Chapter Eighty-Two
Attack
I no longer recognize the face staring back at me.
She is gaunt and empty. Unaffected by Drusilla repeatedly stabbing a hairpin into her scalp. Numbed so much she doesn’t flinch when the sharp tip pierces the skin.
Because she is not here. She is elsewhere. In another time and place.
Staring down at May, with her soulful brown eyes stretched wide, while her mouth hangs open and she releases a bone-rattling scream.
I did this to her. I brought her this anguish. It doesn’t matter what anyone says to the contrary. She was made to pretend I was torturing her, and I do not know how I am supposed to live with myself afterward.
Drusilla swats my shoulder, a sign I must have ignored her command to rise from His Majesty’s stool, as she collects all of my cosmetics she set atop his vanity to place in a basket.
Even though he demanded I prepare for the ceremony within his quarters, they are still his, and we cannot leave any trace of my existence.
The night before haunts me, with flashes of memory.
May’s little eyebrows furrowed, just before she winks—
Varic’s proximity warms my side as I float through the Emperor’s bedchamber like a phantom. Unable to sense many of the plodding steps I take ahead. Weightlessly lifting one foot, then the other. Obediently following Drusilla’s frail outline past the pair of Guards who bow as we enter the hall.
My defenders orbit around my being, though I feel nothing close to celestial—nothing like I once experienced as the center of their five-pointed star.
I merely pull them along as if tethered by an invisible string, having tied their souls to mine the moment they vowed to protect my life with their own.
Raki flits over and lands on my shoulder, then flicks its tail up and over my neck with the stinger barely grazing it.
“There she is.” His Majesty’s tone shatters my icy exterior to unveil the agitation his presence brings, which I quickly stifle. He grins with approval at the facade I don for him as he purrs my pet name with sickening warmth, “My little witch.”
Varic steps farther away to allow His Majesty to take his place.
Then the snatcher leans in and presses his paper-thin lips to the carefully styled hair just above my ear. “You look fit to be an Empress.”
His statement descends like a blanket made of dread, though I nod and take hold of his arm as his gesture commands. I force my gaze forward and refuse to look near Varic, who wards himself from sharing the emotions His Majesty’s comment has surely conjured within him.
The Emperor’s Guards snicker behind our backs as we move toward the Throne Room, where His Majesty will host a celebration in commemoration of our first Emperor and his noble deed.
Though we all know better, as His Majesty uses Reclamation Day to bask in the praise of the citizens he requires to attend.
We are to endure his favorite evening of the year after making it through the day filled with mandatory gatherings.
All through which he has kept me closer than he has been, with his gray eyes casting over my being more frequently than they have of late.
He has reveled in our pretend levels of excitement for every inflated claim he has made about our Empire’s accomplishments.
Because hoarding resources and charging more for the goods we have stolen is not enough to sustain his happiness. Instead, his ego requires the art of exaggeration. To pretend he is more beloved and admired than could ever be true of someone like him.
Varic’s concern infiltrates my chest, and my pulse pounds harder in my veins, reminding me that I still exist, despite his being incapable of extracting me from this fog I’m in.
What I did to the young witch has only proven the Prince’s claim is accurate.
It has given credence to the harm I have enacted on our citizens after years of deluding myself into believing I was doing the opposite.
What was once a body filled with emotions, so many trapped within they clung to my ribs, has now become nothing more than an absence. A void, without a pathetic sense of apathy or numbness. Nothing, and silence, aside from that ever-present pounding of my pulse.
It blurs my surroundings until I cannot be sure what is before me.
His Majesty leads the way toward the Throne Room stage where I will be made to play my role, though I do not have it in me to perform to his standards.
I’m uncertain how to survive with his eyes casting over me this often.
Incapable of hiding the state I am in. Separate from emotion while somehow still maintaining control of this shell I inhabit.
Though I’m not as practiced with this level of nothingness consuming me.
Something I might have preferred years before, compared to everything I have had to suppress.
“Your Majesty,” Wyrth intones as he steps out from a darkened alcove. “If I may.”
“What could you possibly need from me, Wyrth?” The Emperor huffs and pats my hand, though it is my eyes which cast down to tell me this, not the sensation.
“It is urgent, Your Eminence.” Wyrth bows his head and gestures for the Emperor to follow where he recedes, making Imelda and his Guards squeeze further into the corner so our ruler could join them.
“Fine, but make it quick.” His Majesty drops my hand from his arm and leans closer. “Proceed to the Throne Room and do not try anything. My eyes are everywhere in this Palace.”
Ice trickles down my spine as he turns to join Wyrth in the darkened alcove while his Guards stand just outside of it, blocking his view of me as we follow his command. Every step over the marble resounds in my skull as my body plods ahead in a grueling march.
Drusilla’s gait is more rigid than usual, and she turns her whole body to the side to glance back.
Her gray eyes linger over my form far longer than I am used to when we halt before the gray stone arches leading to the Throne Room.
She remains standing and turns to greet a server, who brings a tray with a pitcher and several pre-filled glasses of water.
Drusilla turns to the server and seems to communicate something with the flick of her gaze before taking one of the glasses in hand, which she then holds out to me. “Here.”
I stare back at her in question.
“The ceremony is long, and you often complain of thirst afterward.”
My eyes narrow at her in suspicion, yet I take the glass from her and turn to Varic for his opinion, to which he merely shrugs and takes one of those remaining.
The rest of my Guards do not seem to have a problem with this odd change in our routine, as they each tip their glasses back and quench their thirst—which might be best before we are made to stand on a stage for what could be hours.
I follow their lead, then hand the glass back, not having detected anything different in its scent or flavor.
Drusilla bows with her eyes still fixed on my being, then turns without a word to stride through the servants’ entrance.
My Guards close in, and Raki flies from my shoulder through the wide arched passage toward the stage.
While the absence of both spies should feel freeing, a pressure mounts until I could swear the walls are closing in on my being.
My lungs struggle to pull anything in with how thick the air has become.
I try to pull a breath in through my mouth, but the weight in my chest grows so intense, it’s like I’ve been trapped under a boulder.
May. Lying there. Trembling and helpless.
My vision doubles, and no amount of blinking changes it.
I did this. I did this to her. I did not stop the Emperor when I could have. I should have.
“Stop,” the ancient voices shout. Doing nothing more than rankling my nerves.
Because they don’t understand. I have to keep going. I have no choice.
Warmth and pressure encircle my wrist—
And I want to tell Varic it’s not enough. That not even his touch can drag me out of this.
My stomach lurches, as the poor organ seeks some space in the constriction.
I need to get out of here. I need air.
Sweat slicks my palms no matter how often I wipe them over the leather on this Godsforsaken dress, with even more droplets forming over the ridge of my forehead. I try to listen for the Emperor or Wyrth, though all I can hear is the rasp of my wheezing.
I yank my arm back and attempt to flee, but end up pulling Varic’s hard chest into me. Every gasping breath I take is filled with his scent as a familiar warmth spreads over my back.
“I—” pulling in, “can’t—” too shallow, “breathe—” trying, “it feels—like I’m dying.”
Varic’s arm curves around my waist before he guides me over to the side.
My Guards close in to form a shield from our environment, glancing around with furrowed brows as this crushing in my chest refuses to relent.
The coolness of Cirrin’s healing infiltrates my skin as Varic looks back at him with a sense of helplessness.
His own amber healing follows until he pauses to draw on my emotions.
My pulse kicks in my veins with the precariousness of our location. We cannot remain out in the open. We will be seen standing before the safe room entrance.
Malin must realize the same as his magic rises to turn the knob behind me.
Everything in my being screams for me to run instead. While my legs tingle with the need to seek the night air.
Yet I do not fight Varic when he guides me inside the safe room, with my Guards forming a wall around us to ensure no one sees how he holds onto my arm.
Varic turns once the latch catches and lifts his hands to cup my face with them.
I glance back at the door with my chest heaving, in need of air, while he cradles me so lovingly; it breaks my heart.
“You can’t.” I stare over at the solid door, ensuring the Emperor hasn’t barged past. “What if he sees?”
“Tasch.” I shiver with the way his tongue forms my name. “Look at me.”
I shake my head. “No, we have to go back.” My voice is broken as they all hover near.