Breath came in shallow bursts, hot and useless. Sweat pooled at my temple, crusting into a ring of salt that stung the cut above my brow. Every inhale, no matter how small, stretched the hole above my right hip.
I clung to whatever I could to stay awake: the hardwood against my back, the rough grain digging into my spine, the rhythm of water dripping nearby, the stink of damp and old blood. When I saw the iron bars through hazy vision, I knew where I was. I just wasn’t used to being on this side of the lock.
A single torch lit the landing of a narrow spiral staircase, just outside the bars. Flickering shadows painted long, dancing shapes across the stone walls. As the fog in my mind began to clear, I caught sounds I’d never noticed before. Mice. Footsteps beyond the door, the crackling of the torches. It was usually too loud in the dungeons to hear them—ten to a cell, voices piled on top of voices until they blurred into one long scream. But now, I was the only prisoner, and I could hear everything.
The mice scurried around the bars, ruffling the straw scattered on the ground, their nails scraping against the stone floor. When I closed my eyes, it felt like they were inside me, leaving marks on my ribs nd burying into where the parts that made me human used to be.
There was no excuse for what I did. None of it. The parts I remember, and even the last six months, that only came in flashes.
Screaming, metal striking metal, horses rearing. The smell of burning wood, flesh, and hair. My head throbbed.
I should’ve died. If anyone deserved to die, it was me.
I didn’t know how long I’d been slipping in and out, but every time I woke, the bandages across my stomach were fresh, and the bitter taste of medicine lingered on my cracked lips. They were keeping me alive. My best guess? They wanted to make a spectacle of my death. Draw and quarter me, perhaps. Maybe peel my skin or boil me slowly in oil. Not that it mattered to me.
Time passed in drips and drops.
Each vertebra pressed hard against the bench, a single plank jutting from the wall. It hurt and bruised the bones it touched, but the coolness reminded me of one small mercy. My back no longer burned, and my neck felt lighter. My thoughts were mine. Untapped. Uninvaded. Just mice, drips, and silence.
Perhaps the Emperor himself would do it, bring down that ridiculous sword of light on the last of the Axorus’s, the house that had ruled Sania since records had been kept. It would be ironic to die by his blade, seeing as it never made an appearance during the war. Maybe he’d even lift my severed head for the crowd to see, though I doubted it. Emperor Rises wouldn’t want to dirty his pristine white shoes.
I was tired of fighting, of breathing, of nations with gods on their banners, and gods that only existed when those men needed an excuse to kill each other.
I counted water drops. On my best days—if they were days—I got to 3,829.
I wish I had seen Vamil one last time, begged for his forgiveness. The last memory of him hung in my mind like a tapestry woven to the wall. His long chestnut waves swishing like an angry sea, my cheek stinging from his palm, the door slamming before I could even finish my response. “No, I can’t.”
We had barely spoken in the last two years, and my father stopped his letters from arriving at my camps. Not that he needed to, they always said the same thing. Stop fighting, come home, this bloodshed is pointless. Vamil would be 22 now. The winter had just passed.
I wondered if his beard ever came in. Father would have hated that. I wonder if he got taller in the last year. Probably not. He was never the taller one, even though he was five minutes older.
The temple of Axoimun, the God of Sania, said you needed to be burned to enter the afterlife; you had to be burned or else your spirit would wander aimlessly in the mortal world. I doubt they burned Vamil or would burn me when they were done.
But fuck the Gods and their abritrary reuirments. Other than the statues lining the streets, the paintings, and the words scribbled on paper, the gods didn’t exist. I had never been ‘blessed by his warmth’ as the temple put it, and I doubt I’d be cleansed by his flame even if they burned me and then burned the ashes for good measure.
Burned or not, I’d find Vamil. He needed to know how much I loved him, how much I wanted to come home so I could listen to his latest obsession and follow him around the library like when we were kids. He was so smart, he knew everything.
Well, not everything. There were things I wanted to tell him, but never could. That I didn’t have a choice, that I didn’t want to do what I did. He made me. Our father made me. Like it would somehow make a difference or make Vamil look at me like he used to.
I was almost at a new record for counting water drips when the door slammed open at the top of the stairs.
I flinched and hissed as the wound in my gut punished me for it.
Two sets of footfalls descended, heavy and quick. I pushed myself up onto my elbows, but raising an inch made the room spin, and my bones shake.
Two large silhouettes came into view just beyond the bars, followed by the clang of keys, then the creak of iron. Two men stood at the threshold of my cage, staring in.
, I could tell they were Voranian. Light leather armour, sharp features, and tan skin that the Radian Empire would rather cover with paint than show outside. One of the men had a green stripe of cloth on his shoulder with five black slashes, the mark of a captain.
“You’re telling me this is what killed Elian?” The one talking had shoulder-length brown hair tied back with a leather strip. His jaw was strong, and his eyes sharp. He was my height—maybe less. “Are we even sure that thing’s a woman? Looks like a damn skeleton.”
“The doctor confirmed the gender.” The Captain's voice was flat. He was taller than the other. Black hair cropped short to his temples, an old scar dragging from his brow to his ear. His dark eyes crawled over me like he was inspecting an insect. Yellow flecks were barely noticeable around his pupil. He must be related to the royal family of Vorana. “Let’s just get this over with. It stinks down here,” he sneered.
The Captain approached quickly and, without hesitation, yanked me up by the arm. The world spun, my stomach twisted, and blackness clawed at the edges. But I held on. If I were going to die, I’d do it on my feet.
Still, I couldn’t stop the yelp that escaped as the wound stretched.
The brown hair man waited a moment before grabbing my other arm. With a cold click, he latched a heavy pair of metal cuffs on my wrists.
“Gonna need a bath after this,” he grimaced, adjusting his grip on my forearm. My hands swayed in front of me like a church bell, “She gonna bite?” he asked the Captain with raised brows and a smirk.
The Captain scoffed. “Doctor says with the come-down of all the Crase Syrup, if she tries to use magic, it’ll probably kill her. But hey, you can stick your hand in there to test if her teeth work.”
My stomach coiled. If they put anything in my mouth, it wouldn’t come out attached.
“Ha! Fuck off.” Brown hair laughed.
They hauled me up the coiling stairs, the backs of my feet bumping every step, unable to find the group beneath me. My arms screamed under their iron grips, with a little more pressure, they could pierce it like a rotten fruit.
The door flew open, and the daylight stabbed my eyes and split my skull. The noises and smell of the palace were so intense, I swallowed the vomit that threatened to surface. The cold stone underfoot became wool rugs. More stairs. A hallway. More stairs. Voices. Clinks of metal.
I tracked the turns. We had to be in the west wing—the King's quarters. My vision cleared just as we hit the last staircase. A red carpet with ornate snakes, hand-woven, coiled up the stairs. I knew this one well. It led to his study.
The one with brown hair knocked on the large door before opening it and tossing me to the ground. I hit the floor hard enough to make my eyes water and my teeth clack.
Broken glass bit into my skin. The wound in my stomach screamed bloody murder, but Isure as fuck wasn’t going to yelp again.
The study’s circular floor was littered with scattered books, loose papers, and handwritten notes. The King's prized glass vase collection turned into a mess of glittering shards on the rug adorned with snakes to match the one on the stairs. The breeze carried the smell of smoke in through the open window, fluttering tattered curtains on either side.
In the distance, the blue flag of the Radian Empire fluttered on top of the nearest tower where the Sanian flag used to be. The four-pointed star flapped violently in the afternoon gusts.
I struggled to breathe, focusing on keeping my breathing at the top of my lungs, but the wound had already reopened. Warmth spread on the wrappings, blood filled my nose. But that was the least of my worries.
Black leather boots tapped against the wooden desk— one crossed over the other.
Attached to the boots, a man clad in black sat on the desktop. His broad shoulders eclipsed the sun behind him. Yellow eyes looked down sharp cheekbones, cutting through the light. Cold. Sharp.
He spent a good, long time studying me from his perch. His pupils flicked millimeters here and there to take me all in. Hair the color of the sand dunes fell across his forehead in clumps. I don’t know why, but I always thought he had black hair, he just seemed like the type. He regarded me with the same look as his Captain. Hatred laced with disgust.
“You survived.” His voice was smooth and low. He said it like it was both admirable and disappointing at the same time. I forced myself to meet his gaze.
Valeriu, Duke of Vorana, tilted his head to the side, the clumps on his forehead followed. The last time I saw those yellow eyes, they were inches from my face, as his sword skewered my gut.
His lip curled, revealing the tips of his teeth. “You look like shit.”
I imagined I very much looked like shit. My once red shirt was now a muddy shade of brown and hung like a sack on my shoulders. The parts of my arms and hands that were exposed looked like sticks. I could make out every vein and tendon in my hands. Even my hair, cut short for battle, was matted and itchy. I hadn’t seen my face in... I couldn’t remember.
I didn’t answer. I pulled myself up onto my knees, breath ragged.
“Nice…to…see you…too.” I managed.
I could hear the two behind me stiffen, the slight movement of leather. They probably had their hands on their weapons at the ready.
Valeriu didn’t react. Just stared. The silence stretched.
“You were supposed to be a man,” Valeriu finally said.
If I had full lung capacity, I would have groaned. Yeah, I know. I had been disappointing everyone around me with my lack of a dick since I was born.
“The person I was hired to kill was Vamil Axorus. Son of Frederin Axorus, the late king.” He emphasised ‘late.’
Valeriu forgot to add Emperor a whole six months, but I’d let it slide. I hope the late King suffered, I hope they tore him apart limb from limb.
“I almost killed you. But then I would have been in a even bigger cluster fuck than,” he motioned to me, “this.”
Well, this, didn’t really give a flying fuck.
“But now, thanks to your lack of a dick, I’ve got promises I’m in danger of breaking.” Valeriu leaned forward. The leather in his armor groaned. The knife strapped to his upper thigh glistened, one of many I imagined.
“My heart weeps for you,” I muttered. As soon as it left my mouth, a boot slammed into my back, smashing the air from my lungs.
“Rinal,” Valeriu warned. His gaze flicked behind me.
Rinal, the brown-haired one, backed off. “We should just kill her. Saying the King did it is almost the truth, isn't it? She killed Elian!” he spat in Voranian. I understood every word.
Almost the truth. I swallowed hard. I didn’t know who Elian was, but I had the inkling it was someone they were close to. All the people I killed were all close to someone at some point.
Valeriu shot him a glare.
This was getting annoying.
“He’s right… Just kill me…” My voice cracked as I righted myself again. A small pool of blood was forming under my knees, the wrappings on my stomach were stained a deep scarlet. I was halfway dead already.
Valeriu rubbed his temples. “That was the plan,” Valeriu said.
His eyes flicked to the Captain, who nodded and stepped outside. Valeriu slid off the desk, his boots barely making a sound on the broken glass.
“I always wondered why you didn’t dethrone your father, especially when it became so clear you would lose.” He made his way clockwise around the room, scanning the empty bookshelves. Even his profile looked royal and aristocratic, a true Duke of Dukes. “After the last battle, I thought for sure you would come back here and get rid of the senile old man. You were so smart the entire war, so calculated, so sure-footed.” He said it like it was a fond memory that deserved its place on the shelves. Finally, there was a crunch under his foot, he looked down at what once was a priceless vase, probably thousands of years old. Made by the artisans who gave Sania the title, the land of glass. “I didn’t understand what was going on in your head…” he continued, as if history wasn’t crunching beneath him.
I watched the open window. Smoke was still rising from the east.
“Until I got wind, there was a way to keep the infamous Serpent of Sania docile.”
My ears perked, and my veins went icy.
I turned my head just enough to see his eyes on me, taking me in through slitted pupils, reading my every expression. Whatever he saw made the corner of his lip curl.
Everything around me came into sharp focus.
No. No. He couldn’t know. There was no way. No one knew but the person who put it there.
Valeriu stepped closer, Rinal had his hand on his sword behind him. Valeriu’s large, gloved hand reached for my shoulder.
Without a second thought, I grabbed a glass shard from the ground and drove it into my neck. The tip almost hit its mark, but Valeriu closed the gap with lightning reflexes. Grabbing the shackles that bound by wrists and twisting. I slammed face-first into the floor.
He dug his knee between my shoulder blades, pinning me to the ground, his hand on my forearms holding them above my head.
In one swift tug, the back of my shirt was gone with a dry rip. The cold air hit my back.
“Fuck…” he muttered, disgust dripping from his lips.
His finger touched the base of my spine between my hips. I struggled, but he only pushed his weight into his knee more. Any more, I would snap in half.
He slid his finger higher, tracing the ridges of my spine. I could feel his magic on my skin like an iron from the fire hovering too close for comfort. He was searching.
“STOP!” I screamed or tried to. All that came out were broken gasps.
When his finger got to my mid back, the warmth spread as the mark ignited across my shoulders.
Rinal swore under his breath, and Valeriu laughed. The vibrations traveled from his knee to my ribs.
“So it’s true. He wasn’t lying after all.”
They mumbled to themselves in Voranian. I mustered every bit of magic left in me, scraping it from the walls of my body. The doctor wasn’t lying. All the Crase Syrup probably did a number on my heart. If I pushed it too far, it could burst, but that wouldn’t be a bad option either.
My heart pumped furiously, but Valeriu was too intrigued by the mark to notice the pounding. My vision was blurry, my teeth chattering. I focused every bit of magic into my hands, slowly heating the metal cuffs until they were the consistency of wet clay. With a violent tug, the shackles broke, and before Valeriu could move, I put my burning hand to his thigh.
He hissed and jumped back, charred leather and skin filled the air. I lunged for another shard.
I lived as a weapon. I wouldn’t die as one.
Rinal yelled, and Valeriu lunged.
I froze. I knew that voice.
In the doorway, the captain stood with wide eyes, assessing the situation.
The glass cut into my hand, stopping halfway to my neck.
Peeking out from behind the Captain's shoulder was a head of long, chestnut waves. Green eyes red with tears, pleaded silently, a full mouth quivered.
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