Chapter 13
MYRA
The walls were crying, and Myra could do nothing about it besides sit there with her head against the floor as she wrapped her feeble arms around her knees.
When she had initially agreed to assist the king, Myra had never imagined that she would be right back where she started nine years later. So much had changed since then, yet so much remained the same.
Among the shadows within the cell, a stench that Myra couldn't shake slithered across her skin. No matter how much she tried to rub it off, the horrid residue of the dungeons stuck to her flesh. Iron, moss, and something putrid filled the air of the cell just as it had before.
As she sat, the insides of her stomach gnawed at her, yet she had no desire to consume the half-eaten porridge that sat abandoned. The portion she had managed to eat earlier, she retched soon after.
Throughout the day, the guards came and went, sliding her meals through a small compartment at the bottom of the cell door. Occasionally, they came inside, poking her with needles to take her blood and check her vitals.
Every time a guard pried the small door open, the torchlight spread across the floor, illuminating the blood that stained them.
As soon as the door closed and the cell became swathed in shadow once more, the stains faded into the stone. Yet, while the darkness might have hidden them, it couldn't erase the anguish that seeped up through the ground and soaked her skin.
Since she had been in his employ, Myra had manipulated Kallie's emotions to the king's will.
In the beginning, Kallie was no more than a stranger. The guilt, although present, was minimal and a consequence Myra would easily swallow if it meant protecting her brother.
But then, as the years wore on, Myra never saw Mynhos.
Whenever Myra asked about her brother, the king would supply some elaborate excuse that Myra didn't dare question. And perhaps that was her downfall: never asking questions, never seeking the answers she wished.
Instead, she naively obeyed. Because as long as she never made the king mad, she and her brother would be set free one day.
But that day never came, had it?
At the time, Myra believed the choice she had made was the safest one--the right one.
She couldn't have been more wrong.
Her brother's supposed safety was only a bargaining chip.
And as Myra sat in the cell, she wished she could justify her actions solely in the pursuit of her brother's freedom. But at some point over the years, she had begun to question Mynhos's survival. Years went by, and she never saw him.
Still, she had continued to manipulate Kallie. Perhaps she continued because Myra didn't wish to anger the king out of fear that he would not only hurt Myra but Kallie as well.
Because despite knowing she shouldn't, Myra had befriended Kallie.
Myra had tried to stay away, of course. She had tried to distance herself. Yet when Kallie opened up to someone, it was as if she was letting them in on a secret--one that Myra desperately wanted and craved while alone in the castle.
Their friendship was one she had not predicted, but one she had learned to cherish. As a result, she tried to do what she thought best.
She did not wish for Kallie to suffer.
There were several mornings when Myra witnessed the bruises marking Kallie's skin and the haunted expression she wore after spending an evening training with the king. Kallie would startle at the smallest of noises or an unexpected touch.
Myra had thought that by altering Kallie's emotions and taking away the pain, she was helping her friend. When Myra erased the pain, Kallie's smile returned, the jumpiness vanished, and the bruises soon disappeared. But not all suffering could so easily be wiped away.
As time passed, fissures appeared in the careful tapestry Myra had woven within Kallie's mind. Stitches unraveled, holes appeared, and threads became too fragile. All it took was one misstep, one event, one training session with the king to undo Myra's work. But now that the tapestry was so tightly crafted, Myra feared there was no undoing it. Not without the risk of completely destroying Kallie's mind.
Especially not after what Myra had done to Kallie the night before the wedding.
Myra had completely wiped Kallie's emotions and replaced them with the false ones that Domitius had ordered Myra to weave together.
Therefore, unless Myra wanted to face the king's wrath and doom both of their lives, Kallie's emotions had to stay in check.
The king would have killed Myra if she failed and Kallie disobeyed him. But first, he would have tortured Kallie in front of her, forcing Myra to watch the consequences of her failure unfold. Myra had lost too many people to let that happen again.
Forcing herself to believe it was better than the alternative, Myra kept helping hide Domitius's true self. She continued to enable the cycle.
Myra now knew that living in ignorance only delayed the inevitable. Now, Myra had all the time in the world to rethink the choices she had made to get to this point.
One evening, as Myra stewed in her guilt inside the dark, damp cell, a couple of guards passed by, their low, muffled voices seeping into the room. Myra crawled over to the cell door and pressed an ear against it.
"Has there been any word about the princess?" one of the men asked.
Myra inhaled sharply as she waited for the other guard's response.
"No, nothing," another guard said. "The Frenzians have sent soldiers in search of the princess, but none have been successful in their quest."
"I heard one of the squadrons was completely slaughtered at the edge of the forest; only their bones were left."
"This is one time I am grateful for having this post. I would rather deal with the prisoners and traitors than deal with whatever creature ripped those soldiers to shreds."
Myra didn't know if she should be relieved or not that the king had failed to retrieve Kallie thus far. If Kallie remained missing, Domitius would not be able to use her. The king had always been so confident about his success, but the seer suggested that he could fail.
And if Myra could not escape the king's hold, maybe Kallie could. One of them deserved freedom, at the very least.
Her thoughts turned to her brother.
She didn't know how much time had gone by since she had heard her brother's screams.
She should have found solace in the fact that Mynhos was alive.
That truth gave Myra little reprieve, though.
While the king may have kept her brother alive while she did his bidding, it did not make Myra feel any better.
What kind of life must Mynhos have been living over the years? Was he, too, locked in one of these cells? Had he been here the entire time, living in the dungeon while Myra felt the sun kiss her cheeks?
Did the brother she once knew even still exist?
When Myra had seen him, Mynhos had refused to look at her. Did he even recognize her?
It had been nine years since Myra had last seen him. Many things had changed since then. He was only a boy, no more than four years old when they were first captured. When the king had taken them captive and killed their parents, Myra had promised that they would escape this place as she held her brother close and as his tears fell upon the marble floors of the throne room.
She could only imagine how much he hated her now.
If he had lived in the dungeons for the entire time, Myra would not have blamed him for hating her.
These days, she hated herself, too.
After everything she had done and the betrayal that coated her hands, Myra was no longer a person she even recognized.
Myra forced her gaze away from the shadows.
She tried to ignore everything else: the stench, the ache in her limbs, the iciness coating her fingers. Within the cracks of the ceiling, she tried to find an ounce of sunlight seeping into the cell. Anything that she could latch onto.
But all around her, death bloomed, and it had long since spread its infestation, bleeding into the cotton of her dress, latching onto her skin, and melting into her bloodstream.
So, the walls continued to cry, and Myra sat there, holding back her tears despite no one being able to hear her sobs.