Trebuchet.
I swallow hard. My throat scrapes.
“Thought I should tell you before your memories come back.” His mechanical half-voice hisses softly. “Your Reaper king is dead.”
The words don’t register. I try to summon outrage. Disbelief. But my mind’s fogged. Pain dulls everything. Everything but raw betrayal.
He tilts his head, as though studying me — dissecting me with sight made of sensors instead of soul. The red eye glows a shade brighter. The whir of internal servos hums faint under the damp air.
“Didn’t think he’d survive the fall,” Trebuchet says, flat. “Chasm’s deep. Bone-rich rock does nothing but grind steel. No life down there.”
His words hover. Sharp like broken glass.
Some part of me wants to scream. To protest. To fight. But my body fights me. Muscles quiver. Head pounds. I taste bile.
“Why…” I rasp. “Why lie to me?”
He smiles — half his face metal-barred, but I see the remnant of humanity in the scarred flesh around his synthetic eye. “Because you are no longer useful,” he says. “You were the crack in his armor. The softness he would cling to when steel alone couldn’t keep him whole. But now???”
He rises — steps forward. The space is small; the cell walls press back as if recoiling from him. My breath hitches. I taste fear.
“You weaken him.” His voice burns. “You make him vulnerable. And the clan cannot — will not — bow to softness.”
I flinch. His approach stirs the stale air, makes dust fall from ceiling, smells of metal, old oil, damp stone. I taste cold. Helplessness. Rage.
I try to sit up. I'm dizzy — vision spinning. But anger flares under pain. I force a hand up. I whisper through cracked throat: “Freya McDonnell… isn’t a toy. Not a weakness. Not yours to discard.”
Trebuchet’s red eye narrows — a slit of predatory glare. He pauses. Steps so close the cold of his plating bleeds through my uniform.
He smiles again — cruel. “You think I care what little humans believe about themselves?” he says. “No. I care about what they stop fearing.”
He whips a flick-blade off his belt. Leathery metal heels snap over damp stone in one swift motion. The soft hum of compound blades. The gust of intention.
I suck in breath. Clench fists. I taste fear in my mouth like rotten fruit.
He grabs the blade — lifts it — and presses the flat against my throat. Not enough to cut. Not yet.
“Delicate,” he hisses. “But useful — for now.”
He leans close. Too close. The hot stink of his processed exoskeleton, of coolant fumes and oil and something dead, fills my nostrils. He speaks soft. Soft as a lullaby turned knife.
“Don’t wake too fast. Pain makes memories bleed. Fear makes memory sharp. Sharp enough to cut bone. Clean enough to steal hope.”
He straightens. Blade disappears into shadow.
Then — silence.
For a moment longer, I taste the pulse of the cell — the slow vibration through the floor, the drip of water somewhere distant, the hiss of vents off. Life-support maybe. Or maybe dust settling.
I don’t know which.
Trebuchet turns away, heavy metal footsteps on stone. The cell door creaks as it pulls closed — the echo reverberates like finality. Chains rattle. Lock metallic lick-clicks shut.
I lie back against the slab. The rough surface presses into bruises, sends pain through shoulders and spine. I shut my eyes — not from fear, but because vision bleeds tears I don’t trust.
My body aches. My limbs tremble. My heart pounds — not from exertion, but from the knowledge: I’m alone. Exposed. Hunted.
But I’m alive.
