Chapter 3

  As Stiff as a Corpse

  Back in my little room in the Barracks, I begin to question my decision about the power of the Dust Devil being worth it almost immediately after I settle down to try to sleep at Bryant’s order.

  He had phrased it as a request, but I knew better than to try to disobey. I should listen. He’s my King of Ragdon. He’s My Sovereign, His Excellency, His Honor, His Highest of all Highnesses, King Garonda XIV.

  I lay down on my side, my vision blurred, and I lost where I was. The world spun violently to the right, as if pulling me with it, though I didn’t move despite it feeling so, and everything lurched as the snake hissed in my mind.

  What are you doing?

  Nothing, of course, it replies as I fist my hair and pull until I feel bolts of pain lance through my skull in a vain attempt to bring myself back to reality.

  But I float too far away, lost in whatever current drags me away until I lose who I am. My body goes numb. An arm flops to my mattress, but I don’t feel it hit the sheets. I stare through my wall, and I don’t notice when a cat with mottled greens for fur materializes on the far side of my little room, padding carefully and holding their body close, as if they’re a half step from bolting. They watch me through wide amber eyes. Mouth bound shut with a leather strap, they say nothing. Their tail twitches behind them, draped close to their hindquarters.

  I only notice when the cat draws near enough to my bed that they could reach out with a foreleg and touch the frame. I shift my eyes but don’t otherwise move. I know they’re not a General, but I am not aware of other animals such as this one near the castle of the King of Ragdon or the Barracks.

  “Who are you?”

  The snake stirs in my mind, then hisses in a violent reaction.

  Do not listen to him. Outis knows nothing. Outis is nobody.

  I tilt my head on my pillow and meet the gaze of Outis, who watches back in silence. His amber eyes hold a thousand emotions in a haunted kind of way. I wonder what he’s seen.

  Don’t listen to Outis? He cannot speak. Who took away his voice? Why?

  The snake chitters and chatters, winding its chain body over itself as it coils up. The links of its body clack over each other.

  Outis is nobody, the snake repeats.

  “But I can see Outis right here,” I whisper. I focus my attention on him. “You’re right here.”

  Outis tilts his head to the side, pricking his long ears. They’re longer than Phoenix’s, tipped in tufts of fur that hang down and wiggle with every little movement he makes. I watch with near hysteria as the images of the Guard and Soldiers suffocating on dust flash behind my closed eyelids when I blink. I remain stuck, unable to open my eyes, trapped in my own mind as I watch each one drop again and again. Unable to escape, I watch over and over as the Guard and Soldiers asphyxiate on my own magic. I didn’t know them and it was Bryant’s orders—

  The but hangs so loudly in my mind, unspoken but so clearly there. The snake hears it, too.

  How dare you, it hisses. You did what the King of Ragdon asked of you.

  “What did I do?” I whisper, rolling to my back and wrapping my arms around my body.

  You did what the King of Ragdon desired of you, the snake repeats.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “I know,” I murmur, “but why does it hurt this much?”

  Because you are not strong enough. You must be worthy of the gift of the Dust Devil. Get stronger, or this gift will go to someone else.

  The snake’s cold eyes bore into me, dark and stormy swirls of amethyst, from within my mind. Outis watches, too, from his vantage point beside my bed. The green cat narrows his eyes, swishing his tail. He takes a small step closer, angling his head.

  Outis looks as pained as I feel as I bracket my arms around my head and squeeze, as if with enough pressure I can force the snake from my head. I’d betray Bryant, the King of Ragdon, but I’d no longer have to share my headspace and mindscape with the snake.

  No, I think with a whine in the back of my throat, I can’t do that. It’s not worth it. I cannot turn my back on Bryant. I cannot turn my back on his reign. I cannot turn my back on the King of Ragdon. I cannot say no.

  No, you cannot, the snake solemnly agrees.

  xxxx

  I lay on my side and stare at Outis, and he watches back. Neither of us speak or move. In a slow, fluid movement, Outis sits down, body slouching in a way that seems to show that he carries far too much weight on his shoulders and back.

  What do you have to say? I wonder.

  Slowly, I reach out a hand. Outis flinches but doesn’t move away.

  I wrap my fingers around the loose strap of the leather band used to muzzle Outis, and he freezes, going as stiff as a corpse in my grip. His wide eyes flicker around, then meet mine, and we watch each other, both unmoving once more for an undetermined eternity, before a strangled, mangled sound slips from his throat. Fear blooms in Outis’s face, reminiscent of the fear I myself had felt when I had injured my ankle all those years ago.

  Were we both… hurt by the King of Ragdon? He’s my King of Ragdon, Bryant, but he hurt me. The snake… it hurt getting into me. It’s a gift, but it hurt me.

  Gifts hurt. It doesn’t matter if I hurt you. Bryant gave me to you, the snake hisses. You ungrateful Soldier. Traitor to the King of Ragdon. Traitor to the Amethyst Throne. You should be forced to give me up to someone worthy of my gift, to someone worthy of the gift of the Dust Devil.

  I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I say. I’ll prove I’m worthy. Just please don’t make me give you up. I’ll show that I’m worthy. I’ll show that I shouldn’t give you up. I’ll show that I’m worth your time and your energy. Please.

  That power that I felt when I used the magic of the Dust Devil. I want it again. I want to feel that surge, that rush.

  And I want to see that look of appreciation on the face of Bryant. The look that showed that he was pleased with what I had done.

  But now, when I see the fear on Outis’s face, and I know that it came in some way from Bryant, I don’t know. Something within me pauses at that. He looks so scared, Outis does. He looks so terrified as I grasp the loose end of the leather belt used as a muzzle against him, Outis does. I remember how I felt when the King of Ragdon, Bryant, told me how he wanted me to let down the barriers in my mind and allow the snake into my mind. I remember how I felt as the snake slid down my throat. I remember the fear I’d felt. The terror. The horror. The frozen panic that rooted me in place. And I remember the pain, the choking and the gagging as the snake forced its way into my mind and shouldered past such intimate parts of my very being to get into my mindscape.

  Touching the belt wrapped around Outis’s muzzle, I can feel the magic and it’s familiar; I know it’s from the Amethyst Throne. If I felt all of that when the snake —a being of the Amethyst Throne— entered my mind, then surely Outis has felt similar things. Perhaps he felt similarly when someone bound his mouth and muzzled him. Maybe the magic did the same things to you.

  “Maybe you’ve felt the same way,” I murmur as I trail my finger from the leather belt to Outis’s cheek.

  Don’t do it, the snake spits.

  I don’t know what seizes me to try to reach out and touch Outis himself, but he strikes me as so similar. Like we’re two of the same. I recognize him in some way. He might know me. Not personally, but he might know. He’s had the magic of the Amethyst Throne put onto him.

  You received a gift, you traitor, the snake hisses, venom in its gaze and dripping from its fangs. Where it falls from its teeth and lands on the sensitive tissues of my headspace, the flesh bubbles and corrodes beneath the venom.

  Outis remained as still as stone when I first touched him, but when I groan in pain from the snake’s venom, he flinches, pauses, eyes me with pupils blown so wide I cannot see his irises, then dissipates into a cloud of mottled green colors.

  Oh, goody, he’s gone, the snake all but cheers.

  What did Outis ever do? I don’t recognize him. I’ve never seen him before.

  You shouldn’t waste any of your precious time, Dust Devil, on someone like Outis.

  “But what did he do?” I ask.

  Everything.

  When I try to press further, the snake shuts down and doesn’t reply, instead glaring at me with a fury that makes me squirm in place. I bury my face into the crook of my folded arm, curling up on my little bed in my little bed as I try to adjust to powers I don’t understand.

  Thank you for reading! I hope you've enjoyed the first few chapters of Luke's Reform section of The King's Remorse! Poor Luke. He's not having a good time :(

  Please comment your thoughts and consider a favorite/follow!

  Up top are Luke and Outis. I debated how to draw the two of them but settled on a bird's eye perspective. I haven't drawn Outis in a while, and I enjoyed bringing him to life in this way

  What did you think of Outis? He has shown up again with another look into his character

  How about the snake?

  What about the interactions between the snake and Luke?

  I hope you had a nice day, but if not, I hope tomorrow brings something nice your way

  -Werewolf14- :)