40. Sie
FORTY
SIE
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see, couldn’t think. I had to move, had to hit something, had to let my anger out some way, or I was going to combust. It was too much. This was too much. Everything was too fucking much.
Moli was dead.
My father was dead.
And now they had Greyland and my mother.
I couldn’t let the King kill them too.
I heard people shouting my name. I felt hands on me, trying to calm me down, urging me to stop, but my rage was all consuming. Now that it was coming to the surface, nothing could tamper it down.
All I kept seeing was my brother chained and beaten.
A flash of lavender whipped before me, and I saw her eyes right before I slammed into the table. Savannah was standing directly in front of me, breathless and gasping for air. Her back was pressed against the edge of wood. My hands were gripping either side of her, caging her in. I was seconds away from either flipping the table, with her in tow, or splitting the wood right down the middle. I couldn’t decide what would be more satisfying, probably both.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I panted, trying my damn best to collect myself. Red was still peppering my vision, and she just fucking stepped in front of me like it was nothing. I thought of all the times I’d blacked out before in a manic state, how I lost control of myself and didn’t come back from it until it was too late. The damage I could’ve caused her body—I would’ve killed her. I didn’t move, didn’t trust myself to. I just stood there with my arms bracing either side of her, leaning into her space.
“You need to calm down.” There was a vial in her hand, and I felt the tip of it pierce my skin. Her gaze was clear as she looked right into my eyes. “I don’t want to do this, but I will if I have to.” For emphasis, she pushed the needle half an inch further.
I blew out a breath, not realizing how close I was to her. A strand of her purple hair blew across her face, but she didn’t move to swipe it away. Instead, she held my gaze, not looking away, not the slightest bit terrified that I could kill her in a split second.
“They’re dead,” I finally said, not knowing why I felt the need to say it out loud. Everyone saw what happened. Everyone in the tent was watching. “They’re all going to die because of me.”
My brother—my little brother who had nothing to do with this…
“I know,” she said softly. “I’m sorry, Sie.”
My knees bucked at her sincerity. She didn’t know them. She didn’t know Moli or my father, she barely even knew me, yet the way she was looking at me felt like she saw through to my soul. The broadcast was meant to make everyone hate me. It was meant to make everyone so deathly terrified of me that they’d kill me without a second thought.
Guilt washed over me, entwining with my anger and shock. I was hurting more from the loss of my friend—from losing Moli—than I was from my own flesh and blood.
I should have cared more.
There was a small part of me that was devastated I lost my father—a very small, minuscule part. It was a part I didn’t want to access. I wasn’t ready to face what it meant. He still raised me. He was a horrible fucking Advenian. What the servants said were all true. He used to force me to do terrible things to them and I would—I had to—or he’d take his aggression out on my brother and me.
But now, it didn’t matter what I thought of him. He was dead.
The King just murdered him in front of everyone, but my fear for what he might still do to Greyland was outweighing almost any of the grief I had for my father.
Grey was what had me screaming. Grey was what had me needing to destroy everything.
I feared for what he could still take. He fucking destroyed me during the broadcast. I didn’t want to be like my father. I hated him. But yet, as I watched the footage back, I couldn’t deny that I was him.
I knew the video was edited, that not everything happened the way they portrayed it. But another part of me couldn’t deny a lot of what I just watched was raw and real. Some of it actually happened. There were parts of it that didn’t have to be manipulated to make me into a monster. I was one.
I couldn’t stomach watching it. And seeing Scotlind standing on that stage, witnessing everything I’d done to her with a stoic fucking expression, broke me further. She was the one person I had wanted to convince I was good. And seeing her do nothing, watching her just stand idle as they ruined me, felt like she was holding the knife to my throat. I was clinging to the shreds of Scotlind’s forgiveness, hoping I could still get her back, but now it was gone. I no longer wanted it .
I didn’t know how to process everything I was feeling. The mix of emotions and confusion was too much. On a good day, I could barely get myself to believe I wasn’t in another illusion. But this was real. She wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t real. Seeing Savannah confirmed it all happened.
Her eyebrows scrunched under me. Her gaze was assessing. She watched the damning broadcast, everyone had. I didn’t know where that put me. Would everyone in the camp believe it? Would she ? I had no fucking idea why it even mattered to me.
I was still caging her in, my forearms grazing hers. I could feel everyone in the tent watching us, waiting to see if they needed to intervene and protect the mortal from me. They should.
Savannah leaned forward on her tiptoes so we were eye level with one another, my body hunched over, leaning forward without meaning to. I was waiting for her to inject me, waiting for her to push the needle the rest of the way in and take me far away from this torture. I wanted to be gone. I wanted her to put me into oblivion.
But she withdrew the needle. My gaze snagged on her movements as she threw it onto the table out of reach, leaving herself vulnerable. Before I could tell her how stupid that was, that I could kill her if she didn’t douse me, she pressed her body against mine and pulled me into a hug.
And I shattered.
“My father doesn’t know about Tezya,” Dovelyn said later that night. “Whatever they’re doing to Scotlind, I don’t think she’s told them anything vital.”
Dravenburg still wasn’t in the loop about the trade, and we wanted to keep it that way, so Tezya called a private meeting in his tent to go over everything .
I was relaxed enough to sit through it, but it was only due to taking some sort of concoction Savannah gave me to help calm my nerves. She told me her brother created it, a potion of some sort. I downed it in one gulp, not bothering to thank her for it, and then tried my best not to spit it out the next second. It was the most disgusting thing I had ever tasted—worse than the poison. I figured she had offered the same potion to Tezya, but I had no idea if he took it. We were both train wrecks, barely functioning. I tried not to think about how I literally cried into her arms after the broadcast. She mercifully didn’t say anything about it, and now, I was purposely avoiding her gaze as we discussed what tomorrow would bring.
“What makes you think that?” Kallon asked.
“Because you don’t know my father. All he thinks about is this prophecy. He’s consumed by it. He doesn’t want it to come true. It’s the only thing I’ve ever known him to be afraid of. If he found out Tezya is the one it’s about, he would’ve turned everything on him, but instead he requested the both of us alive.” The princess paused to look at me. “I don’t think you fully realize what the King has done to you, Sie. You have a target on your back. If anyone sees you, they’ll kill you without question. He wants to keep Scottie alive so he can use her enhancement and as leverage against Tezya to get him to obey. He still believes you two are the key to the prophecy. It’s the main reason he targeted you. He wants you dead. He wants the rebellion squashed and the prophecy threat eliminated. And he wants a way to kill off the lower ranks while placing the blame on someone else. He managed to do all of that and handle you at the same time. That broadcast was—”
The princess didn’t need to finish her sentence for me to know where she was going with it. The broadcast was my fucking damnation. It made me out to be the most twisted, vile Advenian alive. There was no way I could come back from how they portrayed me .
I had needed another two doses of Wells’ calming potion when Dovelyn first explained the reason Scotlind was sent to Tennebris. The fact that she framed us—that she set everything up and was the reason we had to perform the blood bond at our wedding… I probably would have murdered her if I wasn’t more pissed off at the Lux King.
“I’m going to turn myself in,” I said into the silence.
“No, you aren’t,” Peter snapped immediately. “That’s completely out of the question.” He was probably the only person in this tent who cared.
“It’s the most logical thing to do.” I shrugged.
“Why do you say that?” Wells asked, his expression was calculated like he’d actually consider it if I gave a good enough reason.
“If he still believes Scottie and I are the key to the prophecy, it will give you guys the upper hand. He’ll think he won, and in turn, he’ll put his defenses down, giving a clear way for you to attack.”
“That still doesn’t answer why you want to hand yourself in. Last I checked, you didn’t care about what we’re doing here,” the princess challenged.
I gritted my teeth. I wanted my fucking brother back unharmed, but I didn’t feel the need to explain that to everyone. I’d hand myself over as long as he went free. I shrugged, trying to act like I didn’t give a shit, even though I was dying on the inside. “You said it yourself, princess, I’m a dead man the moment I step out of this camp. Everyone is going to try to kill me, so why delay the inevitable?”
“He will kill you, though. He won’t put you back into the prison knowing you escaped before. You’ll be dead before you even see your family,” Savannah said, shifting in her chair. I turned to look at her, surprised she knew what I really wanted. “That’s why you want to turn yourself in, right? You want to save your mother and brother. ”
“Shit.” Tezya blew out a breath. “Sie, listen to me. Handing yourself over won’t give you what you want. And it won’t stop him from killing them. It was a bluff. He wants you to do just that. And if you do, you’d be playing right into—”
“What do you expect me to do then? Nothing?”
“No,” Tezya said, running his fingers through his hair. “We’ll get your mother and… brother back.” My eyes narrowed at how he choked over the word.
“If the King has them, they’re already dead,” Dovelyn said, this time her voice was a tad softer. “We need to be realistic about this.”
Tezya ignored her, looking right at me. “After we make the trade in the morning, we’ll question my brother for information. Arcane will know where the King is keeping them, and I’ll help you get them back myself. He won’t kill them right away.”
“Whoa. Hold up. You still want to rescue Scotlind?” Savannah balked.
Tezya curled his fist, encompassing his scar with Scottie. I looked down at my own hand, at my own scar. I tried not to think about her, about how she just stood there and did nothing. My father was a dick to her. I didn’t expect any sympathy from her when he died, but Moli saved her life. She helped Scottie and me after we came back from the warehouse. She risked her life to heal us, and she just watched her die with no emotion on her face.
Deep down, I knew she couldn’t have done anything to stop it. It wouldn’t have made a difference, but fuck, if it didn’t hurt like hell to watch her just stand there and do nothing. She didn’t even flinch as they drowned Moli. Drowned her—she knew what that felt like. Kole tried to do the same thing to her. I was forced to relive her drowning in that tub every night in my dreams.
As long as Greyland doesn’t die. That’s all that matters now. He can’t be in my nightmares too. He just can’t .
“Why wouldn’t we make the trade, Sav?” Tezya fumed, his voice threatening.
“I’m just questioning if this girl is worth risking my brother’s life. She did absolutely nothing during the broadcast if you hadn’t noticed. And now, Sie’s the most wanted person dead or alive.”
I met her gaze, surprised by her balls to challenge the Fire Prince and surprised that someone else noticed the same thing I did about Scottie.
“She didn’t have a choice. She’s their prisoner—”
“Prisoner? Tezya, she wasn’t chained. Absolutely nothing was forcing her to stand there. She looked like an untouched goddess. She wasn’t injured or harmed or anything. She didn’t even blink when—”
“Athler was controlling her,” he interjected. “The King’s second. He can alter and change someone’s pheromones. He uses it to control people.” Tezya turned from Savannah to face me. “It’s what happened during the annual meeting with Tennebris. It’s why Scottie and I were all over each other the day you came. We didn’t have a choice. We couldn’t help it. He was controlling us, just as he was controlling Scottie during the broadcast. It’s why she wasn’t reacting.”
“Could have fooled me,” Savannah contested as she slumped further into her seat, bringing her left leg up onto the chair and cradling it to her chest.
“It’s true,” Dovelyn said, “about Athler. He most likely was controlling her.”
I hadn’t thought of that. I knew the King had a second in command and that he was powerful, but he rarely made himself seen.
“I’m getting her back,” Tezya said after a moment of silence. “If anyone wants to back out, that’s fine, but tell me now. I won’t force anyone to be there tomorrow. But I’m going.”
Wells spoke first, “Count me in. ”
Savannah rolled her eyes but didn’t protest.
“I’ll help,” Dovelyn said. “I think it’s the most logical thing to do. If we can capture Arcane in the process, it’ll stop my father from creating more serums and vapors that’d only be used against us. It’s a strategic move besides your feelings for her.”
“I want Scottie back too,” Peter said. “I’m in.”
Kallon and Rainer both nodded in agreement before Tezya turned to me. I was the only one who didn’t give my answer.
“I promise I’ll help you get the rest of your family back. I just… we just… we have to do this first.” Tezya met my gaze. “I promise, Sie.”
I wanted to save Scottie, despite my emotions with her being on that stage, despite the fact that she did nothing during that broadcast. It didn’t matter if she couldn’t control her feelings, it still fucking hurt to see. It still felt like she ripped my heart out of my chest and left me to bleed. But I didn’t want her to suffer either. And if Tezya was willing to help me get my family back after this, I would help him. I’d agree to anything.
I shrugged, not having the energy to muster a response.