I turn to Ratu, looking away from me. But even looking away, her body language means something to me.
Your choice, Ode.
Your decision, sayang.
When I turn to Kane...
I see nothing. I can't read anything from him, not his blank gaze, not the relaxed way he stands. Just patient. Waiting. Watching.
He's so removed from our petty acts of revenge. How fitting for a god.
I take the blade in my hand. Arno grits his teeth, looking away. Too much pain.
Loyal to the death. Good boy.
"I'm sorry, Arno, for dragging you into Ode's servitude because of my sins." General Ibrahim's lips hardly move beneath his saliva and tears, eyes gleaming wetly with memory. He points towards Arno's face. Arno hardly glances at his father's shivering form. "Your face, the golem parts of your body..." Ibrahim swallows. "When I shot Ahava, she cursed my first-born child. She made you what you are. A hideous golem, a monster to represent the shame of his father."
My mother cursed General Ibrahim?
No, not the General.
She cursed Arno to be a golem?
Arno smiles weakly at me. "Perhaps she just made me better, father. Made me humble instead of..." he thinks better of his words. "Made me into a true friend for Ode."
We all stand in that uncomfortable silence, knowing what Arno might have said.
Made me humble, father.
Not like you.
General Ibrahim bows his head, forgiven.
Soldiers don't question why. Good ones just do or die.
I drop the blade along the ground, the metal gives off a grating scream as I trace circles around the General's kneeling body. "Tell me, General, what if I told you that I'd let you go if you pledged your loyalty to me?"
General Ibrahim's eyes gleam with faint hope. "I'd pledge my soul."
"Good," another slow, loping circle as the blade screeches angrily at nothing at all, "now, what if I said I'd let you go only if I killed Arno?"
The room goes deadly silent.
Except Kane. Kane chuckles.
"Arno is my precious son." General Ibrahim goes pale. "I'd tell you, first, to go to the desert, gouge out both your eyes, cut off your rotten tongue, and throw yourself from a cliff, milady." He takes in another shuddering breath, bravado deflated. "And then, I'd say no." Arno looks only slightly calmer, though still hurt. He turns to his father with a strange expression in his eyes. Pity? Wonder? "Get on with it and kill me."
I shrug, smiling sadly as I help the man up.
He hisses. I've dug my nails into his palm, drawing a thin sliver of blood. I make a quick incision on my own hand, shaking his bloody hand with my own in an oath. "That was just a test. Congratulations on passing it. You no longer serve the Emperor now, General Ibrahim. Now, you serve the Blind God and me."
YOU ARE READING
A Priestess for the Blind God (Legends of Rahasia Book 1)
Fantasy"The Blind God walks around me, and I feel my mind prodded again like it was in the cavern, a spider weaving a tangled web. "Would you do anything to be remembered, Ode, even play a villain, the one who rises against the Chosen One?" In answer, I dr...
