His right eye narrows, like a pair of tweezers that can see the thorns under my flesh.
I don’t want him to see that part of me. “Yes. I can open a portal.”
Did I expect a smile, shock, or anger? Violet eyes reveal nothing. He’s a wall no one has dared to climb.
“You’re lying,” I whisper. My throat burns; my cheeks feel tight and dry. I know what eyes like his want. They want to be scaled and conquered; they want to crumble into hands that are capable of love. Looking in the mirror, I saw the same eyes staring back at me not so long ago. Then Everett found me. He loved me in his unusual way. Everett collected broken toys; they made the most loyal of soldiers.Everett knew we’d always feel our cracks, and that we’d admire the glue that filled them now. I will forever fight in Everett’s honor. I will continue to recruit in his name.
He sinks onto his knees, his eyes locked on mine. “Excuse me?”
I feel like this man, my captor, needs saving. All he’s ever been is an object that other people move. My exhale widens my back, but no pain assaults me. I tell him the same thing I told Hector, the same statement Everett told me.
It saved my brother, turning him into one of Everett’s spies.
“Your voice is chalk pressed onto a board. It has one purpose: to deliver a message. Nothing more, nothing less. You’re a soldier who does as he’s ordered. You don’t ask, for fear you’ll be killed. What kind of life is that?”
“The kind that kept me alive.”
“Are you?” Palms to the floor, I push myself up, making sure to keep hold of the thin material covering my chest.
He doesn’t shift back to give me space. “Am I what?” Wind swirls around him in warning, but it also pulls me closer.
“Living?” I question. “My brother and I were like you.” I hug the fabric. His eyes trace the curves of my body. “Chalk. Nothing more and a lot less. Everett filled us with hope. He gave us apurpose, turned us into hands that hold chalk, set it free now. I know why you asked me if I can open a portal. You want me to take you back to Titus.”
He’s unmoving as pages in a book, waiting for me to turn them so he can reveal more of his plot.
“I can,” I admit. “But I fear what you’ll find when I do. Empty men can not fill others.”
He seizes my wrist, hands harder than mage cuffs, dragging me to him. The thin fabric drops between us, leaving only his leather cuirass to cover my breasts. A raw burn kisses my kneecaps from the swift motion. “You’re going to take me to my brother, and if he finds you guilty, I will be the one to kill you,” he states.
Hector and I feared this. We knew Titus and Selene might not forgive us. If we had to die so the world didn’t perish, we would. We saw what the other side was capable of.
Shades.
Terrible creatures that can sicken an entire town. That’s why Hector killed our people. Like stars in the night, the Shades emerged from the darkness. A plague began to spread, blackening veins and eyes. It turned some humans and mages into beasts.
Hector had no choice but to burn our lands and those infected, so it would not spread. Only the army that was outside the walls survived.
Boots slap against damp stone. “Ryker!” a man shouts.
“Ryker,” I whisper his name, tasting it on my tongue.
His scowl runs over me like flood waters drowning out my fear. He stands and exits the cell, but not before he looks over his shoulder at me.
“Lift your arms.” Ryker’s jaw stiffens as he removes my mage cuffs. His voice echoes off the walls of the dungeon, drowning out the faint drip-drops the walls produce, and weeping from other prisoners.
I do as ordered. “You’re angry I didn’t fight to keep my privacy,” I state. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
Why did I admit that?
“Dignity should matter.”
“I do not define dignity with my vanity,” I reply. “You’re not the first man to see my flesh,” I whisper.
His hands tug the shirt down. “I’ll be the last.” He locks eyes with mine, fingertips digging into my hips before he grunts and steps back.
Vice Admiral Adrian Airendale stands watch. Adrian was Galen’s prized horse. When did Everett turn him into a spy? “What do you define dignity by?” Adrian asks.
Ryker grabs my wrist, his hands replacing the cuffs. “Doing one’s duty to the end,” I answer.
