Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
I nod. Because I do know. Maybe I was spared, maybe I had it better than most, or maybe I just blocked it out the way Cort did. So I admit, I didn’t see a lot of the abuse. Not as much as some. Not nearly as much as Anya did.
But I remember all the faces that came and went.
“They’re sick, soulless, empty fucks. And they breed each other the same way they bred us. They raise their children up to despise outsiders. To despise the common person. To care about their money and power exclusively. And to be perfect little monsters, just like their parents. They don’t teach them manners, they teach them traditions. They teach subservience to the bloodline and make them pray at the altar of power. It’s a cycle. Hell, everything is a cycle if you think about it. The whole universe. And we’re nothing but specks, Irina. That’s all we are. And that’s all this is. Just one great big cycle of abuse.”
I make a face, picturing this. I never thought much about the real children of the men who owned us. Never thought about them at all, to be honest. But he’s right. How could they be anything other than despicable if these men, men like Udulf and Lazar, are their fathers?
They are victims too.
They are all victims.
We are all victims.
I lock eyes with Eason. “Who are they, Eason?”
“No one special.” Then he shoves another bite of salad into his mouth.
“But… if that’s true, who gave them all this power?”
“No one, darlin’. No one did. It’s easy to get caught up in the hierarchy. I mean, it’s hard not to, isn’t it?”
He makes me feel stupid. He knows so much more than me. “I’m not following.”
“That’s a good thing, Irina. A very good thing. But it’s like this… there’s a government, right? Every country has one, right?”
I nod.
“And they run things, don’t they?”
I nod again.
“And they say that the people gave them the power to run these things. But if that were true, couldn’t the people take it away?”
I let out a long breath. “I don’t think it works that way.”
“Of course it doesn’t. Because the people don’t have any power to give, darlin’. The people have never had any power to give.” He gets up and busies himself at the grill, turning the salmon steaks over and shaking some seasoning onto them. “Anyway.” He doesn’t turn to look at me. “The point is, that’s who ‘them’ is.”
“Don’t we need names, or something?”
He looks over his shoulder at me, grinning. “Oh, don’t you worry about that. I’ve got plenty of names.”
CHAPTER 10
I watch her carefully as we have dinner. She likes the salmon and she eats the whole thing very quickly. Then she settles and eats her salad slowly.
When we’re done, I take all the dishes and wash them up. She joins me in the kitchen and begins to clean up the small mess I made cutting vegetables.
We’re doing this in silence for several minutes when she leans back against the counter and watches me for a moment.
“Can I help ya?”
She shrugs. “I was just thinking about camp on the Rock.”
I lean back against the counter across from her. “Do ya miss it?”
“Sometimes.” She pauses, then starts again. “Sometimes I think it’s sick.”
“To miss it?”
She nods her head. “Why would I miss that place? I ask myself that over and over again. Every minute I was out there, I was training for my own death. It shouldn’t be a place where I felt safe, but I was safe there. I was safer there than anywhere else in the whole world.”
I process this for a moment, seeing if she’ll continue. But she just sighs.
“Because of Cort,” I say.
She nods, but that’s all the answer I get.
“I never met him, of course. He’s older than me by ten years. But he was around so long—”
“I know.” Now she’s smiling, which kind of throws me for a moment. “Thirty. Six. Fights, Eason. How? How does one man get through so many?”
“One moment at a time, I presume.” She’s enamored with the Sick Heart, I think. And why shouldn’t she be? He brought her this far, didn’t he?
“What was it like in the Ring of Fire, Eason?”
“Did ya ever see one?”
“No. Evard got to go. But that’s because it was the last fight, so Cort didn’t want him to be back in the camp alone, just in case Cort lost that night.”
I replay those words in my head, trying to force them to make sense. But I must be missing something, because I can’t find a way to do that.
“Haven’t I earned the answer to this one yet?”
“What?”
“The Ring of Fire? You don’t want to tell me what it’s like?”
“Did ya ever ask Cort that question? Or Maart?”
“No.”
“How come?”