Chapter 2
Aurora
Aurora slipped the jewelled bracelets off her wrists, the emeralds winking in the dim firelight.
The oppressive heat of the tent closed in around her, filling her lungs with lead weights and her mind with horror.
She remembered the agony, the spikes that tore through her flesh and ripped visions from her mind.
Waking from one nightmare into another, her wrist a mangled, fiery mess.
The screams she couldn’t hold back as her blood soaked the ground under her.
Heart thundering in her ears, she prayed for the fortitude not to scream.
Orithyia had warned her that if she couldn’t endure the pain with stoicism, no matter what visions she had for the benefit of the Viridian soldiers and nobles, they would see her as weak.
And weak rulers were not to be respected but toyed with.
Stentor’s eyes gleamed with excitement.
“Will the vision be of my future?” he asked.
“There’s no way to know. An oracle is said not to be able to choose the future they see,” Orithyia replied. “But foreknowledge of any kind is exceedingly valuable to a general, is it not?”
Aurora’s visions had proved uniformly terrible.
Not for the first time, she worried this wasn’t the wisest course.
Pain aside, what if she saw something he didn’t like?
The mind’s eye stone would project everything she saw.
There would be no chance for subterfuge.
What if she revealed glimpses of her own future that put her at a disadvantage?
Whatever her concerns though, there was no going back now.
The nobles and soldiers had been vying with each other all day to decide who would receive the first vision.
Clerics took Aurora’s jewellery from her and provided an armed, low-backed seat, one much too high for her small frame. The high priestess gave her the mind’s eye stone as a waiting cleric took the spiked cuff from its pedestal and approached her.
Aurora braced for the agony when the flap of the tent was torn aside. A blast of cooler, wet air raised the hair on the back of her neck.
“So, this is where my wife has been hiding?”
A shiver stole down Aurora’s spine at the venom in the king’s tone.
The cleric with the cuff backed away, a wary look in their eye. Aurora sat still as a statue, refusing to turn her head to look at him.
“Her Highness has chosen to partake of my hospitality,” Orithyia answered.
The king prowled around the tent, dismissing the furnishings and scowling at everything he laid his golden eyes on. He plucked at the cloth atop a small table laden with fruit and cured meats, a look of disgust twisting his mouth.
“Has she now? Well, then I’m sorry to deprive her of your warm welcome, Your Holiness. I have need of her in my quarters.”
Aurora’s cheeks heated with shame. He strode behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder, his intimidation a palpable presence at her back. How she wished for her riding crop now.
“I’m certain you can take care of your own needs, Your Majesty,” Aurora replied, shrugging her shoulder from his grasp.
“Perhaps you can stay to witness Her Highness’ visions, Your Majesty,” Orithyia said, a goading smile on her face.
“Is that what she’s doing here?” the king asked, his voice cold.
Theron slid his hand up to Aurora’s neck.
She stilled, fearful of what he might do.
No one moved to defend her as his fingers curled around her throat like a cage.
Those fingers never pressed into her skin save for his calloused thumb stroking the edge of her jaw, but his threat, his claim, was made obvious.
Stentor advanced.
Theron must have glared then, because the general backed up, his hand moving to a sword that was no longer strapped at his hip. Only the paladins were permitted weapons in the presence of the high priestess. The other clerics retreated, while the paladins moved to stand by Orithyia’s side.
Aurora could feel the heat of him like a brand, the menace and the promise of his touch. She swallowed her trepidations as best she could. This was his strategy, his arena. Fear, violence, threats—they were how he forced others to play the games he knew he could win.
“I agreed to give a vision,” Aurora replied.
He slid around her chair and advanced on the cleric holding the cuff. The king snatched it from their hands and examined it in the dim light of the brazier.
“Tell me, Your Holiness, what is this, and why was your cleric about to place it on my wife?”
That’s right, he hadn’t been there the day she’d had her vision in Boreas’ throne room. But a man of violence knew an implement of it with a glance.
“It is a device which compels one’s magic to surface. Her Highness requested a means to provide visions to her allies. I assure you, it is perfectly safe, as Her Highness has already worn it once before in Boreas,” Orithyia replied.
His eyes flared with fury, there and gone in a heartbeat, before a cunning smile turned up the corners of his lips. Dread turned her insides to jelly.
“Intriguing. Perhaps General Stentor would be so kind as to demonstrate the effects?”
“I hardly think that’s necessary,” Stentor retorted.
The king’s magic flooded the tent, sinking its tendrils into every person present. Aurora’s breath left her on a gasp, waiting for him to hurt them all. And yet he didn’t, merely allowing it to linger threateningly.
“Put. It. On.”
Theron tossed the cuff at Stentor’s feet.
“Not even if you broke every bone in my body,” Stentor snarled back.
And yet he expected Aurora to bear it with nary a whimper?
“I can arrange that.” The king raised a crimson brow and snapped his fingers.
Several of the Aurean soldiers entered the tent.
Raising his chin at the general, they surrounded him, grabbing him and wrestling him to his knees.
With the merest twitch of the king’s golden eye, Stentor’s rib broke, a deep, reverberating crack.
Stentor doubled over with a sharp curse and a groan.
“My army is outside,” Stentor hissed.
Theron chuckled coldly.
“Flora’s army is outside. You’re here to get back into her good graces, not start a war before she has an excuse to claim the Dragon’s Flank. If I kill you now, I won’t even owe your queen the pittance your life is worth given what you intended to do to my wife.”
“How dare you commit violence before the high priestess!” a paladin shouted.
“I dare because Her Holiness dared,” the king snarled back. “Put it on, Stentor.”
“Fuck you,” the general growled.
Aurora flinched as the next break had the general screaming in agony and coughing up blood.
Her hands curled around the arms of her chair.
The high priestess had made it sound so simple, to rise above the king’s games.
But what was she meant to do when he was torturing a man before her?
She looked to Orithyia for help, but the high priestess watched on dispassionately.
Was that what she was supposed to do? To drain herself of feeling?
“I won’t ask again,” the king warned. “Put it on yourself, or I’ll have it done for you.”
“I’ll burn you to ash.” The general spit blood at the king’s feet, his head hanging.
The king knelt by Stentor and gripped his jaw in his hand. Stentor fought the hold, but it was no use. Then he turned the general’s head to face the high priestess.
Aurora’s chest tightened. She’d not known what magic the general possessed, but if Stentor used fire in this confined space, he would no doubt harm everyone inside—the high priestess included. Divine punishment was certain to follow.
“I dare you to try,” the king chuckled, releasing Stentor with a flick of his wrist before standing and brushing off. “So, what will it be?”
The general eyed the device with as much unease as Aurora had felt.
The soldiers freed him and stood back as Stentor reached for the device and placed it on his wrist. The moment it locked around him, the spikes sank into his flesh.
He resisted a scream, his eyes wide and his breathing ragged as fire engulfed him, burning his clothes and leathers to ash.
The general controlled the flames as best he could, but the clerics raced about putting out errant sparks while the paladins surrounded the high priestess.
The heat in the tent stung Aurora’s exposed skin as sweat rolled down her in rivulets.
Through it all, the king locked eyes with Aurora.
He was telling her he could do as he pleased, hurt whoever he wished, ruin her plans whenever he felt the mood take him.
He didn’t need words to tell her that he would strike down any who made themselves her ally.
No matter if they were a Viridian general or a high priestess—the king of Aureum would punish them all.
Stentor tore off the cuff, his magic extinguished as he cradled his mangled arm.
Theron grabbed Stentor’s arm and raised it high for inspection, dragging the general to his feet in spite of his nakedness and injuries.
“Is this the fate you had in store for the wife of a king, General? Did you intend to maim someone who belongs to me?” the king asked.
The general paled, his lips pressed into a mulish line. The king threw him to the ground and turned his eyes on Orithyia.
“And you, High Priestess? Did you also plan to maim the wife of a king?”
“Her Highness chose this method of her own free volition. Do not attempt to play these games here. I know the laws better than any.”
What laws? Aurora’s heart constricted in fear. He was playing a game she didn’t even know the rules to.
“Then you know I’m well within my rights to punish any who seek to harm her in whatever way I see fit. If you were not a high priestess, I would have you flogged.”
The paladins were about to advance when Orithyia held up her hand.
“Self-harm is not against the law for a member of a royal house.”