Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

W hen the sun enters through my bedroom window, I close my eyes with a groan.

I can't believe it's morning already.

It feels like only minutes ago that the guards brought me back and I lay on this bed, thinking about how my life will end the moment that sun rises. Most of all I thought about how I'll belong to the dragon king and the kingdom he stole from me.

Now that the sun has risen, I don't think I can go through it.

I turn on my side with another groan. My whole body feels like it's being weighed down by an anchor. Shame slowly creeps over me. The way Erax touched me last night… the way I responded… I have never felt something like that. These feelings are so different to the ones I feel for Lochlan. They're dark and heavy, like an unquenchable thirst rising from the pit of my stomach. A thirst that feels like it's drowning me the moment Erax touches my body.

I straighten up to sit on the edge of the bed, clutching the sides of the mattress. I would rather the gods strike me down than let me feel like this for him. I would betray not only myself and parents, but all those who died because of him. I vowed long ago to never forget what he did to us. Last night in the ballroom, I almost did.

I almost let him devour me.

I can't let that happen again. Even if my body does respond to him, even if there is a tiny part of me in the darkest corner of my heart that does not hate him, I vowed to always be his enemy. And yet, last night we were almost… not that.

When Erax saw the scars on my back, he appeared shocked by them. Angry, even. I have spent all night thinking about his reaction. There was no way he could not have known. He was the one who put me there! He practically locked the door to my cage himself, and then gave the nuns the key.

The sound of the door unlocking flips my stomach, and I immediately tense my shoulders, my chest tightening. I don't lift my gaze from the floor. I watch the rays of sunlight stretching over the hardwood, my chest tightening. When the door opens, a shadow eclipses the sunrays, and then a voice I did not expect to hear speaks.

"It's a little chilly in here, don't you think?" Noble's voice echoes around my room.

I frown at the shadow in the doorway. "What are you doing here?"

Noble leans against the wall, flashing me a grin. "You know, that's not usually what women say to me first thing in the morning. Have you frozen my irresistible charm as well as the lake?"

I shake my head with a laugh, trying to mask the fact I'm on the verge of a panic attack. As Noble walks towards me, the sun moves over him, reflecting off his green clothing. The rich green is a clear mark of his place in the wedding, and I have to admit, the suit is stunning. The woven material is the same shade as emeralds, with gold collar and buttons. A green cloak falls from his shoulders, clipped with metal dragons in the same shade. There is the royal chest over his heart. The crest for my family should be here today but I doubt I'll see it anywhere. He picks up the king's cloak from the bed. I hadn't realised I slept with it.

"You'll need this," he says, "and fireproof boots."

Erax's scent engulfs me as his thick cloak falls around my shoulders.

I hate that I don't hate that smell anymore. Damn fire and roses.

His smell.

Noble thrusts a pair of heavy boots into my arms, the same ones I use to wear around the castle. I can't help but wonder if he's going to help me escape. My heart jumps at the thought. Why else would he be here, alone, telling me to wear fireproof boots right before I'm to be married to his king? Of course, in the back of my head, I know the chances of him betraying his king are next to impossible. But I let myself believe it for a moment—that maybe, just maybe, there is a way out of this cage after all.

That there's still hope.

I slide my feet into the boots, fastening them quickly. "Where are we going?'

Noble doesn't answer. He just leaves the room, and my stomach flips as I follow him out.

Outside in the corridors, servants rush by us, carrying large crates of wine and baskets of green and gold roses. They make my eyes sting as I pass them. Memories of my childhood rush to the forefront of my mind. My mother loved gold roses because of how rare and difficult they were to successfully grow.

We used them for royal weddings too—as a symbol for new beginnings.

For me they symbolise the end.

Once we are away from prying eyes, I again ask Noble, "Where are we going?"

He grins over his shoulder at me. "The king has brought something back for you. A gift. He wants to show you it before the wedding."

My gaze strays down to the floor. The king has brought something back for me. I frown at my reflection shining up at me. I don't want more gifts from him. I want answers, and revenge.

I was also a fool to think Noble would help me get out of here. He is clearly a loyal servant to his king.

When I left my gaze from the floor, I'm met with a familiar entryway clouded by the smell of burning leaves hanging thick in the air. Noble arches his brow at me as he steps forward to open the crimson doors. I do not look at him when I pass through. Judging by his expression he knows I have been here before.

The waves of heat hit me again, instantly engulfing my senses. My eyes and throat begin to dry the farther we descend. The fireproof boots help protect me from the hot ground, which is worse than it was in the tunnels I tried to escape in. The cloak protects me better, too. Only my face is exposed to the heat.

On the stair landing, I'm reminded of Erax and the moment he found me here. I had wanted so badly to kill him that night. I never imagined a few days later that I'd almost let him kiss me. It's like the gods are laughing at me now.

The air grows harder to breathe the closer we reach the bottom. When Noble steps out of the stairway and I follow him, I'm immediately aware of the intensity of the heat. Although it doesn't hurt me, I can feel its presence pushing against my boots. My feet would surely burn had I not followed Noble's instructions. I'm glad I did.

My eyes roam the dark walls around me. The black rock and low ceiling make me feel like I'm walking through a cave. I guess it would make sense that the dragons' keep would be hidden underground. As I trace unusual markings glowing within cracks in the wall, I glance up at Noble as he leads the way down.

"I thought the wedding was taking place at dawn?"

"The king decided to postpone it," he says, "until noon when the sun is hottest. Don't worry, ice princess. You've still got a little more time to freeze the sun."

I let out a shaky breath. I don't know what I expected to feel in response to that, but it wasn't disappointment. No time to think about that. I've got until midday before I sign my life away. I want to enjoy every last moment of my freedom.

The dragons keep is a massive cavern of lava, rivers and smooth rock. The elements seem to be combatting each other in nearly every inch of it but it's the endless gaps in the cave, big enough for dragons, and the eyes I feel on me from the second I step in the keep. There are dragons hiding everywhere, lurking in the gaps and shadows, and I bet in the river that flows through the middle of the cavern, with a waterfall right at the back of the keep. Lava flows around the edges in its own rivers, and it pours down the stone like rain. I barely look at the rest of the cavern as my eyes drift to the king.

He isn't alone.

Although Erax faces our direction, his gaze is pinned on four individuals kneeling before him. His face is cloaked in shadows, but I know it's him. It's like his very essence is peering through the darkness to draw me in. My legs move forward by their own accord as if drawn to him. He doesn't look up at the sound of our footsteps approaching. If I could see him, I doubt he even blinked—too focused on those in front of him. One of them sways to the side with a whimper, as if they are struggling to hold themselves up from exhaustion or pain. I catch a glimpse of the shackles binding their wrists to their backs, and a feeling of ice-cold dread overcomes me.

Why have I been brought down here?

Once we have descended the last of the steps, Noble moves his hand to my shoulder and guides me around the platform. He places me on the far right of Erax. Despite that I'm still widely out of his reach, I'm at least close enough to witness him stepping out into the sunlight. It pours down over him from the gap in the cavern right above us. Erax no longer smells just like fire and roses. A metallic tang hangs off him and I don't need to look to know he is covered in blood. For a second, I panic, thinking it is his, but I soon realise it isn't.

I never expected my future husband to be covered in blood on the day of our wedding.

He looks just like he did when we met—silently unhinged, as if he's seconds away from burning everything around him to the ground. I follow his line of sight to the source of his contention, and the ground sways underneath me.

No, no, no. This can't be right.

Every fibre in my body recoils as the scars on my back tingle in memory of the pain I suffered all those long years.

This can't be real. You're not real. None of you are!

But the moment the sun hits them, I know they are real—as real as the nightmares that torment me most nights. As real as the scars they carved into my body and mind.

My very soul.

The four women kneeling before their king are as real as the hatred, I have for them and held onto since day one. That very hatred boils to the surface of my being at the sight of Sister Faye glancing back at me. I take a step back, vaguely aware of Noble steadying me with his hand on my shoulder again. Sister Breea and Sister Michael glance back at me too. I notice how all but one of the sisters is crying. If it weren't for the swelling of her face, I'd almost think she was smiling at me.

Shock and fear are the first emotions to fill me when I look at Sister Gabriella. Then comes the rage—the searing, blinding rage that rises from the depths of my body. To see her so beaten like this, kneeling before the very king she worshipped like a god all these years, brings me a sense of vindication I never thought I'd feel. My goal was always to escape her convent and never look back, but this?

This is justice.

I can't take my eyes off her as she tilts her head up at her king. He removes his hands from behind his back to reveal a black object in his hands. My heart seizes when I run my gaze over it. Sister Gabriella's whip. The black handle gleams in the light as he glides his long fingers through the blood-stained tails. No matter how many times I was ordered to wash that whip, I could never get my blood out from its fibres.

Erax lifts his foot and places it on the rock, drawing my attention back to him. He rests his elbow on his knee and rotates the bottom of the whip, causing the handle to gleam against the sun. Its glare blinds me and for a moment all I can hear is his dangerously low voice echoing off the cave walls.

"An interesting tool, is it not?" He lifts the object up to the sun, the handle gleaming in the light. "That's what my grandfather used to call them: tools. He had a whole room dedicated to his collection of them, each one meticulously displayed." He grips the tails with his other hand and wraps them around his fingers. "One a month, when I was five, he would take me to that room and task me with polishing them. If I did a good job, I was rewarded. If I failed, or knocked one of them over, he'd give me two lashes across the hand."

He pulls and strains the whip, then flicks it.

Snap.

Everyone jumps at the sound, including myself. His grandfather hurt him. Why would he hurt his heir? A few of the sister's whimper while another bursts into tears. I keep my eyes on Sister Gabriella. Although her expression is calm, not even she can hide the visible trembling of her shoulders. I watch as her fear slowly settles in. It claws at her throat, forcing her muscles to jerk and contract against her flesh, then it runs down her spine until her whole-body trembles. As if to hide the wobbling of her chin, she rests it on her chest. But I saw it, and my heart skips a beat in surprise. I have never seen Sister Gabriella frightened before.

Angry, gleeful, smug — yes. But never afraid.

Erax stretches the tails to their full length, straining the leather. "Those lashes were nothing compared to what he did to the servants," he says, his voice sweeping over me again. "I can still hear their screams as they clawed at the chamber door, begging for death. There was barely any flesh on their bones once he was through with them." His dark emerald eyes flicker down to the sisters, taking in each of them slowly. "Do you know what it feels like to be whipped like that? No? What about you, Sister Faye? Or you, Breea?"

When at last his gaze lands on Sister Gabriella, Erax doesn't speak.

He strikes.

— SLASH —

The whip whooshes down over the side of her face. Her head snaps to the side from the impact but she does not make a sound, not even when the tip of the tail catches her left eye and blood seeps through her swollen lids. Erax strikes her again and again, and each time the whip contacts a different part of her body. His movements are expert. Concise. This isn't the first time Erax has used a whip. I can tell by the utter precision of his blows and the way he angles his wrist. But while Sister Gabriella had always looked disgusted when she did this to me, Erax appears to be enjoying it. There's a manic look in his eyes that reminds me of a predator rabidly tearing into its prey. I want to stop him or join him. It scares me that I don't know which.

I want to grab that whip from his hands and destroy it once and for all. Burn it to ash so that its existence is no longer. But I can only freeze as memories of my own torture rush to the forefront of my mind. My throat dries and the air around me grows thicker as I dig my nails into the centre of my palms, recalling the brutal way that whip had torn my body and soul to pieces. By the tenth brutal strike, Sister Gabriella finally cries out.

"Spare me, please!"

"Did you spare my wife?!" Erax snarls as he lunges at her. He drags her up to her feet by the hair and dangles her old, tiny frame off the ground above him. "I ordered you to protect your future queen at all costs!" He digs his fingers into her windpipe. "You were to keep her safe from…the fucking curse and the witch assassins they sent."

What is he saying? I was his prisoner. His property . He said so himself. Yet, he's talking about me as if he actually cared about how I was treated at the convent. As if I had meant more to him. What does he mean by which assassins??

"F-Forgive me, my king… I was trying… to… tame her," Sister Gabriella chokes between strangled breaths, her features twisted in anguish. "For you, my king!"

"I did not order you to tame her." Erax spits each word out slowly. "I ordered you to protect her. You are a traitor, Gabriella, and you know what I do with traitors in my kingdom. I feed them to my dragon."

Despite struggling to breathe, Sister Gabriella breaks down and begins to wail. "N-No! Show me mercy, my king… Please, show me mercy!"

Erax snarls into her face, his lips peeled back in disgust. "Where was my wife's mercy?"

For some reason, seeing her crying and begging for mercy like I did so often during my punishments, makes me feel sorry for her. It's like I'm seeing her for the old woman she always was, one that hid behind the power of her whip. Now she looks frail dangling from the king's grasp. Fragile, even. I want to turn away from her, but instead I take a step forward.

"Don't," Noble whispers in my ear. "Just watch. Have faith in your king."

Noble hardly gives me a choice. He places his hand on my shoulder again, but his grip is a touch too firm. I stay still, my head swimming with so many thoughts and memories, and truths I never expected to hear. All this time I thought I placed in the convent as discarded property, left there for Sister Gabriella and her acolytes to torture me. To find out now that Erax hid me there to keep me safe from the witches? I thought the witches were extinct, or at least, that's what my mother once told me. She also told me they were the original protectors of the dragons and helped breed them…why would they want me dead? What curse??

Erax looks at me for the first time since coming here, and my heart stills. The manic look that had gripped him only moments before has been replaced with a rage so boiling it sears the air around me.

"What would you have me do to them?"

My breath catches, burning in the back of my throat. He's asking me what I want to do? He just stated there's already protocol when it comes to traitors. My parents had sent our traitors to the Citadel for the Grand Masters to deal with. Depending on the severity of their crime, most of them were trained to work there as servants under the promise of one day earning back their freedom. Something tells me the same mercy is not given to traitors in Erax's kingdom. Not by the look in his eyes.

I glance back at the sisters sobbing on the ground behind me. One of them has fainted. In all the years they dragged me to that awful chamber, they never once showed me mercy. It was clear from the beginning they enjoyed what Sister Gabriella put me through. And yet they look traumatised by all this that I find it hard to believe they would be stupid enough to ever do it again. I also believe that if I don't show mercy now, then I'm no better than them. You can't fix a broken world by continuing to chip away at it.

"Let them go," I say. "They won't hurt anyone again. If they do, we'll know about it, because our eyes are everywhere. Is that not right, Sister Gabriella?"

She somehow manages to nod whilst clawing at her captor's hand.

Erax throws Sister Gabriella to the ground. As he watches her gasp for breath before him, her frail body crumbled and covered in blood, a dark smirk works its way slowly over his lips.

"You are lucky the gods blessed you with a merciful queen," Erax says. "The same cannot be said for your king." He steps back, his cloak billowing. "Ignisin, Cyrsí."

A rush of hot air sweeps over me, dragging my hair over my shoulders and lifting the bottom of my dress. From the shadows a beast I'm all too familiar with slowly reveals itself. At first only its eyes are perceptible, burning like twin pools of molten lava. But then its chest begins to glow as fire builds and shines through its bristling scales. Erax looks at his dragon proudly.

"Cyrsí has been off her food lately," he says, his smile twisting into a cruel sneer, "but something tells me that's about to change."

The dragon lowers its enormous head and the horns on the side of her face bristle as a loud rumble reverberates around the keep. The fire in her chest builds, glowing brighter. Her eyes never leave Sister Gabriella who is whimpering at her mercy.

Erax looks right at his dragon and nods once.

The dragon turns its attention to the other sisters. I watch in horror as she steps forward, causing the ground to tremble under her weight. I'm too stunned to move.

"But she is the enemy," one of the acolytes cries out. I can't see who, but it sounds like Sister Michael. "We did only what was asked of us!"

"What Sister Gabriella commanded us to do!" Now that voice I do recognise. Breea. She was the one who hauled me out of bed before dragging me to the room. "Please show mercy, my king, if not for us, then for those who were bent against our will!"

Erax doesn't move. He watches his dragon open its mouth, revealing the searing fire that has gathered inside. I can feel its heat from where I'm standing. He gives Noble a quick, barely noticeable glance, and its then Noble tries to take me away. I still can't seem to move my legs. I can only watch as Erax gives a final command, and his dragon releases her horrid black fire breath. Sister Breea's wailing screams echo around me as she's burned alive in black flames that sparkle like stars in the night sky. Nothing remains of her but a pile of ash on the ground.

Erax gives the command again, and his dragon moves on to the next victim. All the while, Sister Gabriella screams and wails as she watches them die, knowing she will come last. Noble tries again to pull me away but I shrug him off, oddly compelled to see it through.

"The king does not?—"

"I want to watch," I tell him.

He looks over at Erax, who nods once before turning his attention back to his beast. The dragon works its way through each of the sisters, leaving nothing of their existence behind but the same pile of ash. Then it moves to Sister Gabriella. It lifts its head, pausing as it looks down at her, her chest burning with more fire breath. Sister Gabriella doesn't move or try to scramble away like the others. She looks the dragon in the eye and accepts her fate with a surprising courage I can't help but admire even though I hate her. Sister Gabriella is the only one the dragon doesn't burn completely, choosing to eat her instead while she's still alive and screaming in her mouth.

"Now I'm ready," I say, turning to Noble.

As he leads me away, I glance back at the king who's watching me with a smirk on his face. To my surprise, and perhaps a little to my horror, I feel no pity or remorse for those he just killed in my name. I feel only relieved. At least, for a moment I do.

I still have the wedding to get through.