CHAPTER 23: TWENTY THREE

The world smells like pollen and roses.

I sit up, eyes tired and heavy, glancing about me. I’m in a garden, laid out on a world of flowers, so beautiful, so vibrant, it hurts to look at them.

A small lovely tune draws my attention forward and I stagger on tired feet, following it.

The last thing I remember is falling. The black water swallowing me whole. The fire in my lungs as I clawed at my throat, drowning. The cries of the dying. And through it all, Rafe’s gray eyes, cold as steel, as he let me go.

And at some point, I stopped fight the water. Or the death. I sunk. It was peaceful. I was tired. So... damned... tired...

My feet being me to a father tree, under which Thane sits, hunched over a large monstrosity with white cases that his fingers press into adeptly. "Join me, Valka."

I sink onto the bench beside him. "What is it?"

"A piano," Thane answers, a wistful smile tugging his lips. "It will be popular in centuries to come. This one, I stole on my wanderings through time for my Aurelia. She was a lover of music, you see. She would curl by my side, watching me play for hours. It was on this very instrument Tiber was conceived."

Normally I’d scoff. Say well, that’s disgusting. But the words die. There’s nothing left in me to give.

"Why am I here?" My voice cracks. "I died... didn’t I?"

His eyes twinkle, a dark amethyst in the the sunlight. "The war isn’t yet won, Valka."

"I don’t understand. They lost."

Thane’s form glitches, edges fraying like smoke. Still, he smiles. "I haven’t the time to explain, and where you go from here is a place I cannot follow." He reaches for me, tracing his finger tips along the scar on my cheek. The skin prickles and tingles, a healing warmth cascading over the skin. "I will miss our conversations, wicked child."

The lump in my throat nearly chokes me. "Your curse is lifted."

Joy lights his face. "I have waited an eternity to see her again." He draws back his hand. "Know that you are as much my child as they are. And though, my mother hates the abominations I created, I do not believe anything truly evil can be born from a love so pure. There are two sides to every story, two faces to a coin. Always remember that even the most seemingly foe may yet turn out to be your greatest ally, and your greatest ally may yet plunge a sword into your back. Trust your heart and no one else."

My lips quiver. "Did you know that Rafe would--"

Thane’s palm unfurls. A flame sparks to life in its center, burning gold and crimson. "It was never written that you walked from that field alive. Even had he not let go... you still would have drowned." His grin tilts, half-wicked. "But I’ve always had a taste for mischief. Consider this my rebellion. My gift."

I gasp as his fingers press to my chest. Fire explodes through me, hot and alive, searing my veins.

"Live, Valka," Thane whispers.

****

My lungs convulse. Air tears into me, raw and burning, and I jolt upright with a strangled gasp. Water sputters past my lips and I roll onto my side, only to crash against hard-packed earth.

Pain ricochets through my ribs. Cold gnaws at my bones. I shiver violently, teeth clattering, eyes fluttering open against the stabbing blaze of sunlight overhead.

"Valerian!"

The voice cracks like thunder inside my skull. My head splits with it, my vision swimming, and I clamp my hands to my ears, curling in on myself. Gods. Everything aches. My body feels carved from ice. I’m not supposed to be alive.

"Bless the gods, you’re alive," someone murmurs, too familiar. Leander? No. I must still be dreaming.

"Get yer ass up, fucker! We’ve not got all day."

The snarl is followed by a massive fist clamping around the back of my neck. I choke as I’m wrenched off the ground, my feet dangling, my head snapping back under the crushing weight of that grip. My eyes fly open.

A face looms close. Eyes like bottomless pits. Black, dead, hateful. His breath reeks of blood as he sneers at me like I’m vermin.

My heart stops.

I see it all. A long, staggering line of prisoners bound together by a single rope, their wrists blistered raw, their faces ashen with terror. Wagons creak ahead, soldiers in the enemy’s armor marching ahead. Guards everywhere. All Lycans. All beastly and hateful. And I’ve been taken as one of their prisoners.

Maybe Thane should’ve left me to stay fucking dead.

The giant tosses me to the ground, pointing at a smaller guard who looks just about the same age as me with emerald green eyes and hair that reminds me of cat fur. "No need to waste the wagons on filth. Put chains on him and add him to the line."

"But His Majesty said--"

"You think he gives a rats ass about the cunt that damn near killed us all? Put him in the damned cuffs, Orlo, or I’ll put them on ya."

The boy seems conflicted at the order, looking far ahead with fear stricken on his features. But he grabs me anyway and I follow him, a little too dazed and cold to understand shit.

My eyes lands on a familiar figure as we walk past the row of prisoners--a couple of soldiers and more than a hundred common folk who smell mostly like Omegas. Survivors from the fallen cities, I imagine--and I stop dead.

I wrestle against the Lycan, causing a ruckus to get to Leander. "What are you doing here? I saved you."

His eyes lower to the dirt. His mouth thins, trembling before the words break through. "The General... I saw him kill you." His voice is hoarse, stripped of all arrogance. "I should’ve kept my mouth shut, but they were calling him Silvermoor’s saviour. I confronted him." His throat bobs as he swallows. "He ran me through. Dumped me in the river."

My stomach knots, disbelief roaring inside me. "W-what?!"

"They pulled me out," he cuts in, voice low, broken. He gestures faintly with his shackled wrist toward our captors. "Bound the wound and put me in chains right after."

"Why would they save you?" I ask, unable to stop the question burning in his eyes, too. *They hate us.*

Leander shakes his head. "They were looking for you. I was only lucky he grabbed me first. Because after pulling you out, he left the rest to drown like dogs."

"He?"

His eyes rise to the front, farther than I can see. "Him. Their King."

That heavy hand lands on my neck again, harsh in its assault, and in a matter of seconds, I’m behind the line, ankles and wrists shackled, a bust lip and black eye blooming on my face for glaring too hard at the brute.

I try to be grateful that I’m even alive in the first place. But then, I think of Mother. In our little house. Alone. Looking past row after row of men as they march back home, announcing their victory, like we used to every year, waiting upon my brothers to return.

Salty tears rolls down my cheek.

And yet again, like every year, she’d rip the front of her dress in grief. Because her Valka wouldn’t return.

******

For five days, we walked. At night, we camped, all prisoners huddled together in one tent, fed enough to keep us on our feet the next day. I hardly ever ran into Leander again. Neither did he seek me out. Not under the watchful gazes of the guards who were probably jerking off to the thought of flaying our flesh off our bones.

Trying to escape would be foolish. On the rare chance that we made it away, there was nowhere else to go. We were deep into enemy territory.

It is on the eight day that I notice the man in front of me is dying. At first, I thought it was the filth of travel, but when he falls again, pulling more than half of us down with him, I see it. The festering wound on his leg oozing black. He’s dying on his feet.

"He needs help!" I tell the brute, whose name I’ve learned is Nath. "He won’t last another mile."

He barely gives us a glance. "Stragglers die. There’s too many mouths to feed."

Such is the nature of the response I get from every guard I turn to. I’d known they were cruel, but I didn’t realize just how cruel.

When the male falls again, his frail body wrecked with shivers and his body jerking with a convulsion, I kneel, turning him on his side. "He’ll die--"

A whiplash cracks across my back.

The pain of a whip, the first strike, it is something you cannot unlearn. It burns hotter than fire and for a moment, it paralyzes you. It makes you cry out without ever realising that the sound left your lips.

"No slacking--"

Gods know I’ve always had a death wish.

The second strike comes, and this time, I catch it. My fist clamps down on the burning leather, and with a roar I yank, hard enough that the brute loses balance. He topples off his horse with a surprised bellow.

The line of prisoners stumbles and crashes down with me, but I don’t care. Not when I’m already slamming my knee into his face. Bone crunches. Blood sprays. I twist the whip around his neck and throw my weight behind it, strangling the bastard with the same cruelty he used on me.

Chaos erupts. Shouts, curses, boots pounding toward me. I bare my teeth and fight. My fists launch into the air. My shackles crash against skulls. I scream and kick and thrash like a rabid dog. If they try to pin me, I sink my teeth into their heel until the copper tang of blood fills my mouth.

I don’t stop. I’ve never been one to back out of a fight I know I cannot win. Plus, my aim was never to win the fight.

A clawed hand grips a lock full of my hair, yanking me from the mess. White-hot pain stabs my scalp, but I twist anyway, driving my knuckles into whatever face I can reach.

The crunch this time is not theirs. It’s mine. My hand collapses, bones splintering under the force.

I gasp, staring at my ruined fist, before I notice why everyone has stopped. Why the guards freeze and the prisoners cower in fear, lowering their heads and eyes as though those vehement eyes of violet and gold might fall on them and deem them worthy of his attention. Of the death he breathes.

The King of Ebonheart peers down at me, his fist in my hair holding me so high off the ground, I am face to face with him. The one whose attention I’d sought to gain with my display.

But now, I wish I hadn’t.

That awful, oppressing feeling compresses in my chest as he cocks his head, trailing his gaze down my face, down my tattered armor and the bruises along my skin. With terrifying gentility, he sets me down. A slip of silver hair falls over his broad shoulders encased in black leather.

"H-he needs to be treated," I say with steel in my spine.

The Dark King one glance behind. And a voice smooth as silk and harsh as stone, he murmurs, "See to him, Nath."

A sense of relief washes over me as the wicked brute moves swiftly over the festering body. "He’s already dead, sir."

My heart falls, hateful tears welling in my eyes.

Violet eyes track the tears that run down my cheeks with sick interest. "Feed him to the dogs, then."

A sob crawls up my throat. "You bastard--"

He backhands me.