Chapter 13 #2
It was engulfing me, scratching at my insides. I would never escape this room. I would never see Landry again. The pain of it was relentless.
“Feloré,” Alek said, wincing as he pushed himself up to his elbow. “Look at me.”
But I couldn’t. It was like looking through a shrinking tunnel, only the ceiling was tightening, and the walls were taking all the air, sucking it in with their inhales, constricting smaller with each breath out.
“You’re okay,” he said, his voice gentle as he extended his hand toward me.
I inherently backed away again when his eyes changed, the fire behind them like a yellow stained glass.
“Easy,” he whispered, pinching all five fingertips together. “Calm.”
He opened his fingers. The room opened with them.
I gasped when my throat unsealed, when my eyelids widened, and my lungs filled with balmy air. It was like a warm and persuasive hand was holding my heart, caressing it gently with fingers of silk, with a feathered touch that stoked peace in its wake.
I staggered backward a step, smoothing my hands down my throat and chest. For a moment, this entire nightmare felt manageable. Like I could handle it. I was alert and clear-eyed. I was not filled with dread.
The sensation ceased its hold on me, but the effect lingered.
Alek broke into a rough coughing fit that had him leaning over, one hand smearing into the pool of blood as he coughed harder than I’d seen him do yet.
He’d done that…for me.
I stood in itchy stillness, a part of me longing to go to his side and do whatever I could do to help him as he coughed and coughed. Unfortunately, the only help I could offer would also sign my own death warrant.
There was something wrong with me. It was like I was unable to watch another person in pain, but I had to remind myself that while he might’ve looked human with his dark under-eyes and freckles, he wasn’t. He was a fucking demon.
So, I receded backward, settling onto the floor with my back against the wall. His coughing had only barely ceased when he sucked hard on the last of his herbs, holding the smoke inside his weakened lungs. Coughing more.
It wasn’t my place to say, but his habits were out of control. He didn’t seem to take his health seriously. But then again, what did he take seriously?
Besides soothing my panic, apparently.
I rubbed my chest. My skin was warmer, and my heart itself less tangled. At peace. “What was that just now? What did you do to me?”
His head rolled to face me as he blew out a long stream of white smoke. “I took command of you, darling.”
He’d said it so straightforwardly. Command. He took command of me.
“Was that like what your father did earlier? When he made me…” I struggled with the word. “Crawl to you.”
“Gods, that.” He smeared a hand over his face like he didn’t want to think about it. Like it disturbed him. “It’s the same, yes. Although we do it differently, he and I.”
“And what is it you’re doing? What’s it called?”
He twisted his head to me once more, but this time, a wicked smile teased his lips. “I don’t want to tell you. Lest I give you more fuel to think I’m a demon.”
I squinted. More fuel?
“What do you guess it’s called, Snow Fox? Think hard. Use your lovely head.”
My gaze swayed around the walls. He took command. I’d think he was a demon. Use my lovely head.
Nothing. I had nothing. I shook my head. “I don’t know. How would I know that—?”
Then it hit me. He must’ve seen the light of awareness bloom on my face, because he grinned.
“Oh, my gods,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“It’s possession.”
“Yes, human. Well done.”
“You can possess people?”
He nodded. “Every vultus in my bloodline can possess people. It’s the royal family’s crowning achievement.”
I should’ve been terrified, but part of me was in awe. We used to tell stories about it in the orphanage. Late at night under the covers, we’d tell tales of how the old-world incubi would possess humans and the horrifying things they’d make them do. But this was real. I’d felt it myself.
“What of the other thing?” I asked, sitting a little taller.
He sucked on his herbs. “You’ll have to be more specific, my love.”
“The thing your father did where it felt like hands on me that weren’t there. It was different than the possession. It wasn’t inside me. It was outside—?”
A finger tapped my shoulder. I gasped as I whirled around, the chain clinking as I blinked wide-eyed, but there was nothing there.
I twisted back around to find him perched up on his elbow watching me, trying his best to conceal a chuckle.
“Oh, fuck you,” I said, when realization hit.
He let himself chuckle, but it transformed into a brutal cough.
“You know what? Good. I’m glad you’re coughing. I hope it was worth it.”
He sagged against the floor when the coughing quelled, using his bicep as a pillow. His eyes rolled shut as a weak grin softened his face. “It was, human. It was.”
I let my legs stretch out in front of me as I settled against the wall. “So, apparently that’s something you can do as well. What do you call that? Answer without doing it.”
“Projection.”
Projection. I squirmed at the memory of a dozen different ghost hands on me as they pushed me onto my knees before the king. “Another talent precious to your blood then?”
He nodded but didn’t open his eyes, his voice drowsy as he said, “My brother is most skilled at it.”
I squinted. “You have a brother?”
“I have a twin.”
My eyebrows shot up. To be the rulers of this kingdom, I really didn’t know much about them. They conducted themselves with such secrecy, barring the infrequent parades.
“So, how was it decided who would be the future king?”
“The fates decided,” he said, sounding a little weaker, like he was tiring quickly from the loss of blood. “I’m eight minutes older, and therefore, the rightful heir.”
I couldn’t begin to imagine what sort of a wedge something like that could potentially drive between siblings. Eight minutes and one of them was the most powerful creature in the kingdom, while the other was just a prince.
“What’s his name?”
“Tobian.”
Tobian. Tobian and Alekus. “I bet you have a lot in common, being twins.”
His copper eyes blinked open, and I suddenly regretted saying that. It was the pain behind his eyes. Like something meaningful was burning to be told.
“No commonality beyond our blood,” he said. “We are different in every way imaginable.”
I held his gaze. Or he held mine. Then his face contorted as he gritted his teeth. He touched his fingertips to his wound, then held them up in the firelight to observe them. They were wet with blood. The wound hadn’t healed. It should’ve healed so long ago.
I chewed my lower lip, tipping my chin toward his side. “Why’d you lie about it? Why didn’t you tell your father how you really got hurt?”
“You think me that evil, my love?”
Oh, I dared not answer that question with honesty. It was nothing against him. I thought they were all that evil.
A smirk twitched his full lips when I said nothing, like the silence spoke volumes. “I didn’t tell my father because it’s not your fault you stabbed me. It’s his own.”
I blinked.
“One can’t cage a snow fox, then grow angry when it bites.”
My forehead crinkled. He’d done it to…protect me. That couldn’t be true. He couldn’t have lied to protect the human who stabbed him.
“We expect you to behave so differently than us,” he said, his words a little fainter as his eyes fell shut again. “As if you are different, but you’re not. It’s what’s wrong with it all.”
“With it all?” I asked, scooting an inch closer to hear him. “As in what?”
He didn’t respond. I waited a long time, but he said nothing. He was also quite still, and for the life of me, I did not know why I felt a pang of panic that he might be dead.
“Prince,” I said quietly.
His eyes didn’t open, but he hummed in question, his voice fading even more.
“You were talking,” I said. “You were saying what was wrong with it all. What does that mean?”
“The kingdom, darling.” His words were slurred as he said, “We need a revolution.”
I searched his vacant face. The prince of Novithia—the future fucking king—was hinting at something that I’d never heard one of them say. A revolution.
“In terms of what?” I asked, scooting even closer. “With the way humans are treated or something? With the taxes? The food? What do you mean?”
He didn’t respond, his body completely still. Fuck.
“Prince.” I was close enough to shake him, but did I really need to be shaking a virgin out of his sleep? “Prince Alek. Are you awake?”
His words were barely strung together as he said, “I’m going to end it all.”