10. Sie
TEN
SIE
I woke up in a tent. Peter was dozing off on a shit ton of fluffy pillows a short distance away, and I felt… comfortable. Those same fluffy pillows were behind my head, not a jagged grate digging into my skin. And for once, the air was clean—I couldn’t smell urine and death and decay.
“Where am I?” I asked, my voice cracked as I spoke. My throat burned and felt like acid was being poured down it. I needed water.
Peter shot up. “What? What?” His eyes widened as he took me in. “You’re awake. Thank the Goddess. I was sick of carrying you everywhere, and I really didn’t want to have to drag you to dinner. You gained some weight despite being starved and all.”
“Peter, I’m serious. Where the fuck am I?” I turned my head as I sat up, surprised to not see shackles chained to my wrists. I lifted my arms, inspecting them. No bone was jutting out of my left forearm. The guards broke it right before they shoved me back into my cell—my cell .
My shoulders slumped as realization dawned on me. “It’s another hallucination.” Fuck illusion users. I hated their powers the most .
I hadn’t realized I’d spoken the words out loud until the illusion of Peter’s thick brows furrowed. “No, you’re free, Sie. You’re safe now. We got you out.”
I closed my eyes and tried to block out his words. I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to give in to this hope, only to wake up, drench in sweat as the fever took over my body. I didn’t want to feel the throbbing agony of my forearm as I cradled it close to my chest.
At least this illusion was better than the other ones they used on me. I missed Peter, but I knew by now they only sent me good illusions when I was at my breaking point. It’d give me such hope only to come back to reality on the jagged crate that dug into my skin, only to hear the sounds coming from the Puteus below, only to be starving and in pain and brought right back into the torture room.
The “good” ones were mostly about Scotlind because whenever she was in my illusions, they destroyed me the most. Sometimes they just sent me images of her—of her rescuing me, her telling me she still loved me. They’d watch me leap for joy, only for me to realize it was an illusion the moment I was elated, and the mockery the fuchsia-eyed guard would hurl my way afterward was worse than any physical torture. He promised me numerous times a day he was going to bring Scotlind to the prison, that he’d fuck and maim her right in front of me, before he’d force me to watch her die in the pit below.
He had shown me exactly what he’d do to her in my illusions too, forcing me to watch it all on repeat until I was screaming.
“Scottie’s here in case you wanted to know,” my imaginary friend said. Fuck, I’d give so much right now to be able to see either of them. I missed Peter and Scotlind. It hurt worse than my arm or the fever or whatever hell the guards threw at me.
I exhaled sharply and took three steadying breaths. She’s not real. This isn’t real. My wife didn’t come for me .
My insides curled as I thought of the two months she spent in different dungeons. Peter told me some of what had happened to her when she was in Lux, and I loathed myself for it. I was disgusted that I sent her there willingly. I barely put up a fight when the Luxian royals came to collect her. I didn’t even look at her as she was pulled away, covered head to toe in shackles. I was too scared that if I’d looked, I would have attempted to teleport her away right then and there, only getting us both caught in the process. I had convinced myself that the only way to save her was by buying time, that I had to become the king first before I could act. I was so stupid, and now I would never get to tell her how sorry I was for it all. I’d never be able to look into her beautiful blue eyes again. And I deserved it, deserved this .
I couldn’t stomach another night of their mind games. Hearing her name brought back the last illusion they forced me to endure.
The illusion user that visited my cell invaded my mind, found and warped my worst nightmare, and brought it to fruition. I was forced to spend hours watching Scottie and the Fire Prince have sex. He would fuck her, and the worst part of the whole thing was that she liked it. She didn’t care that I was there. That I could see everything. That she was breaking whatever remained of my shattered heart. I was nothing to her anymore.
And even though I knew it was an illusion—I knew it wasn’t real—some part of me couldn’t look past it, couldn’t let myself believe she wasn’t with him in real life too.
Yeah, I wasn’t putting up with another illusion right now. Even if it was only Peter.
I went to punch the crated wall with my good arm. All I saw was an endless, open tent in front of me, but I knew my fist would meet with the clang of metal, and then the pain from it would relieve me from this agony. I would once again wake up in my prison of hell.
I waited for the pain to shoot up my shoulder, to see my cellmate, Nidiniri, scurrying to the far corner of his own crate, to look down at the depths of the Puteus through the holes in my cage.
Except this time, I fell forward. I met no resistance. Punching my surroundings was how I always broke through the trance of the illusion.
They must have moved me from my cell while I was sleeping and threw me into a larger one. I was getting faster at recognizing the illusions and breaking out of them.
“Shit, Sie,” Peter said as he rushed over to my hunched form. I must’ve fallen off the illusion-bed of pillows when I attempted to throw the punch. I was laying face down on soft furs.
But something was off. The texture felt so real and unlike the cold, dry cell. For a prison that claimed to be hidden underwater, there was none of the substance around. I licked my cracked lips, wishing to be bathed in the fluid. Wishing for my time with Scottie by the sapphire lake again. I wanted these furs to be her silken skin…
There was so much I wanted that I would never get now.
I would give up the five brand from my wrist if it meant I could be with her again. I couldn’t stop replaying the last time I saw her. How they dragged me away and left her with him. I didn’t want the Fire Prince breathing. I didn’t want him alive. My fingers curled into the furs, thinking about how his fingers roamed over her bare back the night before my coronation.
And she was still in Lux, with him , and I would die in this prison, forced to watch endless illusions of them together until it killed me.
Peter grabbed my hand and the touch felt so damn real. “Sie, you aren’t in the prison. We rescued you.”
I looked down at the palm my friend was holding. The scar from my blood bond with Scottie was now a thin, white line. I thought of her new cut and the implications of it. Did the Fire Prince force her to make it? What else did he make her do? The worst part about my sentence in the prison was that I would never get to murder him for what he had done to her.
My prayers were being answered because the prick walked into the tent the next moment. He paused by the entrance, looking down at me on the ground. I wanted to give him a matching scar on the other side of his face. I didn’t care that this was only an illusion. It would feel damn good to beat the living shit out of him.
I sprang to my feet, surprised that my body felt nimble. A smile spread over my lips as this was finally an illusion I would enjoy. I was waiting to meet the resistance of the chains, breaking the spell on my mind, but it never came. I was thankful for this kind of torture. If I couldn’t kill the Fire Prince in real life, I’d happily settle for this.
The prince’s silver eyes flashed. I grinned further, my lip splitting as blood trickled down my chin from how chapped and dry they were. I went to bring my fist down onto his face, but he moved out of the way the second before it collided. Peter was up before I could attempt to throw another, and the two of them had me pinned to the ground.
I swore as I struggled beneath both of their weights. “I’m going to fucking murder you,” I promised him. The fever wreaked havoc on my body and left me weaker than I should have been, and I never properly recovered from all the poison I’d been consuming in Tennebris. But if I was at my full strength—
“Whoa. He’s part of the reason you’re alive and breathing outside of a cell right now,” my friend said.
The Fire Prince pressed down on my shoulder. “And I’ll throw you back into one if you don’t calm down.”
My eyes really were playing tricks on me because sapphire ones filled the tent as the flaps swayed again. “What are you doing to him?”
“He tried to kill your lover boy,” Peter declared as both him and Tezya shoved off of me. Scottie’s eyes narrowed on Peter, but she said nothing. Didn’t even deny she loved the prick.
I stood, still shocked I wasn’t hitting any resistance.
“If you’re done acting like an animal and promise not to attack any of the people here, you can come to dinner,” the Prince of Lux said through gritted teeth.
I started pacing, half enjoying the freedom of walking and half wanting the illusion to end. It was always harder to come out of the longer ones. This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real. I started mumbling, praying to snap out of it.
My eyes scanned the tent, confused as to why this illusion was lasting, why I wasn’t brought back to reality yet. I waited for whatever they were going to throw at me next. I couldn’t stomach seeing Scottie and Tezya at it again. I had to break free before that happened…
“You’re not back in the prison, Sie,” Peter said again as he patted my forearm. I looked down at where his hand met mine. My skin was closed. My arm was healed. I rolled my shoulders, finding stiffness there, but I felt everything. My body wasn’t consumed by fever anymore.
“This isn’t an illusion,” he added as he assessed me, somehow knowing what I was struggling with. My friend tugged on his earlobe, and I entered his mind out of habit. You’re free, Sie. We got you out. You’re safe now.
I looked into my friend’s mossy green eyes as he telepathically said over and over again that I was free. The illusions never did this. No one but Peter knew about our telltale sign.
I met Scottie’s gaze next as I stopped pacing and started to allow Peter’s words to sink in. She’d never looked so real before. My eyes scanned every inch of her body until they landed on her scarred hand. Her new scab was glaring back at me. I fisted my own palm in response. They never depicted her with another scar. The illusion users in the prison only projected her with a matching one to mine. The news of her with the Fire Prince hadn’t spread, probably kept under wraps by the King.
This was real.
Fuck.
She got me out. I looked between Peter, her, and the Prince of Lux, not understanding what happened, but I desperately needed to talk to her.
“Where am I?” I finally asked.
“Well ain’t that the question of the week,” Peter grinned, looking toward the man I hated with all my being.
“I’ll tell you, but only if you prove I can trust you. For now, all you need to know is you aren’t on Luxian or Tennebrisian soil. Now, do you want to eat or not?”
I gritted my teeth and forced myself to say, “Fine,” because my stomach was growling, and I felt like I was going to pass out if I didn’t get food. But— “Scotlind, can we talk?”
“Um,” she hesitated, and I didn’t miss the subtle glance she gave Tezya. “I think it’s better if we eat first.” With that, she walked out of the tent with the Fire Prince trailing behind her.
Peter grumbled under his breath, “A ‘thank you’ would have been nice,” before following both of them out into wherever the hell I was now.