15. Chapter Fifteen

Ilay on the bed with a cool wet cloth ripped from the sheets that rests across my throbbing forehead. It pulses to the rhythm of my heartbeat and although I haven't moved, the room spins as though it's dancing around me. Taking steady, deep breaths, I assess my aching body. My injuries have healed, but fatigue wears at me from fasting for three days with nothing but water. At the thought of food, my stomach lets out a loud grumble and cramps painfully, causing me to curl into a ball on my side. Last night, the aroma of the warm beef and vegetable stew filled the air, making my mouth water in anticipation. The sight of the hearty chunks of meat and colorful vegetables in the bowl was tempting, but the dimmed visage of a sprinkling of dust on the vegetables reminded me to take caution. My logical side fought and eventually won against my basic animal needs. As I walk away from the table, the warmth of the stew radiates towards me, taunting me to come back for just one bite. This food is poisoned and I must remain strong.

Nimble footsteps make their way up the stairs and I close my eyes tighter. I am in no shape to argue with Alice this morning. The door slowly opens and I am ready to tell her to let me free or leave me be, but I stare in confusion as the tall figure in front of me is not Alice, but two tall guards wearing the royal crest on their chest.

A foreign sigil, one that shouldn't even command me.

"Shifter, you are to come with us," one male states flatly.

"Where am I going?" My voice is raspy from disuse. I heave my body up into a sitting position, the thudding of my heartbeat echoing in my ears. The room spins around me, the walls and furniture blurring into indistinguishable shapes. Black spots swarm my vision, obscuring any clear sight. A faint scent of stale air and sweat lingers in my nostrils as I struggle to keep myself upright.

"The Queen has demanded your presence," the other guard replies, grabbing my elbow and forcing me to my feet.

"No!" I try to pull out of his grip but my strength fails me and I nearly fall to my knees. I cry out in pain as the guard wretches my arm upward, causing my shoulder to burn. The other guard supports me on the other side and together they frog-march me down the winding steps. I lose my sense of direction as we turn away from the large hall that leads to the courtroom. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a flash of white and cream scurrying down the hall and my heart clenches in my chest.

Lemon!

I struggle against the guards' tight grip, but they hold firm as we pass through another door and descend down a flight of winding stairs. The musty scent of damp air fills my nostrils, and the sound of our footsteps echoes off the stone walls. Only sporadic torches cast a flickering glow on the passage. They illuminate our path as we continue downward, reflecting ominous shadows on the stone walls. My heart pounds in my chest, and my palms grow slick with sweat as we descend deeper into the unknown depths of the dungeon.

At the bottom, we stop in front of a carved wooden door that appears centuries old. The door creaks as they push it open, revealing a vast room with stone walls and a low set ceiling. In the center of the room, a large stone slab sits, its rough texture visible even from a distance. The air is cool and damp, making my skin prickle with goosebumps. My eyes catch on the straps around the table and the dark stains in the stone.

"Bring her to me." Her sweet melodic voice echoes through the room and I turn my head to see the queen reclined on a plush couch. Her golden curls hang loose, draping across her breasts like a golden waterfall. She shifts her position to better observe me, her sheer cream gown flowing around her. The fabric hugs her curves, leaving little to the imagination. From our proximity, the scent of her perfume wafts through the room, a nauseatingly strong blend of floral and musk. Her beauty is the kind that inspires poetry and art. But I know better. Underneath her seemingly gentle exterior lies a serpent waiting to strike. The guards release me before her, and it takes all my will to keep my balance as my body shakes with fatigue.

"Welcome to my little sanctuary, unicorn." I watch as she sips from the silver goblet in her hand, then runs the tip of her tongue delicately across her lips.

"I have a name." I grind out between clenched teeth.

"Oh, that's right. Sybil isn't it?" She hums in disapproval before slowly dragging her gaze from my head to my feet.

"What is it that I can do for you, your highness?" I lay heavy sarcasm in the question and ball my hands into fists.

The queen raises her delicate brows at my tone, her lips curving into a knowing smile.

Goddess, help me, what have I just done?

I dare a glance at the guards behind me. They are the only thing standing between me and my freedom, but in my weakened state I doubt I'd be able to physically out maneuver them. The taste of bitterness fills my mouth as I bite down hard, trying to suppress the frustration that's been building up since she stole my magic. "What is it that you want?"

She laughs, setting the goblet on a table beside her before pushing to stand. "Men always think that power is only a step away from them. Kill a king and take his place. Start a war and kill your enemies. Marry the daughter of a rich Lord and you'll be her master. Sacrifice the unthinkable to a God and he will grant you gifts." She curls a strand of her hair with a finger, her gaze so unfaltering it makes me want to hide. "What they fail to realize, however, is that there is no point in gaining power if you don't have the time to fully use it to your advantage." Her plush lips curl upwards, revealing a wicked smile that sends chills down my spine. The sharp glint in her eyes glimmers with hunger, making me feel like prey. The room is silent, except for the faint sound of our breathing and the rustle of fabric as she moves closer.

"I searched for hundreds of years for a unicorn shifter. I wanted your parents, really." I gasp at the mention of my mother and father and remember Aramis mentioning that Shadowvale believed my parents aided the rebellion. But with the recent discovery that the Queen does not act with the intention of stopping the attacks, I fear her need for my parents had a darker motivation. "Two unicorns would have meant not only double the power at my disposal but also the potential to breed an unlimited supply of magic to help me turn the clock on time over and over again." She swipes her hand angrily across a nearby table, knocking glass and metal to shatter on the stone floor. The heat of her gaze burns as she turns back towards me and growls. "But no, they had to go all noble to the end, sacrificing themselves in order to protect you from my sights."

My breath catches in my throat and an old pain I had carefully managed to suppress deep within my heart comes rushing back. My body begins to shake, and I desperately look around for something to steady myself on. This cannot be real.

Sheis the person responsible for ambushing and murdering my parents? And they sacrificed themselves to protect me?

The shock must be evident on my face because she laughs and grabs a hold of my chin. I lift my arms to fend her off, but the crawling sensation of her magic pins them back against my sides and seals my lips closed.

"Not so fast. You are mine now, pet. Thanks to you, I will witness kings and queens die, kingdoms crumble, and I will take it all. I don't care if I have to drain every single shifter on this continent to do so. Starting with you." I try to scream but my windpipes constrict even further." Lifting her hand to my forehead, I feel the tug against my power, but nothing happens. I watch as Tricella"s face contorts with concentration and I feel scrape of her magic grapple inside but fail once more. Only the flicker of my magic dances like a silver flame in my core, evading her.

"Something wrong, your majesty?" The corners of my lips curl up in satisfaction as I hold on tight to the tiny flame of magic inside of me. The resulting slap stinging my cheek, no doubt leaving a red welt, is absolutely worth the defiance.

"Where is your magic? Why has it not replenished?" She seethes, the knuckles of her hands turning bone white as she grips the front of my dress. Small creases form at the corner of her eyes before an unfamiliar voice has me peering over her shoulder behind her.

"Perhaps she cannot recover as quickly, locked up so far away from the elements. She is a mere creature, after all. They thrive on the earth and in the sunshine." The man's voice has a soothing quality, and I am pulled by its rhythmic deep lilt. He moves with the grace of a dancer to my side and runs a finger down my ribs, visible through the thin fabric. The touch instantly clears my senses and I struggle against the magical hold on my body.

"Perhaps you're right, Kieran." The seer. Laying down on the lodge chair, she sighs and drapes her forearm across her eyes. "Give her what she requires to regain her strength. I want her at her full potential the next time she's brought to me. Now, leave me."

"As you wish, your highness." He bows low at the waist in her direction, short dark hair falling into his face. I observe in fascination as he gradually rises to his feet, the luxurious silk of his mage's robes pulled tight against his muscular back. The rustle of the fabric echoes softly in the stillness of the room, and the subtle scent of sandalwood wafts through the air. As he stands, his movements are graceful, yet purposeful, as if he is summoning some great power within himself. The air around him seems to hum with energy, crackling with a palpable electricity. Are all mages built like immortal warriors? For surely this male is a scholar, not a guard.

"And Kieran? Make sure that insolent stepson of mine is out of the way, then have the guards bring in some of the shifter prisoners from the dungeon. He's starting to get too nosy, and…go find me a refreshment. I need one, now." Queen Tricella sits up and turns towards us. She lifts her hands and the constriction around me releases. I wobble unsteadily on my feet as black spots dance in my vision. I want to run and flee, but my trembling weak muscles refuse to take that first step.

Firm hands grab my forearms, turning me back towards the door. I attempt to wrestle out of their grips as the two guards escort me back upstairs, but my strength is no match in my current weakened state.

Keep Aramis from knowing she's taking shifter prisoners for their power? Does he not know what his stepmother does?

My mind reels with hundreds of questions as I play his words from the road over in my head. He thought I was involved in a rebellion to bring down his kingdom, but the queen is using shifters to gain more power for herself. He must be told the truth.

Sunlight blinds me as we pass through a large stone archway. I lift my arm, shielding my eyes from the stinging pain, waiting for them to adjust. Chancing a peek through my fingers, the first thing I take in are the rows upon rows of rose bushes in hundreds of colors. Goosebumps pepper the skin of my bare arms as a chill breeze wraps around me. Then I smell the scent of honeysuckle, chrysanthemum, and aster flowers. How does a land on the northern edge of the continent have such bountiful growth and blooms on the cusp of winter?

"There is a magical field placed over the gardens to keep them in a perpetual healthy growing state. We have many talented earth, wind, and water mages who reside in the castle." Kieran's melodic voice speaks softly behind me, as if reading my thoughts. Turning, I quickly back away from him, glancing frantically from side to side, looking for a route to escape. His laughter chimes like deep bells, as he leans against the rough brick wall of the castle exterior behind him, not moving in my direction.

"Why have you brought me here?" I ask. The guards who escorted me out of the queen's sanctuary are nowhere to be seen, if Kieran is the only person I have to get rid of, I might have a chance at escaping.

"For the sunshine and flowers?" He lifts his hands towards the sky.

"I do not belong here. Please… please, let me go." I beg. It has to be approaching midday based on where the sun is in the sky. "She's already stolen my family. I've given her enough."

"Walk with me." Lifting a hand in my direction, he walks towards me before he pauses, his eyes taking on a milk white color, completely blocking out the iris and pupil for a split second.

"Who are you?" I ask once his eyes go back to their normal deep grey color. I stand still, refusing to go anywhere with this male.

"My name is Kieran," he says, giving me a half grin and mock bow. "High seer to queen Tricella. You can choose to act as you wish unicorn, but I recommend that you and I become friends rather than enemies. It's in your best interest."

"And what makes you think I should trust you?" What an arrogant asshole. Is this what a kingdom is like? Everyone believing they are above the rest of us? That my life–my family–is expendable?

"I see you, Sybil Vandeleur." He draws out the syllables of my name, his eyes taking on a faraway look. "How much do you know about seers?"

His question throws me off, and I nibble on my bottom lip as I contemplate. I didn't know much about seers except for the fact that they are rare. They could be born to any race, regardless of family lineage. "I know that seers are blessed by the Goddess with the sight, just like healers are blessed with the power to heal."

"Yes," he says with a sigh, rubbing his forehead before pushing off from the wall and pacing before me. "We are gifted with glimpses of the future, and sometimes the past. But looking into the future is not as easy as everyone thinks because that time has not been written yet. It is fluid, ever changing." He lifts his hands and an orb of water floats from a small pond beside us, its surface reflecting the light. "To every event, there is a tipping point. When key players make changes, it changes the course of the future path they are on."

"We are vessels of our own free will, as the goddess allows," I say. "But we cannot control the future any more than we can control the seasons."

"Ah, but that is where you are wrong." He smiles and inside the orb replays the night Aramis broke into my house and captured me. The vision fades and flickers and images start playing faster and faster until they become a blur. "Each small event, each change in the pathway, can change the future. Just as water wears against stone. You just have to move the right pieces."

"As much as I appreciate the lesson, what is the point of dragging me out here, giving me a taste of freedom only to lock me back in the tower? I'd rather waste away than be some pawn in assisting the queen."

"You are more than just a mere pawn, Sybil." The orb slows to an image of the queen standing before the people of Shadovale, Kieran at her side and me kneeling at her feet. As soon as it appears, the vision changes to one of me astride a dappled stallion riding across a field filled with wounded, charging towards a castle.

This castle.

My eyes flick up at the stone walls, breathing in the damp scent. This place? I'm meant to attack this castle?

In my peripheral, I see the vision change. Spellbound to the possibilities, I tilt my head downwards, mesmerized by what unfolds before my eyes. To my astonishment, I see myself on a ladder, situated in a vast and magnificent library. The next moment, the scene changes, and I see a vision of myself kneeling before the king and queen of Kallistar. However, this image quickly fades away, replaced by a new one. Now, I am wandering through an endless snowy forest. The visions continue to whirl around the orb, growing faster and faster, granting me only fleeting, fragmented glimpses of possible futures.

If that is my possible future, I must escape this place. Somehow. My heart clenches and I can't tear my eyes away. I need to know more, but the images return to a spinning orb of crystalline water.

"Your future is rich with possibilities, but one thing is consistent throughout all the visions the Goddess has granted me: your destiny is tied to that of my queen. You will be the reason for her success or her demise. " He lets the orb float mid-air to gently brush the dark circles that have now become a permanent feature of my face with the soft pad of his thumb.

"Get. Your. Hands. Off. Me." I shiver and recoil from his cold touch. "I might not be a pawn in this plan but you certainly are. You are a tool to her. How can you live with yourself knowing you're aiding her in this madness?" I spat, anger rising. His fingers move from my cheek to my chin and lift my face up in his direction.

Even if the visions took my breath away, I also can't just trust the right hand of the queen.

"Talking to me like that isn't very friend-like now, is it Sybil?" His eyes darken, and I wonder if I have once again underestimated my opponent. "A word of advice. I am nothing but the queen's loyal servant. Her success is all that matters to me, so you do not want to be an obstacle in our plans. It would be such a shame to have all of… this," he says as his gaze leisurely roams down my body, "go to waste." I swallow uncomfortably as he lets his hand fall to his side and takes a step back. Crossing my arms, I keep my gaze fixed on him in defiance. "Now, love, why are you not eating?" Kieran asks nonchalantly, as if he hasn't just threatened to kill me if I do not cooperate.

"Why would I eat poisoned food? I can recognize the scent of valerian." Watching the muscles in his jaw tighten, I smirk. I am not a fool.

"You are not what I expected," the seer says, letting the orb of water drop to the ground with a snap of his fingers, splashing our feet.

"I never expected to be abducted from my cottage and stolen away to be used as a pawn either!" I shout, losing my temper.

These people in this castle are asinine. I'm supposed to just believe them because of a vision? For all I know, he's not even a real seer. How am I supposed to know what qualifies him as one? How am I supposed to gauge anything?

"I have been looking for you for a long time, Sybil." Kieran's head tilts to one side, studying me with curiosity. "Countless days I wasted, waiting for visions of potential shifters in Shadowvale that could grant the queen the amount of magic she needs. We tried everything from wolves, tigers, and bears to rare exotic shifters. Sometimes even entire families of a specific kind of shifter!" He shakes his head in disappointment. "All of them useless, merely able to turn the clock a couple of months back, and they would never last more than two or three uses. We knew, of course, that we needed a unicorn. The only known shifter able to tap into the well of magic deep and long enough to truly grant the queen the gift of time. Were it not that your kind is so hard to come by these days, I would have found you as a young colt if it weren't for your parents." I stop frozen, unwilling to process what I just heard. My stomach cramps up, bile rising in my throat. Countless shifters lost their lives. Entire families are dead for this madness. Just like my family…

"What do you mean, if it weren't for my parents?" My hands clench and I bare my teeth at him.

"I saw them, in a vision, traveling home from delivering the Queen's baby. We meant to intercept them before they reached Kallistar and prevent the heirs' birth. I had foreseen its demise as a stillborn, but your blasted mother arrived early." A muscle ticks in his jaw.

I remember that week. The babe wasn't due for another month, but my mother said she felt an intuition from the goddess and convinced my father to leave for the capital a month early. Her last letter to me was that the queen of Kallistar went into labor a month early and, had she not been there, they both would have died in child labor. Tears prick at the corner of my eyes, threatening to spill over.

"You were supposed to be with them," Kieran says.

"What?" I break out of my memories and face him once again.

"In my vision, the three of you were to travel to Kallistar. After the birth, your parents planned to finish your enrollment in Nova Esther."

"Why didn't they take me?" I grab the front of his robes, demanding he tell me. I have to know.

"That, I do not know. Mother's intuition? Luck?" He pulls out of my desperate grasp and runs his hands down the front of his scholar's robes, straightening them. "All I know is that upon her death, your mother prayed for the Goddess' protection and you were blinded from my sight until one day, shortly after your twenty-fifth birthday, you were suddenly there. My vision revealed a young unicorn shifter wasting her life and talents in a poor village. You have the power to change Craeweth as we know it, love."

My knees buckle, hitting the hard stone floor as his revelation of my parents' sacrifice to protect me. This kingdom, these people, they are all sick and twisted. How can I change anything when I can't even help myself? I stand numb, reeling in his revelations, and before I can say anything, his eyes take on a milky white hue again that eclipses the iris and pupil. He immediately shakes his head, his eyes returning to their regular piercing gray, and sighs, running a hand through his tidy, short, dark hair. "Unfortunately, I have to cut our first encounter short, I'm afraid. There is a matter I need to attend to. I promise, I will make sure your next meal is not contaminated."

Moments after the queen's seer returns me to my room, Alice appears laden with a tray of food and a hot pot of black tea. As promised, the food contains no trace of valerian, poppy, or any other discernible substances. I cautiously pick at the food, debating if there is some trick to my senses, but hunger wins. Pacing myself, lest I lose the contents of my stomach after fasting for days, I pick up a chicken breast, taking small deliberate bites before washing it down with a cup of hot tea.

After finishing my meal, leaving only bones and dregs, I lay on the bed, exhausted but full, staring at the dust motes dancing in the air above me. Tears stream silently from my eyes as I reflect on the countless shifters who have tragically lost their lives within this castle. The weight of their losses leaves me feeling hollow, but something else is slowly warming up my chest. Next to the little spark of magic I have left, a new sensation takes form.

The need for revenge.