Page 25 of A Queen’s Betrayal (Legends of Worldbinders #1)

Rain dripped steadily from the mouth of the cave, pooling into the dirt below.

Arenna watched its rhythmic movement, nestled in her cloak near the entrance.

Exhaustion reached out to her like calming tendrils, her body spent.

Her eyes fluttered shut every so often, only to be met with the lifeless, bloodied mass of the feral—its dead black eyes haunting her.

She forced them open, resisting the sleepiness creeping in.

The ride to the cave had been long and miserable.

After a thorough check for any more Rotbeasts, the trio decided to make camp and wait out the storm.

Lightning had been the first sign, cracking across the sky, illuminating the snowy expanse of Burwood as they raced for Smeeds. Thunder followed and then the downpour.

Koltin wanted to press on, unbothered by the rain, but it was Kayson who insisted they stop, unwilling to risk injury or illness. Though her pride would not allow her to do so out loud, Arenna silently thanked him. She was soaked to the bone and freezing, every inch of her body yearning for rest.

Kayson entered the cave, wringing out his soaked cloak. His chestnut hair clung to his forehead and temples in wet strands. Their eyes met briefly through the smoke rising from the fire, and he quickly looked away.

They hadn’t spoken since the woods. Arenna wasn’t ashamed of what had happened, but she hated that Kayson, of all people , had not only witnessed it, but held her through it.

Yet, despite everything, she was grateful.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. Staring at her now clean hands, she could still feel the sensation of blood dripping from her fingertips. “For stopping me. I don’t think I could have.”

Kayson sat against the cave wall, running a small dagger over a whetstone. His movements were steady, the sharp scrape filling the thick silence between them. “Don’t,” he said without looking up.

Arenna’s chest tightened. “I didn’t have control—”

“I’d really rather not make small talk,” he cut her off, his tone flat.

“I was just saying—”

“And I really don’t care.”

Arenna bit her tongue. It didn’t matter that he helped her in a time of vulnerability or that without him, Koltin wouldn’t have survived. He was still a bastard, and no amount of kind acts could change that. “You are unbelievably cruel,” she sneered.

Kayson laughed, a deep and hearty sound that sent a shiver down her spine. “Is that the best you’ve got?” he taunted, the corners of his lips turning upward.

Oh , she really did not care for this man.

Koltin walked into the cave, ending the conversation before it could get ugly. He held four squirrels in each hand. “All I could find,” he said with a shrug.

“I need a piss. Don’t follow me,” Kayson grumbled as he stood. He swung his cloak over his shoulders, throwing on the hood before stepping out of the cave and disappearing into the darkness.

“Why did he help us?” she asked, standing to help Koltin with the squirrels. “He’s miserable.”

Koltin shrugged. “I wish I could tell you. He approached Isabella and offered a plan to help get you out.”

“What was the catch?”

“No catch,” he answered. “Just said he could get you out of the tower and then on a ship to Vlazias.”

Arenna pondered for a moment, ripping the fur from the squirrel’s body like Koltin had taught her. “And after we arrive?”

“You’ll be on your own, free to go wherever you wish.”

“I don’t buy it.” Arenna snorted. “He has some sort of ulterior motive. Kayson doesn’t seem like the type to help from the goodness of his heart.”

As if he heard his name on her lips, Kayson, appearing too much like a shadow in the night, wandered back into the cave. He dropped a pile of damp logs beside them, ripped his cloak off, and tossed it to his bedroll. “I need your fire,” he said.

“I can’t produce it on command.”

“Come here,” he instructed, grabbing one of the cleaned and skewered squirrels.

“Do not tell me what to do.” She folded her arms across her chest.

Koltin looked between them, then back to the animal in his hands.

Kayson’s jaw twitched. “I’m going to help you summon it,” he hissed. “Unless you would like to remain a step away from explosion?”

Arenna thought for a moment, her pride a storm inside her chest. What he offered was more important than letting him get to her, so, she swallowed her pride and rose. “Teach me, then leave me alone.”

“Gladly.” He scoffed. “Power comes at a price. It is not yours fully to take, even though it lives within you,” Kayson started. “You have likely pushed yourself to a burnout over the past few weeks, and your severe lack of nutrients has not helped you replenish that power.”

Embarrassment curdled within her, the urge to cover herself up strong.

She had noticed how thin she had become when she dressed in the secondary outfit Isabella put in her pack, the once-tight clothing now loose.

“Being strapped to a table and having your blood taken from you will do that to a person,” she remarked.

Kayson’s features softened. “I didn’t say it was your fault,” he replied. “Only that your body needs fuel to replenish your power. Without food and rest, you cannot get it back. And if you push too far, you will lose it forever.”

Gooseflesh pebbled her skin. Koltin’s worried eyes found hers, and she knew they were thinking the same thing. This power was new, strange, and confusing. But it was hers, and she would do whatever she needed to protect it.

She took a breath. “Tell me what to do.”

Kayson grabbed her hand, angling it toward the logs. “Close your eyes.” She did. “Pay attention to the way your body reacts when the power reveals itself. Where do you feel it first?”

It pained Arenna to think back to the moments before she erupted in the colosseum. Her adrenaline was pumping, her emotions heightened, and it was hard to piece things together. Her brain felt foggy, but she would never forget the way she felt before the flame released itself.

“My stomach,” she whispered.

“Imagine it starting there,” he said, pointing gently, “and spreading through you—branching out like roots, filling every inch of your body. You have to feel it. Picture the flames moving beneath your skin, burning brighter with each breath. Now, remember what it felt like when your fire poured from your fingertips. Hold on to that.”

Arenna’s eyes fluttered closed as she drew in a slow breath, her fingers twitching like they already remembered.

Inside her mind, a soft orange glow sparked in her center, swaying gently as it spread through her limbs. It moved like a pulse—warm, steady, and safe. “Okay,” she whispered. “I’ve got it.”

“Good.” Kayson cleared his throat. “Imagine a reservoir of power in your mind. Think of its size, its color, its depth.” He gave her a minute before asking, “Do you see it?”

Her head was blank, nothing but pure black surrounding her. “No, not really.”

“Keep trying.”

Arenna took a deep breath, slowing her mind. This time, a small body of water appeared. “ Yes ,” she rasped, amazed that with such little instruction, she was already one step closer to conquering the smoldering power in her blood.

“Now imagine it filled with molten flame rather than water, circling and swirling, waiting for you to dip your hands in and feel it.”

She lowered her hand, coasting it along the surface, watching as flame rippled like water. She submerged her hand, molten red and orange dripping through her fingers as she pulled it back out. “It’s beautiful,” Arenna whispered.

“Envision the logs in this cave; see your power engulf them.” The wood Kayson brought in showed up perfectly in her mind, as if her eyes weren’t closed at all.

Power streamed from her hand in slow motion, looking more like orange and yellow ribbons than fire. They wrapped around the logs, squeezing and suffocating until a bright flame emerged.

“Open your eyes.”

The dim cave was aglow. She could make out every groove and fissure in the walls and see water dripping from the ceilings.

More importantly, the logs were burning.

She created fire and lit something purposefully—not by accident, not without feeling a ridiculous amount of emotions, but simply because she wanted to.

It was enough to bring tears to her eyes.

For years, she was nothing and no one. She was a prized possession of a gruesome king, used as a toy, a punching bag. And just when Arenna thought she was abandoned by the Seven, they presented her with something as raw and beautiful as golden flames.

Koltin patted her on the back. “Knew you could do it.”

She turned to the emissary, her smile so big it made her face ache. “Thank you.”

“You still have a long way to go.” Kayson grunted as he poked at the logs, making sure each one was lit.

Ignoring him, Arenna focused her attention back on her hands, not letting Kayson ruin this moment for even a second.

* * *

After days without her tonic, it was no surprise Arenna began to see things that did not exist. She awoke in the middle of the night, coated in sweat, nearly sobbing when she ripped apart her pack for the glass vial and found nothing.

She sat up, bringing her knees to her chest and still trembling from the images of unmoving bodies and slit throats that would not leave her head. Hesitantly, she looked down at her hands, relieved to find no trace of the blood that had coated them during her hallucination.

Arenna ran her hands through her hair, letting her head fall into the space between her knees. She stared at the rocky floor beneath her, counting small pebbles to rid her mind of thoughts of death and destruction.

But no matter how high she counted, they stayed.

During the hallucinations, Arenna either saw herself from above, beside, or through her own eyes.

Sometimes, she became someone else entirely—someone she didn’t recognize, in a place that felt both foreign and achingly familiar.

But that was the thing about them: they were a trick of the mind.

A lie her body kept believing. It wasn’t abnormal to see things or people that didn’t exist. And the longer she went without her tonic, the more vivid and violent they became.

This one, though—this one she never wanted to see again. Her eyes slid closed, locking the tears in.

And she was there instantly, standing in a ruined street, smoke choking the air.

Bodies littered the stone like discarded dolls—limbs twisted, mouths frozen mid-scream.

Red puddles stretched across the ground, glinting in the firelight.

The walls of the city burned around her, and somewhere in the distance, a bell tolled.

Screaming.

High-pitched. Desperate. Children .

“No— get out ,” she hissed, but the image clung to her mind like oil. Tiny hands reached out from beneath fallen beams, a little girl, no older than six, her chest rising in short, terrified gasps as a soldier’s shadow loomed.

Arenna dug her nails into her palms, desperate for the pain to drag her back to reality—away from the broken bodies of small children.

Get out. Get out. Get out!

Screams grew louder, layered over the wet sound of blades slicing into flesh. She turned—just in time to watch a boy have his head taken clean off, the sound of it hitting the polished floor echoing like thunder.

Vomit surged up her throat. Arenna staggered from the cave and into the trees, collapsing to her knees as bile spilled from her mouth.

She heaved, her stomach empty, her body shaking.

But it wouldn’t stop.

The pounding in her skull grew louder. Behind her closed lids, the massacre played on repeat. Men, women, children—all running, falling, dying. Faces twisted in fear. Hands outstretched, begging.

And Arenna, helpless to stop it, only forced to watch it. She smashed the heels of her palms into her forehead, again and again, tears streaming down her face.

Arenna lowered into the snow, needing its chill to seep into her bones and freeze her from the inside out. Maybe it would freeze the hallucination too.

Relief was not coming, so she would have to ride this one out for as long as it took. Agonizing minutes passed, and yet she did not move. Could not bring herself to.

Arenna trembled against the snow, unable to shift from her crouched position, afraid that even the slightest bit of movement would draw the images back.

The crunching of snow grew nearer, and still, she did not move. Whichever man walked up to her did not speak; he only set something against her thigh and walked back to the cave. When his footsteps were long gone and she heard nothing in the dead of night, Arenna rose.

A full waterskin rested against her leg, the cap already popped off. She reached for it, bringing the top to her lips and nearly inhaling the cold water.

Glancing toward the cave mouth, she noticed two silhouettes by the still-burning fire. One was lying down; the other sat at the entrance facing her, scraping steel with a whetstone.