TRIGGER WARNING: Extreme violence committed against another, intentions of murder

  Chapter 6

  Trust Me

  Bryant calls me to the Throne Room later. Much later. Days and days have gone by, stretching into mundane nothingness that I spend sprawled out on the too-small bed in my small room with little other than my thoughts to keep me company, save for the snake occupying such a massive part of my mindscape. It whispers to me, telling me things I know are lies, but they sound so true that I just can't help but wonder. I try to push back and remind myself every time, but the snake drives me to tears, ugly sobs that have me sniveling as I try to figure out what's real and what's false.

  Listen to me, the snake says. Just listen, Dust Devil.

  I'm Luke, I say, begging the snake to just understand.

  I can tell you what is real, if only you would just listen to me, Dust Devil.

  I absently start to scratch at a finger when I see the blood begin dripping down from a nail. I know it's the blood of one of the Guard I killed, and I have to get it off.

  Stop it, Dust Devil.

  It's the blood, I reply silently. I have to get the blood off.

  There is no blood.

  No, there is. Can't you see it?

  It's not there.

  You lie. I shouldn't listen to you.

  Stop scratching, the snake hisses.

  I look down through watery eyes that blur everything around me until it looks like I'm looking through an ocean of salty tears. I see the uneven form of my finger. There is no blood on it; it's no longer there.

  I solved it. I scratched away the blood. It's gone.

  It was never fucking there, the snake snaps.

  But I saw the blood with my own two eyes.

  You clearly cannot trust yourself.

  If I can't trust myself and my eyes, then who can I trust?

  Me. Trust me, Dust Devil.

  But I don't want to. I don't want to trust the snake. But what other option do I have? The snake says the blood was never there, and if I can't trust my eyes, then I need someone or something that I can trust to tell me what I am actually seeing. The snake could be that.

  Ok.

  Get out of bed, the snake hisses, chains clinking as it slithers in place. Go to the King of Ragdon and listen to Bryant. The Amethyst Throne is telling me that it has a job for you. Bryant is getting impatient, and so is the Amethyst Throne.

  xxxx

  "Kill the Dove," Bryant tells me almost as soon as I've entered the Throne Room.

  "The Dove?" I echo. My armor feels too tight, and I shift beneath its constricting weight.

  Bryant narrows his eyes, violet irises flaring in a dangerous kind of way. "The Wolf is missing. No one knows where she is. She may be the new Midnight Wolf after Arcane murdered my Dragon. The Midnight Tear cost Arcane his life. Silly guy. He should've known that would happen."

  I'm sure he did, I think. He had to have known. He was the Midnight Wolf for decades.

  "Kill the Dove. Take his life. The Wolf shouldn't have left. Kill the Dove."

  Take the life of Alex's brother?

  Something flutters in my gut. Fear curls within me, along with an unknown emotion. Something painful. Something antsy. Something reluctant. I don't know how to feel about it.

  He's my King, my King of Ragdon. I should listen, right? I hate the doubt. I hate the confusion. I hate how I don't know. I hate that things don't make sense.

  "Ok," I whisper, and I feel like I just agreed to something that will lead me to my end, whatever that means. I feel like I just sealed my fate.

  You just sealed the fate of the Dove, the snake corrects.

  Then why do I feel like I just sealed mine?

  You can't trust yourself, remember?

  But I don't think that's true, but I'm too tired and too caught up on Bryant asking —telling— me to kill the Dove, and I don't respond to the snake.

  "Great," Bryant says, clapping his hands. "Let me know when you have done so. I wouldn't trust this task with anyone else but you, Dust Devil."

  I nod, numb inside, and twist my lips as I rock on my feet, unsure of what to say to fill the silence that stretches long in an awkward kind of way.

  "Go," Bryant eventually tells me.

  xxxx

  I don't start trying to track Grey immediately, much to the snake's frustration. It screams and hisses and spits at me in my head, demanding that I find the Dove and complete my task. Instead, I hide in my room, unable to face what I just agreed to. I curl up on my bed and stare blankly at the wall. I don't eat or drink until I'm dizzy enough that rolling over makes me almost pass out. Black and white dots fill my vision as I push myself upright, and when I stand, I nearly drop like a rock and collapse in a crumpled heap by the head of my bed, but I manage to get water and a small meal that I can barely taste over my panic and nerves.

  Find the Dove. Kill him. Do what Bryant told you to. Listen, Dust Devil.

  I know, I say, pulling my legs to my chest. I rest my chin on my knees. I know I have to.

  It's not a have to. It's a get to. You get to carry out the requests of the King of Ragdon.

  The snake is right, I know, but why does it feel so wrong? Why does something within me squirm so much at the thought of truly carrying out the orders of Bryant and taking the life of Grey? I've killed before. I have that type of blood on my hands, the kind that will never wash away, no matter how many times I wash my hands and how much water runs over my skin, no matter how hard I scrub, even if I scrape away to the bone.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  And yet this feels different in some way. It's as if I've thought more, as if my eyes are further open, as if some eyelids I didn't know existed blinked apart.

  It's a while before I find Grey, and the snake and I disagree on why it takes so long. The snake thinks it's because I don't look, but I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm coming up with a plan. The Dove is strong. He's half of the Wolf and the Dove duo. I can't go after him unprepared. Every bit of my Soldier training tells me doing that would be idiocy.

  You're the Dust Devil. You're strong, the snake hisses. Stop being a coward and go after the Dove. You know you trust me, right?

  I do, but I have to be prepared, I reply.

  The snake's amethyst eyes flash. It's been so long. Just go after the Dove already. Grey won't meet Lucius himself.

  xxxx

  Grey is walking along the edge of the Wailing Marshes when I see him.

  "The Dove," I murmur, slowing in my walk. The words slip out before I can stop them, and I immediately lose the element of surprise as Grey turns around.

  "Hello," he greets.

  I eye him hesitantly, waiting for him to lunge at me in a flurry of fists or talons like the snake told me to expect. It's better to just attack first, before he can do anything— hit first and hard, it had told me. The Dove can be very violent.

  "You're the Dust Devil, right?" Grey asks.

  I nod, but don't respond out loud.

  "It's nice to meet you."

  There's a thousand emotions within his silver eyes.

  Kill, Dust Devil, the snake hisses, pressing up from the depths of my mind with enough force to know that if I don't do something soon it will do something for me.

  But I don't want to hurt Grey, not in the way that the snake is telling me to. I don't want his blood on my hands, but I also know that Grey poses a threat to the King of Ragdon. But still, what's the point of taking a life? I don't want that blood on my hands. I was there when Bryant sentenced Grey and Alex to death. Grey could've lunged at Bryant, but they escaped.

  Kill, the snake snarls, pushing forward in my mind with a vicious pressure as it looms in the depths of my mind, yet close enough that it's a threat to my control over my own body.

  "You have to run," I say. "Please."

  "What do you mean?" Grey narrows his eyes.

  "Run," I repeat. "Get out of here. Please."

  "Do you need help?" Concern washes over Grey's expression as he tilts his head to the side, blond hair falling over his forehead.

  "Please."

  "I can help you."

  Grey takes a step toward me, malachite medallion beginning to glow a harsh glint of silver on his chest. The snake sees the medallion, its eyes lock in on the necklace, and it's over.

  With a crashing kind of force, the snake barrels into the barriers in my mind, and we merge in as one. I no longer know what's me and what's the snake; we're inextricable.

  The malachite medallion. It will be our trophy to bring to Bryant. We shall present it to him as proof that we completed his order.

  Equals do not give orders to each other, but I don't reply.

  I groan as the snake begins to take control.

  Ebony tears drip from my eyes in veins that burn as they break through skin. My fingernails give way to inky black claws. Horns break through skin with searing pain and grow from my forehead as they drag against thin, sensitive skin.

  "Are you ok?" Grey asks, eyes wide.

  "Run," I beg.

  The snake makes me roll my shoulders back and twists my hands palm-side up as I scratch and claw from within my mind, trapped in a prison I so desperately want to escape. I drag my nails down the barrier it throws up against me. Panting, venom drips from its jaws as it narrows in on Grey and his malachite medallion.

  I can feel the hunger in the snake, the gnawing want so powerful it's almost more so than the powers of the Dust Devil themself.

  Grey roars as the first wave of sand slams into him. I feel tears drip down my cheeks. Dust cinches around Grey's wrist and sends him hurtling into a tree with a crack. The Dove lays there for several moments, hunched over and still, before he begins to stir and slowly get up with a groan of pain.

  With a cry, Grey shifts into his dove form, and he looms over me with a presence that's twice the size he is. Despite the damage he could so easily do with the length of his talons, the sharp angle of his beak, the strength lurking beneath the fluff of his feathers, Grey still holds back. I can see the pleading in his eyes.

  Finally, when he seems to recognize I won't stop —when the snake won't stop, though he doesn't know that—, Grey does what I told him to do: Grey flies away.

  Or, at least, he tries to.

  The snake sends dust after him the moment it realizes what Grey intends to do. With sand lodged deep in his feathers and wounds littering his body that are slow to heal with the sheer number Grey's self-healing powers need to combat, he cannot fly fast. I fight back against the snake and shut down the wave of dust it sends after the Dove.

  Let him go; he's not fighting back. This is not self-defense.

  Traitor to the King of Ragdon. You have your orders.

  Please, he's not fighting back.

  Despite my pleading, three ropes of sand and dirt fly out toward Grey's flapping form, moving faster than the Dove can. Two miss, but one latches onto his foot, yanking back fast enough that it seems to almost dislocate Grey's hip and ankle. Grey shrieks as he flips in midair, spinning with the pull of the rope of dust as it takes him to the ground. He plummets through the air, then slams onto his back.

  His wings slump out to the side, stunned, as I race toward him. A trickle of blood drips from his nose and mouth, and when I reach Grey, there's a haze in his eyes, though a silvery glow envelopes his body. The malachite medallion against his chest pulses steadily.

  Flapping one of his wings as he recovers to flip himself over, the Dove rises to his feet in an unsteady kind of way that has me stepping back to avoid getting crushed if he loses his balance. I curl my fingers, this time without the snake's interference.

  There's an edge of panic, fear, and yet still reluctance. I know that I should, even though it feels so wrong. The King of Ragdon told me to. I got my orders from the King, from Bryant. So why do I still hold the hesitation. No one else does, right? No other Guard or Soldier feels this way, right?

  I pull my sword from its sheath when Grey lunges for me with a loud cry. He flares his wings in an intimidation attempt, then takes off as he tries to escape again. When he flies directly above me, I slash with my sword. Hot blood splatters across my hair as my blade slices through Grey's thigh. Matted thick, my hair sticks to my scalp.

  He's the Dove. He's not Grey. He's the Dove.

  He's Grey, just as I am Luke.

  Grey screams. The Dove —Grey, the Dove, Grey, THE DOVE— tumbles to his side but manages to right himself, only to catch himself and desperately flap his wings to gain air and soar higher. Hissing, the snake spits in my mindscape and snarls at how the Dove is getting away and we are just letting him.

  Catch the Dove. Get him. Do your job, Dust Devil. Do what you told the King of Ragdon you would. Obey Bryant. Trust me; you told me and Bryant that you would. Don't you remember?

  But I don't. I don't remember that, or at least not like the snake is saying. And yet I did say that I would kill the Dove. I agreed to kill Grey, and the thought makes something within me swoop with a nauseating, sick feeling.

  What am I doing?

  What Bryant wants. You are faithfully carrying out his requests. It is not your place to question what he says. Listen, because he is your King of Ragdon.

  Grey gains air and distance, wind providing the lift he needs to speed away from me. Until the snake unleashes a venom-filled attack upon my own mind, I thought he really might get away. I cannot stop the snake as it seizes control, and the snake quickly wraps its power around the magic of the Dust Devil.

  Sweeping my arms, I gather up the sand around me, adding in dust into a disturbing mixture that the power of the Dust Devil has complete and utter control of. Swirling my hands around each other, I condense the sand and dust into a tight ball that brims with grainy and gritty energy. The particles that hit me grate across my hands and carve tiny abrasions, tiny flicks across my flesh that sting, but I hardly feel the pain. I can't feel the pain; not the physical pain when there's so much emotional pain over what I'm doing. I keep going back and forth over the should so much that I cannot even begin to allow myself to consider what I am feeling physically.

  It's the first break I have ever had in the pain from my ankle, and I hate it.

  The snake sends the dust after Grey.

  The wave hurtles after Grey faster than I can keep track of, and it makes me stumble back fast enough that my bad ankle gives beneath me, leaving me tripping to the side. How can my powers move that fast?

  Because they were a gift of the Amethyst Throne and the King of Ragdon.

  I watch as the dust slams into Grey, and the Dove drops as blood soaks through his feathers and from his talons. I expect him to crash into the ground. I brace myself for that very outcome. Only, it doesn't happen. The Dove spins in midair, wings spasming as he tries to remain aloft.

  The snake hisses and unleashes further control over the dust.

  No, I say as the snake smothers Grey's beak with the dust.

  I start after Grey. He struggles in midair but somehow stays up in the air. He must lock his wings and fight long and hard, because he glides through the trees, slowly suffocating, as I continue to chase after him.

  Stop it, I shout at the snake, clawing my fingers bloody in the depths of my mind as I try to free myself.

  Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter of The King's Remorse! Please comment your thoughts and consider a favorite/follow!

  Up top are Grey and Luke. I realized that I hadn't drawn Grey in a while, so I enjoyed getting the chance to draw him again!

  Uh, oh. Luke has been tasked with taking down the Dove, aka Grey. How will that go?

  What will the effects be, whether or not Luke is successful with carrying out Bryant's order?

  Poor Grey, though. Will he be able to escape?

  I hope you're having a nice day, and if not, I hope tomorrow brings something nice for you

  -Werewolf14- :)