Chapter 2
MYRA
A guttural scream ripped through Myra's lungs as the wall collapsed. She cowered on the floor, her arms covering her head. Tears filled her eyes, but she could not decipher whether it was because of the dust and smoke surrounding her, the king's nails biting into her arm, or the sight of Kallie disappearing before her eyes.
Myra had betrayed her closest friend.
She had lied to her and pretended to be someone she wasn't.
She, like Kallie, had been strung along by the king for years. The only difference, however, was that Myra was all too aware of the king's hold on her, while Kallie had no idea.
However, Myra had no time to dwell on the consequences of her actions, not while King Domitius was dragging her down the tunnel and away from the collapsed wall.
"Move!" the king shouted through a fit of coughs, his voice dripping in vitriol she had come to know intimately by now.
"What about Kallie?" Myra asked, voice shaking as she looked back at the wall through tear-stained eyes.
Anger and terror poured from the wall as muffled screams seeped through the cracks of the pile of rocks. Yet, beside her, the only emotions coming from the king were determination and fury. Not a trace of fear tainted Myra's tongue.
"She will do what needs to be done. Now, run," the king commanded, his fingers tightening around her forearm so hard it hurt.
With tears streaming down her cheeks, Myra obeyed the king and ran.
She ran despite her body screaming at her to disobey. That alone was enough.
She ran despite her heart shattering.
She ran because there was no other choice .
Torment and agony dripped from the walls of the tunnel, but there was no time to process the emotions spinning around her as the king dragged Myra through the winding halls, past more cells of malnourished animals and corpses.
The creatures Myra had seen on their way into the tunnels as Dani had run after them would haunt Myra's nightmares for the rest of her days.
Since Myra and Kallie arrived in Frenzia, Myra had felt something strange within the castle's walls. A feeling that crept over her skin and clawed at her throat, but she hadn't been able to place it. It lurked in the halls, twisting and turning.
The moment Myra stepped foot in the temple that morning, however, the feeling overtook her, almost forcing her to her knees.
Now, she knew why.
The Frenzians were doing horrible, unspeakable things. Things that Myra couldn't even begin to fathom.
When a humanoid creature with wings and ruby eyes slammed against its cell's bars earlier, Myra had shrieked in horror. She had looked urgently toward the king, yet he only kept running, nearly dragging Myra across the floor behind him as she lost her footing.
She felt no fear, no surprise, no curiosity from him. At first, Myra was astounded. How could the king not have reacted? How could he have kept going after seeing the wild creature? A creature that, by all accounts, should not have existed.
There were many things Myra did not understand about the king, but one thing had always been crystal clear: he was a monster. Of course, seeing another monster would not frighten him. Like calls to like.
Then, the tunnel split into two paths, and the king tugged Myra to the left. And it was the lack of hesitation, the lack of thought in which the king chose which path to take that told Myra everything she needed to know.
The king did not react because he already knew about the creatures beneath the Frenzian temple.
Myra peered at him as he dragged her through the tunnels in the opposite direction from which they had come. "The creatures in the cell--" she began, but the king interrupted before she could continue.
"The Frenzians will create more of them."
"Create? They created them?" Myra asked in horror.
The king scoffed. "Of course. How else would they exist?" he retorted.
Myra's mouth hung open in shock. "They're...they're monsters."
His lips curled into a cruel smile. "Yes, they're magnificent, aren't they?"
But Myra knew then that they were referring to two different things. While the king admired the rabid creatures living in captivity, Myra couldn't help but feel immense empathy for them--for the pain they must have undergone and the cruelty they faced. Only a portion of it lingered in the tunnel, dampening it.
The creatures within the cells were not the monsters; the Frenzians were. The beasts were simply a result of the Frenzians' monstrosity.
As their anguish polluted the air, crawled across her skin, and seeped into her pores, Myra could do nothing but put up her walls and cut off her ability to identify the emotions as best she could. Yet, even as they reached a door at the end of the tunnel and Domitius yanked it open, tossing Myra over the threshold, emotions continued to linger as if she had crawled through a spiderweb and the sticky threads still clung to her flesh.
Myra blinked at the light streaming in from the windows high above.
The tunnel had led them back to the castle, where guards were running across the halls in a frenzy.
King Domitius shouted at the nearest guard, "You, stop!"
The guard jerked to a halt, startled as his eyes bounced from Domitius to Myra. "Your Majesty," he said, bowing. "We've been looking everywhere for you. They just got the doors of the temple open not too long ago. We found King Rian injured from the fray but could not find you nor the princess."
The guard looked at Myra again. He glanced at her blonde hair, a stark contrast to Kallie's brunette waves, and turned back to the king with a furrowed brow. "Have you...have you seen the princess, Your Majesty?"
Domitius merely shook his head. "Sound the alarm and send all soldiers to the streets. My daughter, King Rian's bride, has been taken again."