Chapter 16
Ashley
so long as my faith doesn’t break when I stumble,
I will not be condemned.
Six times, they came back to question me.
Six times, he tied me to that chair and burned me, cut me, threw buckets of water over me again and again and again.
Six times, I screamed until my throat was raw.
When it was over, I fainted, only to wake up slumped in a puddle of my own piss and vomit.
Theron’s non-stop questions aren’t about the death of my father.
He keeps asking me about this ritual. Just my luck to be abducted by a magic, murderous cult.
Every time I come to, their Captain is there, perched on that damn chair like a gargoyle, just watching me.
He doesn’t talk. Does he sleep? I don’t give a shit anyway.
Between blackouts, I catch glimpses of that little bottle.
They hold it up to his nose and make him breathe it in.
Maybe that’s where he gets his magic from.
Maybe that’s where he got the strength to break two of my fingers.
He did it so quickly it didn’t even register until I heard the crunch of my bone and screamed so loudly it rattled my own skull.
I wonder if I had imagined it before, when his eyes blazed, and I felt that rush in my lungs.
It was something like breathing for the first time.
Like a sunset and a sunrise. Dawn and dusk.
The thrill of winter and the burn of the sun.
But it seems like my mind is trying to cope with whatever is happening to me by making shit up.
They bring me food here and there, if you can even call it that.
Mouldy bread and a cup of something watery and herby.
One day, I crawled to the tray from across my cell, the hot stone scraping my knees and elbows.
By the time I reached it, my arms shook so violently I could barely lift the bread.
I tried pulling apart the crust, but it was too hard, and my broken fingers screamed in protest. I can’t do this for much longer.
I thought I had problems before, but right now, I would give absolutely anything for my biggest issue to be running out of weed.
And I don’t see it getting any better. Because no matter how many times they ask, no matter how many ways they twist their questions or try to catch me out, my story isn’t going to change.
No one had trained me or hid me. Yes, I saw my dad’s magic.
And yes, before he died, he started to lose his mind.
He’d see things that weren’t there, talk to people who didn’t exist. Then the fire happened, and yes, it was my magic that caused it.
The flames were jet black. That is the story, and that is the truth.
But the one thing that burns me more than their Captain’s smoke is that they know my name.
My real name. I’d buried it so deep I sometimes forgot it myself.
Agni. Hearing it from their mouths makes my blood run cold; it’s not theirs to say.
I haven’t heard it spoken since that night the fire swallowed everything I knew.
I can still feel the heat nipping at my skin.
And then… his arms. A stranger’s arms, lifting me out of the dark flames, cradling me like I was something precious.
He smelled like the forest. Woody and earthy and wild.
“What’s your name?” The police kept asking me after the stranger handed me over.
I stayed silent all the way to the care home.
There were no records of me at all, no birth certificate, no proof that I had even existed before that night.
And every time someone asked me my name, I tried to think of something to say that wasn’t Agni.
That name belonged to my parents’ screams, to their last breaths.
And there it would stay. So, when they asked me again, I just blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“Ashley.”
I think it was because it rhymes. I was nine, what the hell did I know?
It worked, though. The lady with the slick bun and scar across her left eye wrote it down, and just like that, I became someone else.
But now, hearing that name thrown at me like a fucking grenade, I feel like that scared little girl all over again.
The girl who burned her world down and hates herself every day for it.
The Captain’s angular face is hollow and cold.
His beard scruffy and his wings weak wisps of black smoke trickling from his shoulder blades.
I study the hardened lines of his face. What has he been through to become this?
To treat someone this way and feel nothing?
I’m about to say something to him, but his ear twitches slightly.
It’s such a tiny movement, but with nothing else to look at down here, I’m learning him.
Immense pressure builds in my chest. It means they’re coming.
The lock clicks. It’s Theron. I have learned to fear him, though it’s a different kind of fear than the one I feel for Vale.
Vale is horrible, but he has limits. He sticks mostly to spectating from the door, eyeing me grimly.
He is the one who eventually says enough is enough, though most of the time, Theron doesn’t listen.
Sometimes I see a sadness in his eyes. But what the hell am I supposed to do with his pity? Frame it?
“Captain.”
I flinch as if squeezing my eyes tight and curling into a ball will make it all go away, but smoke carries me to the chair.
Today it’s a little gentler, maybe he’s tired, or maybe he’s saving his strength for whatever he’s about to do to me.
I ball my good hand into a fist, trying to stop the shake, but it doesn’t work; my entire body trembles like I’m standing naked in a snowstorm.
“Princess, we’re going to conduct some experiments on you.” Theron’s grin is borderline feral. He starts to pace, the rough brown papers in his fist rustling.
“As you know, rumour said you were dead. Rumour being, your uncle.”
I press my tongue to the roof of my dry mouth before I gag.
This “all-powerful King.” My uncle. Apparently, he faked my death and kept me out of reach so no one would look for me and ruin his little dictatorship.
Because if they’re ever free, they aren’t subjects anymore.
They’re equals. And if there’s one thing Kings don’t survive, it’s equality.
“And you are the key to releasing us from this prison. Along with Captain Kaed here — your mate.” His eyes flick to the chair.
Mate? We are not and never will be friends.
“We’re unsure how the ritual works yet since Cinder Cliffs refuse to give up the information.
But we have theories.” He waves the stack of crumpled papers.
“And we’re going to test them all, using every last drop of your blood if we must. Some believe you must choose to free us, but that’s a fallacy.
” Spit flies from his mouth as something manic takes over his eyes.
“You will free us. It is written. And it will take your life. Whether you like it or not.”
The cell spins around me at the promises falling from his thin lips, my breath comes in short, panicked gasps, I wish I had it in me to resist and not give him the satisfaction of seeing my fear, but my pride is in Raph’s apartment somewhere.
I had imagined this ritual as some kind of hocus pocus spell I have to recite.
But no, I have been brought here to suffer and die.
I just want to go home. Theron’s voice pulls me from my panicked thoughts.
“Captain. Begin.”