“Remain outside until I call for you.”
Simon nods and stands perfectly straight against the wall, his hands clasping behind his back.
This room was the first I changed when I became king, summoning every artist from Vitour to completely alter thespace. Still, I hated it almost more than I did the dungeons. Pushing the heavy door open, I glance up at the golden tapestries that hang from the rafters of the arched ceiling as I walk down a rug of the same shade that lays in the center of the room. Gold had been the antithesis of what was there before. My brother, Conrad, could have changed the sigil and the colors when he became king, but he opted to continue the revolting red and white as if it was an honor to do so. I suppose that, to him, it was. He only knew kindness from the king. Only knew the gentle hand of an adoring father. He never saw the other side. I had hoped that Luna might have remembered our conversation about how much I loathed the colors and what they represented when she became queen. That she would recall the late nights we had spent sprawled on a blanket outside, looking up at the stars and wishing on them. In the end, she betrayed me as everyone else had.
My hands slide into my pockets as I reach the first step of the dais, turning to look down at the Mirror placed before it. Its rectangular shape is basic and unassuming, much like how I imagine others feel about the Mortal Kingdom.
It has been decades since I’ve last talked with any ruler through the Mirror. Ironic that, of the four other monarchs that rule in Olymazi, it’ll be the same one that I spoke with over twenty-two years ago that I’m summoning tonight. The same one who I technically still owed a favor to. Clutching Rhea’s handkerchief in my hand, I clear my throat and speak their name out loud.
Chapter Thirty-Five: Rhea
His fist meets myside before I crumple to the floor, the cold wood biting into my knees and palms. Sweat beads at my neck, my magic flaring beneath my skin—pushing and prodding—begging to be released. But what can it do? What canIdo?
“I will make you worthy, Rhea. It would all stop if you just showed me that you understand your role.” He’s so angry—he’s alwayssoangry with me. Tears leak down my cheeks as his fingers yank back on my hair, my sharp yelp of pain lancing the air of the tower. His hazel eyes are illuminated by his fury—like he’s got a flame inside of him that is burning so hot, it needs to destroy anyone else that comes too close as well.
He looms over me, an imposing force that I’m powerless against. His face inches closer, the cruelty not a mask he wears but his truest self. The warmth of his breath hits my face—my nose. His lips are so horrifyingly close, and I try to jerk away, but I can’t. His chuckle is foreboding, reverberating into my bones as lips graze over my own.
“Oh, Rhea darling, the things I can do with you now.”
I gasp for air, launching up to sit, the remnants of my scream still echoing in the room.
“Rhea? What’s wrong?”
I rub my face with my hands, holding them over my eyes as I try to banish any thoughts of my uncle back into whatever dark corners of my mind they leaked from. “I’m sorry,” I mumble against my palms. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
The sheet and comforter rustle as Nox sits up, his arm going around my back while his other hand gently pulls on my wrists until my bleary eyes meet his. “Sunshine, what’s wrong?”
I know I have to reveal how my uncle tortured me in that tower and how he continues to do so in my nightmares. What his plans for me were and how I fear that he won’t ever give up trying to get me back. I thought there would be a perfect time for those confessions, a clear moment where I could reveal all the oily parts of me that are tainted byhim. But I didn’t realize how often I only dreamed of terror.
I turn my body to face him, my hands trembling as I grip the comforter gathered at my waist. Gray and silver-flecked eyes lit only by the scant moonlight inspect me, Nox looking for a wound that can’t be seen.
“I was fifteen the first time it happened.”
I can feel the questions—the confusion—radiating from him, but he doesn’t speak, instead interlacing his fingers with mine and squeezing my hand tightly.
“King Dolian always had a horrific temper that only grew worse the older I got. He rarely visited me before I entered my teenage years, and as a small child, I was too frightened by him to do much but cower on the sofa while he walked around the tower. As I grew more into…myself, apparently looking more like my mother, it seemed to light a fuse within him. He’d yell at me so loudly that my ears would ring, claiming I had to earn my title and become worthy of it. I still don’t know what he means by that, as the title of ruler in the Mortal Kingdom is—was—mine.”
“It still is yours. And if ruling the Mortal Kingdom is something you want—”
“No,” I interrupt, holding his gaze. “That isn’t what this is about.”
I can’t tell if he looks relieved or not by that answer, but he gestures for me to continue.
“It was the day after my birthday, and he had come up with his Trusted as he always did. I don’t remember what I said to set him off, but suddenly, there was a stinging burst of pain on my cheek and I was on the floor. He walked towards me so slowly that I should have had time to brace myself for the next hit, but I was so shocked that he had actually slapped me, that I didn’t do anything to defend myself against the next one. Or the next. Or the next.” Somewhere in my retelling, I start to cry. Shame-filled tears run down my cheeks and plop onto our joined hands. Nox is unnervingly still, only his eyes bouncing back and forth between mine indicating that he’s absorbed everything I’m saying. “I woke up still on the floor, my head aching and my face completely bruised. Nearly every time he visited, the outcome was the same. I sometimes showed defiance, but most of thetime, I let it happen because I knew I couldn’t fight back. That it wouldn’t matter if I did.”
Nox’s eyes darken, and his magic pulses thickly from him. It brushes against me, my own magic surging to answer its pull even with the spelled dragon pendant resting over my heart. He drags a hand through his hair, pulling the dark waves away from his face. “That time I found you, before we escaped the tower, that wasn’t the first time he laid a hand on you?”
“No,” I whisper, another tear falling under Nox’s watch. “I don’t know how many times the king hit me. Nearly seven years of those visits meant that I stopped keeping track when the number grew to a point that I simply didn’t want to know anymore.”
Nox’s breathing gets loud, and his chest rises and falls with the force of it. “Did Alexi know?” I don’t answer, but the slight rounding of my shoulders tells him enough. “Gods, I should have gotten you out so much sooner,” he mumbles more to himself than to me, letting go of my hand to stand from the bed.
“There is more,” I whisper, shrinking under his stormy gaze. “The day you found me, King Dolian had revealed his plans for my future. After Summer Solstice, I was to become his bride and—” My voice breaks, and I can’t force the rest of the words out. The rest of the vile things he said.
Nox doesn’t move, his body rigid with anger.“I shouldn’t have spent so much time fucking around.Everyonefailed you, Rhea. We failed you, and you suffered more than you ever should have.”
I blink, stunned at his words and the sharpness of his tone. “Alexi didn’t fail me,” I respond firmly, but Nox doesn’t hear me.
“I knew Dolian wasvile. When he fucking kissed you after I had been stabbed, I should have unleashed my magic then. I should have let the shadows kill him and then ripped everyone else apart who stood in my way.”
