Chapter 24 #3
“He’s currently being tortured in my fighting pits. He makes a good target for practice.” His chuckle echoes around the room, making me feel violently sick. He slams the door behind him, leaving me in the cold dark once more.
For a long moment, I don’t move. I’m not sure I can.
My pulse is hammering so hard it feels like the only sound in existence.
But then it all bubbles to the surface, the sound tearing out of me.
A hoarse, broken scream that ricochets as I throw my head back, striking the stone wall behind me with a dull, hollow crack.
Pain explodes across my skull, but I welcome it.
It’s something solid and real. It’s something that proves I’m still here and not trapped in another one of those nightmares I can never wake from.
Although, I’m not sure if I’d rather have the nightmare right now.
The ache blooms downward, anchoring me to the brutal reality of cold stone, iron, and fear. I drag in a shaky breath and reach inward, searching for the familiar heat beneath my skin. That steady, living thrum of flame that has never failed me before.
I try to summon my flame, but nothing answers.
The power that usually hums beneath my skin feels distant.
Silent and smothered. He’s clearly used more drugs on me since I’ve been out.
But nothing answers. Where there should be warmth, there is only emptiness.
A vast, muffled silence, as though my power has been buried beneath layers and layers of ice.
I push harder, straining until spots dance across my vision, but the result is the same.
He must have drugged me again while I was unconscious—something stronger this time. Something designed not just to weaken me, but to sever me from what makes me dangerous. From what makes me me.
It’s fine. This is fine. Aran and Velentha will know something’s wrong.
They’ll find me. I won’t die here. I can’t die here.
But Maelkar. The thought of him in those pits, bleeding, being torn apart for Kaelith’s amusement.
He came here to help me, and now he’s another person dragged into this.
They’re using him as target practice. Hurting him. Over and over.
Another tear rolls down my cheek. This is all my fault.
I should’ve come alone. They tried to warn me that this didn’t seem right.
I should’ve known Kaelith was a snake. I should’ve seen this coming.
But once again, I let my heart speak for me instead of my head.
And now someone else I care for is in danger because of me.
Maelkar’s words suddenly spring to mind. “Your fire? That’s not even half of what you can do. Not if you’ve still got Dasmyrin’s gifts in you.” Dasmyrin’s gift. Creation itself. The shaping of matter, the weaving of worlds. If she could do it, maybe I can too.
I close my eyes, forcing myself to focus, to imagine the metal above me softening, melting, bending away.
I picture it like liquid silver, running off my skin.
But when I open my eyes again, looking up at my bound arms, the metal remains the same.
“Shit,” I mutter to myself. “Of course it’s not going to work, dumbass. Your power isn’t working.”
I sag against the wall, the fight draining out of me in a slow, miserable collapse. There has to be a way. There has to be. I can’t stay here, trapped and useless, waiting for whatever Kaelith decides to do next. Waiting to die.
I’m not useless. I’m the Queen of Hell.
The thought sparks weakly, a flicker of defiance.
But it gutters almost immediately. Because I am.
I am useless. Strung up like an animal, stripped of my power, reduced to nothing but skin and bone and fear.
I’m not some ancient warrior queen forged in battle.
I’m not a goddess. I’m not even particularly brave.
I’m just a girl. A mortal girl who’s playing dress up in a crown that never truly belonged to her.
I haven’t fought in wars. I haven’t commanded armies.
I haven’t earned this power through blood and strategy and sacrifice the way real rulers do.
The only victories I’ve ever won were on polished gym floors, under bright lights with a plastic smile and a routine memorised down to the second.
Cheerleading competitions. That’s the only thing I have ever freaking won.
Gods. The absurdity of it makes my chest ache.
What kind of queen gets captured this easily? What kind of saviour can’t even save herself? Korithax chose me—everyone chose me—and this is what they got. A fraud. A liability. Someone who breaks instead of bends.
I squeeze my eyes shut, my throat tight with the shame that burns hotter than fear.
I’m a failure. A pretender. And for the first time since this began, I genuinely don’t know how I’m supposed to get out of this alive.
The only thing I do know, is that I never deserved the title of queen.
Korithax was right from the start. I’m just a weak, pathetic mortal.