Tezya stopped speaking for a moment, assessing me. “If Arcane pulled that off,” he started again slowly. “If he found a way to do that with your blood, he’d easily be able to make compulsion serums. Yours would be the most complicated because he would have to alter your powers. You can only enhance others, not yourself, and the King seeks to reserve that. He wants to drink the serum and have it makehisabilities stronger, not others.”
It dawned on me then. “The King was using me as a trial before having Arcane work on a compulsion user? And if he got a serum that made himself stronger in the process, it would have been a win-win.”
“Yes. Why do you think he’s kept Kole around?”
Kole. A compulsion user. He was going to use him to createa mass serum, and Tennebris willingly handed the Lux King everything he needed. I always thought it was weird he was treated with respect in the opposing kingdom, but now everything was coming together. And Kole had no idea he was just livestock the King was waiting to slaughter.
“So like I said, it’s not because of you that this war started. It started years ago. It’s just now coming to head. But we have the advantage of surprise if we attack first. The King will believe we’re a small group. He doesn’t realize the vastness of the camp. He has no idea I saved everyone he ordered me to kill.”
Only then did I realize I was standing in the middle of a camp with thousands of rank zero sympathizers—and not just that, they didn’t like the way everyone was treated, they wanted a better world—they were ready to attack the King, ready to protect the mortals, ready to change the system. Ready to do everything I ever wanted.
I was standing in the middle of the rebellion, and the Lux King had no idea what was coming for him.
Bells clanged throughout the camp.
“Dinner,” Tezya said, noting my confusion. “We can check on Sie first if you’d like. Then, it’s time for you to meet the rebels.”
TEN
SIE
I woke up in a tent.Peter was dozing off on a shit ton of fluffy pillows a short distance away, and I felt… comfortable. Those same fluffy pillows were behind my head, not a jagged grate digging into my skin. And for once, the air was clean—I couldn’t smell urine and death and decay.
“Where am I?” I asked, my voice cracked as I spoke. My throat burned and felt like acid was being poured down it. I needed water.
Peter shot up. “What? What?” His eyes widened as he took me in. “You’re awake. Thank the Goddess. I was sick of carrying you everywhere, and I really didn’t want to have to drag you to dinner. You gained some weight despite being starved and all.”
“Peter, I’m serious. Where the fuck am I?” I turned my head as I sat up, surprised to not see shackles chained to my wrists. I lifted my arms, inspecting them. No bone was jutting out of my left forearm. The guards broke it right before they shoved me back into my cell—mycell.
My shoulders slumped as realization dawned on me. “It’s another hallucination.” Fuck illusion users. I hated their powers the most.
I hadn’t realized I’d spoken the words out loud until the illusion of Peter’s thick brows furrowed. “No, you’re free, Sie. You’re safe now. We got you out.”
I closed my eyes and tried to block out his words. I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to give in to this hope, only to wake up, drench in sweat as the fever took over my body. I didn’t want to feel the throbbing agony of my forearm as I cradled it close to my chest.
At least this illusion was better than the other ones they used on me. I missed Peter, but I knew by now they only sent me good illusions when I was at my breaking point. It’d give me such hope only to come back to reality on the jagged crate that dug into my skin, only to hear the sounds coming from thePuteusbelow, only to be starving and in pain and brought right back into the torture room.
The “good” ones were mostly about Scotlind because whenever she was in my illusions, they destroyed me the most. Sometimes they just sent me images of her—of her rescuing me, her telling me she still loved me. They’d watch me leap for joy, only for me to realize it was an illusion the moment I was elated, and the mockery the fuchsia-eyed guard would hurl my way afterward was worse than any physical torture. He promised me numerous times a day he was going to bring Scotlind to the prison, that he’d fuck and maim her right in front of me, before he’d force me to watch her die in the pit below.
He had shown me exactly what he’d do to her in my illusions too, forcing me to watch it all on repeat until I was screaming.
“Scottie’s here in case you wanted to know,” myimaginaryfriend said. Fuck, I’d give so much right now to be able to see either of them. I missed Peter and Scotlind. It hurt worse than my arm or the fever or whatever hell the guards threw at me.
I exhaled sharply and took three steadying breaths. She’s not real. This isn’t real. My wife didn’t come for me.
My insides curled as I thought of the two months she spent in different dungeons. Peter told me some of what had happened to her when she was in Lux, and I loathed myself for it. I was disgusted that I sent her there willingly. I barely put up a fight when the Luxian royals came to collect her. I didn’t even look at her as she was pulled away, covered head to toe in shackles. I was too scared that if I’d looked, I would have attempted to teleport her away right then and there, only getting us both caught in the process. I had convinced myself that the only way to save her was by buying time, that I had to become the king first before I could act. I was so stupid, and now I would never get to tell her how sorry I was for it all. I’d never be able to look into her beautiful blue eyes again. And I deserved it, deservedthis.
I couldn’t stomach another night of their mind games. Hearing her name brought back the last illusion they forced me to endure.
The illusion user that visited my cell invaded my mind, found and warped my worst nightmare, and brought it to fruition. I was forced to spend hours watching Scottie and the Fire Prince have sex. He would fuck her, and the worst part of the whole thing was that she liked it. She didn’t care that I was there. That I could see everything. That she was breaking whatever remained of my shattered heart. I was nothing to her anymore.
And even though I knew it was an illusion—I knew it wasn’t real—some part of me couldn’t look past it, couldn’t let myself believe she wasn’t with him in real life too.
Yeah, I wasn’t putting up with another illusion right now. Even if it was only Peter.
I went to punch the crated wall with my good arm. All I saw was an endless, open tent in front of me, but I knew my fist would meet with the clang of metal, and then the pain from itwould relieve me from this agony. I would once again wake up in my prison of hell.
I waited for the pain to shoot up my shoulder, to see my cellmate, Nidiniri, scurrying to the far corner of his own crate, to look down at the depths of thePuteusthrough the holes in my cage.
