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He gives it to her five more times after that.
We never noticed.
He chemically brainwashed her to believe she was a traitor.
The same way they altered my parents.
“Go!” The woman’s voice detonates through the memory.
I fly through its smudged barriers, shooting past the void until I’m back in my own body, hunched and panting, twisting my head to gawk at Dessin in bleary-eyed astonishment.
“It was Mind Phantoms!” I scream at him. “She was never a traitor! That was Kaspias’s trick!”
Oh my god, what have I done?!
I break into hysterics, screaming and crying, thrashing against my chains to break free. But as usual, Dessin is ten steps ahead of me. He’s unlocked his chains, throwing them off his body. A dogpile of soldiers swarm him, launching against his bulldozing frame like a dozen wild animals.
“Go, Dessin! Go!” I wail, trying to break my own wrists so I can slip them through my shackles.
Hearing a violent cry from the audience, I look up to see Niles beaten and thrown off the stage. And that giant axe soars through the hot air, bashing into the bone under Ruth’s knees.
The entire stadium goes silent.
Ruth doesn’t even make a sound. She just looks at the blade splitting through her legs in quiet disbelief.
It’s almost a clean break.
I vomit across the floor in front of me. Shaking. Gasping. Feeling the blood rush to my bulging eyes. What have I done? What have I done?
After the second swing, Ruth’s legs fall off, hitting the stage with a wet, heavy thump.
Warrose cries out in agony.
What. Have. I. Done.
And there is so much blood. It sprays across the soldier’s bare chest. It gushes from the uneven, gaping wounds beneath her knees. Dark, crimson rivers devour my sight.
And Ruth still does not make a sound.
36. Crushed In Spirit
Warrose
My screams scour the earth.
“Dessin,” I finally form words. “My—chains.”
Dessin throws a sentinel off his back, eyes zoning in and out as he dissociates. His hands move swiftly, methodically as he frees me from my shackles and leash.
The crowd rumbles in victory. It surges like a ball of fire in my core, blazing through my lungs until I’m breathing puffs of smoke and steam. Nothing in my brain works right. It jumbles all thoughts together, fogging my sight, blurring all lines of sanity. The scene plays back over and over again until I’m dizzy with a cataclysmic rage. What the fuck have they done to her? It was all a trick. Kaspias truly made us believe she was a traitor. Ruth. My Ruth. My little rebel.
Skylenna’s cries ring through my ears, but I don’t stop running, don’t stop shoving people to the ground. I’m a plague obliterating anything in my path. Elbows jab into ribs. Knuckles crack into the bridge of a nose, a cheekbone, a jaw.
I force myself to look up at her as I get closer to the stage.
She hangs from that wooden stand like a dismembered doll. Staring down at her legs on the floor, soaking in a lake of blood. Her face is ashen, draining of color.
Bile pressurizes in my throat.
