The instant my fingers close around the flag's shaft, the world ruptures.
The throne room dissolves in a single decisive blink.
And suddenly I'm standing barely in the original training room.
My knees almost buckle from the whiplash of transition. My stomach lurches like it's trying to crawl out of my throat. My head pulses with the kind of migraine that makes you debate if ending it all would be preferable. Fuck me sideways.
The voices do not fade with the simulation.Of course they don't they are me after all.
Yessss, little Reaper…You see? You win again. You always win.Kingly, divine, terrible… .godly
Their praise coils around my mind comforting and suffocating at the same time. It makes my pulse throb faster. Makes my jaw ache from clenching and makes my migraine worse.
My vision swims for a moment, white dots popping. Blood still covers my body all down my arm in warm little rivers. My shirt is torn open, sleeve hanging by threads, skin shredded and bruised underneath. Alexandra's bone spikes. Ala's blade. Impacts I stopped counting. Lucians passive healing only does so much.
Everything hurts. Everything.
I blink hard, adjusting. The lights in the room stab at my eyes until tears blur everything. I swallow them back, wipe the blood from my face with a shaking hand, and finally manage to focus on the room.
The first thing I see is Victoria.
She stands dead center, frozen mid-step. Her face which so far has been unreadable, flat, like someone carved her expressions away is cracked open in sheer, unfiltered shock. Awe. Her eyes are wide, lips parted slightly.
She's staring directly at me.
I grin.
It's small, feral, and probably makes me look insane
I lift the flag torn and splintered and give it a jaunty little wave like this was all some jaunty game I effortlessly strolled through.
The voices laugh with me.A chorus of smug, slithering glee.
See how she looks at you.
She recognizes her better
She will kneel they all will kneel
"Yeah," I murmur under my breath. "Sure."
Then I spot Alexandra and Ala.
They're sprawled about forty feet away, kneeling, gasping, shaking off the remnants of the illusions that were tearing their minds apart a heartbeat ago. Their faces are ghost-white, damp with sweat, pupils wild. Alexandra's fingers twitch at her side and Ala keeps swiping her hands over her arms, checking if she's still solid.
They're alive.
Either they clawed their way free or my grabbing the flag broke the illusion lock.Doesn't matter I guess.
A flicker of relief weak, but there passes through me.
I didn't actually want to kill them.
They fought hard. Brutal, vicious, determined. They deserved… something other than dying screaming on a floor.
But the moment that soft thought forms, they both lift their eyes and see me.
And the hatred I see reflected back at me makes me flinch.
Gods.
Alexandra's lip curls. Ala's eyes narrow with a promise of future murder so pure I could bottle it.
The respect shrivels instantly.
"Okay," I think, sighing internally, "on second thought… maybe killing them would've been easier. Great. Now I have enemies." 'And powerful ones at that, who will not make the same mistake the just did twice" "Fuck me sideways"
The voices preen.
They'll try and fail, they are nothing before you.
I roll my eyes at them before my gaze moves on.
Brutus sits on his ass near the far wall, arms draped over bent knees, breathing heavily. His massive frame is covered in gashes, bruises, purple swelling, blood
He looks pissed.
A smirk crawls over my lips when I see Lucian standing beside him, leaning over and giving Brutus the middle finger with the kind of savage, petty triumph that almost makes me snort. Lucian's grinning so wide his face might crack in half. He looks like shit blood dribbling from his nose, lip split, bruises forming across his face but his eyes are alive with adrenaline.
Then my eyes sweep over the others.
Rye, Imara, Dominic. Niko all sprawled on the ground chests heaving all covered in a plethora of different injuries. Each of them looks like they got fed through a grinder and spit back out.
But they're alive.
All of them.
I exhale slowly, tension washing out of me.
Then my gaze snaps back to Vihaan.
He's lying flat on his back, eyes unfocused, body drenched in blood. His chest rises and falls, but barely. His arm is twisted at a wrong angle.
A punch of pity hits my chest.
"What the hell did they do to you?" I wonder silently.
The pity simmers… then fades to a dull ache.
And then my eyes land on
Avraind.
What's left of him.
He's still very much dead.And still very much missing his head.
It lies a few feet away from the rest of his body, eyes still open in a frozen look of disbelief. His body is slumped forward, neck a messy stump of coagulating red.
I stare for a long moment.
A deep, burning sense of satisfaction unfurls slowly like warm oil spreading through my veins.
That annoying bastard.That arrogant parasite.
Dead.
Because of me.
My ribs rise with a small breath I don't quite notice taking. A smile ghosts across my mouth. Ugly. Mean. Honest.
Then the realization hits:
This is another student I've killed.
"…Shit."
I'm so going to be dragged to some tribunal again. Fucking hell.
I sigh, dragging a hand through my blood-streaked hair.
The voices don't give me a second to wallow. Laughing in delight at the body in front of me.
Their laughter is a jagged, manic rattle that vibrates across the inside of my skull.
I grit my teeth. Hard.
I wonder briefly, stupidly and pointless what the others must be thinking when they look at me.
I can guess. A monster.
Not a classmate.Not a rival.Not a student.
A creature.A thing.
Something that belongs behind bars or on a battlefield not in a room with humans who still believe rules matter or in the sanctity of life. I've killed more people in the last few months then some of them would in their lifetime. "For sure a monster," I decide quietly.
My mind drifts again this time to the king.
To Malik.
The voices purr, sensing the direction of my thoughts.
Yes. Yes. He will see.He will love you for this.
His favorite. His weapon. His heir in death. His heir.
A fresh wave of disgust directed squarely at myself boils under my skin. They aren't wrong, the king will hear about it i'm sure, and he will be pleased. About how easily I kill even my own class mates.
The thought makes bile rise in my throat.
I don't want to please him.I don't want to be anything to him.
But the voices they lap it up like nectar, crooning their approval, painting visions behind my eyes:
Me on a throne of obsidian.Me standing above all of them.Me breaking the world the way they beg me to.
My head pounds harder. I close my eyes.
"In another life," I think miserably, "maybe I could've been normal."
The voices laugh loudly at that.
Normal?Child of Clay, you were born divine.Born greater.Born to rule.
I open my eyes. The flag still clutched in my hand and Everyone is staring at me.
I sigh then play the part I know I must. I wave the flag towards Victoria and laugh crudely
"We Won"
The voices sigh happily.
Vive Sicut Serpens I think bitterly as I walk over Avraind's body dispelling him from my mind as I approach Victoria. I honestly wonder if this is the moment my humanity finally slipped past my fingers for good.