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CHAPTER TWENTY

Visla

Bloody beasts circle me. They are ravenous with hunger. There’s no one else here on this devastating planet. Just us. Me and my lover. We’ve been dumped on this planet and left to die. My heart is racing. The beasts are blind, but they hear me and scent me. I don’t want to die, but no one can save me now. I look to the right of me and my lover is on the ground—unmoving and still. I reach for him and call out his name. He doesn’t respond. The beasts lunge for me…

“KHOL!” I jolted upright, panting and in sweats.

When I looked around me at the prison cell I’d been thrown into, I only wished that I hadn’t waken up. In the dream, my dire situation would’ve been over in a flash. In my reality, I was stuck in a cell.

I raised myself up off the cot. The unit was different this time as far as I could remember from the last time a guard put me here. Although last time, I’d been heavily drugged and could barely comprehend what was happening to me. The place they housed me wasn’t underground like the last time. The floors were made of rough board and I could actually smell the wind floating inside, not the scent of musk and mud.

It seemed like hours passed since I was dragged from my home against my will and shoved in here. The last thing I remembered before they bolted the doors was Sanjit’s smirking face when she made it known that she intended to be the one and only queen. Quite frankly, I didn’t know what the fuck was going on. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be tangled up in this mess anymore either.

I heard some footsteps coming down the corridor. I immediately ran over to the bars and peered out.

To my relief, a familiar face came into view. It was Thanu, Khol’s guard commander.

He pressed a finger to his mouth before I could utter a word and whispered, “Quiet. I’m getting you out of here.”

“What’s going on? Where’s Khol?”

“He’s still in Nunbar. I fear that word has not reached him yet that the Princess is trying to usurp his crown.” He slid the key into the lock and opened the door.

“Usurp?” I’d heard the term before but only when it was spoken between the highest of authorities.

“Yes, Visla. I believe she is trying to overthrow Khol as king. I could be wrong. She has spies everywhere. We have to go now before her guards get back.”

With splinters in my feet from having been dragged across the ground by Zorfov, I cringed each time I stepped. Thanu leaned down and scooped me up.

“Thank you, Thanu. You are loyal and kind,” I whispered.

“It’s my duty. To you and to the only king I’ll ever serve—Khol,” he said. “Now, let’s get out of here. If we’re caught, there will be no one to defend us. Sanjit has sent the other half of the horde on some bogus mission. I fear they are in trouble. The colony isn’t safe. On her orders, the citizens have been left vulnerable.”

“Can she really do that?”

“She’s prevailed thus far because she’s a lunatic and a liar. Every leader with any authority to do anything is gone, except for her. She’s a princess by blood, but leader, she is not. She should be banished for what she’s doing,” he said, hurrying toward the opening. A couple bodies lay dead in the corridors as we passed. Their throats were slit and their eyes and mouths were agape. Thanu must’ve killed them. There was another guard at the entrance, nervously marching about. When he saw Thanu, he placed some keys int his hand before silently slipping into the night.

There was a ground shuttle waiting for us by the empty market. He dropped me in the back on top of straws and motioned to the driver.

“Wait,” I exclaimed. “Where am I going?”

“Someplace safe. Until Khol gets back. Someone I trust will meet you at the final destination. I cannot leave here or else Sanjit will further advance her rotten plans.”

“Zorfov is involved. He shoved me in here. Stay away from him,” I warned.

“Yes, I know. He’s become her stupid little dog. And she has singled you out for reasons that are beyond obvious. If anything happened to you, Khol would never forgive me. Driver? Go now.” He tapped the cart and the shuttle hovered above the ground and then floated off.