Tears stream down my face, but I don’t remember when I started crying.
Something is wrong.
When I look around, the two armies that had been fighting to the death just moments ago are gone. There’s nothing but a dark alley before me and a cold wall against my back.
I shake my head hard, blinking through the static in my ears like I’m drowning. The world around me glitches, losing color until I’m back on the battlefield.
I’m on my knees, gasping for breath… and so is Tiberius.
A thread of his corrupted Divine snakes into me, and understanding slams into me. He’s invading my mind. Again.
I blink, and I’m back in the dark alley. Only this time I’m standing over a bleeding woman.
It’s a memory. But why is he showing it to me?
I turn my head, and I’m confused to see him standing beside me.
Then whose memory is this?
The woman cries out, and my head snaps back to her. She’s on her knees, begging Tiberius not to take her baby.
But he starts kicking her stomach. Hard. Again. Again.
Why is no one stopping him?
“No? You dare deny your king?”
I try to move, to scream, but I’m frozen in place, trapped inside the eyes of whoever is watching Tiberius beat a poor woman to death.
“You were nothing. Living in the dirt before I bought you. And instead of being grateful, this is how you repay me?”
I flinch when he kicks her again, and a scream rips out of her.
It goes on for so long, I start praying for Fates to have mercy on her and let her die. Why are they making her suffer like this?
I can’t do anything but watch him helplessly when she goes still. Blood pools around her, and something inside me fractures like a part of me died with her.
The grief isn’t just mine. The person whose memory I’m invading is filled with the same dread, their fear threatening to swallow me whole.
“All you had to do was give me the girl, Maralyn.”
The name hits like a dagger to the heart.
Maralyn?
No. No… that’s not… it can’t be—
When Tiberius kicks the woman on her back, her hair blows from her face by a strong gust of wind.
Then I see her face… and everything shatters.
My eyes widen in horror, a scream ripping out of my throat that no one hears.
My mother.
He… he killed her.
Tiberius killed my mother.
