Page 20 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

Interesting.

“So, if I do this—” Moros clenched his fingers into a fist, sucking the air from the cell. “August Porter will feel her pain?”

Alvara doubled over, no longer foolish enough to waste air on a scream or attempt to access her magic. But her eyes widened as she choked, gasping and finding nothing.

She thrashed against her restraints as the oxygen left her lungs, her face turning crimson until her lips lost their color. Her throat worked in stilted movements of silent desperation before she collapsed onto the floor.

Moros knew he couldn’t kill her.

Knew he couldn’t, and yet…

“Stop!” The word tore from Adrastos with the command he was notorious for wielding without the authority to do so. “Enough, Moros. We need her whole, or you’ll squander all our efforts.”

Moros opened his fist, and Alvara dragged air into her lungs behind the door.

“He will come for us,” Adrastos warned. “There isn’t a single vision in which he fails to avenge her and see at least one of us dead.”

Moros sneered. “He can try.”

“He will succeed. He’s ascending. Climbing higher into his power while she isn’t beside him to drain it. And every time you reach through their bond to hurt her, his anger fuels him. Drives him to find us faster. Your cruelty solidifies his victory.”

Adrastos ignored the king’s derisive snort.

“You meant to leverage her. Instead, with every day he searches, you deepen his strength. His control over that bottomless well she isn’t draining. He’s more formidable now than he was yesterday.”

“Then you’d best get to work and ensure there’s nothing left of her for him to retrieve.”

Moros ran a hand through his hair a few moments later, slicking it back as the cell’s buzzer sounded. The steel door rattled aside.

Above all the other methods they employed, he preferred the silence of this one. The padding swallowed every scream and sob, every footfall, like a blanket of fresh snow. Within these walls, there was no chaos. He’d designed the cells to eliminate every variable from the disassembly of a mind.

It was only him here.

Him, the subject, and the flicker of those dying fluorescents.

She’d stopped lunging for him about a month ago. Stopped fighting toward the exit like a wildcat and fallen into silent submission, as all women did when a man finally put them in line.

It was impossible to influence what couldn’t be contained. Containment equaled control.

And there were few things—if any—that Moros prized more than control.

Her vacant eyes drifted from the white wall before her to his face as he entered the padded room. Enough of her remained that recognition gave way to loathing, her nose wrinkling in disgust.

So much left to do.

His fingers ached to unleash his magic. To begin the methodical dismantling of her mind.

His power washed through her, making her choke and sputter as his shadows webbed through the corners of the room and seeped into the air she breathed. He held his face in a calming mask of authority and offered her a faint smile.

“Good morning, Elizabeth. Do you remember me?”

Elizabeth.

According to his sources, she’d often used the name as her alias while tearing through his men and the demons who served them. Moros wanted to believe it was a coincidence, and yet… The more they broke her, the harder Adrastos ground his teeth. Moros couldn’t decide whether his brother had simply grown useless with age or whether that alias was more than an alias.

Whether she’d subconsciously chosen… an old name.

One could hope. It would allow Moros to kill two birds with one glorious stone.