Chapter 10

  You Are All the Same

  At a certain point, Pisces is the only thing keeping me on my feet.

  The fish tell me to obey the Midnight Wolf, to listen to Alex and do as she says.

  We walk across Ragdon, over rocky terrain and through forests. I keep disappearing into my mind, consumed by the memories of Grey’s last moments, his last stretch of time as I slowly took his life until the injuries I dealt overwhelmed the capabilities of his healing powers and he met Lucius. The snake tells me I did my job, that I carried out my duties as a Soldier, as the Dust Devil, as the righthand man of the King of Ragdon.

  Yet I still cannot level that belief the snake says I should be feeling with what I feel about what I did. The two don’t line up, and Pisces tells me it’s guilt. That I have a conscience and that I should never have done what I did because that’s not what someone with a conscience would’ve done.

  You need to be held accountable, Pisces tells me, wriggling on the back of my neck, as if swimming.

  I know, I reply.

  Fear curls through my heart in slithering tentacles. If I feel that fear, though, what did Grey feel?

  What did he feel as he took his final breaths?

  What did he feel as he tried to convince me to stop?

  xxxx

  The dull ache in my ankle slowly gives way to a steady throbbing as we drawer nearer to the Sea. I fight back every grimace, every catch in my throat as a bolt of pain lances up my leg when I step on a stone wrong.

  If Alex notices, she doesn’t say anything, but I don’t think she does. She barely says a word as we walk across the Lava Flats.

  Pisces keeps a firm hold on me, still soaked into my skin, but Libra has faded back into their constellation on Alex’s body. The messy, spitting galaxies and stars surrounding Alex as she confronted me about her brother’s murder have faded, too, now nowhere near as visible nor as vibrant.

  When we reach the Sea, the sight that greets me is grim.

  A wind blows from us toward the Sea. Most of the tents lay in burnt, broken heaps. Some have been cleared away and stacked into towering piles, but many remain where they fell and even from far away I can see the sunlight catching on the white of bone on the closest edge of the Sea from bodies who are beginning to decay. Streaks of charred soil cover the Sea, and people mill about.

  I draw up to a halt when I catch sight of Guard and Soldiers patrolling. Again, I see the young pangaré colt as a Guard leads him through the Sea in the general direction of the Barracks. His short mane flaps against his neck with every prancing step he takes, and I wish I had that energy, that ability.

  Pisces curls on my neck, and I wince at the twinge.

  Move, the fish say, keep walking. Follow the Midnight Wolf.

  I swallow down a groan as I straighten my shoulders and start again, lengthening my strides to catch up to Alex. She turns around when she realizes I’m trailing behind, and her unblinking orange eyes fill with hurt and anger.

  “Do you not care?” she says.

  “I do,” I say, moving a little faster.

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  “Then what? Are you afraid to be held accountable? Are you afraid to admit what you did? Are you afraid to tell everyone?”

  I shake my head.

  Alex turns on me more fully, brown hair swishing around her shoulders. “Then what, Scorn? What is it?”

  I slow when I reach her, since she has stopped walking.

  “I…” I feel the presence of Pisces weighing more heavily on me, reminding me of the snake, and my heart rate picks up, thumping along like the hoofbeats of a horse. Yet I cannot resist, push back against Pisces, and I find myself speaking. “I am afraid of the Guard and Soldiers. If they find out that I did kill Grey and that I was…” My lips twist. “If they find out that I was successful, then they’ll tell the King. I don’t want him to order me again.”

  Alex’s lip curls and her posture turns rigid. She’s shorter than me, but I feel that I’m looking up at her and she’s staring down at me. Stars fizzle into existence and sputter with angry, staticky energy. A ram materializes over Alex’s shoulder for a few moments, shaking their head. Behind him, a goat with a fish tail kicks out their forelegs.

  “Coward,” she says, shaking her head. Her eyes narrow, but she does not blink. “You’re a coward, Scorn. Face him. Face the King. Why can’t you just tell him no?”

  It’s not that easy, I want to say.

  Why can’t she understand that the King isn’t someone you say no to? It’s not as easy as just refusing. He utters an order, and his word is spoken; his word is to be followed to the letter. His word holds the weight of a King. Even now, after I have completed his order of killing the Dove, I still feel the pressure, the expectation of compliance.

  “Why not?” Alex presses.

  Libra shimmers into view, tightly curled hair bouncing as their feet brush the ground and they shift their scales in their grip. The sunlight on the blue bandana over their eyes makes the fabric appear to be glowing.

  Speak the truth, Luke, Pisces whispers.

  How do you know my name? I ask at the same time the snake speaks:

  He is the Dust Devil. His powers belong to the Amethyst Throne, and his life belongs to the King.

  “I…” I don’t know what to say. I cannot formulate the words in my head into sentences, but Pisces does the work for me and I find myself speaking thoughts I didn’t know I had, yet as I hear them, I know they’re true. “I’m scared. I-I… I don’t want to tell the King no to his face. I don’t want to have to see him when I tell him no. I want to… to just never see him again.”

  Alex shakes her head, but before she can, I see someone approaching.

  A blue unicorn with a violet mane and a pink horn trots up to us, pink ribbons flowing from the movement. A scar bisects their left eye. A flash of recognition flickers across their expression.

  Something niggles in the back of my mind, and I realize where I’ve seen the unicorn before: I saw them when I gave the demonstration and fought the Guard.

  “That’s Brook. Don’t mess with her,” Alex says, voice low but trembling with the effort it takes to keep her tone level.

  “Who…” Brook trails off, ears drawing back. Her tail swishes against her hind legs, before she raises her head and she pins her ears. Sparkles whoosh around her horn. “You’re the Dust Devil.”

  I exhale, then nod. “Yes.”

  “What happened? Why are you with Alex?”

  “The King…”

  “No,” Alex corrects. “The fucking King did not make you do anything. You chose to murder Grey.”

  Brook spooks and her hooves clatter on the soil and pebbles. “What?”

  “I… I killed Grey,” I murmur. I close my eyes when my vision blurs from the images of the Sea I see and twists, contorting into the violence of Grey’s death.

  “Why?” Brook croaks.

  “The King gave me orders to do so… and I didn’t say no. I killed the Dove.”

  I flinch when I hear a rumbling roar, the kind that rattles me straight to my core, vibrating from the pitch that hits at the resonance needed to shake my very being. The hair on the back of my neck prickles from the instinctual tension rippling through my body, the millennia-old whisper of predator.

  I don’t need to see him to know who he is. Every Guard and Soldier knows who he is. The King has had a bounty on his head from the time he became a threat.

  The Phoenix.

  Shoulders rising up toward my ears, I turn to face him.

  Maybe I owe Grey that much. I took his life. Maybe all I can really do is face what surely is my death head-on.

  Phoenix stands before me, head level with his shoulders as he stalks around me, side exposed as he watches me out of the corner of his eye. The tip of his tail flicks, short black fur stretching over his bones and muscles with every step. Flames crackle loudly, taking over my hearing along with his next growl. The short yellow horns on his forehead look so sharp, maybe sharper than the fangs curving from his mouth.

  What catches my attention, though, is the purple shock of fur on his forehead.

  How did he get that?

  “Run, little monster," Phoenix says. "I dare you. You are all the same. You might claim to be different, but at the end of it all, you will still go running back to the cream puff and beg for his forgiveness and whimper until he pets you all better. Maybe you should just start kissing his shoes.

  “It doesn’t matter what you claim,” Phoenix says. “You are all the same. That’s why you killed Grey. You can never change, Righthand Man to the cream puff.”

  Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please comment your thoughts and consider a favorite/follow!

  Up top is the one and only Phoenix! I decided that it felt fitting to draw him, since he speaks the title of the chapter -- 'you are all the same.' I had fun with this one. I looked up references of lionesses walking to try to get a better sense on how Phoenix's body would fit together, but I think I captured how I imagined him in my mind as he's approaching Luke with the usual bitterness he holds for Guard and Soldiers

  Will Luke be able to make it out alive now that he and Alex have met up with Brook and Phoenix?

  Is Phoenix right in that all Guard and Soldiers are the same and that Luke cannot change?

  I suppose that raises another question: Is Luke different from the other Guard and Soldiers? He certainly feels like he's different

  What will happen now that Alex is more or less holding Luke hostage through Pisces and her powers?

  What will happen now that Luke and Alex have reached the Sea?

  I hope you're having a nice day and if not, that tomorrow brings something nice your way!

  -Werewolf14- :)