CHAPTER 60

CHAPTER 60

AUREN

I peel my eyes openlike peeling off a layer of skin. My lids snag, not wanting to separate until I rip with a little more force, leaving them stinging.

As soon as I look around, I wish I’d left my eyes closed.

Immediately, I know that I’m not at Brackhill anymore. Not just because of this room that I’m in, either, but because I can feel the difference in the air. Fourth Kingdom is warm and muggy, as if the warmth dances with the moisture of the rivers. Yet the air here lacks any signs of moisture altogether. It feels thinned out. Stretched by an empty, arid heat that would bake any sort of precipitation right out of itself.

I remember snatches of consciousness, of being held against someone as we flew through the air. I remember that foul cloth pressed against my mouth and nose, over and over again, between brief moments where broth and water were poured down my throat.

But now I’m here, finally climbed out of the chasm of unconsciousness, and I know where I am without even looking out the barred window. This room is the color of sand, the texture of the walls swiped with whatever tool the carpenter scraped the plaster on. I sit up from the single-person bed I’m lying on, my slippered feet hitting the rust-colored tile floor.

There’s one small table in the corner of the room, with a strangely shaped waterskin and some food. How long those have been sitting here, I don’t know. But my mouth tastes awful, so I risk taking a drink. I take the first sip tentatively, but when the water doesn’t seem to be laced with anything I can pick up on, I down the whole skin, realizing how parched I am as soon as the drops hit my tongue.

I try to call up some gold, but despite the fact I can see daylight streaming in from the window, my body feels depleted. Like a tree barely able to glug out a single bead of sap. I still feel the aftereffects of the drug coursing through my body, making me feel sick and disconnected.

So even though I’m leery of the food, and my stomach isn’t interested, I force myself to choke down the flatbread and fruit. I’m hoping that something in my stomach will help soak up whatever drug is still in my system. My head aches, my stomach feels like someone reached in and flipped it around, and I’m covered in a layer of grit.

Makes sense, since I was kidnapped and dragged to the desert of Second Kingdom.

My certainty of where I am and what’s happened surrounds me, like a crowd suddenly jamming in at me on all sides. The memories push in, while my fear and fury push back.

Manu and someone from Second Kingdom did this. Had me drugged, kidnapped me and dumped me in this place and—

My hand slaps over my mouth.

Rissa.

“Great Divine...” A dry sob tears out of me like a husk torn from desiccated corn. They killed her. They killed her right in front of me, as if she were nothing but a nuisance, a life not meant to bother with.

My eyes well up, and it hurts. Like the dagger was pierced through my chest. They could’ve used the same drug to knock her out. Could’ve spared her. Instead, they stabbed her through and left her to crumple to the ground.

Rissa and I have a complicated relationship, stemming from years of resentment. But...I understood her. She used her wits, honed her seductions, learned to get ahead in a world of men, and then she wanted to forge a new path, doing whatever she needed to do to protect herself and get what she wanted.

I respected that. And when it comes to saddles, respect is the last thing society ever gives them.

Saddles fill the wants of men and women, work to satisfy sensual cravings. They perform and please, actualizing desires, earning both a sense of power and their own wealth by doing so.

And what happens? People hate it. They call it a sin, a vice. They beat it down. Claim that saddles are deplorable and dirty, the bottom dregs of society, unimportant and low-ranking. Except, behind closed doors, those very same people expect to have their urges satisfied. Expect to be pleased and pleasured, brought bliss and assuaged of their basest of needs.

And yet, a saddle isn’t even worth a life.

She’s just a saddle.

As if that made her less. As if she was so beneath them her death didn’t matter.

But it matters. It matters to me. She mattered.

I wish I could’ve told her that. I wish, back at that garden, when she squeezed my hand in a rare show of warmth, that I’d have squeezed harder. Because she was strong and smart, and she deserved that new life that she wanted. The one she worked so hard for, and now, she’ll never have it. All because of me. All because I asked her to take a walk.

Tears stream down my cheeks in chunks, as if my sorrow is heavy. It feels heavy, like a weight pressed down on my heart, and I don’t know how long I cry for her, but I hope I’m not the only one. Because Rissa wasn’t just a saddle. She was a saddle and she was also many other things too, and none of those things meant she didn’t deserve to live.

When my tears stop, I feel dried out. I don’t know if it’s just the grief or if there are still some aftereffects of whatever drug they used on me, but my whole body drags. They must’ve kept me unconscious for days to get to Second Kingdom. The thought that I was left vulnerable to them like that makes me shiver.

I might not have been in this place in over a decade, but I remember this heat. I remember the grit that seems to be all over me too, of traveling through the dunes, of being caked in its grainy wind and baked through by the sun.

Funny how, when I first came here, my ribbons had only just started to sprout from my back.

So painful coming in.

So painful taken out.

I hated them then, but now, I’d give anything to have them back.

Absently, my fingers go to my back, to the empty spots where only smooth skin now remains.

Every single one of them, gone.

My ribbons and I have had so many parallels that I never appreciated before. As if my whole journey has been exhibited through their presence.

Like the fact that my new beginning here in Second Kingdom also marked the new beginning of them growing from my back. After that, I kept them hidden, just like I kept myself. Resented them, like I resented myself. Then, when I was finally coming out of my shell, so did they. Just thinking of the way they caught me, flirted with Slade, wrapped around his ankle...

I’ll never have that again.

Just as I was coming into my own, so were they.

But then, I was cut down to the core, and with every strike, so were they.

That night marked an end for me and for my ribbons. Yet it was an ending I badly needed. I needed to be forced to stand on my own two feet, without anything to catch me. I only wish they could have been spared that same journey. But I needed to be cut down to finally rise up on my own like a phoenix from the ashes.

I wish my ribbons would do the same.

But there is no phoenix, and the only thing resembling ashes are in the Ash Dunes that reside somewhere in this Divine-damned kingdom.

A noise jerks me out of my thoughts, and I drop my hand and turn around just in time for the door to swing open as a woman steps in. She has a white wimple draped over her head, the fabric thick, stiff, and perfectly creased on either side. It completely covers her hair, and all that’s visible is a square opening for her face that sets at the edges of her cheeks and the middle of her forehead.

Her figureless robe is much the same, with similar creased draping in the starch-white cloth, covering her from jaw to feet. A slight train is gathered behind her, and her sleeves are long and wide at the ends, swallowing her hands so that not even that part of her is showing.

She has a sharp, pointed chin and her eyebrows are gone, as if she’s shaved them away, while her eyelashes are so thin and fair that they’re barely visible. Her eyes snag my attention though. Both of her brown irises are cracked on the outer sides, split with light green. It’s a mirrored image from her right eye to the left, the green making her gaze look eerie.

“Welcome to Wallmont Castle,” she says, voice serene and tilted with a slight accent, her lips twisted into a pleasant smile. “The Conflux is about to begin. I’ve come to prepare you.”

“I’ll pass, thanks,” I say as I lean against the wall.

Her pleasant smile doesn’t falter, but she does turn her head to look over her shoulder, and that’s when two large men come through the doorway. They wear their own sort of wimples, only theirs are gray, the fabric shorter and thinner, in the same shape as chainmail hoods on soldiers. Their tunics are a cream color, not quite the stark white that the woman is wearing, and their gray pants are loose, the ends rumpled where they’re tucked into knee-high boots.

They’re both young, one with brown skin and one white and covered in freckles, and they both look at me without emotion as they stride forward. I press myself against the wall, anger curling in my stomach. I have a split second to decide if it’s more important for me to hide my magic or to get out of here.

I opt to get the fuck out.

Curling my fingers into fists, I call to the gold. When I feel it pool in my palms more this time, my heart leaps. I let it gather until it starts to drip between the cracks of my fingers. It’s slow, but it’s something.

The first drop that falls to the floor makes the freckle-faced man’s eyes go wide. With a push, I shove my hands out in front of me, fingers spread, letting the rest of it splash down. In a blink, I use the gold to slither toward them and wrap around their feet like thin snakes, the clinging liquid twining up their legs, stretching and hardening around their limbs. I yank more gold from my palms, a small stream pouring out, reaching for the woman next—

And I’m suddenly hit with pain.

It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. It doesn’t strike like lightning, doesn’t burn like fire. It doesn’t pierce through me or feel like a limb slicing off.

This feels like being pinched. As if invisible hands have delved through my belly button and grabbed onto my organs. As if phantom fingers have dug around to my veins, taking the tubes and compressing them so hard it makes my blood stop.

My heart, my stomach, my lungs, my muscles, my throat—these pinching fingers grip my insides and make everything freeze up. This horrible, pressing pain lances through me, and I fall to my hands and knees, making the gold cut off, squelching between my fingers, soaking through my pants.

I can’t breathe, can’t move, as these horrible contractions squeeze every part of me harder and harder and—

It suddenly stops. As if every single pinching point was released at the same exact time. I’m shaking, covered in sweat, choking in rasping coughs.

Through blurred eyes, I look up to see the woman gliding forward, stopping just before the liquid gold can stain her pure robes.

“There, none of that now,” she says, her placid tone so out of context in this situation.

I look up at her with fury and try to call my gold again, though the echoing bruises inside my body make it so much harder. I barely manage to get a new trickle forming from my palms when I see her lift her hands, the sleeves falling back just enough to show her pressing her forefinger against her thumb and pinch.

Just like before, that pinching pain erupts inside of me.

This time, I collapse on the ground instantly, choking through a clamped throat, while everything inside of me cinches in agony, compressing like it’s going to make my organs burst and bleed.

“Stop...” I croak out, writhing on the floor.

“No more trying to use that magic, Lady Cheat,” she says. “This will happen every time you attempt to use what isn’t yours.”

The pinching ceases, and I twitch on the floor, feeling like I’m covered in a million internal bruises. It takes me a moment to recover before I even realize what she said.

“What did you call me?” I pant.

“Lady Cheat,” she says in her same serene voice. “The gilded saddle who cheated her way into the Golden King’s heart and his power, before she stole both and then his life. You’re a cheat and a fallen woman, and this is the best place for you.”

All I can do is gape at her.

She watches me as if she expects me to reply. When I don’t, she prompts, “Well? Did you or did you not trick and steal and kill, Lady Cheat?”

“I guess that’s the reason I was drugged and kidnapped, right?” I retort. “For me to go on trial and be asked that very question?”

Her fractured eyes glitter. “Indeed.”

I drag myself up to a crouch, my trembling muscles nearly giving out as I force my body to stand. Splatters of gold stain the room, the shallow puddles already starting to dry. It’s left splotches all over the men’s pants and boots, none of the gold responding, just as limp and wrung out as I feel as it lies on the floor in useless strips.

“Come with me now, unless you’d like to try to use your stolen magic again?” she asks amicably, her pale lips reminding me of the white sands of this kingdom’s shore. “Oreans who relinquish themselves to the Conflux are forbidden from using power.”

Wincing, I sit up straighter. “Well, I didn’t relinquish myself, so you can fuck off with that rule, and I won’t be going anywhere.”

This time when she pinches her fingers together, it feels like my skull is being flattened. I scream, falling over with my hands against my head, my eyes feeling like they’re about to burst like grapes. Agony ripples through me until I’m sure my skull is going to crack and my brain turn to mush.

It’s only once I feel blood leaking from my nose that the pain ends.

Slumped against the wall, I glare at this woman with so much hatred through my blurred eyes I’m surprised she doesn’t catch flame. My body feels destroyed, like I’ve been shoved in a shrinking room while the walls closed in on me, crushing me in its claustrophobic hold.

But I bleed gold. Cry gold. So I use my tears and my blood and try to move it, try to shrink them to pins so I can stab her through her horrible fingers and needle through her throat, but she presses again, cutting me off before I can do a single thing with that either.

“I can do this all day, Lady Cheat.”

I snap my eyes up at her, tears of pain bunching up my lashes. “Then do it,” I challenge. “Because I do not relinquish myself to the Conflux. So you can suck my gold and go to hell.”

For the first time since she came in here, the woman’s spurious smile falters. The men behind her shift their feet. When she brings her hands in front of her chest, I flinch, thinking she’s about to use her awful magic on me again, but instead, she laces her fingers together and bows her head. “Great Divine gods, I beseech you to purge these blasphemous words from our ears and redeem our spirits’ light.”

In unison, the guards behind her murmur, “Purge the world of darkness.”

“And illuminate our purest selves,” she finishes.

A chill goes down my spine.

“So you can torture someone with pain power, but you think it’s a sin to say the world hell?” I spit out mockingly.

She drops her arms and looks at me, a hard glint in her fragmented eye. “The afterlife is not for you to speak of. I have visible proof now you indeed stole the Golden King’s magic.”

“I never stole it,” I snarl. “This magic was always mine. He used me. He was the thief, and I’m glad he’s dead.”

There’s a small intake of breath through her lips. “We can add liar to your name as well. Thieves and cheats do not have the right to reference a spirit’s hereafter, and certainly not liars and murderers.”

“But you have the right to torture and hold me captive?” I retort.

She straightens her shoulders, looks down the thin bridge of her nose at me. “I am Isolte Merewen, Queen of Second Kingdom and First Matron of the Gathering of Temperance. The gods bestowed this power of pain on me so I may exact punishment on immoral souls. It is no sin, my lady. It is my duty as a patron of sanctity.”

My lips press into a thin line. Everyone in Orea knows that Second Kingdom holds very strict factions of religions. The more famous offshoot, however, are the Deify. They live in the Mirrored Sahara with their silence, tongues cut from mouths like tumors off a limb and discarded, as if their speech was an abscessed infection sacrificed to the gods. The Temperance I’ve heard of too, but barely. I certainly didn’t know this plain woman was the queen, leading the whole kingdom and this sect of puritanical doctrine.

“You will come now for Cleansing.”

I lift my chin. “I will not.”

I brace myself for the pain to hit, but this time, she simply nods at the men. I kick out as they come for me, but my movements are slow, ineffective. Like a kitten swiping uselessly in the air. With one on either side of me, they haul me up between them and start towing me from the room, gold smearing beneath my dragging slippers as the queen leads the way, as if she’s so unthreatened by me that she’s unafraid to show me her back.

I try to make gold flow from my palms, but it’s listless and heavy, dense jelly that’s caked against my skin, unable to drip. Unable to move.

Queen Isolte looks over her shoulder at me and says, “Pain is a pyramid, my lady. It stacks up, builds its layers. You think you can endure, think you can continue to climb its height, but you’re wrong. I can guarantee that you will not want that pain to pile up so much that you reach the pinnacle, because you will not survive that sharp peak. Of that I can promise you.”

Inside, I seethe. Amidst bruised bones and crushed organs, my anger broils.

I get dragged out of the small room and into a narrow corridor. Instead of windows, there are skylights gracing the sandy ceiling, casting pillars of light every few feet.

The men haul me up a short stack of wide steps, and then we’re in a wide domed room filled with archways, all of them open to the outside. I can see palm trees surrounding us, their thick fronds swaying with a shaded breeze that blows through. A layer of sand covers the white-tiled floor, but a bright yellow sun is painted in the center, its rays pristine and surrounded by a cerulean sky, just like the sails from the ship I rode when I fled Derfort Harbor.

We pass by it, heading to an archway to the left. I’m taken across sunbaked stones, the front of my ankles screaming from being bent back as they continue to drag me. The dense collection of palms are joined by cactus and olive trees, and the air erupts with the scent of oranges as we pass by citrus trees weighed down with heavy fruit ripe for picking.

Down the short outdoor path, the men bring me into another part of this sprawling building. After traveling down one more narrow corridor, I’m finally dumped into a dark room, my legs buckling as soon as I’m dropped.

Bracing my shaky hands beneath me, I push myself up into a sitting position, my eyes sharpening to adjust to the dim lighting. The room is shaped like a circle and completely without windows, the only light feeding in from the archway and a fire burning in a pot at the back of the room. The tile is the color of rust, the walls and ceiling matching it, and despite the stuffy heat, a chill goes down my spine, because this room has a wooden table with iron shackles chained to it. Part of the wall is covered in hanging whips too, and there are more sinister things that I can’t quite see because there’s a wall of women blocking my sight.

They’re all gathered together like some morbid choir about to break out into song. They’re dressed the same as the queen, except where her robes are pure white, theirs have strips of gray sewn into them. Some have a lot, the strips going all the way down to the hems, while others only have a single one around their waists. Just like Queen Isolte, their hair is covered in white wimples too, their hands swallowed by funneled sleeves.

“You can go,” the queen tells the men, and I watch as they walk away. I have a feeling that I’d rather stay with them.

When I look back at Queen Isolte, the expression on her face tells me that I’m probably right. Turning to the women, she says, “Ladies of the Gathering of Temperance, it’s time to perform a Cleansing.”