Chapter 24 What Shall We Build Next? – Vexar
WHAT SHALL WE BUILD NEXT?
VEXAR
AMARA HASN’T MOVED. Only the curve of her spine is visible in the dim light, partially covered by the tattered sheet pulled around her.
A large tattoo colors the skin between her shoulders.
A tattoo I did not know was there. I want to drag my fingers over it.
I want to go to her, hold her, but I know she would refuse me.
She thinks I am too … obedient, that I am blinded by the laws that have held my people together for generations. But she does not know my people. She does not know our laws or our ways.
I drag a claw over the bed frame and watch a flake of metal drift into the shadows below. “Why do you think this system is broken?” I ask.
She sighs, but does not move. “It allows slavery on a large scale. It forces its future rulers to compete in a bloodsport to prove they’re willing to do anything to obtain power. And it’s convinced you that obedience is more important than actual honor.”
“It has convinced me of no such thing.”
Sheets rustle behind me. “You couldn’t tell me if you would let the baby burn, Vexar.”
I say nothing.
“You know how I would have answered? I would have said, ‘Fuck the law, if someone needs help, no matter who they are or what the cost is to me, I’ll help them.’ And the fucked up part about all of this is that I’m pretty sure you would do the same.
Or you would want to at least. But the second I mentioned a ‘law’, you couldn’t give me a straight answer.
” She pauses. “Because you value the law more than anything else.”
Breathing becomes a challenge as I ask, “Why do you say my people have allowed slavery?”
“Your mother told you the rumors were false, right?”
My chest tightens. “She did.”
“And she told you to drop your investigation?”
Another flake of metal falls. “Initially, yes.”
“And she was the head of your empire at the time?”
I fold my hands in my lap and stare at the wall across from me. “Yes.”
The bed shifts. Amara moves closer. “You said no one with the title of ‘Queen’ would have known about the slave trade, but you were wrong.” There’s a beat of silence as her cool hand slides over my shoulder in a comforting caress. “Your mother knew.”
No. “She believed the rumors were spread to sow dissent. That is why she told me to drop the investigation.”
Amara takes her hand off my shoulder, and for the barest of moments, I feel her apprehension and sadness through our connection. It is a slip that she fixes quickly, closing me out again like a threat. Perhaps I am a threat.
“I told you I saw a woman here with Gaius,” she says, her voice heavy and slow, “and that Gaius called her, ‘my Queen’. She was tall. Not as tall as you, but close. She was thin and looked … older. Had long white hair pulled back into a braid. Pale skin. And she was wearing a ring. A big ring. Black with a symbol carved on top, like a couple of x’s and dots. ”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “You are mistaken.”
“I’m just telling you what I saw.”
I stand, heart racing and stomach knotting.
Jagged stone presses into my bare feet.
My mother.
“Vexar,” Amara pleads.
I step away from the bed. Amara’s words are tree sap in the summer. Cloying. Penetrating. Impossible to shake. She should not know what my mother looked like. She should not know about my family sigil.
A barrage of questions overwhelms me. Suspicion spreads.
Was Amara sent here to break me? To destroy my mind?
Is that why Gaius allowed her into my cell?
Gods. Was it a mistake to trust her? Panic settles into my bones.
I have made a mistake. I should not have trusted her so easily.
She has deceived me. She is trying to make me betray my family, my people.
“Open the tether,” I command, spinning to face her.
She flinches back at the volume of my voice.
“Open it!” I yell.
Her expression goes cold, and a moment later, I feel her. But her presence is not passive. The dark eyes of Xelora burn into me as she boldly sifts through my mind, searching, prying, digging. She is invading me. Manipulating me.
“Stop!” I growl as the tendrils of her mind dig their roots into the very foundation of my existence.
There is a flicker of fear behind her eyes, and something inside me shatters.
Stop.
My rage breaks beneath a tsunami of guilt as my hand covers my mouth. I turn away.
What am I doing?
I need to move. Need to cool the fire raging beneath my surface. Need to regain my control. Need to think.
My ears roar.
She speaks again, but this time I cannot hear her. Words no longer register. My heart crashes against my ribcage as terror curls in my gut. My mother…
Discipline and control.
Thoughts race. I glance back at Amara. At her wary eyes. At her concern. What have I done? There is no deceit in her, no desire to control. I want to scream. To run. To break something.
My mother knew.
Memories surface. Moment after moment, coming into question. Lesson after lesson, turning to doubt.
My mother knew. She was here. She lied.
I thought she was honorable, but she lied.
She lied to me, to the Senate, to our people.
And for what? What reason could she have had?
Was she protecting Gaius? Did someone force her?
No. I scrub my hands over my face. That is impossible.
My mother could not be forced; she was monolithic and uncompromising, made of iron and heartwood.
They put her in a box, the voice whispers.
Rage surges. Burning ice courses through my veins. I squat down, gripping my head and panting with the effort of holding back the surge of darkness that threatens to consume me.
She put her in a box.
My mother allowed it to happen. She knew. So many lies.
My fingers dig into the scar that runs from the bottom of my ear to the top of my shoulder.
I wish I could tear it out of my flesh. How many falsehoods did she etch into my skin?
How many lies parade as truths? Did my mother lie about the Zhyrrak?
Or was she just as lost as I am? I cannot know.
I will never know. She is gone, and I will never get the answers I need.
I feel the cold weight of the blade she placed in my hand that day as if it were still there.
The sun-warmed sand beneath my feet, diffusing the scent of sweat into the air.
Leaves rustling in the cool breeze overhead.
My mother’s steady footfalls as she stalked a circle around me, daring me to strike.
I was young, barely the height of her shoulder, but I was already scarred. Already fearless. Already a warrior.
Xelora’s eyes found me that day. She watched from the shadows with a look of confusion as my mother began to speak.
“You are a prince of Vhorath,” my mother said, swinging her blade lazily at her side. “Dreaming of impossible things is for fools, not kings.”
Her blade nicked my forearm. I did not flinch. I focused. Even as blood streaked my arm and settled into my palm. Even as the grip of my blade grew slick. I was a warrior, and Xelora was watching.
Never stop. Never slow.
“The Zhyrrak is dead, but you are not,” my mother continued. “You are meant to be king of a vast empire, and you will not allow your heart to dictate your rule.” She spat the word ‘heart’ like it was a curse. “Discipline and control, Vexar.”
I dodged her next strike, but not her next words.
“You will not give in to petty emotions or love. Emotion serves no purpose, and you will not let it control you. You will learn these lessons and obey them. You will become the king we need. Strong. Imperious. Honorable. You will lead our people and you will be feared.”
Xelora reached out towards me, a pleading look in her eyes. But she could not save me then any more than she can save me now.
I did not want to be feared. I wanted to tell my mother, “No”, but my focus slipped, her words became permanent, and Xelora disappeared as my blood pooled in the sand. And yet, even now, Xelora’s eyes burn into my back as she waits for me to choose.
My mother lied. While I cannot know if she lied about the Zhyrrak, it is clear she lied about many things, and the realization chips away a little more of my resolve.
She lied about the slave trade and the Tusku ships.
About her relationship with Gaius. About the Obligation and the brutality of it. About her health. About my father.
A sickening feeling washes over me. Is Amara right? Am I not the king they wanted me to be? My mother always wanted me to be feared, and yet, I am not. I refused to do the things she asked of me. I refused to play her games and paint myself as a monster.
The ache in my side grows. Is it possible that my mother …? I swallow the lump in my throat. No. She would not. But Gaius would. Gaius did.
A new terror surfaces. Is there more I have missed? More I have ignored? I cannot afford any more errors. The gods have entrusted me with something precious, and I cannot allow it to be destroyed. I must protect her.
My eyes catch on Amara’s pale feet, dangling so close to the floor that has already harmed her once, and my focus shifts.
I drop to my knees and slide forward until my legs are beneath her feet, guarding them from the stone below.
I do not meet her gaze or touch her. I just allow myself to be a barrier.
She may not need my protection, but I give it anyway, and in return, her surprise turns to gratitude.
She is glad I am here. Glad I have not turned from her.
“I am sorry,” I whisper.
Her fingers ghost over my jaw, and I tremble as our connection broadens. There is no condemnation or fear in her heart. Only openness. An embrace of my entire being. The light. The dark. The kind and the cruel. The mistakes and the victories.
She cradles the back of my neck as my hands find her hips, and my cheek settles on her thighs.
Time slows. Sand whispers over the dunes outside. Stone crumbles beneath my knees. The thread between us tightens. And a new, darker reality consumes the old. A reality where I have far fewer allies than I thought.
I am not sure how much time passes, but I am not alone. Amara is here—the only person who exists outside the structures of everything I have ever known; outside my mother’s lies. And yet, my first reaction was to distrust Amara’s words. To distrust the one person who cannot lie to me.
“I am sorry,” I whisper again as I run my thumbs over her soft skin.
Her emotions slip through me, unguarded and unfiltered. I feel every thought, every fear, every desire as it moves through her mind. With her, I do not have to guess; the truth is clear.
“You don’t have to apologize to me,” she says as her fingers slide through my hair and over my scalp.
“I do.” I take a breath. “I yelled at you. I failed you. And I do not want you to fear me.”
“You think I’m scared of you?”
The image of her terror as I demanded she ‘let me in’ flashes through my mind and sends a stabbing pain through my heart. “I saw the fear in your eyes.”
“I wasn’t scared of you. I was scared of the way you were looking at me. It was like you didn’t see me at all. Like you were looking at an enemy.”
Needing to see her face, I lean back and lift my head from her lap.
The dark eyes of Xelora burn into me. Watchful.
Expectant. Then Amara speaks. “I don’t want to be your enemy, but I will be if that’s what it takes to finish Gaius and free everyone in bondage here.
” Her expression is hard and domineering.
“If it were up to me, I wouldn’t stop with the Coliseum.
But it’s not up to me.” She tilts her head to the side. “It’s up to you.”
This version of Amara is new to me. She is powerful. Radiating a strength and determination I have not seen from her yet.
“Tell me,” she says, “if we survive this place, what do you plan to do next?”
As I stare up at her from my kneeling position on the floor, everything seems to fall into place.
Amara is not some traumatized woman who needs a protector.
She is the trickling stream, the quiet, unassuming rivulet that cuts its way through mountains, waiting to become a violent flood.
The Zhyrrak brought us together so I can be her raging storm, not her safe harbor; so I can fill her basins and let her torrents cleanse the places that a storm cannot.
She is Xelora. My Goddess of War. My Queen, and she is asking if I will fight with her.
The wind outside has stopped, as if even the gods are holding their breath, waiting for my answer. After all these years, I still remember her face. It is clear now that this path was carved for me many years ago. My choice has been made for a long while; I just did not know it until now.
The words form and burn through me with a purpose unlike any I have felt before.
“I failed you once, but I will not fail you again. I will be your avenging tempest, your warrior, your champion, your army. I will hunt the monsters who caged you to the ends of the galaxy, carving a scar through this empire until every person in bondage has been freed, every slave-ship has been shredded, and every enslaver has been fed to the void of space. And when we stand over the shattered wreckage, I will ask you, my Queen, ‘What shall I burn next?’”
Amara’s palm finds my chest where the steady, determined march of her heart thuds beneath my skin. “No,” she says, “what shall we build next?”