If she could snap her bond with the dead, then maybe she could cut off the power at its source.
“Empty of what?”
“Love, happiness ... contentment.”
He turned to stab her with an annoyed glare.
Ah. Hit a nerve, did she?
“I have no need for human emotions.”
She held his gaze, finding it an anchor to help search along the cord that bound them together.
“If that were true you wouldn’t have such a gaping hole inside you,” she said, weirdly able to feel the howling abyss inside her father.
God. It was no wonder he was as cold and empty as Siberia. He’d been stripped of everything but a raw, unrelenting hunger for power.
She shivered, crushing her instinctive pity.
There were few people on the face of the earth less deserving of sympathy than Lord Zakhar.
Instead she concentrated on the odd darkness at the very center of his soul.
There.
The doorway to the underworld.
She didn’t know how she knew it.
She just did.
“There is no hole,” he mocked, his voice suspiciously bland. “Gaping or otherwise.”
“Why are your hands clenched, Father? Are you afraid I might be right?” Callie mocked in return, glancing down at his tight fists while she inwardly surveyed the doorway.
Crap. It was more a smooth portal than an actual doorway. Like a black hole. So how the hell was she supposed to close it?
He sucked in a deep breath, forcing his hands to relax. “Stupid, child. I fear nothing.”
He did, of course.
He feared being weak.
Or failing in his grand quest.
So how did she use it to her advantage?
“Yet another worthless human emotion?” she absently taunted.
He frowned, as if belatedly sensing she wasn’t fully concentrating on their bickering.
“Precisely.”
Oh hell.
A distraction was needed. Pronto.
“What a pathetic excuse for a man you are.” She tossed out the first insult that came to mind, still anxiously probing for a weakness in the bond between them.
His eyes narrowed. “Do you hope to anger me?”
She blinked in confusion. “What?”
“You are deliberately provoking my temper.”
“Why would I want that?”
“Perhaps you hope that I will become enraged enough to kill you.”
Ah. That had certainly been her first thought.
Until he’d ruined the plan by saying the dead warriors would plunder, pillage, and ravage their way across the country once she lost her control over them...
Her control over them.
Her heart slammed against her ribs as she realized she had the answer.
If she couldn’t cut the connection, or close the doorway, she had no choice but to take command of the bond.
“Is that what you hope for, Callie?” her father impatiently snapped, forcing her to realize he was studying her with a growing suspicion.
She licked her lips, her mouth dry.
She had to keep him distracted a few more minutes.
Just long enough to call on her powers.
“Why would you think I want to die?”
“People burdened with morals are always eager to become martyrs,” he said in obvious disgust.
Clearly he had no hopes for earning a sainthood.
“Maybe I just truly believe you’re pathetic,” she pointed out with a humorless smile.
“You’re wasting your energy, my dear.” He tilted his chin, turning back toward Valhalla. “I have waited too long for this moment to be goaded into a rash act of stupidity.”
“It’s my energy to waste.”
“No longer. It’s mine to control.” He gave a sudden chuckle as a group of Sentinels appeared to stand in front of the dead warriors, Duncan’s golden blond hair unmistakable in the moonlight. “Ah. Shall I demonstrate?”
Callie forced herself to her feet, her hand pressed to her lips as she watched the man she loved charging straight at the nearest warrior.
“No,” she breathed, knowing there was no way he could survive for even a few minutes against an indestructible Sentinel. “Please—”
“You see?” Lord Zakhar sneered. “Emotions make you weak.”
“You’re wrong.” Knowing it was now or never, Callie opened herself to her powers, allowing them to flow through her. “They give me a strength you never dreamed possible.”
Her father continued to watch the unfolding battle, a cold smile of anticipation touching his lips as one Sentinel fell beneath the onslaught, and then another.
Callie frantically closed her eyes, knowing she’d never be able to concentrate if she knew Duncan was injured. The only way to protect him was to wrench away her father’s command of the warriors.
Not bothering to try and control the natural power that flowed through her, Callie focused on the bond that spanned between herself and her father.
It is just like entering the mind of the dead, she assured herself.
Slip in, take command, and ...
Well, she didn’t know what happened after that, but she was about to find out.
Aiming directly at the bond, Callie slid into the darkness, losing her touch with her physical body.
It felt oddly familiar.
Cool, peaceful.
The temptation of death.
Then, at last through the surface of the bond, she found the darkness separating.
She didn’t know what she expected.
The faces of the warriors. Or maybe her father. Or even the doorway to the underworld.
Instead it was the golden chalice that hovered directly before her eyes.
Of course.
The power didn’t flow from her father.
It came from her.
Her blood.
Her life force.
She only needed to reach out and grasp it.
Not allowing herself time to consider the pertinent fact she’d never used her powers to do anything but search the memories of the dead, she focused on the blood pooled in the bottom of the goblet.
At first she felt nothing.
She could sense the power, but she had no way to know how to gain command of it.
Tentatively reaching out with her power, she brushed it over the chalice. The breath rushed from her lungs as she touched the minds of the warriors.
There was a startled curse from Lord Zakhar as he belatedly sensed her intrusion.
“What are you doing?” he snarled, grasping her shoulders in a grip that threatened to crush her bones.
Callie smiled through the pain as she opened her eyes and whispered one word.
“Stop.”
Duncan didn’t need to be a trained soldier to know the battle wasn’t going well.