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Ignatia

“This isn't fair!" I hiss through the metal bars. I bare my shiny white daggers at Erasmus leaning the opposite wall from me, outside of this cage. "I didn’t do anything."

Usually I’d be more afraid of being in a cage after what Vasilisa did to me, but with the puny enemy in my field of view, I'm more pissed off. Being in dreamscreecher form fits the occasion.

He just stands there in the dim light of old style torches with his hands in his pockets. He's scowling with one cheek swollen and bruised. "You don't get to decide what's fair in our kingdom. Besides, you should be grateful you're still alive, dreamscreecher. Usually we'd kill you on sight."

I flex my claws irritatedly. “So what's your plan? What are you planning to do with me?"

He shrugs. "That's for my mother to decide."

"Oh lovely," I roll my eyes and glare at the iron bars. “ Cause we know she’ll treat me just great!”

“Your kind has been nothing but cruel and selfish! You don't deserve her good will." His eyes are deep indigo like a cold bottomless ocean, waiting to drown me. "You plotted against my brother. You manipulated him."

"I didn't!” I narrow my eyes at him, putting my muzzle back through the bars of iron. I don't dare to look away as he stares me down, baring my shiny daggers once more.

He approaches the cage, his growing scowl making him look cold and ugly.

He leans his forearm against the bars, the black fabric of his skull tee shirt pressing against it too.

“It's because of you, Amias is now falling apart and falling deeper into mental insanity.” His voice quivers with anger.

“It's because of you, that my brother may never be the same and I have to watch as this tears him apart.

I've seen how dreamscreechers crush people's souls.”

Mental insanity? What? Are they seriously claiming he's insane for supporting me and my kind? “He's not insane! He just sees the truth, unlike you!”

“Oh trust me, you're just the beginning of his mental suffering,” he growls. “People who support dreamscreechers always end up losing themselves.” He closes his eyes and he lets out a shaky breath. “But you wouldn't care, would you? That's what you find entertaining about this!”

My heart jumps, pleading to see Amias. Would he really go mentally insane? I can't leave him to suffer too. “Is he okay?”

He rubs his swollen cheek and scowls. “What do you think?”

I squint at his cheek. Had Amias caused that swelling? Had he punched him or something? He wouldn't do that to his own brother… Would he?

Not that I blame him, but that's not the kind of man he is.

There's a sudden creaking down the hall from my cage. Taking my muzzle from between the bars, I look in that direction.

Coming forth in the rusted earthy halls are men wearing all white clothes.

They have coats that end right below their hips and a white belt across them.

Long guns are held in another belt around their waists.

Their hands are covered in matching gloves and their hair is brushed over to one side, shiny with grease. One was blond and one was black-haired.

"Amorette's orders, she wants the creature in her presence at once." The black haired one says.

"I have a name," I hiss. "I am not just some animal."

"Alright creature , it looks like you're getting your judgment," Erasmus mutters. He steps aside for the soldiers.

They look down at me with one brow perked. The black-haired one bends down on his knees to be eye level with me. I bare my teeth at him.

"You're going to have to pick. Either you stay in dreamscreecher form and we bring you out in a muzzle and leash," He pulls out a leather muzzle from his belt. “Or you turn into your human form and we bring you out in handcuffs." He pulls out a pair of cuffs and dangles them. "Your choice."

I glance between the two options, but my eyes linger on the muzzle. There is no way I'm letting them treat me like a dog.

I let an itch in my skin consume me as I turn back into my human form, wearing a purple jumpsuit they gave me for jail.

They open the door and take me by the arms, cuffing them behind my back as they walk me out to Amorette herself.

◆◆◆

"Ignatia, is it?" Amorette says, sitting tall on her throne in a pale pink dress.

The throne she sits on is cushioned with a matching shade, and is framed with swirls.

The walls are all white in a room so big it echoes each noise, with a pastel carpet rolled out from the door to the throne.

I don't know if they took me to the more official throne room because last I knew, they were still rebuilding.

She looks down, with her husband standing straight and tall beside her. "Escaped princess of Somnia?"

"Yes…" I mutter, not bothering to face her. The guards shove me to my knees. "That’s me."

"The dreamscreecher that decided to manipulate my son.”

"I can assure you I did nothing to manipulate your son," I mutter, though I know it will fall on deaf ears.

"Tell me, Ignatia. What were your intentions with my son?"

"To love him."

"Tell me the truth!"

"It is the truth!" I look up to her with my eyes tense. "He wanted to help me when I was homeless, and I accepted. We fell in love on the way and now that's all I want."

"We both know it isn't the truth," Amorette taps her foot in a slow rhythm. Now I see where Amias got that habit from.

I groan. "Yes, because you are too brainwashed by these lies to see the truth."

"I am seeing the truth!" Her nose wrinkles.

“The truth is that dreamscreechers were created to destroy my people.

You were made to spite my mother and our bloodline.

" She stands and strolls over gracefully, but it somehow makes her look so much more intimidating.

"And I see it now. You were manipulating my son so you could perhaps kill him? Kill me? Destroy the kingdom?"

"You really think I'd risk my life to save your son, just to destroy this stupid kingdom? The truth is that the Amara kingdom is the most brainwashed kingdom around. You refuse to open up your eyes and see beyond the lies you have been told. You just blindly follow the words of the Gift of Love."

She towers over me, standing so close I have to strain my neck up to her. "My mother doesn’t brainwash her people. She does not lie."

"Well, it's either that, or she just fails to understand the truth herself.

Amias knows the truth, and once he found the truth, he saw the goodness in dreamscreechers.

He started off just like you, thinking that dreamscreechers are heartless creatures that don't deserve to live. But then he opened his eyes. He saw the facts.”

"So you're the reason he didn't wish the dreamscreechers to be killed?"

"Yes." I bare my teeth. "I’m proud. I’m proud I was able to make your son see the truth. I am proud that I found love in him while all of these Amarians hated him. I’m happy that I kissed him.

That I marked him. That he had enjoyed it.

That he loved me more than your eyes would be able to see because you refuse to see the truth! "

She scoffs. “How dare you insult me and my intelligence!”

“What are you gonna do? Kill me?" I shrug. "You are already sending me to my death in three days. I don't give two fucks about how you think. Especially when my innocent people are being ridiculed for existing!”

"What happens to any dreamscreecher is their own fault."

My eyes tingle and my teeth ache to bite her.

That is an insult to Kaius’ death. To Clarissa's.

To my father's. "You really don't know shit, Amorette.

" A literal cat-like hiss comes from my mouth, my teeth growing and my nails sharpening.

"You don't even have an inkling of knowledge of how my people are.”

"I don't care for your insults, dreamscreecher," she says finally, with the chilling calm of a silent predator in a forest, even silencing the singing birds in her wake. "Lock her up again. We will get answers later."

The guards force me to stand on my feet. I know my straining eyes are shining purple as I walk away. They push me out and it's hard to look over my shoulders so easily.

So much for the kingdom of love.