MARKS - Chapter 37

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The King walks through the door, his purple robe sweeping behind him. The fluttering fabric is a perfect symbol of his evil, an entire Kingdom caught up in the wake of his movements.

He stands in front of me, and places his arms on the table. Then he bends his face to mine. “We’re going to try something,” he says.

Levers pull and twist, and my right hand bends without my willing it to. A scrawl appears across the page that looks nothing like words. This isn’t going to work. The pulse of victory shooting through me is so intense I smile - I actually look at the bastard and smile.

“I have to write it myself,” I tell him.

“People are dying, Gretta.”

His words are like butter, smooth and thick. They’re also lies. I’ll not help him continue to rip the world apart.

“A kingdom lies suffering and you choose to do nothing to help?” he asks. “To keep your words to yourself while people die?”

The very air in the room grows heavy with the thickness of his lies.

Lies.

The best lies are those closest to truth. I wonder if he knows this. I certainly do. “Why can’t the prince go home?”

“He can. It’s best he doesn’t.”

“Is he in danger there?”

The King scoffs. “Perhaps.”

“You want him dead?”

He looks at me. “No.”

Then what? What does he want with Faraday? The King visited there once when he was young. If rumors can be trusted, he was run out shortly after he arrived. Some offense with the princess. Who is now married to a prince in another Kingdom. So what does our King want?

“I won’t write him unwelcome unless I know why you don’t want him there.” I swallow. “So I know he’s safe.”

The King glances to the Chancellor, then settles down in a chair. “Fine, don’t write that he’s unwelcome at home.”

“What do you want me to write then?”

The King shrugs his shoulders. “The prince of Faraday doesn’t want to accept the truth of who he is,” he says, as if this is an answer to anything.

“That he’s heir to a Kingdom?”

“That the King of Faraday is not his father.”

Sweet mercy. “Then he’s not the heir?”

Who is? The prince has three sisters and no brothers. Who would Faraday go to? It’s already been written that the King will not conquer any more lands. And Faraday would be foolish to strike an alliance.

“The prince needs to realize what he is heir to and act on it.” The King looks at the contraption and then to me. “All your sentences are in groups of seven words. I’m sure you can find a way to write it down.”

I straighten my shoulders. “What’s the prince’s name?”

The King chuckles. “The title of prince should do just fine, Gretta.”

Again with his titles. Prince. King. Chancellor.

Faraday will not yield to an alliance, so I don’t know how the King thinks that will help, no matter what Kingdom the prince is really heir to. And Faraday cannot be conquered by Dracon. Yet that seems to be what the King wants me to write. He’s trying to get around it. To make the Lyran prophecy work in a way he wants. I’m not sure if that even works, pitting one Lyran’s powers against the others. Maybe they cancel each other out. Or maybe they both happen.

I don’t know. Terror pulses through my veins with each heartbeat. The King seems to know more about my power than I do. He knows words too well. What is he trying to do?

You know him, Gretta. You know it can’t be good.

I stare at the King, my face blank and my heart a blinding fury of hatred. I’ll die before I write what he wants.

The King nods to Black, and the contraption tugs and pulls, my hand contorting in ways that send pulses of pain up through my arm.

I groan, my entire arm sizzling with pain from fingers to shoulders. Words finally scrawl on the page, and horror paralyzes me. I can’t breathe. But no, this can’t work.  I did not want to write these words. He cannot control my power. It has to be my choice.

Hours pass and the pain gets so horrid I do nothing but bite my lip and cry. The King walks back in and glares at me. He eyes the contraption and my arm stuck in it, then looks to Black. “Any progress?”

“No.”

The King looks over the equipment and eyes the papers with the forced words on it. “We could have them make adjustments.”

Black crumples a paper in his hand. “This isn’t working, Jameson. We need to stop wasting time.”

Jameson. What a proper name for such a horrid individual.

The King clenches his jaw and crosses his arms. He and Black exchange a silent look and the King nods. “Enough of this. Return her to her cell.”

His eyes are hard but frantic, the green specks in them flaring to life as if he’s trying to decide what emotion to settle in to. “I’m done playing games with you, Gretta.”

Black shoves me forward as the King’s words swirl around in my head. They’re not true. Because I know, more than most, that he loves to play games. That’s part of his evil. He’s not swift in his execution of his so-called judgment. This isn’t the end.

This was just a warm up.

####

The ceiling of my cell blends green then blue, and spots of red and yellow burst along the walls. How strange that color exists here in the worlds of gray and black the King presides over.

A tray of slop is shoved under the door. I stare at it for several seconds, a battle raging in my mind as to whether or not it’s worth getting up to eat. Eventually the knot in my stomach wins against the tiredness soaking my bones. The colors on the walls disappear as I eat. I’ll lose my mind in here if he doesn’t kill me first.

Black strides into my cell with paper and pen. This is it, then. The moment my fate is decided. The moment I choose whether to die in fear or live my short life with courage.

I pick up the pen and scrawl across the paper. A wart grows on King Dracon’s butt. I giggle as I sign my name.

Black rips the paper out of my hands with a growl. As if it should matter to him what grows on the King’s hind end. I’m not even sure if it works with a last name. First name’s is all I’ve been taught. Black strides out of the cell and barks for guards. Fear dances up my spine and I slide up the wall to my feet. Footsteps approach.

“This one doesn’t know her place,” he says to the approaching guard. “Show her.” He marches away and the two men he’s called for step inside my cell.

My knees give out, and I grab the stone wall and tell myself I cannot let them know. I cannot make a sound or movement or single twitch of a facial muscle to let Black know he’s sent the man I love to beat me.

 ####

Ward’s eyes widen as they probe my body, seeing the bruises and dried blood on my arms and my face. I see the moment his eyes flicker from shock to rage, the way they narrow and harden, and his breaths are so loud I can hear them from here.

He’s here to hurt me. Something he’s been made to do who knows how many times before. My hatred for the King burns anew. He does this. Strips Ward of his grace and his dignity by making him do horrible things to people. To innocent people. Here I’ve thought no one had a better story of grief and pain than mine.

But now I know - Ward’s is worse. He lives this story day in and day out, unable to battle the horror that keeps him here.

I didn’t realize until this moment how much I thought Ward would come find me, and rescue me from this place. I know from his face he didn’t know I was here. And that he sure as Saints didn’t know he’d been sent to do this.

And he can’t do anything.

If he refuses, he’ll be punished, in ways I don’t even want to imagine. If he lets on that he knows me, they’ll investigate him. They’ll do who knows what to him, then they’ll search for everyone else. And I know the King. He will find them.

The other guard wrenches me upright. His hand is braced on my arm, and horror floods me as I realize Ward is the one who does the hitting. Ward with his arms like tree branches and his solid stance. They send him to do this.

The guard who holds me stands behind my right shoulder. I elbow him hard and in the second it takes him to regain his hold, I mouth a word at Ward.

Liddy, I mouth.

One word I hope screams a paragraph. Do it for Liddy. To keep her safe. For the baby inside Blair that hasn’t had a chance to fight this evil. Do it for them all, Ward. A million words come to mine, and I can’t say them.

But I know Ward hears my unspoken words when he steps forward and his fist connects with my jaw.

And for the second time, all I see is black.