47. Scotlind
FORTY-SEVEN
SCOTLIND
My vision was consumed by purple and black mist as we landed onto the grass in Brighta. I was two seconds away from falling flat on my face before strong arms caught me.
Tezya turned me around, pulling me into a deep hug. “Scotlind Rumor, you are so fucking amazing, but don’t ever do that again,” he breathed into my hair.
“What? Go head first into Lux like you just did? You left me .”
He reeled back, and I couldn’t tell if he was more impressed or worried. My body was shaking slightly from using too much of my power at once, but it also felt exhilarating.
“I couldn’t lose you again,” he said, his voice lowering. “I only just got you back. If you were caught—”
“I wasn’t,” I cut him off. “I’m right here. We’re all here.” I hugged him back, still furious he left me behind, but I’d yell at him later. Right now, I was just relieved he was okay.
Rainer came sprinting toward us. “What the heck guys? I didn’t even know you were going somewhere. Wells just relieved me from my shift, and I only found out because of the boat load of people who showed up. Stop going on missions without me. ”
Kallon smirked at him. “Don’t pretend you would have wanted to go. You’re terrified of fighting.”
“Just because I hate fighting—not terrified of it—ya dick, doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have helped.” He looked taken aback. His normally large smile was gone as he crossed his arms over his chest. My gaze drifted toward his hands, toward the lightning he wielded. Tezya noticed and pulled me tighter against him.
“I’m just joking, Rain. We didn’t tell you because we didn’t have time. It was kind of a last minute thing.” Kallon pulled Rainer in for a hug, which he willingly accepted, but his head kept scanning the camp, taking in the sheer amount of people we brought back with us.
“Where did you get all these people, and why are they all so bloody and naked?”
“It’s a long story,” Tezya said as he reluctantly pulled out of my grip. “For now, we need to get them all medically evaluated. They’ll need clothes, food, water, and rest. Sav, can you send word to the healer’s tent so they can prepare?”
“Yup.” Her lavender hair was whipping behind her as she sprinted away.
I scanned the group around us, looking for red hair. “Where is she?” I asked, my voice breathless.
“She’s already with the healers. Peter took her there as soon as they came back. She’s okay,” Kallon said, knowing exactly who I was asking about. “She’s with Sie’s brother.”
“Okay,” I said more to myself than anyone else. I was so relieved. She was safe. Everyone was safe. I couldn’t believe it. We actually did it. And more than that, Tezya freed everyone from the dungeons.
Tezya leaned down to whisper to me, “You can go and visit her. I’ll come find you after.”
I shook my head. “No. I’ll help. ”
Tezya eyed me for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. We’ll get everyone settled, and then we’ll go see her together.”
It took us three hours to settle everyone. Then another thirty minutes of explaining everything to a pissed off Dravenburg. Many of the Advenians were too weak to even walk to the healer’s tent. We had to prioritize who to tend to first. Anyone who was able to walk waited with warm blankets and food. We didn’t have enough room at the camp anymore, and when Tezya told me he’d have to discuss things further with Dravenburg about food and shelter, I wondered how much we had before we would run out. I didn’t even know how a camp like this survived. We potentially could have gained a lot more people to fight in the rebellion with us. I was positive that everyone we rescued hated the King, but they were all too weak, too malnourished. I didn’t even know if everyone would make it past tomorrow.
I hadn’t stopped shaking. At first, it was from using all my reserves to open Kallon’s portal. But now my hands trembled for entirely different reasons. Tezya was waiting for me outside the healer’s tent. Everyone was off doing different tasks. Sie was with his family. Dovelyn went to check on Brock. Rainer and Kallon were helping those who were already healed find a place to rest, and Savannah was passing out food and water.
But now, I was about to see Vallie. I hadn’t seen her since I was taken for the broadcast. Since she told me she wanted to die. I was terrified. Terrified of the state I’d find her in, terrified the King tortured her more after Arcane and I left…
“We don’t have to see her yet. We can let her rest some more. You probably need some too,” Tezya started, noticing my hesitancy.
“No. I want to see her.” There was no way I’d be able to wait any longer. Helping everyone earlier gave me a job to do. It was enough of a distraction to keep my mind from her, but now that things were settling down, I couldn’t wait any longer.
I took a deep breath, then walked into the healer’s tent. Agony washed into me, settling in my core. I felt like I was hit by a brick wall. So many different emotions were flipping through me—pain, fear, relief. I stopped in the middle of the tent, unable to breathe.
I briefly noticed Tezya move in front of me. He was holding my face in his hands, staring into my eyes. He was saying something over and over again. I saw his lips move, his face frantic, but I couldn’t hear his words. All I could hear were moans and cries and sobbing. So much sobbing.
Scotlind. Scotlind. Focus. Look at me. Tezya’s voice was in my head now. I looked up, meeting his gaze. That’s it. Keep looking at me. Block everyone else out. Only me.
“What’s happening to me?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if I said it out loud or in my head, but I knew he heard me.
“I’m not sure yet,” he admitted, his brows furrowed. “I think you might be picking up on everyone’s emotions like I do with my ability, but I think it’s magnified with your enhancement.”
I stared at him in shock. Agony was still washing through me like it was my own. I tried to block it out, but it was impossible. “We’ll look into it,” Tezya said. “We’ll figure it all out, I promise.” He paused for a moment, still holding my cheeks in his hands. “Do you need to leave? I can tell Vallie you came.”
“No,” I snapped. I had to see her. “I’m fine.”
I was pretty sure Tezya knew I was lying, but he didn’t stop me. He gently released my face and the lack of his hands left me feeling cold. Before I could process it, he grabbed my hand in his. “Okay,” he said as he started guiding me through the tent. “We’ll be quick then.”
I nodded, unable to speak. I kept focusing on the contact of his hand in mine and on the fact that I was about to see Vallie.
“She’s in here,” Tezya said gently. His hand moved from mine to the small of my back. I rounded the corner and stopped abruptly.
My eyes flared as I took in my best friend. Alive. Alive. Alive. She was lying in the cot with a scratchy blanket pulled up to her chest. Peter was standing off to the side not visible to her but still present.
I took a step toward her. I wanted to wrap her in a hug, to run to her side and never let go, but the expression on her face halted me. She looked haunted, and she definitely didn’t look relieved to see me.
“Vallie, I—” I suddenly didn’t know what to say. It was like being trapped in the King’s room all over again. Nothing I could say would take back what happened. “I’m glad you’re alive.” I finally settled on, and she winced. Her eyes scrunched shut as she took an unsteady breath. I knew immediately I said the wrong thing. Why did I use that word? Why did I say alive when Miles was dead ?
I could have picked any other word. Here. Safe. Free. Any other word…
“What happened?” she asked softly, still not opening her eyes. “Tell me everything.” She swallowed. “From the beginning.”
I told her what I knew, what I never told her before. From coming to Tennebris, to getting caught, right up until the broadcast and rescuing her. She listened intently. The only way I knew she was taking everything in was from the brief nods she’d make here and there. She kept her eyes mostly closed, and if she did open them, she didn’t look at me. Peter and Tezya kept quiet, neither of them leaving our sides. Tezya’s hand on my back was the only thing getting me through this. The only thing I could focus on to drown out the sheer agony radiating from the entire tent so I could concentrate on my friend.
“I want to see him,” Vallie said as soon as I finished. We all turned to look at her. There were bruises around her throat that weren’t there the last time I saw her, and she was so weak from the weeks of being starved and tortured that she could barely stand up straight. I didn’t know if the healer’s had even given her anything to eat yet with how overwhelmed they were. I saw a half drunk glass of water by the nightstand, but that was it.
She was wearing a long shirt now, and from Peter’s lack of one, I wondered if he’d wrapped her in his own when he found her. It dawned on me then that he never left her side, not even to grab a new shirt. While it took me nearly four hours to check on her—
The last time I saw her, she was naked and chained to the King’s floor. I pushed the image of her aside, forced myself not to think of how she was dragged into his bed at night.
Old blood still coated her skin, a mixture of her own, her twin’s and the dead servant’s, but fresh blood stained her too, brighter in color, from whatever she went through when Peter rescued her.
I’d never seen him so determined, so angry, so terrifying… Peter was always light-hearted. He could turn any tension-filled conversation around, but this was different. Something about seeing what happened to Vallie changed him. He was standing still, barely moving, with a new kind of livid mask donned.
No one answered her.
“ Who do you want to see, Vallie?” Tezya asked gently. He had told me Vallie begged Peter and Dovelyn to bring Miles’ body back with them, but they couldn’t risk it. If that was who she wanted to see—
Her hands clenched into the sheets. “Kole.”
Everything stilled. It was the last person I expected her to say.
“Do you want to try to sleep first? Maybe eat something?” I suggested, trying to mask my own shock at her request. My eyes flicked up to meet Peter’s. His were narrowed, his fists clenched at his side as his jaw ground against his teeth, but he didn’t say anything.
“No.” Her voice was firm, demanding. Her eyes finally snapped open and met mine. “I want to see him now .”
I turned to look at Tezya who nodded once before guiding my battered friend toward the makeshift prison at the camp. She was walking slowly, a limp taking over her gait. I looked down and saw she had a twisted ankle. I inhaled sharply, but quickly cast it down. If Vallie wanted to pretend she was fine, I wasn’t about to ruin that for her. Whatever she needed to do to get through this, I’d help her.
“He’s in there,” Tezya said as he halted in front of a tent. Now that Dravenburg knew everything, he’d assigned multiple people to watch over Arcane and Kole. Four guards now stood in front of the one Kole was in.
Vallie turned on her good foot. “I want a knife.” No one moved. No one spoke. “I said I want a knife.” Her voice was breathless, but it still managed to raise an octave. Peter pulled one out and gently placed it into her waiting palm. His hand brushed against hers, and she flinched. Peter’s jaw worked as he noticed, before he took a step back, giving her space.
Vallie’s hand was shaking as she readjusted the blade before finally stepping through the tent flaps. I followed her after a second, staying out of sight toward the side of the tent, along with the guards.
Kole shifted on the ground once he saw her. He was leaning against the bars of the cage that was positioned in the center of the room. His head was resting back, his legs spread wide. One bent at the knee, the other stretched out on the grass.
Two Alluse users were standing on either side of the bars to keep his abilities at bay. Brighta didn’t believe in the use of Alluse objects, so they took shifts rotating within the tent. I was told Arcane had his own in the one next door. I had no idea what Dravenburg did with the Alluse shackles Tezya and Sie originally put on them, and half of me wondered if they were safer in the chains, even though I knew the process of making the objects were inhumane.
“Leave us,” Vallie ordered, not looking at either guard, but directly at Kole instead. To my surprise, Kole’s brown gaze held hers, but his face was unreadable.
“Miss, we can’t. We need to keep casting Alluse on him—”
“Do it from outside the tent. I know enough about your abilities to understand the radius in which you can cast it.”
They still didn’t move.
Tezya stepped into the tent a second later. He didn’t need to say anything before the guards looked at one another and followed him out. I turned to watch them go and saw Peter hovering at the entrance of the tent, watching the interaction.
Kole rose from the ground, his eyes intent on Vallie. He had ample room and was able to walk ten paces on either side before he was met with the metal bars of the cage. I half wished he was kept in one the size I was in at Lux.
Vallie limped toward the bars, gripping the rusty metal with one hand as she leaned into the cage. Kole didn’t say anything, just waited and watched Vallie come to him. His eyes flicked to her ankle once before he met her gaze again and held it. With the jagged lightning scars covering his entire body, he looked more menacing than before.
“How could you?” she sneered. Tears pooled in her amber eyes, but she managed to keep them down.
“Vallie, I had no idea what he was going to do to you and Miles—”
“Don’t you dare say his name,” she screamed, and Kole flinched. She was gripping the metal bar so tight that her pale hand was even more ashen.
Kole took a step toward her, closing the space between them until only the bars separated them. His eyes flicked to the blade she was holding before meeting her gaze again. My breath left me as I watched. It took everything in me to not interrupt, to not snatch the blade from Vallie’s hand from fear that Kole would grab it and turn it on her. But I had to let her do this, whatever it was she wanted from this interaction, I had to give it to her.
“I’m sorry for what happened to your twin,” he said gently. “But I didn’t kill him. I wasn’t the one who murdered him.”
“Not doing anything to help is just as guilty as the act itself. You have his blood on your hands.”
Vallie angled the blade toward him. She was shaking profusely, all her weight supported on her right while maintaining her grip on the cage with her free hand. Kole remained still as she passed the blade through the bars, the tip of the dagger digging into his chest. He met her gaze steadily, and I realized he was going to let her kill him. The dread that filled his usually hard, menacing face was gone.
They stood like that, connected only by the sharp end of the blade, for what seemed like minutes, their eyes never leaving each other’s. Vallie’s filled with anger and hurt, while Kole’s held… grief. For some reason I could feel him. Feel that he hated what happened to her, that he was hurting because of what she went through, that he wanted to escape this prison just so he could go back to Lux and murder them all, which made no sense.
But nothing happened.
Vallie stilled. The only thing moving was her hand from trembling. Kole leaned forward, the tip finally piercing his chest and blood pooled down over his stomach. Her breath hitched once she saw the red pooling. She backed up like she’d been burned, the dagger clattering to the ground just outside Kole’s reach.
“One day, when I find the strength to do it, I will kill you, Kole Sanders. I will kill you just like you let my brother die.”
Kole’s eyes never left hers. There was something he wanted to say, but he kept his mouth shut, and I couldn’t read him anymore. The weird feelings I got from him earlier were gone.
I waited until Vallie cleared the tent before I walked toward the fallen dagger. I wasn’t about to leave it with him.
He watched me, his eyes narrowing, but didn’t say anything as I scooped up the blade and left.
Peter followed me outside the tent, and I finally turned to look at him for the first time since we got back—really look at him. He was in rough shape. His abdomen was still bare, with blood and gore covering every inch of him. A long gash ran from his left nipple to his flank, and I realized he was still actively bleeding. I scanned him with a newfound scrutiny. He was lucky to be alive. If the cut was made any deeper, his bowels would have been on the outside.
“You need a healer,” I said to him. “You both do.”
Peter didn’t answer, only looked to Vallie, waiting to see what she wanted to do. No doubt, if she said no, the stubbornness in him probably wouldn’t see one either. But he was slowly bleeding out. We’d been back in Brighta for over four hours now, and he hadn’t been looked at.
I held back a sigh of relief when Vallie nodded her head. It was so subtle that I barely noticed it. I wondered if she knew the condition Peter was in and realized he needed help too.
We walked back to the healer’s tent in silence. Once we arrived, a male healer leapt toward us. “Ey, you boy,” he shrieked as he spotted Peter. “You’re getting blood all over the furs. Get in the tent before I decide to let you bleed out.” His golden eyes flicked over to Vallie. “And you—” he said as he reached for her.
She jumped back. The healer’s hand was still outstretched, ready to grab her. Vallie stared at the ground, avoiding all eye contact. Her chest was rapidly moving, her breath was coming out in ragged pants. “Please… don’t… touch me,” she whispered softly, her eyes still downcast. The healer glanced from her to me to Peter to Tezya, before he nodded, his brows furrowed as he moved to let her enter.
Hours passed. I stayed inside the tent while Peter and Vallie were both looked at. Tezya left a little while ago to go check on everyone else, but not before he made sure I was okay about twenty times.
This time, I welcomed the agony and pain radiating toward me. I embraced it, needing a distraction from my own thoughts, hating that I was fine. I was fine, and my friend was broken.
I couldn’t think about it.
Everyone in the tent was careful to not touch Vallie. She was in a chair now. The tent seemed to be divided off into sections based on critical injuries. They gave her proper clothes and warm food, which she barely touched. Her amber eyes kept locking with Peter’s green ones. The two of them were unable to not look at each other from across the room.
“He’s gonna be fine,” a female healer said as she offered Vallie a cup of steaming water.
“Th-thank you,” she replied, her voice shaky as she tore her gaze away from Peter. I wanted to say something to her. There was a hole growing in me with each passing moment of our silence, but I didn’t know what to say.
Are you alright?— I knew the answer was no.
Do you want to rest? —she probably didn’t, probably saw her twin’s dead body every time she closed her eyes like I did.
Hungry?— she wasn’t eating even though it was probably the first time she’d been offered food in the past month or longer. I didn’t know when the King had captured her originally, but we had spent weeks together in that room.
I’m sorry— the words wouldn’t bring back Miles. It wouldn’t reverse all the suffering she endured from simply knowing me .
“You should try to get some rest,” Peter said as he made his way toward us. I noticed the way his eyes scanned her uneaten plate. “You can have my tent,” he added. “Sie and I will sleep somewhere else, so it’ll be yours if that’s what you want. You don’t have to share it with anyone.”
She nodded and silently rose from the chair she’d been sitting on. They fixed her ankle and healed any open wounds she had until there weren’t any scars left on her body, but I knew hers were deeper than the surface of her skin, and those couldn’t be healed.
“I’ll show you where it is,” he added gently.
I stood, deciding to awkwardly follow the two of them toward Peter’s tent. I didn’t know what else to do. Did she want me to follow? Did she want to be alone? Was being alone worse? I didn’t know how to help her, and I hated myself for that.
Vallie turned to face me once we were inside Peter’s tent. “Please, can you leave me alone…”
I winced. Her words were worse than anything that was ever done to me. Far worse than rotting in the dungeons, than the Luxian soldier’s daily torture, than Kole drowning me.
“I’m sorry, Scotlind. I just…” she hesitated. “I just need space for a little bit.”
“Val,” I started, but she cut me off.
“Every time I look at you, I see my brother’s face right before the King reduced it to ash.” Her breath shuddered. “When I look at you, I’m reminded of being dragged into his room every night, forcing me to… to do things to him, forcing me to enjoy it.” Sobs tore at her now. “I just can’t stand to see you right now.”
“Vallie, I…” I didn’t know what to say. Nothing could change what happened.
Peter took a tentative step toward me, positioning himself in front of her. His eyes were soft as he looked at me. “I think you should leave, Scottie.”
I nodded, twisting on my heel and ran out of the tent, not wanting to break down in front of Vallie. I didn’t want to add a layer of guilt on top of everything else she was feeling, because for her to say that, to admit that she felt that way about me, probably took everything left out of her.
I made my way back to Tezya’s tent. He was already waiting for me, standing as soon as I pushed the flaps open. He scanned my face, was by my side in one long stride, and pulled me into a tight hug.
“I’m sorry,” he said. I didn’t know if he already knew everything that just happened through our bond or if he just guessed it by my face.
“She hates me,” I sobbed.
Shh. His soothing tone cooed into my mind as he patted my hair, his fingers lightly curling over my ear. It’s alright. It’s going to be alright. She just needs time to grieve and process everything. She’s been through a lot. You both have.
I knew he was just trying to comfort me, telling me what I wanted to hear. Because Vallie would never forget what was done to her and Miles…
And I didn’t think any amount of time would ever be enough for her to forgive me for it.