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MYRA

Myra tried to melt into the wall of the dark, cold room beneath the Ardentolian castle. In the damp cells, the shadows loomed large. Melancholy coated the walls and oozed from the stone, making the air thick with agony and misery.

Since Myra was a child, she had struggled to contain her ability. Many thought their abilities were gifts from the gods, but Myra’s could only be described as a curse. Bearing one’s own emotions was already a burden enough for many, but to experience the emotions of every person you touched? It was a torment Myra would never wish on anyone.

Humans were not the only emotions she could sense either. Buildings, too, thrust their emotions at her. If Myra was lucky, some buildings had a warm and inviting aura. When she visited homes filled with laughter and love, it was reminiscent of the sun shining down on a field of freshly bloomed daisies in late spring.

Myra was rarely lucky. These days, those kinds of places were few and far between.

The places Myra had to frequent often reeked of death and dread. And this humid dungeon beneath in the Ardentolian castle was the worst of them all. The air beneath the castle was sticky with agony, torment, and rage. The stone walls were soaked with the cries of the victims who had been tortured in the cell. The ground had been watered with the tears and blood of the dying, so much so that Myra could barely remain standing. The call for death was too strong here, and it tugged on her limbs.

Unlike the emotions of humans or animals, Myra could not manipulate the emotions of the walls or floors. Those emotions were etched in the very stone. Permanent and unbendable. The very infrastructure of a building would have to crumble for the stories melted into the concrete or the memories buried inside the walls to disappear. Even if the building was demolished, there was always the chance that the earth remembered.

An emotion’s effect was always worse when Myra’s memories were tied to the place. And here, in the dungeons, grief wrapped around Myra’s lungs, agony twisted around her limbs, and rage coated her throat.

However, Myra wasn’t the one bound to the wall this time. This time, she stood behind the king, her hands trembling, while an unfamiliar woman sat chained to the cement floor.

Myra wondered what the stranger had done to be chained beneath the castle. Although perhaps the better question waswhyMyra was bearing witness to it. This was the first time in years she had been dragged down to the cells, and the last time . . .

Myra swallowed the memory, forcing it back down her throat.

Domitius crouched before the woman. Her black hair hung in thick, grease-coated strands down her face. Her skin was nearly transparent as if she hadn’t seen the sun in years. She wore a ragged dress, stained and worn thin with holes throughout the fabric.

Domitius snatched her chin with his hand, jerking her face upward and squeezing her sunken cheeks together. “You said the fates were aligned,” he hissed.

Though frail, the woman wrenched her chin from his grip. As lifeless as she may have looked, there was still some fight left in her.

“How many times must I tell you?” The woman pulled at the chains. “The fates change.”

“What is the point of having a seer if you cannot tell me the truth? Yousaidit would work, that my plans would come to fruition if I had the girl.”

Myra’s eyes widened in fear.A seer? But if she’s a seer, how did she end up here?

The woman rolled her eyes, and something about the woman’s features felt familiar, but Myra couldn’t place them. This room—the memories and feelings that dripped from the walls—clouded her judgment. Here, she always saw the ghosts of her past.

“Time is an illusion. Things shift,” the woman hissed. She sank against the wall, exasperated, as if her current circumstance of being chained to a cell was not her primary concern but rather a simple annoyance. “My visions can only be so accurate—as I have told you many times.”

Domitius pulled on one side of the chain, the links tightening around the women’s limbs. “Then make them more accurate.”

Myra forced herself to remain still despite the screaming desire to run away. There was no running from the bull-king, though. She learned that a long time ago.

The woman tipped her chin up, snarling. “It doesn’t work like that. My visions are not meant to be forced out as you so often seem to forget,Kage.”

Domitius pulled at the chain.

“MyKing,” she spat.

He tossed the chain onto the ground, and the metal links clattered against the stone floor as he pushed himself up into a standing position. Turning around, he began pacing in the small cell.

His feet wore a line in the dust-covered ground—Myra on one side, the woman on the other.

Myra couldn’t help but find the similarities despite the line between them. They were both the king’s prisoners. Only the woman wore chains, while Myra did not. However, Myra wondered if it would have been easier to have rotten inside of a cell rather than given a false sense of freedom. Freedom that was frail, fickle, and false. A privilege she knew could be taken from her at any minute. A privilege that had resulted in Myra betraying her best friend.

The choice, however, had never been hers to make. Once Domitius discovered what Myra could do, her path was set.

As Domitius paced back and forth, the woman lifted her head, and her eyes locked onto Myra. She cocked her head to the side. Her eyelids fluttered, her head swayed. Then, she abruptly straightened, and an eerie chill crept over Myra’s skin as the corner of the woman’s lip twitched.

When she turned her gaze to Domitius, her eyes narrowed. “You still don’t get it, do you?”