pounding in my chest as that stress thrums inside me again like a violent storm.
Ferver should come home for dinner tonight.
But if he doesn’t, Draven, Galen, and Lyra are going to die.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
When forty minutes have passed and Ferver still hasn’t shown up, I’m ready to burn the entire house down. The Osteria family watches me with worried eyes as I pace back and forth across their kitchen. Whatever they were cooking is now likely inedible since the fire in the stove when out twenty minutes ago, so the scent of food and herbs has now been replaced by the sharp tang of fear.
The front door is yanked open. Whirling around, I snap my gaze to the open doorway that connects the kitchen and the hallway while hope and anticipation pulse through me.
“The Icehearts just left,” Alistair calls as the front door thuds closed behind him.
Disappointment and worry tear at my chest. Both at the fact that it was only Alistair, rather than Ferver, who walked through the door and at the news he brought. He rounds the corner and walks into the kitchen.
“I just saw the two of them fly away from the Ice Palace,” he says.
I curse under my breath.
“There is still time,” he adds, his voice low enough that only Ican hear. “As long as he arrives within the next ten minutes, we’re fine.”
If he arrives, my mind corrects silently. He has to arrive. Goddess fucking damn it, he has to. Because I will not lose Draven again. If the Icehearts and the Silver Clan try to take Draven from me again, I swear by every god and goddess and every demon in hell that I will burn this entire world down until there is nothing left but ash.
With great effort, I manage to nod in response to Alistair’s statement. But I immediately begin pacing again. Stress and worry rip through my soul like vicious beasts. Flexing my hands, I stalk back and forth across the floor while I increase and decrease the Osteria family’s fear just to pass the time.
They whimper and cower down, and then suck in deep breaths, over and over again as I toy with their fear levels. They deserve it. Goddess damn it, this entire fucking clan deserves to suffer after everything they have put me through. They?—
The front door is pulled open.
“I’m back!” a man’s voice calls while hurried footsteps move towards the kitchen. “Sorry I’m late. The meeting ran long.”
Snapping out of my anxiousness, I yank out the dagger from my thigh holster and quickly move so that I’m standing behind Ferver’s mother. She whimpers in fear as I place the knife across her throat. Alistair moves so that he is standing by the wall right inside the doorway. That way, he can move up behind Ferver once he steps inside.
“I hope you didn’t…” Ferver continues as he rounds the corner and enters the now messy kitchen. Trailing off, he staggers to a halt a couple of steps inside and stares at the scene before him with wide eyes.
I get a sudden overwhelming urge to slit his mother’s throat, just so that he can feel what I felt when Jessina killedmymother. But we still need Ferver to do what we want, which means thatwe need all the hostages alive, so I manage to ignore the sudden murderous urge.
