Chapter Twenty-Six Siyala
My finger trails along the title of the book sitting in my lap, my head foggy.
Distantly, the last interaction I had with Kenji circles my mind, floating in and out of my consciousness.
Just when I think I’ve pushed it out of my head, it returns again, trapping me within myself until I’m no more useful than the dirt on the ground.
And then there is Xander, the guard’s words from a few days earlier battling for attention as well, keeping me from sinking too deeply into the pages spread out before me.
I want to believe the tale he wove. One where he is clearly in disagreement with everything the king stands for.
One where he is no more a willing participant to the king’s schemes than Rhea was.
But Xander has come down to this dungeon nearly every day for weeks and weeks.
Has spoken of Alexi. The king. The other guards and oaths and his need for information.
And through it all, he has let me believe that he is no more than a regular guard.
But Xander is one of the king’s Trusted, a fact the commander let slip when he and that man came to the dungeon to torture Immie.
That knowledge places Xander not only there on the days the king came to abuse Rhea but also inside that tower the night Alexi died.
How can I believe anything he says knowing that he was so involved in the murder of a man whose only crime was caring about Rhea? How can I push past that and think that his motives only serve this greater good instead of just the king?
I have been lied to before. Manipulated. Backed into a corner where I was given choices that were hardly choices at all, and I refuse to be lured into this false sense of security with him. He wants what I know and is clearly willing to do whatever it takes to get it. Those rules…
I could practically see the sadness rolling off of him as he spoke about his mother.
The guilt he possessed when he told me about Cade.
Despite how I rationalized the truth of who I now knew him to be, my attention had immediately—annoyingly—focused on that third rule.
“Never let anyone get close.” So I ignored the anger that I still felt pulsing in my blood and asked him.
“That is a far less interesting story,” he had answered, and my foolish curiosity begged to differ.
“If they return to… question Immie, don’t draw attention to yourself.
I am not given access to the king’s advisor’s schedule, so I cannot know when he, and Commander Miles, might return.
I understand it is in your nature to fight, but this”—his gaze flicked down the hall to Immie’s cell—“is a battle you can’t win. ” And then he left.
I slam the book in my lap shut. No. Fuck him. Fuck him and his lies. His stories meant to get me to trust him. Fuck his apathetic voice and his stupid handsome face and his captivating eyes. A battle I can’t win? Oh, he will find out soon enough just how wrong he is.
Staring at the spot where he had sat just outside my cell, I think through how I might use what I know now about Xander to my advantage and come up with a plan.
It’s a faulty one at best, a sure death sentence at worst. But I have a feeling that if I can catch Xander by surprise, if I can make him falter for even a few seconds, I can gain the upper hand.
Specifically, I need to snag the keys to the cells from where they hang on his belt.
Maybe I can even secure a dagger too. He won’t kill me.
Of that, I am certain. I am still too valuable of a resource to him.
But he, like all the men that have forced their way into my life, underestimates me.
“Immie,” I call out, hoping she will hear me over the chatter of the other prisoners.
“Yes, child?”
Sighing in relief, I tuck the book under the thin blanket at the head of my cot. “How are you fairing?”
It is a dumb question to ask of someone who has been tortured but my anxiousness is alive in my chest, an animal all its own as it crawls between my ribs and curls over my heart.
“You needn’t worry about me. I am completely fine.”
“You don’t need to lie,” I snap before closing my eyes, my fingers rubbing at my temples.
“I mean, I know what it is you went through. They did the same to me when I first arrived, and it took a long time for the wounds to heal.” I should have asked Xander if he could sneak in some supplies to Immie. If she caught an infection…
“That’s the thing,” she says, her high voice cutting into my spiraling. “I bear no evidence of the torture.”
My head tilts as I plant my hands on my knees. “What do you mean?” Silence drips by, and I can’t help but lean forward on the cot as if that might get me closer to her. “Immie?”
“I feel crazy,” she finally answers, though it is hardly more than a whisper.
“I was brought into that room where that man, that vile, evil man, flayed my skin and pierced my muscles. He didn’t even use the tools strung up in the room but his own.
I watched as blood dripped onto the ground from my arms and legs.
I felt the pain as it burned through my nerves and—”
A coughing fit interrupts her, and my magic sputters within me, burning low and just out of reach. Frustrated, all I can do is focus on that budding plan within me while I wait for her to calm.
Her voice is hoarse when she finally continues. “I felt sleep closing in on me, but right before my eyes closed, I saw a light and I felt… warm.”
Pressing my lips together, I sit back, toying with the hem of my tunic.
“I woke up in this cell without an ounce of pain or a mark on me,” she says, a quaver underlining her words. “Was it a dream? Did it really happen—”
“Yes. I saw them take you from your cell and bring you into that room,” I insist, but my affirmation doesn’t bring her comfort.
She releases a long, airy breath. “Maybe I am crazy.”
“You aren’t.”
She hums in dismissal, and my stomach sinks. “It was green,” she adds moments later, as if just remembering. “The light was green. How peculiar.”
Hours pass in silence after that. Restless with the unease that scratches down my spine, I pace in my cell, my bare feet padding back and forth against the dirty, cold stone.
I have to get us out of here, a voice whispers from the corners of my mind.
One more animal than mortal. I stretch my neck side to side, gathering my hair to drape over one shoulder as I begin to braid it.
Attack them all and make them pay, that voice says, feral and primal all at once.
It’s a slip in consciousness, a knot in the thread tying me to my mortal form.
My fingers stutter, falling numb as familiar warmth rushes up my torso and past my neck.
Soft blue light glows from the edges of my body, and though those whispers grow into pleased growls at the impending shift, fear stabs through me.
You’ll never shift back. You’ll be stuck like this. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Trap—
My vision flashes, bright and all-consuming white for the length of a blink, and then I open my eyes, and see paws stretching beneath me.
Feel a tail swishing behind me. Drawing a deep breath in, I recoil at the odors in the air I didn’t notice before.
Looking down, a whine trickles from me at the sight of the bright white fur covering me.
I back away from the front of the cell like I might outrun my own fate but only crash into the stone wall behind me, yelping at the contact.
I shifted. Gods above, I shifted. And I don’t know if I can shift back.
My nails scrape against the stone as I pace, my temperature rising beneath my thick coat of fur, making me pant.
The magic within me is spread thin, a downpour reduced to a trickle.
Be calm, that instinct whispers, but it’s impossible to obey.
“Child? Are you alright?” Immie’s voice is more clear than I’ve ever heard it, as is the sound of her heart. It beats with a strange rhythm, one that makes me believe she is nervous. Or upset.
I press my snout between the bars as far as I can go, but even if I manage to get my head through, the rest of me is still too big. Drawing back, I growl low in my throat.
“I sure hope that is you and not that you’ve been eaten by a mysterious shadow creature.” Air shoots from my nose, the closest to exasperation that I can express. “Whatever caused this shift, child, do not panic. All will be well.”
But she’s wrong. So very wrong. I can’t help her like this, not in the way she—or I—need.
I shake again, resuming my pacing. Click.
Click. Click. Nails scraping against stone.
Over and over and over. I get lost in the mindless movement, in the repetitive sound, so much so that I nearly miss the louder creak of the door above.
I freeze, ears standing at attention.
One heartbeat. No, two. Booted steps. They are coming.
No. I unclench my jaw to warn Immie, but all that comes out are a series of low noises, as indistinguishable to her as the sound of a bird chirping or a lion roaring.
Because of my enhanced senses, I hear her sharp inhale when she realizes guards are coming, her heart beginning to race.
The scent of the newcomers hits me just before they reach the bottom of the steps.
It’s earthy, sour. Tinged with sweat and something like black pepper.
Or maybe an herb? It stings my nose, making tears spring to my eyes.
“It will be alright,” Immie whispers, but I think she might be talking to herself. “There is nothing left to tell them.”
What had she told them already? When the commander and the man I now know is the king’s advisor stop in front of Immie’s cell, I can’t stop the warning growl that vibrates low in my throat.
“Commander, grab our prisoner.” The king’s advisor doesn’t even look at the commander before he strides my way, eyes wide with wonder.
I draw my head low, flashing my canines as I crouch on my front paws, hips high in the air.
I want to hunt him. I want to close my teeth around his neck and shake him until he is void of life.
Kill. Kill. Kill. It’s a song that flows through my blood, that sharpens my vision and floods my tongue with saliva.
“How very marvelous,” he breathes in awe.
Commander Miles passes behind the man, dragging Immie as he brings her to that room, and I bark in his direction, satisfaction unraveling through me when he jumps at the sound. Immie’s eyes meet mine with soft recognition, and it only makes my hackles rise more.
“Soon, shifter, we will have our play time. I will let His Majesty know of this interesting development.”
I lunge forward as he walks towards the room, my sharp barks of warning bouncing off of his back.
He enters, and Commander Miles exits, shutting the door with the deafening click of a lock.
Saliva drips from my maw, every part of me anxious to attack as the commander leans his back against the door, drawing a dagger from the sheath at his thigh.
He’s afraid of me in this form. I peel my lips back to show my teeth again, but then Immie screams.
It rings louder than it did before, bleeding through the door.
The walls. Skating over me in an assault that forces the muscles in my back to tense.
I shake again, but there is no escaping it.
It’s everywhere. She gasps, and then I hear her sob, her breaths heaving in and out at a rate that my own attempt to match.
“Does it bother you?” the commander asks, pushing himself upright. He takes tentative steps my way, watching the frantic way I pace.
My mouth waters again at the prospect of piercing my teeth into his flesh. Shredding him apart. Kill. Kill. Kill.
“Can you hear her screams over here? I assume your hearing is at least as good as a normal fox’s.
” He slides a thumb down the hilt of his dagger, and I shiver at the sound of his skin against the metal.
“You look like you’re in distress, little kit.
Perhaps you need a rough hand to grab you by your scruff and put you back in your place.
Isn’t that how dominance is established? ”
My vision blurs as my heart races. Click.
Click. Click. Licking my lips, I turn and walk three paces before turning and walking three more.
Back and forth. Back and forth. Little kit.
Immie screams again. The commander laughs, his voice so much closer.
His scent is everywhere. Sour. Sweaty and earthy.
Little kit. A scream. A sob. A howl.
My heart flutters in my chest, caged beneath my ribs.
Just as I am caged. Because first, I was Siyala, child of a father affected by the blight.
One who slowly went mad, leaving my mother to channel her grief into finding ways to help him.
Into grasping on to false hopes that he would ever return to the man she once knew.
Then I was little kit, prey to a man who only pretended to help.
Who groomed me into thinking that the attention he showed me was better than nothing at all.
Who stole what was never offered to him.
Then I was Bella, fox in the tower. Locked within a stone prison, unable to help the one person who loved me without boundary.
Forced to hide while the unspeakable was done to her.
I flex my paws against the ground. The commander’s voice dances around me, more taunts and jeers and promises of retribution. Little kit. Little kit. Little kit. Immie groans in pain. Pink fabric tied to a beam. Rough hands pinning my hips. Pain. I’m caged. Caged. Caged.
Metal screeches, and my heart is pounding as I back away from the cell door.
Away from the man flipping a dagger, his smile promising that the punishment he dreams about will be far worse than anything that blade could do.
I hit a wall. Or maybe it’s the cot, but I can’t press any farther back, and I’m still caged, and it will never be any different.
This will always be my life. Warmth surges up my neck, and my vision flashes light blue, and all I can hear are Immie’s screams. Rhea’s. My own. Warmth and light and then—
Nothing.