Show me the secrets my insides hide.
Her chest launched forward. Breath departed her lungs.
She was sitting in the Throne Room again.
Nyssa and Dorian were on their knees at her feet, hands behind their backs, gags over their mouths.
Aydra tried to speak. She launched herself out of her chair. But the chains wrapped around her body cut against her torso. She looked down and realized her feet were locked to the floor. She tried to move, to speak, but the strings were sewn through her lips again.
And then Rhaif appeared behind her youngers, twirling his sword in his hand.
“You are the reason for this,” he hissed, pointing his sword at her. “Because of your betrayal, they will die before you. You did this to them.”
Aydra struggled against the chains, pleading and shaking her head. Her youngers. On their knees. Her chained to silence on her own throne.
Rhaif raised his sword over Nyssa’s head.
ENOUGH, she shouted into the darkness.
The scene dissipated around her. Her chest was heaving as she felt the wet swamp hair of the Berdijay beneath her once more.
Rupture and rapture—
Stop speaking to me in code, she ordered it.Is that all you have? My brother and sister dying before me? They told me you were swamp and ash. Necrosis and angst.
She stood to her feet and met its raging red eyes, feeling her heartbeat throb in the ringing silence of the forest around them.
Strike fear into my core, Berdijay.
His palm disappeared beneath her. She sank into the depths of its shadows, cold mist swarming around her body.
She was standing in the Council Chamber, wearing the blue frilly dress her brother liked to force upon her. A plastered smile she could not erase was stamped upon her lips. The council members laughed around her.
She was standing at her locked window. The raven tapped on it desperately. She felt no connection to it, only an emptiness where her creature had once filled her. Her door opened, and Willow came into the room, carrying a great white dress.
She was standing in the Throne Room. Ash stood by her side. The Temple maiden stood before them. A white veil shrouded over her head. She was turned towards Ash, the same plastered smile forced upon her lips.
“You’ll no longer need to worry for your kingdom,” he told her. “You can live out your days in peace with me. No more of the travels to take care of criminals or ships coming on our shores. No more worrying about the people beneath you.” Ash took her hands. She looked down and realized her fingers were burned, wrinkled, and damaged.
Her brother was staring at her from behind Ash, his eyes flickering fire.
Aydra ripped her hands from Ash’s grasp. She reached for the veil on her head and threw it off her. The noise of her crown hitting the floor echoed in her ears. Her weight shifted, and she felt her heartbeat pulse adrenaline through her bones.
“No.”
Rhaif pushed Ash aside, his fingertips darkening. He grasped her throat in her hand and rose her off the ground.
“Do as you’re told, sister,” he hissed. “Take your rightful role in this kingdom.”
She swallowed hard against the heat of his fingertips. “I’d rather die.”
She was thrown backwards out of his grasp. Fog wrapped around her body beneath her. She fell into darkness and the void of its core.
Her eyes closed, and she accepted the consumption of death surrounding her.
—Her back hit dirt. She winced at the pain of a rock hitting her rib.
Stand.
