CHAPTER 3 #3
“Because he could. Kobra is a more populated continent than the Republic, and if they were able to ink that many of their citizens, there would be nothing we could do to stop them.”
It still didn’t answer my question, I realized. The King of Kobra already had his own territory. Why would he want ours?
But if five years as centurion of the Republic had taught me anything, it was that information came on a need-to-know basis. There was a chance tensions between Widesight and Kobra were much higher than the general population knew, for any number of reasons.
Which only made the unease in my stomach bloom further, given the current conversation.
“It’s an order.”
And there they are.
The words that drove the last nail of my coffin.
The line that hid the veiled threat Ludwig had held over my head for fifteen years. The line that removed all the pretense of there being a choice of my involvement in this mission from the table. There never was.
I swallowed the urge to flinch. He used it so very rarely these days, I’d almost deluded myself about having proven my loyalty and worth enough through my spotless record.
Proven that I needed no encouragement to want to make the world a better place, be it through the hunt of Sapless or something of this magnitude, able to change the course of history.
The threat of death, imprisonment, or worse made for a great motivator, true.
But I thought my actions had slowly proven it wasn’t a necessary one.
Fine, then.
I’d prove it one more time.
“When am I leaving?” I asked, hating how small the words sounded.
I opened my eyes to the rare sight of empathy flickering across the Supreme’s face. It was going to be that bad.
“You’re leaving tomorrow at dawn.” Fuck. “Centurion Bleuombre will be going with you.”
What?
No. Anyone but him.
My mouth parted, protest already rising.
“Save your arguments. It’s already settled.”
And that was that.
Now
“I told you to cover every single detail.” Zephyr’s tone is reproaching when he interrupts my narration. And yet, I find a note of amusement among what he’s not saying.
“I just did,” I grit out.
My eyes flicker towards the woman with long, braided hair. She watches me with deep, dark eyes that seem to know every single word I’m not saying, but her lips don’t move. When she doesn’t call the lie in my words, I relax a little.
Out of all the outlawed abilities, truth-telling is the least dangerous, but still.
The moment they were first discovered, mental abilities were forbidden.
Mind control was the first one uncovered, and the idea of a human being able to control another’s mind was so terrifying that its inking was banned worldwide before its existence was even made public.
The ban was so swift, so absolute, that no one today knows the inked pattern that once gave it form.
Then came telepathy, and that, too, was outlawed.
One by one, the mind-born abilities were struck down: pain inducement, memory manipulation, reality warping, intention reading . . . and truth-telling.
The official decree followed soon after, signed by all four nations in Septune: no sap was to be inked above the collarbone.
It was one thing for humanity to be granted abilities to better make use of the world that surrounds us, and a very different one to seize control over someone else’s thoughts.
And yet, somehow, the King’s Army has a sentient among its ranks. I’ve never been in the presence of someone with control over a forbidden ability before, and fear has a tight grip around my sternum at the prospect of what it entails.
I have to stay strong.
My focus shifts towards Zephyr’s other companion. The huge man, towering even sitting, watches me with narrowed eyes like I’m a sneaky serpent about to slide away. Or strike.
If I wasn’t rendered powerless by the wooden cuffs circling my wrists and still a bit dizzy from whatever it was that they injected me with, I guess I would be doing one of the two.
The throbbing in my thigh disagrees.
“No, you did not,” Zephyr says, pulling my attention back to him.
A dark lock falls on his forehead as he shakes his head with a huff.
It works as a marvelous distraction when those cursed green eyes fall on me with the force of a raging punch.
“Why you? I get Armand, but why did he choose you, Davina? Why did the Supreme Strategos of the Republic of Widesight choose you?”
I am no fool. It’s an accusation posed as a question.
He now knows as well as I do why Ludwig chose me. But I’ve given enough. I’m going to have to give much more under the scrutiny of their three sets of eyes. I’m going to have to draw lines if I ever want to make it out of this room—out of this cursed kingdom—alive.
This is where I’m drawing the first line.
And so, instead of telling the full truth, the truth he wants, I say, “Because he practically raised me as his daughter. I haven’t—hadn’t—ever failed a mission.” Bleeding sap, that correction stings. “There’s no one in the whole Republic he trusts more.”
But does he? A small voice asks at the back of my head.
I can’t afford a single sliver of weakness now, though, so I quiet it.