Oak, who had seen only one, said nothing.
Madoc sighed. “Imagine splitting your mind into two parts: the general and the foot soldier. Once the general gives an order, the foot soldier doesn’t need to think for himself. He just has to do what he’s told.”
“It’s not that I’mthinkingI don’t want to hit you,” Oak said. “I just don’t.”
His father nodded, frowning. Then his arm shot out, the flat of the mop handle knocking Oak into the dirt. For a moment, he couldn’t get his breath.
“Get up,” Madoc said.
As soon as he did, his father was on him again.
This time Madoc was serious, and for the first time, Oak was scared of what might happen. The hits came hard enough to bruise and too fast to be stopped.
He didn’t want to hurt his father. He wasn’t even sure that he could.
His father wasn’t supposed toreallyhurt him.
As the blows came relentlessly, he could feel tears sting his eyes. “I want to stop,” he said, the words coming out in a whine.
“Then fight back!” Madoc shouted.
“No!” Oak threw his sword to the ground. “I give up.”
The mop handle caught him in the stomach. He went down hard, scuttled back, out of his father’s range. Only barely, though.
“I don’t want to do this!” he shouted. He could feel that his cheeks were wet.
Madoc came forward, closing the distance. “You want to die?”
“You’re going tokillme?” Oak was incredulous. This was hisfather.
“Why not?” Madoc said. “If you don’t defend yourself,someoneis going to kill you. Better it be me.”
That made no sense. But when the mop handle hit him in the side of the head, he started to believe it.
Oak looked at his sword, across the grass. Pushed himself to his hooves. Ran toward it. His cheek was throbbing. His stomach hurt.
He wasn’t sure he’d ever been scared like this, not even when he was in the Great Hall with the serpent coming toward his mother.
When he turned back to Madoc, his vision was blurry with tears. Somehow that made things easier. To not have to really see what was happening. He could feel himself slipping into that state of not quite awareness. Like times that he was daydreaming on the walk to school and got there without remembering being on the route. Like when he gave over to his gancanagh magic and let it turn his words to honey.
Like those things, except he was angry enough to give himself a single order:win.
Like those things, except when he blinked, it was to find the point of his blade nearly at his father’s throat, held back only by the half-splintered end of the mop handle. Madoc was bleeding from a slash on his arm, one Oak didn’t recall causing.
“Good,” said Madoc, breathing hard. “Again.”
CHAPTER
9
When Oak returns to the bedroom in the tower, two servants are waiting for him. One has the head of an owl and long, gangly arms. The other has skin the color of moss and small moth wings.
“We are to ready you for bed,” says one, indicating the dressing gown.
After weeks wearing the same rags, this is a lot. “Great. I can take it from here,” he says.
“It is our duty to make sure you’re properly cared for,” says the other, ignoring Oak’s objections and shoving his arms into the positions necessary for the removal of his doublet.
