Chapter Forty-Four Rhea #2
“I settled in Vitour first, making a name for myself because of my knowledge with plants. My reputation earned me jobs from wealthier clients, greedy noblemen and women looking for tinctures that played to their vanity until one day, one of the males joked about wishing to kill his wife without being caught. Of course, I knew exactly how to do it. How to make it look like she had simply passed away from something unknown. Thus, a different reputation was born, one that eventually earned me council with the king.” Simon stands tall, his jaw set tightly as he looks down at me.
“King Dolian offered me a place at his side if I could prove to him my worth. So I did. First by quietly poisoning those who opposed him. Then, by capturing and torturing any who dared to threaten his rule as king. I have never let him down with the intelligence I gather or by my methods, and you will not be the thing that breaks that streak.”
“I will tell the king,” I rasp, a final plea of desperation. King Dolian harbors a twisted affection for me. I can use it, exploit it, to get him to believe me.
“I will give you one more chance, Lady Rhea, and then I will move on to more persuasive measures.” He presses the tip of the pick into my arm, not enough to cut through skin but enough to serve as a warning that he will.
“Tell me everything your magic can do and what the Mage Kingdom was using it for.”
A whimper escapes me—one that I can’t hold in as I use precious seconds to sink into that dark, imaginary place before he continues his torture.
I scramble as I push everything I have to fight for to the forefront of my mind like a shield that I can hide behind.
The air stirs, and I think of Cass and his playful smirk.
How his eyes—so beautiful and clear—always held mirth.
Green magic swirls around Simon, and he sends it to my door, sealing the edges.
I scream as the pick slams into my arm, easily shredding through skin and muscle and bone until I just know it is protruding from the other side.
A sickening squelch sounds when he yanks it back out.
“What are the mages doing with someone like you? Someone as powerful as Prince Nox?” His hand comes down again, and I don’t hear the noise I make beyond the ringing of my ears.
Elora. I picture her sly smile and her boisterous laugh.
The way she reads a book with her entire body hunched over it as if she can dive into the pages themselves.
Blood pools beneath my arm, spreading slowly towards my back.
I think of her kindness, of how she immediately believed me when I told her how I came to the Mage Kingdom.
Of how she held the secret without question.
Simon grips my chin, forcing my gaze to his.
Anger dances within them, visible even in the dark, but that’s not all.
Determination flickers in their depths, and that is far more frightening.
“What else can your magic do?” He jerks the metal still lodged in my arm, and my breath is robbed from me as a primal noise ravages my throat. “Tell me!”
I retreat deeper into my mind, passing memories of Sadryn and Alexandria and their utter joy when we announced our engagement.
Of Daje’s proud expression when we sparred and I took him down.
I pass by all the small moments in my brief time away from the king, every new experience that was beginning to shape the kind of woman I might become.
And then I stop at the sight of sparkling gray and silver eyes.
At the smirk of his perfect mouth and the wave of his onyx hair.
Everything narrows down to the image of Nox—not as my lover or my friend.
Not as my guard or my fiancé or my prince. But as my home. My safety.
Simon’s breaths grow heavy, and he releases my chin and pulls the pick out, tossing it onto the tray with a wet clang. “Perhaps I was unclear,” he says, flashing his magic as he moves his palms over my arm. Healing me again. “But I take pleasure in dragging this out. And I have nowhere else to be.”
My gaze returns to the ceiling as his magic eventually fades.
All the while, I savor that image of Nox.
Me curled into his embrace. The way my heart would steady to match the beat of his.
Simon continues his ministrations, asking the same questions and healing me right when I’m on the verge of passing out.
Then the torture begins again, a new instrument plucked from the tray every time.
Something fractures deep within me the later into the night we go, and when Simon heals me for the final time as the sun is beginning to rise, I know that the damage he’s done is the kind that cannot be mended.
Still, I find myself using the last dredges of my defiance, unwilling to give that new crack in the foundation of my soul a name.
To feel it is one thing, but to acknowledge the thoughts that it ushers in?
The ones that scream that true freedom is only one well-placed slice of a blade away?
That terrifies me more than anything Simon or the king or the sirens can do.
Because I can block them from my mind, hard as it is, but my own voice?
I don’t know if I am strong enough to ignore that, and its quiet offer of sweet release has never been so tempting.