Page 97 of The Chains You Defy

Despite all odds being stacked against me, another provocation was due, if only to lessen his suspicions. “As usual? Or have you finally come up with a variation? Ifnot, your imagination is truly lacking. No wonder I’m bored out of my mind.”

Just as I’d hoped, something snapped inside the High King. His hand shot out and encircled my throat, controlling my airways, and yet, although I groaned under his assault, my lips contorted into a feral smirk.

In our eternal war, he might have won every single battle so far, and he had the upper hand when it came to our direct confrontations, but I’d show him that in a fight of wits, I’d become a worthy opponent.

“Look at that. Someone is under the impression that he has grown a spine. Pathetic.”

The pressure around my throat tightened, and I couldn’t answer, although several retorts to his insult lingered on the tip of my tongue.

As long as Galrach was concentrating on me, Nayana was safe from his ire. To ensure her safety, I hadn’t dared to glance at her once, just so the psychotic High King had one less reason to remember her. At least the piece of magic pulsing around her thigh provided me with a sense of her location.

As I tuned in to my powers, I found her muscles taut to the extreme, vibrating with withheld tension, no matter how much the tendril tried to calm her down. During the past few months, I’d become so attuned to her that, solely from the energy emanating from her, I could tell how valiant she fought against herself not to intervene.

She hated to see me like this, maybe just as much as I despised her witnessing me at my lowest.

But—

Gentle fingers feathered over the tendril, and the tender caress shot right into my heart as if she’d touched me directly, filling me with resolve, evenas my vision blurred and black spots danced in front of my eyes. A fire erupted in my soul and spread through my body. Even the chained primal beast was momentarily pacified.

As oxygen-deprived and as disgusted as I was by the stench of rot and decay intensifying with each excited breath of Galrach, an epiphany still reached my consciousness. Yes, craving for a person so deeply that it hurt was maybe the greatest weakness in existence, just as I’d always feared. But I’d never considered that such a chink in my armor could be balanced out by the immense strength I’d be able to draw from what I’d always scoffed at as vulnerability. Nayana showed me time and time again that caring for someone—for her—was worth any hardship and was what I was fighting for.

My screaming lungs were ready to collapse, and lightning flashed in front of my vision when Galrach finally let go of my throat. I was gulping down precious air, temporarily too weak to show any resistance, as he grabbed my wrists and forced them into the restraints embedded in the solid rock over my head. As usual, he closed them too tightly and, with practiced ease, repeated the motion with my ankles.

Still out of breath, I couldn’t stop myself from taunting him some more. My head urged me to rile him up, even found the conception enjoyable, and I was confident enough he wouldn’t kill me outright. The satisfaction would be worth the escalation of his punishment. “You know, Galrach. One day, you’ll prostrate yourself at my feet. Not because you chain me to the wall like a petty prisoner. No, you’ll be on your knees, bowing to my power, begging for mercy—and finding none.”

Grandfather straightened, and the anger I’d expected was suspiciously absent. “Big words for someone at mygoodwill. And no matter how much you wish for your pretty little self-deceptions to come true, the reality is that your predicament will never change, Scriosta.”

Gods, how I longed to punch the patronizing expression out of his face.

“But you and I both apperceive that, as usual, I will forgive you for your revenge fantasies and misguided insubordination once we are done here. Of course, you are susceptible to delusions of grandeur when everyone usually treats you as the pinnacle of creation. That is hardly a surprise. But you should be thankful that I take the arduous task of reining you in upon myself.”

“So thankful, Your Royal Majesty. Honestly, what would I do without your constant pursuit of flaunting your imaginary superiority? The whole situation is especially funny when you recall who the sole reason for a united Galanta is and who still secures your claim to the Eternal Throne.”

“Oh Scriosta, of course, you are making everything about you again. But it is the brain that steers the brawn. One day, you will learn. Well, if you finally begin to pay attention.”

My power exploded as Galrach had the audacity to pat my cheek in a condescending way, and only with the last frayed thread of my restraint did I control the path my magic took, so nothing connected with the High King—or with Nayana.

A spear of agony drilled into my brain anyway, erupting in my head, blinding me for the moment, and my reason fractured further when my grandfather only laughed.

“I have to say, whatever changed during your little excursion turned you into something much more interestingto experiment with. You behaved quite apathetically during the last century and a half. You might even say I was…bored by you.”

As I was still recovering from the self-imposed blast to my senses, my lips remained sealed in a thin line, and when my grandfather grabbed my hair, he yanked my head back. My brain rattled even more as my skull slammed against the wall. Dodging the blow hadn’t been possible; my current state didn’t allow me to resist Galrach’s ministrations.

Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck. He was going all in today, wasn’t he?

Groaning as a foul energy snaked through my body from where his hands touched me, attacking everything in its path and latching onto my skin from within, the agony of my own rotting flesh threatened to tear me asunder.

Fuck, although I hadn’t forgotten how his vile magic lit every nerve ending aflame, it had been many winters ago since he’d deemed this method necessary to use, and time had likely softened the memory of the ordeal.

My innate healing kicked in but stuttered to barely a trickle, as after a few more moments, the restraint I loathed the most—the one running around my forehead—clicked shut. The dampening effect of hematite hit my decaying system like an avalanche, snuffing out all my magic—intrinsic and elemental—apart from the tiniest spark.

Over the winters, Galrach had perfected the metal composition in the shackle with great obsession, so I’d struggle with being powerless but would keep a scarcely-there trace of magic at my disposal.

On a better day, this was already torment, but when the rot was wreaking havoc on me, not only was I under the constant impression of being on the verge of death, but also suffered from memories of weeks—no, months…winters—spent in this stasis paralyzing me. So young, I’d been so young. And the moss—

No.

No, I wouldn’t succumb to visions of the past. Nor to the pain. I was stronger than that.