Chapter Twenty-Three Siyala
The shock of the memory keeps me awake, even as exhaustion aches from my bones.
While the discovery doesn’t change what I believe about Rhea to be true—that she is the only person worthy of power like this, the kind of person that can be trusted with it—it does make what I know all the more valuable.
And, despite his proclamations, I don’t know that Xander wouldn’t run directly to the king with this information.
What sort of trap would they set for Rhea knowing that she has magic like… that?
When I do finally slip into sleep, it is restless.
My mind bouncing from one veiled memory to another, none of them clear enough to comprehend—a thought both comforting and terrifying.
At one point, I’m dropped into a scene with Rhea in the tower.
Humming as she cleans the living area, her contentment quickly melts into terror when she notices my ears grow rigid and my head tilt.
My signal that the king is coming. His steps grow heavier, my own heart racing as she begs for me to hide.
I try to follow her command but remain stuck in place, my feet rooted to the ground as if I’ve sprouted there.
The thud of a heartbeat, of two, accompany the steps, and I try again, willing my dream self to move and hide like I’d done so many godsdamn times before.
It doesn’t work. Then the door to the tower is thrown open, and the king steps in, his chestnut hair brushed away from his face and a beard cropped perfectly over his jaw.
He prowls through me to Rhea, as if I’m not even there, and I watch as she flinches from his nearness.
How she cowers beneath the touch of his hand and the curl of his lips at her cheek.
His mouth moves, but the voice that comes from it sounds different.
“Wake up!” What? Metal clashes, as if guards are battling beside me. “We have some questions for you…”
I hear the startling noise again, my heart pounding in my chest as I’m yanked from the dream. I sit up with a gasp and blink the bleariness from my eyes, rubbing a hand down my face. Swallowing the dryness in my throat, I move to get up from the cot but freeze at the sound of Immie’s voice.
“What the hell are you doing? I was sleeping,” she groans, just as the familiar click of a key sliding into a lock rings out.
“You have been granted plenty of respite by His Majesty since your capture.”
Ensuring the book Xander gave me is hidden, I press my feet to the ground, all but tip-toeing towards the cell bars, my eyes narrowing at the men that stand in front of Immie’s cell.
The flame lit on the wall casts them in an amber hue, outlining the golden armor of one and the dark tunic of the other.
“I’m afraid the time for rest is over.” A King’s Guardsman marches into her cell, drawing more words of protest from Immie until she cries out, my stomach dropping at the pain and panic in her voice. “The more you fight, the worse it will be for you in that room.”
Immie stumbles as she is yanked forward, and for the first time since she was brought down here, I get a clear look at her face.
Deep wrinkles crease the corners of her wide eyes, her gray hair disheveled and matted the farther down her braid goes.
Gods above. I should have asked Xander for so much more than food for her.
“Well, well, well. It’s been a long time,” the guard drawls in my direction as he hauls Immie past, her eyes finding mine.
The small smile she forces in my direction does nothing for the knot sitting heavily in my throat.
I reach for the bars, the metal cold beneath my fingers.
“I’ll see you later. Maybe you can join in on the fun. ”
I glance up at the partially hidden face beneath the golden helmet, the sticky sheen of his pale skin making my blood grow cold.
It’s the commander who tied me to a tree after I was captured, whose hand I bit in my attempt to escape.
He chuckles as he passes, Immie’s bare feet slapping against the stone as she tries to keep up, her weak thrashing useless in his grasp.
Behind them both, the second man follows, though he is not a guard. Hands clasped behind his back, he looks down his nose at me, tilting a head of close-cropped dark hair, silver streaks running through it. “So you are the infamous shifter,” he says, stopping in front of my cell.
My gaze jumps back to Immie and the commander as he pulls the door to the torture room open. “Why is he bringing her in there?” I ask. But I know why, so when the man doesn’t answer—opting to just watch me instead—I send a glare in his direction. “What kind of man harms an old woman?”
“Interesting,” he says, voice lowering as he works his gaze down my body.
My skin crawls under his attention, prompting a snarl from me.
It makes him smile, the expression shallow, “And to answer your question, my morality does not hinge on who I am extracting information from but rather why I am doing so. Imelda ran from the palace over two decades ago to illegally start a business when she was already bound in duty to the Maxwell family. She then went on to harbor a stolen princess and her captor. Though you already know that story, don’t you?
” I don’t like the glint that sharpens his blackened gaze as he angles his face towards me.
“How interesting it is to know that you are a shifter, yet you live on this side of the Spell. Still able to draw from your magic. I’m curious why you haven’t tried shifting back into your fox. ”
He raises his brows halfway up his forehead, as if an idea has just formed. But then Immie shouts, and the commander’s voice echoes menacingly from the torture room. Standing tall, the man rolls his shoulders back, turning to give me his side.
“It appears our friend is eager to make my acquaintance,” he says.
“What is your name?” I ask, if only to delay the inevitable by another few seconds. “I might like to brand it into memory so that when I get out of here, I can find you and kill you.”
The man laughs, one that is real and comes from deep in his gut. “Your defiance will be fun to break. Don’t worry, shifter. As soon as the king realizes that Xander is not capable of doing what needs to be done, he will assign you to me. And we can make our acquaintance then.”
I growl at his back, panic gnawing at my chest when he walks into the room with Immie and the commander walks out, shutting the door behind him.
The darkness claws closer as I hold my breath, my cheeks pressing between the bars hard enough that it tugs back my skin.
The commander looks my way and smiles as he stands guard outside the room.
For long seconds, minutes maybe, nothing happens.
The silence stretches wider and wider, a chasm with no end.
And then my ears strain, and I hear that first noise.
It’s muffled, easily mistaken for a heavy sigh.
Then it grows and changes, sharpening as it bleeds through the heavy door from that horrific room.
“He’s known for being able to draw information from anybody.” The guard paces a few steps in my direction, his hands bracing his hips. “I’ve always wondered how, but he never lets anyone see his process.”
“You’re all cowards,” I grit out, just as another scream pierces the dungeon. “All of you!”
The taunting smirk on his face flickers, falling as he glances over his shoulder and then eats up the distance between us in a few strides.
“Cowards are we? And yet we still managed to capture you. A creature left behind by the ones she was trying to protect.” He clicks his tongue and shakes his head, gold reflections dancing in every direction from the movement.
“It must bother you to know that they allowed you to be the sacrifice. That it was so easy for them to walk away.”
Immie screams again, and this time, it takes the form of the word no, her shaky voice repeating it over and over again.
I tremble at the bars, feeling my magic stir deeply within me.
A cat waking from a nap. A snake uncoiling.
My neck muscles strain, heat rising from my gut and higher still, my fingers tingling with the feel of it.
“Come, now, little kit. Tell me that you didn’t feel betrayed?”
Little kit. My heart skips a beat, then two. Pink fabric tied in a knot above me. “Do not call me that.”
“That’s what little foxes are called, aren’t they? Kits.”
Rough hands scraping at my skin, nails digging into my hips. “What did I tell you, little kit?”
“What’s the matter, little kit? Afraid of what will happen if someone breaks you in? Tames your wild?”
I blink from the past to the present, staring at the commander’s face only a few inches from my own. Startled, I jerk backwards but not quickly enough to avoid the commander’s grasp. A clammy hand encircles my wrist, forcing me towards him, the bars suddenly pressing into my chest.
“Let go—”
“I hope you didn’t think I forgot about what you did to my hand,” he says, holding tightly enough that I hiss at the pain that flares when I try to pull myself free.
He raises his opposite hand, showing off the fresh scars that indent the skin where my teeth punctured him.
“You’re lucky it healed enough for me to still be able to grip my sword, but don’t worry, creature.
I will have my revenge and then some.” Reaching behind him with that hand, he unclasps something from his belt.
A single key dangles from a brass ring, and my heart plunges to my stomach as he waves it in front of me.
“What happens when you have nowhere to escape to, little kit? When it’s my teeth clamping down on that tender flesh? ”
My back against the cold comforter, his breath hot on my neck. My shoulder. My chest.