“But something else happened as he pursued this knowledge. He discovered a certain kind of joy in pushing someone to their limits. Each individual had a breaking point, and once they were past that, well, they’d tell you anything if it meant finding relief.”
He draws in a deep breath as he turns his head towards me. Even with the silver light from outside cutting a line over his face, his dark eyes don’t lookmage. But I knew there were those in the Mage Kingdom who didn’t have gray eyes. Cass, Daje, and Councilman Arav to name a few. But Simon… I swallow the bile that rises in my throat. Gods above, the reason I awoke without evidence after our encounters wasn’t because they were dreams. It’s because Simonhealedme of all that he was doing. Hehealedme. “You’re mage,” I grit out.
He smiles as he moves to that metal tray again, fingers trailing over the instruments there. He ignores my question. “As you might imagine, finding subjects to experiment on was a task all its own. It’s why I became so knowledgeable of the plant life around me. It’s harder to convince someone by getting them drunk or cornering them in an alley, but when I can slip something in their drink so that they can’t fight back? Well”—he plucks a thin steelpick—“that’s an entirely different sense of euphoria.”
“This is madness,” I whisper, trying to mask my fear but failing when my voice breaks. “If the king finds out what you are doing to me, that you aremage—”
“Iam the king’s greatest asset!” he screams, rushing to me between one blink and the next, his profile outlined green from hismagic. His lips peel back in a snarl, white teeth flashing as he hovers over me. “I fled here when my own kingdom tried to execute me. When they turned my own family againstme. KingSadryn did not evenconsiderseeing how my research could help our people!”
A sob claws its way up my throat, a leaden feeling blanketing me and my useless limbs.
“I settled in Vitour first, making a name for myself because of my knowledge with plants. My reputation earned me jobs from wealthier clients, greedy noblemen and women looking for tinctures that played to their vanity until one day, one of the males joked about wishing to kill his wife without being caught. Of course, I knew exactly how to do it. How to make it look like she had simply passed away from something unknown. Thus, a different reputation was born, one that eventually earned me council with the king.” Simon stands tall, his jaw set tightly as he looks down at me. “King Dolian offered me a place at his side if I could prove to him my worth. So I did. First by quietly poisoning those who opposed him. Then, by capturing and torturing any who dared to threaten his rule as king. I have never let him down with the intelligence I gather or by my methods, andyouwill not be the thing that breaks that streak.”
“I will tell the king,” I rasp, a final plea of desperation. King Dolian harbors a twisted affection for me. I can use it, exploit it, to get him tobelieveme.
“I will give you one more chance, Lady Rhea, and then I will move on to morepersuasivemeasures.” He presses the tip of the pick into my arm, not enough to cut through skin but enough to serve as a warning that he will. “Tell me everything your magic can do and what the Mage Kingdom was using it for.”
A whimper escapes me—one that I can’t hold in as I use precious seconds to sink into that dark, imaginary place before he continues his torture. I scramble as I push everything I have to fight for to the forefront of my mind like a shield that I can hide behind. The air stirs, and I think of Cass and his playful smirk. How his eyes—so beautiful and clear—always held mirth.Green magic swirls around Simon, and he sends it to my door, sealing the edges. I scream as the pick slams into my arm, easily shredding through skin and muscle and bone until I justknowit is protruding from the other side. A sickening squelch sounds when he yanks it back out.
“What are the mages doing with someone like you? Someone as powerful as Prince Nox?” His hand comes down again, and I don’t hear the noise I make beyond the ringing of my ears.
Elora. I picture her sly smile and her boisterous laugh. The way she reads a book with her entire body hunched over it as if she can dive into the pages themselves. Blood pools beneath my arm, spreading slowly towards my back. I think of her kindness, of how she immediately believed me when I told her how I came to the Mage Kingdom. Of how she held the secret without question.
Simon grips my chin, forcing my gaze to his. Anger dances within them, visible even in the dark, but that’s not all. Determination flickers in their depths, and that is far more frightening. “What else can your magic do?” He jerks the metal still lodged in my arm, and my breath is robbed from me as a primal noise ravages my throat. “Tell me!”
I retreat deeper into my mind, passing memories of Sadryn and Alexandria and their utter joy when we announced our engagement. Of Daje’s proud expression when we sparred and I took him down. I pass by all the small moments in my brief time away from the king, every new experience that was beginning to shape the kind of woman I might become. And then I stop at the sight of sparkling gray and silver eyes. At the smirk of his perfect mouth and the wave of his onyx hair. Everything narrows down to the image of Nox—not as my lover or my friend. Not as my guard or my fiancé or my prince. But as my home. My safety.
Simon’s breaths grow heavy, and he releases my chin and pulls the pick out, tossing it onto the tray with a wetclang.“Perhaps I was unclear,” he says, flashing his magic as he moves his palms over my arm. Healing me again. “But I take pleasure in dragging this out. And I have nowhere else to be.”
My gaze returns to the ceiling as his magic eventually fades. All the while, I savor that image of Nox. Me curled into his embrace. The way my heart would steady to match the beat of his. Simon continues his ministrations, asking the same questions and healing me right when I’m on the verge of passing out. Then the torture begins again, a new instrument plucked from the tray every time.
Something fractures deep within me the later into the night we go, and when Simon heals me for the final time as the sun is beginning to rise, I know that the damage he’s done is the kind that cannot be mended. Still, I find myself using the last dredges of my defiance, unwilling to give that new crack in the foundation of my soul a name. To feel it is one thing, but to acknowledge the thoughts that it ushers in? The ones that scream thattruefreedom is only one well-placed slice of a blade away? That terrifies me more than anything Simon or the king or the sirens can do. Because I can block them from my mind, hard as it is, but my own voice? I don’t know if I am strong enough to ignore that, and its quiet offer of sweet release has never been so tempting.
Chapter Forty-Five: Rhea
WeareleavingforVitour today.Those weren’t just nightmares.I’m finally returning to a place where Nox can find me.Were they all real?Perhaps I can find a way to break free of the king there.How many times did Simon heal me only to torture me again?
My thoughts volley back and forth as I stand beneath the warm water of the shower, my heart racing in my chest. I look down over my body, fingers tracing lightly over the scabbed brand, its tenderness beneath the water mild. My gaze dropslower, to my thighs and then my knees, staring at the smooth skin as my chest tightens. For weeks, nightmares had haunted me. Ones that were anchored around Simon and my torture, but also ones where it was the king. Had those been real too?
I bring my fingers to my temples, squinting my eyes shut against the ache that throbs between them. I hadn’t slept at all, enduring hours of Simon’s questions and subsequent inflictions of pain. And I had no evidence to show for it. Nothing that I could take to the king to prove that his advisor was lying to him. That he was torturing me.
I turn my head to look out the small window in the bathroom, its angle showing only the clear blue sky. Maybe King Dolian might have helped me without proof, but I had likely sunken that ship after what I told him on the carriage ride from the beach. Now I can’t imagine he will believeanythingI say. I should have been smarter in my approach, playing someone more pliant to get the king to let his guard down instead of openly defying him when I could. But how could I suddenly be expected to heel when every part of me wanted to lash out like a rabid animal? When I could feel so acutely the weight of the invisible chains that bound me? Then again, so much of myself had already been sacrificed to the king on behalf of others. Inspiteof my wants and desires. What was another piece added to the pile?
With a reluctant sigh, I turn the water off and exit the shower, wrapping a towel around myself before heading to the door. Eve is laying out a dress for me on the freshly made bed, her mouth is pinched into a forced smile as she turns to face me. I didn’t know exactly how long Simon had been gone before she arrived in my room, only that I had been laying unmoving for so long that I didn’t realize the paralytic he had given me had worn off.
“How are you feeling?”
I shrug, walking to the armoire to grab a chemise and some undergarments before rounding the bed to stand in front of the dress. I stare down at the comforter, at how it fits perfectly over the bed, hiding what occurred the night before. Not that there would be evidence of how I bled. Before Simon left, he had used his magic tomoveme, revealing a plastic lining that prevented any blood from seeping through to the sheets. It had hidden what he was doing just as easily as his magic did. Then he removed the dress I was wearing and the garments beneath, hardly sparing me a glance before putting a new chemise on me and laying me back on the bed. Truly as if I had merely dreamed the events. “I’m fine.”
“Lady Rhea, are you injured?” I look over my shoulder to where Eve has moved to a bundle of fabric on the floor. My bedsheets, I realize. She sifts through them, grabbing one and lifting it up as she looks at me. It takes me a moment to answer her, a quick shake of my head all I’m able to give. But I can tell she doesn’t believe me, and when she holds the sheet up, her brows pinched in concentration, I see why. Crimson dots the cream fabric. Eve asks again if I’m alright, but all I can do is stare at those red stains, that hollow feeling inside of me yawning wider.
Leaning against the railing that edges the deck, I look out over the ocean, its calmer waters gleaming beneath a layer of the Spell that Xander told me goes down several feet past the surface. The sun is warm above me, countering the cold air that grazes my skin. Eve had accompanied me on the ship, showing me to my room which was unfortunately near King Dolian’s. The latter had not so much aslookedat me while we boarded, instead going right into a private meeting with Xander andSimon. It was all fine by me, the less attention he gave me, the better.
But eventually, he had summoned Eve, the handmaiden’s fingers curling in on her apron as she offered me a small smile before leaving. I wondered what the king might need from her for a few moments before I collapsed onto the soft bed that smelled of lavender and clean linens andfinallydrifted off into sleep. To my relief, it had been completely dreamless, and when I woke, I wandered back up to the deck, intent to spend as much time as possible outside of my own head.
Bootsteps sound behind me, and I tense, looking over my shoulder only to see Xander walking in my direction. He’s armorless, though a golden sword shines at his hip and a small dagger is strapped to his thigh. He stops a few feet away from me, turning so that his back is to the ocean as he leans against the railing and folds his arms over his chest. “How are you holding up?” He doesn’t look at me when he asks the question, instead studying the deck around us. I move to get closer to him so we can engage in anormalconversation, but Xander shakes his head subtly. “Better it appears we aren’t talking to each other in case someone reports it.”
“Would it be odd for the king’s commander to engage in conversation with his supposed fiancée?”
