The Goblets Immortal Beth Overmyer (highly recommended books txt) 📖

over at his men, one of whom quickly piped up with,“Three and thirty, milord. If Prewitt is to be believed.”

Dewhurst nodded. “Yes, time has been kind to you. I, on the other hand….” There was another staccato burst of laughter that sounded only half-sincere, and it faded out as the man frowned. “Tell me, Ingledark, what do you want?”

Aidan would not play this game. He felt the Pulls around the room and above the room. Slaíne’s was stationary and it at once felt like it was in the room with him yet separate somehow. He did not know what to make of that, so he moved on to the men. He could Dismiss their clothes, humiliate them, focus hard on their hair and leave only tufts behind. But those pranks would only mentally exhaust him and haze his thinking, and Aidan needed every ounce of mental strength he could muster.

“Don’t look so worried, Ingledark. I’m not planning on killing you.”

“Change of heart?” Aidan snapped.

The man shook his head with a rueful smile that Aidan knew better than to trust. “An increase of knowledge. But you have not answered my question, though I believe I am already in possession of the answer.”

This was going to grow tedious rather quickly. Aidan hated cat and mouse games, treading lightly on words that could be his saving grace or his undoing. He winced involuntarily as a new pain shot up his skull.

Dewhurst let out a sigh. “I see I shall have to put forth your answers for you.”

“Be my guest,” Aidan muttered.

The lord snapped his fingers, and one of his men approached with a goblet made of iron. Aidan’s expression must have betrayed his reaction to Dewhurst, who snorted with derision. “Do not worry, my lad. It is not one of the Immortals. It’s an ordinary iron goblet containing something to relax you…and perhaps your tongue.”

Aidan’s head was lifted, and the goblet was placed to his lips, which he mashed together. He knew what was coming next, though it did not stop him from gasping.

Dewhurst had his nose pinched, and after a minute of holding his breath, Aidan was forced to open his mouth, and the alcohol, ran down his throat before he could Dismiss it.

He was able to cough and spit some of it out, but another chalice was lifted to his lips, and another torrent of tepid liquor slipped down his throat, and then another. Before long, his thoughts were jumbled. Dewhurst’s face swam before his eyes.

“I’ll tell you what you want, Ingledark. You want control. Of your life, of yourself, of your…heart.” His ensuing chuckle was a dark one. “I hold all three in my hands.” He flexed his fingers inches from Aidan’s face, then tightened them into a fist. “Now, I will tell you what I want.” Again Dewhurst snapped his fingers, and more iron was brought forward.

To Aidan’s revulsion, Dewhurst now held an iron dagger the size of his hand, and he was cleaning it off with a rag and more medicinal-smelling alcohol. If the man wasn’t going to kill Aidan, what was left? Was he to be tortured for information that he did not possess? He tried to scheme quickly, to come up with some means of escape, but his thoughts would not clear, and his pulse thrummed in his ears as the dagger was held up to a candle.

“Essence of cloves,” Dewhurst said to the man behind him. They were taking no chances; everything that they did not wear was iron.

Essence of cloves was poured on the uppermost part of Aidan’s forearm, almost to the joint. Now Aidan did start to struggle. He strained against his bonds as if he might break them, but he knew it was in vain.

Dewhurst lowered the blade. “Someone hold the boy still. I don’t want to kill him by accident. You, you just there, you’ve the goblet still? Good. Good.”

Realizing what Dewhurst meant to do, Aidan tried Dismissing anything that had a Pull, but he was too sluggish. The blade pierced his arm, drawing a gasp from his lips. He could scarce feel the liquid running from his veins as the men held him down. He felt giddy and lightheaded.

“Yes, very nice.” Dewhurst’s voice was pleased and deadly to Aidan’s ears.

Aidan thought he would go mad as the intermittent ploink, ploink, ploink of his blood dripping into the goblet filled the silence. His vision started to fuzz over, and he gave an involuntary shudder that even the brutes holding him down could scarce withstand.

After an eternity, the bleeding ceased, and he was bandaged up by the lackeys and covered with a scratchy blanket that smelled of earth and rot. Something firm was propped up under his head, and he could see Dewhurst studying the crimson in the cup.

He noticed Aidan staring at him and dipped the glass in a salute. “To your health.” And he drank.

Aidan watched Dewhurst drain the cup without flinching, and thought he might lose consciousness again or the meager contents of his stomach at the very least. But Aidan did not faint. He needed to see if it worked.

Dewhurst dropped the cup as one burned and, hands shaking, he held them up to a light on the wall. “Interesting.” He turned an eye to Aidan and, with a look of utmost concentration on his face, Dewhurst reached out as if he could grasp the air.

Aidan felt a weak Tug at his collar, but he stilled it with a Tug of his own.

Dewhurst frowned and focused on something else. With a cry of delight from Dewhurst and his men, a candlestick on the wall’s ledge fell over and sizzled out. He looked at Aidan knowingly for a moment, as if he’d just been dealt into a secret that had eluded him for years.

Aidan’s headache worsened tenfold, and his eyes would not quite focus. He kept the expression on his face neutral, but Dewhurst must’ve known what horrors were playing out in Aidan’s mind.

As a boy, Aidan had stumbled