How is he able to live like this?
The thought crossed my mind as I followed in the direction that seemed to be calling me, Rachel’s pull tugging on my very soul. It was one thing for my brother to be holed up in the woods, training warriors and seeking out his vengeance against me. But there was something disturbing about him potentially creating his own version of the world, one where night was day and day was night.
I then wondered what else he’d changed in his version of the world, if he’d told his trained warriors a different version of events that’d happened between us, if he’d told them that he was the one who’d taken the lashes on my behalf, that I was the biggest liar of them all.
Maybe Aldvirion had been right about Reddin all along. Maybe the shame had caused something to break in my brother, turning him into a person I would’ve never recognized if we happened to cross paths again.
“Intruder!” a stranger suddenly shouted, their finger soon pointing right at my frame. “Intruder! Intruder!”
I pulled out my blade in response, discreetly angling it between my fingers. I knew that the biggest advantage I’d have over anyone who tried to attack me was going to be the element of surprise, which meant that it was in my best interest to keep it.
And then, the attacks started to come. There was a warrior with his fist at my jaw, his hand connecting with my face within seconds. I winced before I knocked back his fist, my small blade coming down right in the center of his hand. And as he screamed in pain, I sliced at him again, the blade going right through his fingertips.
The warrior pulled his hand back toward his side, a look of pure horror falling over his features. I didn’t have too much longer to analyze his reaction, though, as I felt someone else wrapping their arms around my waist. Again, I used the small blade against the attacker, quickly stabbing at their forearm in rapid succession, not stopping until their skin was torn and bleeding, not stopping until their arm had fallen away from me.
“Die, you piece of scum!” another warrior screamed, running toward me with a sword, its blade aimed right at my chest. Thinking quick, I ducked out of the warrior’s way, watching as he stumbled off balance, the sword sinking into the ground below. And as he tried to recover his sword from the sand, I sank my small blade into his back, just until the warrior sank down to his knees.
Just then, I felt someone slide my knife right out of my grip. But before they had the chance to use my own weapon against me, I reached back for their frame, pulling them over my shoulder until they landed with a thud by my feet. After that, I pulled their sword out of its hilt, holding the tip at their neck.
I then held my hand out for my knife, motioning for them to return it to me at once.
The warrior took a moment, her eyes going from the sword at her neck and back to the small blade that she’d stolen from me. Eventually, she made the right choice, sliding my blade back into my hand as she held up her palms in surrender.
“Thank you.” I nodded down at her before I broke into a run, trying to put as much distance as I could between myself and the warriors who seemed intent on ending my life. But as I ran through the strange, sunlit forest, I started to feel my legs sinking into something, and deep. My running became impossible, my legs somehow frozen in the ground underneath me, as if the planet was on the verge of swallowing me hole.
Trick sand.
Of course Reddin would be employing such a thing. It’d been one of his favorite features in all the storybooks our parents read to us as we grew up, side-by-side, him always being fascinated by how easily the sand stopped the heroes, how simple it was to vanquish a foe by getting him to chase after the object of their hatred.
And now, here I was, becoming the villain in Reddin’s self-made storybook, the one I was sure he thought was going to end with him finally having his own happy ending.
The ground continued to swallow me, the sand reaching all the way up to my chest. A few seconds later, and it was up to my neck, and soon enough my mouth, too. As a last-ditch effort, I held my breath, wondering how long it was going to take for Reddin to find me, for him to pull me out of the sand and cut off my head.
Because if he’d gone through the trouble of stealing my Rachel, I knew that there was no possible way he was going to let me die like this, let me die without being the one to have taken my life from me.
And sooner rather than later, I was proven right. I felt a pair of hands desperately reaching into the sand, pulling me forward and away from its hold. And as I gasped for air, my chest rising and falling with the motion, I watched as a syringe sank into my shoulder, its contents swirling into my blood.
And then, the sunlight that’d surrounded me sank back into a heady darkness.
Chapter Fourteen
Rachel
I was able to feel my body again.
It’d felt like such a huge blessing, being able to move my fingers and toes, being able to turn my head and look through the glowing, black bars that I’d been forced to sit behind for what seemed like hours and hours. I was too afraid to touch the bars, worried that they’d been seeped in poison, the brightness that emanated from them seeming like a wordless warning.
There was also the matter of the warriors who sat only a few inches away from me, watching from the other side of the bars. They weren’t as big as Wexxon or Reddin, but they still looked formidable, especially with their continuous stare.
“You are moving,” one of the warrior-guards commented, a snarl evident in their tone. “The injection must’ve worn off too fast.”
“Is the child still moving inside you, too?” The second guard chimed into the conversation, an evil grin on his face. “Or are you not far enough along to tell?”
“How brave of you. Wishing death on a child,” I replied, sarcasm dripping from my every word. “Is that why you work for Reddin? Because Wexxon would never have you at the castle—”
“We work for Reddin, because he speaks for the voiceless!” The first guard hissed as he spoke. “We work for Reddin, because he promises an equal Xelxar for all!”
“An equal Xelxar?”
“One where a citizen’s worth is not determined by battle,” the second guard explained. “The kind of Xelxar where a female like you wouldn’t have to give themselves to a male like Wexxon, just to have security and shelter.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” I argued. “And you don’t know anything about Wexxon, either, because if you did, you wouldn’t have touched me. You wouldn’t have laid a finger on me, no matter how much Reddin begged you to.”
“Are you threatening us from your place in a cage?”
“It’s not a threat. It’s a promise,” I snarled now, too. “Wexxon may have shown Reddin mercy, but what makes you think he’ll treat you the same? You’ve kidnapped his mate. You’ve held me hostage. And you’ve wished death on our child.”
I then let out a crazed laugh as I sank further back into my temporary cell. “God. Why am I even wasting this conversation on you two? You’re already as good as dead.”
“She’s bluffing,” the second guard murmured, even as his eyes went wide with what looked a lot like fear.