I was taken into the Towers and all the way down to the bottom floor, several levels beneath the earth. I was always brought to the same set of
rooms—messy chambers clearly used for research and experimentation, packed with overflowing bookcases and desks and exam tables. When I first started coming here, they were relatively neat, but with every visit their atmosphere grew more frenetic, like the desperation of Ara as a country was seeping into the walls.
When I arrived, the Queen leaned over a cluttered desk, her palms braced at its edge. She wore a white military jacket and slim matching pants. Her silver hair, normally bound in braids, was loose over her shoulders, only the top of it pulled back. The crown was tangled within it, so hopelessly knotted there that she probably couldn’t remove it even if she wanted to.
She straightened. Her face was hard. Dark circles surrounded her eyes, and blood soiled her throat and hands, as if she had changed her clothing but hadn’t had time to bathe.
I knew her. Once I’d even known her well. I was certain of this. The memories were gone, but the imprints they left behind remained. Every time I looked at her, I was furious for reasons I didn’t understand.
Then again, I had more than enough reason to hate her for the memories I did have.
“What is this?” She held up a piece of parchment, which bore, scribbled in ink, the same three shapes I always drew. The last time I’d been here, I had scratched them onto a scrap of paper in my delirium, half-out-of-my- mind in the aftermath of the Queen’s experiments.
I said nothing.
“Is it a map?” she asked.
“It must be.” Another voice came from the opposite side of the room, and I stiffened. A thin, elderly Valtain man rose and gave me a magic, chilling grin. “Perhaps some piece of knowledge he stole from his Fey possessor. Wouldn’t that be interesting?”
Vardir. I hated him, too. “I’m surprised,” I said.
The Queen cocked an eyebrow. “Surprised.”
“I’m surprised that you’re willing to make it so obvious how desperate you are. Pulling me out here in broad daylight, when you haven’t even had time to wash the blood off yourself. Things are that bad?” I lifted my chin towards the door at the other end of the room. “How many dead volunteers are in there, today?”
She held my stare for a second too long, then looked away. “I need no moralizing from you. War criminals don’t get to lecture me for the measures I take to save my people.”
Fire. Screams. A city of bodies so burnt that families buried only bones and ash.
The onslaught of images, as they always did, left me slightly sickened. I had to fight hard to remain stoic.
Ilyzath’s whisper again echoed through my thoughts: Perhaps it is all real, and that is the greatest nightmare of all.
In rare times—in moments like this—I was grateful for my broken mind. Maybe some things were better left forgotten.
The Queen turned to Vardir, her arms crossed over her chest. “This needs to work,” she hissed. “Do whatever you need to do. We’re out of time.”
Vardir looked irritated. “It’s not my fault that he’s so much more useless than he was last time.”
“Enough of the excuses,” the Queen said. “Go.”
The door at the back of the room opened. The guards took hold of my arms, but I stood of my own accord.
The chamber was circular and white, with a second door at the opposite side. It was a small space, with white walls, a white floor, a white ceiling. As we entered, two other guards were disappearing through the second
door, carrying a lifeless body. I glimpsed dangling feet covered in black veins just before it slammed closed.
To the left was a wide window that could be used to observe what happened within—magically reinforced, I had learned, during one of my many attempts at rebellion. Still, I’d nearly killed the person trying to hold me down by flinging them against it, and even though the glass hadn’t broken, it had been very satisfying.
I wasn’t rebellious today.
Instead, I went to the table at the center of the room and obediently lay down on it, blinking up at the ceiling. Stratagrams adorned it in garish crimson paint.
Hands held down my wrists, strapping them to the table, palm up. Vardir’s assistant today was a Valtain woman, but Vardir did the work. I didn’t even need to see the needles to know what was coming next. I was prepared for the pain.
“There’s no more room,” the woman muttered. “He has so many already…”
“There’s room,” Vardir said, cheerfully, before starting in on the tattoos on my palms.
I realized, as I had countless times now, that preparation didn’t mean much. The agony overtook me anyway. These weren’t normal tattoos. The ink marked every layer of my skin, seared there by magic.
The myriad of Stratagrams tattooed across my body cut me off from my power. Every time I managed to slip through, another tattoo would be added, closing each loophole. I wasn’t sure what I’d done to deserve these ones, but I’d learned that the Queen was very afraid of whatever might happen if I gained even a fraction of control over my own magic.
That was the only conclusion I could make, anyway. The reactions of others told me it was highly unusual for someone to have so many shackles inked into their body.
Eventually, Vardir finished his work. Even when the needles were gone, I was left dazed and numb in the aftershock of it.
Vardir patted my shoulder. “Excellent work. Now, the real fun.” “Great,” I gritted out.
I heard the doors close. The room went dark.
Vardir’s assistant stood at my head, her hands resting on the table on either side of me. “What do I—”
“Just don’t let him die,” Vardir said.
Well, that inspired confidence. I focused intently on my breathing.
I had done some variation of this countless times since my imprisonment, though it changed a little with each test. I didn’t understand what they were trying to do, exactly. But I could string together some assumptions based on what I did know.
I knew that the Queen wanted a weapon powerful enough to win her war. I knew that somehow, they expected to get one from me. And now, I knew that desperation was driving them to rush—to be sloppy. To take risks.
It was only recently that I realized their experiments were largely out of their control. And what was out of their control might, just might, be within mine.
And this time—
No time to brace myself. Nothing existed anymore but the pain.
I gritted my teeth, tried to ground myself in the cadence of my breath, in the metal against my skin. But so quickly, those markers of the world fell away. A fire had started in my blood and had nowhere to go, so it consumed me instead.
The white walls dissolved. In their place were an onslaught of fragmented moments.
I saw a beautiful house with gold columns and a lion at its gates. My hand pressed to the door, but someone whispered in my ear, You don’t want to go back there again.
Now, a blanket of flowers surrounding a little stone cabin. Someone calling for me—an accented voice, breaking my name into two melodic syllables. I knew that voice. I had heard it many times, at the edges of dreams and memories I couldn’t grasp.
I tried to turn, but the image evaporated.
And then I was in a white room, white and white and white.
And then I was on a battlefield, watching my weapon skewer a teenage boy.
And then I was in a dark place, with a warm glow radiating from the walls. Braided white hair fell around my face. The Queen leaned over me, her mouth twisted into a sneer. “You should have killed me.”
The world dissolved. Again, again, again.
Through the pain and disorientation, I tried to anchor myself.
You have a plan, I reminded myself. Yes, the Stratagram tattoos cut me off from my magic. But they were opening a door for me, using me as a vessel for a magic even they didn’t seem to understand.
Surely, I could use that somehow.
Magic was rushing around me, sweeping me up like floodwaters. With great effort, I stabilized myself. Tried to reverse the power. Tried to capture what surged through me.
And for the briefest moment, I fucking had it.
The magic no longer carried me away. I was channeling it. It took every bit of strength in me—my physical body, surely, had to be dying. Nothing but death could be this painful.
Still. For one moment, one beautiful fucking moment, it was right there. But then—
I felt something strange, something that distracted me. Another presence. Someone I knew, someone I knew well. I caught a flash of cold air, warm blood. Of someone falling to the ground, a sword hacking through their throat.
Utter, deep sadness. Sadness and fury.
And familiarity. Bone-deep, soul-shaking familiarity. I know you.
It struck me so hard that it made my heart stop.
The moment of distraction was too much. I lost control. The pent-up energy burst all at once. The pain pulled the flesh from my bones.
What a way to die, I thought, grumpily. My consciousness faded.
 |
“MAX.”
May-oocks.
That voice again.
My vision was blurry. For a moment I could make out sweeps of color
—white skin and tan, one splash of green, one of silver. “Max.” Sharper this time.
I blinked. The figure was gone. Instead, the Queen leaned over me.
When my eyes opened, her shoulders lowered in a breath of relief. “Good,” she muttered. “Here. Drink.”
I struggled to push myself to my elbows and tried very hard not to vomit. She held out a cup that I pointedly did not take.
She rolled her eyes. “What? You think it’s poisoned? It isn’t.” “I’m perplexed by your sudden concern for my well-being.”
“You’re too valuable to let die. Drink the damned water.” She shoved the glass into my hands, whirling around to give Vardir a withering look. “That was unacceptable.”
“It was a theory,” Vardir said.
“It was a failure, and you nearly killed him.”
He looked annoyed. “It was almost a success, and it wasn’t my fault that it wasn’t.”
“Oh? Whose fault is it, then?”
Vardir gave me a bone-chilling smile. Ascended above, I hated that man. “Maxantarius’s, of course.”
The Queen scoffed.
“So much within him has been locked away,” he went on. “We cannot access what he can’t even access himself.”
I looked down at my arms—at the tattoos covering them. I had to admit, a part of me would have found it darkly funny if they had sabotaged their own efforts.
The Queen followed my stare.
“We need our precautions,” she said, “when dealing with a dangerous criminal.”
Dangerous criminal. She made me sound so vicious.
Vardir laughed. “No, no, I am not talking about the Stratagram tattoos. I’m talking about something deeper. His magic is built upon his past. And now, his mind is not—”
“Enough.” The Queen spoke too quickly, glancing at me and then immediately looking away, as if she hadn’t intended to.
I let out a raspy laugh. “What, do you want me to leave so you can talk about me in private?”
The Queen didn’t dignify this with an answer. She stood and turned away. “Vardir, you and I will have a discussion later about your failures. Syrizen, take Maxantarius back to Ilyzath.”
 |
Whatever Vardir had done to me didn’t wear off immediately. At first, standing upright required effort. My wrists and ankles were bound again, and I was led out of the Towers. It was late afternoon now, colder and grayer. I wondered how long I’d been unconscious. Perhaps longer than I had realized.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had witnessed.
Most of what I saw during Vardir’s experiments faded quickly, like dreams dissolving upon waking. But whatever I had experienced—had felt—when I tried to seize control, lingered. That sense of familiarity… so vague, yet it was the only real thing I had felt in a long time.
I wasn’t even sure I cared that it had disrupted my plan. There would be another experiment, another opportunity. I would try again. I carefully ignored the persistent question that followed: Then what?
We were halfway to the docks when Vivian, one of my two Syrizen guards, halted suddenly, her eyes fixed on the horizon.
“What is it?” the other asked. “Do you feel that, Merah?”
Merah frowned and shook her head. “No.”
But the hair prickled at the back of my neck. Something shivered in the air, like the suspended tension before a lightning strike.
The three of us stood in silence for a moment. The soldiers still hurried about, continuing their clean-up. Birds sang. The breeze rustled the leaves.
Vivian turned away. “I just thought—” The words became a wet crunch.
Vivian was no longer standing there.
She was in two pieces, clutched in the grasp of a creature of shadow, her head dangling from one spindly-fingered hand, and her body from the other.
As if they had just stepped from the air, the monsters were everywhere.
