Chapter 45
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
VERA
“Knowing what you know, would you choose differently?” The moment the words leave my mouth, darkness swallows them.
I’m on my back, in the middle of my cell. Starting at the endless abyss stretching above me.
The ceiling is the only place I haven’t explored here yet.
The only unknown place in what has become my new world.
How long have I been here?
Where’s Phoenix? What is she doing?
Does she think I’m dead?
Is she dead?
No, a voice says. If she were dead, Reizei would be here rubbing it in my face.
That gives me satisfaction. Until Phoenix lives, Reizei won’t win.
“Would I choose not to be the Ezkai General?” Kitajo’s voice is all around me.
My mind seems to have reached its limit. I cannot conjure his presence next to me. I can only hear his voice.
My chest tightens.
“Yeah,” I murmur.
“Absolutely not,” he says. “I would have been a fool to choose not to pursue the highest power in Ekios.”
Something inside me crumbles.
“Power is the highest currency. The only thing that matters,” he whispers close to my ear.
I frown.
That’s—
That’s not him.
“Seriously?” I mutter. “Power is the thing that destroys. People and everything around them. If you weren’t Ezkai General, you wouldn’t have died.”
“All men die, sooner or later,” he says gently. “At least I died as the most respected and loved Ezkai General in history rather than an unknown man.”
I close my eyes and sigh.
The warmth is gone. The familiarity. The man I knew and fell in love with.
Whatever this is…it isn’t Kitajo anymore.
Reizei has taken everything from me. Even the comfort of Kitajo’s memories.
“Leave,” I say, my words cold. “I don’t want to speak to you.”
I lie there in silence for a long moment.
All alone in the darkness.
I’m hollow. There’s nothing left.
The lock whirls and the door swings open.
“I see you made yourself right at home.” Reizei’s voice reaches my ears.
I don’t bother answering him.
“Get her up,” he orders to someone.
Two pairs of hands grab me by the aching shoulders and drag me to my feet. Two dark-as-coal eyes meet mine.
“Don’t tell me you’re ready to sing, little bird,” Reizei says. When I don’t answer, he adds, “We’re just getting started.”
Once we’re out of my cell, I realize one of my handlers is the same woman from last time. She keeps glancing at me sideways as we make our way into gods knows where.
Another room.
This one’s bigger. And there are two chairs in front of a wall covered by a thick curtain. It’s the color of dried blood.
My handlers sit me in one chair. To my surprise, Reizei takes a seat next to me. The woman stands on my left against the wall. She watches me.
I glance at Reizei, who wears a neutral mask as he stares forward at the curtain in front of us. He tells me nothing about why we’re here or what’s about to happen.
Unease prickles the skin at the back of my head. My stomach is full of rocks. I glance around the room, trying to figure out what the next form of torture will be.
“You may begin,” Reizei tells my second handler.
The man approaches the curtain and pulls it open. Cold terror fingers grip my chest.
Behind the curtain are iron bars. There’s another cell with two girls. One girl has her back to us, her hands chained to the wall. The other sits in a chair facing us.
Instinctively, I grab the arms of my chair but my fingers twitch weakly. The chains have done permanent nerve damage, from what I can tell. Trying to hide it from Reizei, I fold my fisted hands in my lap.
No, no, no.
A man dressed in all black approaches the girl chained to the wall. Using a dagger strapped to his thigh, he slashes through the meager tunic she wears and rips it open. Her naked back is exposed to us.
I try to swallow the ball lodged in the middle of my throat. And fail.
The girl whines, one of her cheeks resting against the cold stone wall. Of course her handler doesn’t care. He unwraps the long leather whip coiled at his hip and steps away. Just far enough to give him space to lash her.
I jerk in my seat when the whip cracks and slashes the air between them. She cries out from pain. The hair at the back of my head rises. I can’t get a breath in. My fingers spasm uncomfortably.
When he lashes her again, I can’t help but look away.
Reizei next to me reaches for me. He gently pinches my chin with his thumb and forefinger and angles my head so I look him right in the face.
He’s calm and collected, as if he’s watching a play in a theater and not someone getting tortured.
“No, Vera D’Argent,” he says softly. “You don’t get to look away.”
I twist from his grip. “Why are you doing this?”
He settles back comfortably in his chair. “You know why. I want everything you know about Savage King.”
The whip cracks again, making me jump. The girl cries out louder, her whimpers growing more and more desperate. I don’t dare glance at her. The girl in the chair starts crying, too.
“Look, Vera,” Reizei says, surveying the girls. “Or I’ll force you.”
I swallow, and hesitantly lift my gaze. My heart tumbles out of my chest at the sight of the girl’s naked back streaked with bloody lashes.
“Who—” My voice breaks. I try again. “Who are these girls?”
“Does it matter?” Reizei glances at me with an arched brow. Another crack. “Would it be easier for you to sit here and watch them get tortured if I told you they were criminals? Would it ease the guilt you feel about not being able to help them?”
I wet my dry lips. “No.”
A ghost of a smirk appears on his lips. But it vanishes quickly. “You can help them.”
My silly heart leaps with hope.
“You can end this whenever you choose. My people will stop immediately. Just say the word.”
The girls are close enough to hear us. The one in the chair looks straight at me, with round eyes full of tears. “Please,” she whispers, her bottom lip trembling. “Please, I beg of you.”
My stomach lurches. If it wasn’t already empty, I’d be puking my guts out right about now.
I could stop this.
I could spare the girls the pain, and agony.
But if I do…I’d be damning my people to ruin. Everyone involved in Savage King would be dead the moment I open my mouth. Ri, Hojo, Bart, Hel…the children we saved. The fae who fight to protect them and keep them safe every day.
I can’t.
I can’t protect these girls without sacrificing my people.
They’re caught in a crossfire, innocent lives suffering.
And it’s on me.
My fingers spasm again. Reizei watches me. He’s waiting for me to break.
I don’t look at him.
I don’t say anything.
I simply sit and stare ahead of me, at the man lashing the girl chained to the wall. At the girl who sits tied to a chair, balling her eyes out from fear.
I thought I could protect people by being the Savage King. Save them. But now I see it clearly as day. I can’t save them all. Some will suffer as a consequence of me being the Savage King.
I may not be holding that whip. I may not have been the one to chain these poor girls. But my silence is another form of cruelty. One that cuts even deeper than a blade.
Despite that, I press my lips into a thin line and bite my tongue until the taste of copper fills my mouth. I sit and watch Reizei’s man destroy these girls one crack of the whip, one torturous slow cut of a blade, at a time.
At some point, the scent of iron reaches us. It clings to me.
I don’t move.
I don’t speak.
I endure.
Slowly, my mind detaches from the present moment. I float somewhere outside my body, watching myself sit in that chair as a spectator.
I’m frail, skin and bones at this point. The cloth tunic falls from my shoulders like an oversized bag.
It takes me a minute to register the deadly silence that falls around us.
I blink, and I’m back in my body.
The stench of iron is lodged deep in my throat.
“Return her to her cell,” Reizei orders calmly.
My shoulders sag.
It’s over.
This round at least.
My woman handler approaches me and guides me to my feet, holding me by the arm. Slowly, I rise and follow her lead. We walk the long, dim corridors in silence.
Reizei will never stop trying to break me. What if one day, I do?
As long as I live, I’m a liability.
There’s only one way out of this.
If I’m gone, he’s got nothing.
My handler’s steps halt in front of an iron door. She turns the lock and it opens to reveal my cell. Slowly, I enter it. Right as she starts closing the door, I turn to her.
Our eyes lock. She pauses.
“Something sharp. A knife, a fork, a shard of glass or even stone.” My words are barely louder than a whisper. “Please.”
The woman shows no reaction. She blinks and closes the door, leaving me in the darkness.