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I wiggled my fingers, my body regrown, stronger for the experience, built with magic that had come from me.

I closed my eyes and felt all the hundred different kinds of magic I knew, then pushed myself up, melting the shackles with fire. There was screaming outside my door, shouting. It opened, and Kacha stomped through, turning to lock the door behind him, so eager to gloat over my corpse in solitude that he didn’t even see me.

Thirty-Four

He turned, his breath stopping as his eyes bugged open. He barely whispered, “What?”

His expression turned into a snarl. He reached for me, but I was faster than him, I was made of all the magic that the One Dragon had ever gifted to human and animalia alike. With a twitch of my fingers, a piece of ice pierced his chest, sending him crashing into the wall behind him. Blood bubbled from his lips and I could hear a wheeze where it had run through his lung. I could be patient, too.

We were in the dark, but Owl could see in the dark. Kacha left red stains on the wall as he slid down. For good measure I sent two more icicles into his lungs, digging into the stone, pinning him in place.

My bones were made of ice, my muscles of all the plants in the forest, and my skin of fire. All of me wanted to consume him. The ice would freeze him, the fire would burn him, and the forest would leave nothing behind.

Everything in me wanted to kill Kacha, erase him from the earth.

But I could hear Tallu’s Dogs in the hall, and Commander Rede’s voice was barking orders, which meant that General Saxu was not far behind. Tallu was here. If I strained, I was sure I could hear his heartbeat, hear his footsteps coming ever closer to me.

I forced my strange new body into stillness, looking down at the fingers on my hands. Kacha had cut them off. I had seen him. I had felt it.

“Do you even realize what you did?” I asked.

My voice sounded strange, raspy and hoarse, and now there was an undercurrent of animalia underneath. I felt a rumble in my chest like a growl that I wasn’t letting free. What had I become when I rebuilt myself?

Kacha laughed, and I recognized it, because I had sounded so similar in the past few days of torture. There was an emptiness that had come when I realized I would no longer walk, that I no longer had fingers or a future.

“What can I do but laugh?” Kacha asked. “You are the monster who married the one on the black throne and now you will destroy the Imperium.”

“I thought you would beg for your life,” I said. “Or at least pretend to apologize for your actions.”

“What do I have to apologize for? I have only ever served the Imperium. I’ve only ever wanted to fulfill the promise.” Kacha laughed again, although it was weaker than before, the wheezing worsening as he pulled in air through the holes I had put in his lung.

“Liar,” I laughed. “You haven’t served the Imperium, you served your own foul greed, your avarice. You tortured me for no other reason than it brought you pleasure. As I’m sure so many others found out before me. You and Rute Sotonam were two of a kind.”

“Maybe, but you will remember me forever. Tallu’s reign will always be tainted by me. There will always be whispers that perhaps Kacha was right. Will you even be able to look at him knowing that he couldn’t prevent what I did to you?” Kacha grinned, red and foul, his expression delighted.

“No,” I said simply, then I leaned forward and whispered into his ear. “Let me tell you a secret. What you did to me made me stronger. I am now something that can tear the Imperium apart with my own hands. And I will. I will destroy it, and when it is rubble at Tallu’s feet, he and I will never think your name again. We will wipe you from history, kill any allies who might invoke your name, turn your achievements to nothing, make the Imperium forget your memory so that not even your own children can use your name. There will be no House Kacha. They will forget you as someone who failed, and whose reminder is a curse.”

“You can’t.” Kacha looked at me, horror written on his face. “I am the general who conquered nations. I am one who held the imperial court in my hand. I am the one who Millu knew was beyond his ability to rein in.”

“Ristorium will go back to the air mages. The blood mages will live in the Blood Mountains, and even Forsaith will once again become the source of food for the continent.” I sat back on my heels. Spreading my fingers wide, I let fractal ice grow between them. I replaced it with electricity, and then fire. “You gave me the power to do that. It was only with your help that it was possible. And as a reward, I will bury you in the sand and forget you.”

Kacha gasped. He turned his head, trying to call out, but I could hear the fighting get closer and I couldn’t let him tell anyone else. I raised my hand to his throat, letting loose the rage in my chest. Fire leapt from my hand to his throat, and he couldn’t draw enough air to even scream before he died.

When it was done, I stood, stumbling back to the other side of the cell, landing hard and leaning against the wall. I couldn’t look at Kacha anymore. He may have been the whetstone for my blade, but I hadn’t lied when I said that I planned to forget him. His monstrous appetite for pain had already taken up too much of my attention.

The door opened, and I saw Tallu first. He looked at Kacha, his body tense, and I didn’t need to see his face to know he was snarling.

“Tallu,” I said, and Tallu turned to me, the expression of fury melting off his face when he looked at me.

Then Tallu was in front of me, and I could see when he gave up any pretense of imperial decorum. He stepped on the dead scorpions, their bodies cracking into ash under his feet.

“Airón,” he whispered.

“I am fine, my love,” I soothed. I raised my hands to his face, aware that this would be my first time touching something real since Kacha had begun his torture.

I hesitated only a second, wondering if this was something worse. What if I had gone mad when the scorpions stung me? What if none of this was real? What if Tallu was merely a hallucination like Yorîmu’s voice in my head?

Then my fingers touched Tallu’s face, and I felt the prick of stubble on his jaw, the wet from his eyes where tears flowed silently. He didn’t say anything, and that was so exactly like him in a way that my mind would not have created. Tallu could no more admit how desperate he had been to find me than he could stop the ocean waves.