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Even through the veil, I could sense her eyes narrowing.
“What are your plans for the rest of the day, General Steeler?”
Bring Rayna and all our allies to the Uninhabitable Zone so that we can create our own army to fight against both you and your wretched sister. I buried that truth so deep into the bottom of my mind that a new chasm opened to swallow it whole.
“Visiting the island,” I said smoothly, “to inspect the antipower that surrounds the prison at the top of Bascite Mountain.” I cleared my throat, sensing that she wanted me to confide something a little more personal. “I have a theory…” I began, and Mydusia shifted in the confines of the mirror, “that Dyonisia is over-exerting her own power, which means there has to be a weakness somewhere. A chink in the armor, if you will. And since the actual dome is so fortified, I have a feeling I’ll find some weakness in the antipower she has threaded through the prison itself.”
I waited with bated breath, praying that she’d fall for the bait and let me leave.
“A chink in the armor,” Mydusia mused finally. “Yes, I suppose even if I can’t understand the concept of a weakness, my sister surely has plenty of her own.”
I kept silent, my canines biting down on my tongue and all the words I couldn’t say. Would she let me go now? I had more than a few people waiting on me now, but my ache to get to Rayna was the worst, biting and clawing at my insides.
“Well, good luck,” Mydusia said, and my heart leaped…
Then she pursed her lips and tapped a nail against her chin.
“On second thought, I have the perfect amendment to your command to help you achieve your goals, General.”
My blood frosted over, cold dread sweeping through me. I’d just discovered that I could be around Rayna without hurting her. Had the captain told Mydusia about her? Was… was Mydusia about to amend the command to include her as well?
Please, no. God, no. I couldn’t stand it. I wouldn’t do it.
The queen’s reflection smiled. “I would like you to get rid of one branded citizen per day until your official deadline. It would be marvelous practice, considering you were so loath to kill my disobedient soldier the other day, don’t you think?”
My shoulders sagged. Not Rayna. Rayna was still safe from me for now, but…
One branded citizen per day.
Marvelous practice.
Until your official deadline.
Before this point, I’d had time—so much time—to figure out how to break my oath and prevent myself from murdering innocent Esholians. The clock had always been ticking in the back of my mind, but now that ticking sped up, racing ahead with the new tempo of my furiously pumping blood.
Because as my tattoo jolted and rearranged until it came to a shuddering halt against my spine, I knew I only had until midnight before my nightmares came to life.
“You may go inspect that prison at the top of Bascite Mountain now,” Mydusia said with a wave of her hand.
But from behind her veil, through the looking glass, her eyes seemed to sear me—as if she could see every one of my buried lies.
Darkness whirled around us, star flecks spinning in the eternal distance.
Elbows jabbed me in the ribs and voices overlapped as I dragged too many damn people through space, their weight making me grit my teeth against the pull.
“Ow, Terrin, you just pulled my braid!”
“Well, if you’d stop hogging the space…”
“What space? There’s nowhere else to go!”
For a moment, it brought me back to the day Mydusia had sent Sorronian guards to snatch me and my only friends from the palace and drag us onto a ship—a punishment for my insubordination at the time.
Terrin, Sasha, Sylvie, Garvis, Mattheus and I had been playing a board game we’d stolen from the royal solar, one that definitely hadn’t been designed for children. All the figurines were enchanted to flirt, fuck, or fight with their opponents depending on the dice roll and what square on the spiraling board they landed on.
My figurine had just finished chopping off another figurine’s head when several guards had burst into the anteroom with ropes and burlap sacks.
“I stole it,” I’d claimed immediately, standing up and squaring my shoulders at them. As the children of palace servants, the others would be sentenced for the smallest of petty crimes, but as the Fated General, I would be granted leniency.
