—Author’s note, cause no one reads the actual authors note, or chapter titles, or blurbs. Haha (cries). This chapter is hands down the most violent chapter in the entire book. To me, it's more violent than all other violence in the book combined. It also features an extremely toned down vivisection, which is the dissection of a human being while they are still alive. It's an old practice, and kinda how humanity learned surgery, but obviously some people are here only for the jokes. Which is fine and dandy. If you're here for the jokes. I recommend skipping this chapter after the TLDR.---

~~~TLDR, Nyota suffers, gets lightning, and forgives blackwood. Or at least understands that killing him wouldn't heal her. ~~~

Nyota lived with constant agony, it gnawed at her body. An uninvited guest that settled in her bones and refused to leave, drowning her beneath waves of anguish. She knew nothing of the world beyond what she could touch, her vision clogged by thick cataracts.

Sounds came to her across a chasm, distant, quiet, and distorted with echoes. Her ears discarded her will, twitching as they pleased instead of gathering sound. Their rampant disobedience turned crisp words into an unfocused haze of static.

Sleep was her only relief, free from pain yet haunted by visions of the feathered serpent. His icon appeared in her mind, motionlessly condemning her folly. After all, this pain was her fault, she had dared attack a greater being, and was judged lacking.

Daughter of Lightning, I am sorry. This trial is not for you, nor are you ready. Said the feathered serpent’s icon.

Memory of its white scales and golden feathers made her heart skip a beat, mingling beautiful joy with the terror of death. Nyota re-lived the lightning’s discharge each time sleep gripped her consciousness. Yet the feathered serpent remained in her foremind.

In the waking world, Nyota’s pain continued to escalate, like a storm gathering strength. Every day brought a new hurdle of suffering, her skin bled, then she was stripped naked and burned, for reasons unknowable by her senseless body. Vague sounds of men moved around her, holding total power over her exposed form. Nightmares of destiny pounded her consciousness. She felt no chains, but every movement was forbidden by pain. Nevertheless, Nyota had always guessed this would be her end. No matter how many of her kin died to shield her, the King’s law demanded her death.

Is this how the king killed my brothers and sisters? Has Blackwood finally surrendered me to vivisection? Wondered Nyota.

Whispers evaded her ears, exalting the softest touch into a surprise. People spoke words she did not understand, then poked her with cold tools or smeared slimes across her figure. Nyota’s mind wandered in and out of consciousness, disoriented by sleepless transitions between worlds.

Where am I? Am I dead? Where is the endless field of Elysium, or Perun Taloc’s throne? If this isn’t heaven… then… do slaves go to eternal Hades? Is our weakness so abominable to Taloc that he would cast us into the inferno? No, I am alone here.

The feathered serpent’s image appeared in her mind once more.

Daughter of lightning, you are not ready. Cry out to your lord, leave this place. It said.

Perplexed by pain Nyota’s mind worked, her lord, who was her lord? Viscount Blackwood?

Cry out to Viscount Blackwood?

Never!

He’s killed everyone I've ever met! He would never aid me, or save me from lightning…

An ideal tickled her psyche, a hand intercepting lightning and splitting apart. Then it was gone, taken by the feathered serpent.

“Give it back! That’s important!” Shouted Nyota.

Why? This trial is not for you. It answered.

She couldn’t remember the idea, she only felt a burning within her heart that whatever the serpent took from her was more important than her life.

“It just is!” She shouted.

The serpent of white and gold swam through her nightmare, encircling her with its coils until they blocked out the sun. The feathered serpent’s iridescent scales beckoned to her, calling her deeper into the dream.

This will end you, for you are unprepared, but Perun Taloc is our adjudicator, not I. Said the feathered serpent.

Nyota extended her hand, nearly touching the tempting scales when screaming filled her ears, recollections of Viscount Blackwood’s ‘practical exams’ for Heir Blackwood. Feline wreckage she had been forced to clean up when his impatience –inevitably– ruined the vivisection.

How important is your lord? Asked the feathered serpent.

Her reply came instantly, speaking without her logic’s consent.

“He is everything.” Answered Nyota, taking hold of the memory Quetzalcoatl had stolen.

A small white light appeared in the darkness of her dreams, too faint to dispel the darkness entirely, yet too bright to ignore, hovering beside her, never leaving her.

It brought pain.

Quetzalcoatl turned its enormous head towards Nyota, swallowing her with a toothless gulp and depositing her in a realm of ash and shadows. Lightning suffused her bones, carving lichtenberg marks across her bones, remaking her.

Ash rained from the sky, and shadows wandered the wasteland, ducking between hollowed trees, and incinerated stumps. The white light beside her warded them away at first, yet soon the shades grew in number, drawn to the light like the insects they were.

Nyota fled, walking through an ashen desert with the shades drawing ever closer. Ash lay in a heavy fog, choking the ground and muffling footsteps; miring Nyota and allowing the shadowy figures to resolve. They drew nearer, their faceless heads mounted upon echoes of her previous masters. Foremost among them was Viscount Blackwood, seeking the carnal pleasure of her misery. He haunted her nightmares in ways they had never haunted her life.

Perun Taloc why torment me so!? Thought Nyota, starting to run.

The white light fled alongside her, shooting arcs of lightning into piles of ashes. Creatures rose from the mounds, shrugging off ash to stand. Nyota ran past, failing to notice the risen creatures’ form. Screams clashed with yowls, bludgeoning the air with violence. Nyota found a burnt oak and ducked behind it, peeking around with one eye.

Confusion calmed her, the spark-born creatures were shades as well, yet instead of faceless shadows they were beings of luminous faces and bodies concealed in flickering light. Nyota saw through their deception, recognizing them as the slaves who had sheltered her, had raised her, protected her, and taught her.

“Leave them alone! You all died for me, why sacrifice Elysium for me?” Shouted Nyota.

Her cry echoed across the world, a proclamation of thunderous volume. She clamped a hand over her mouth, horrified by her booming words. Shades drew nearer, overwhelming her felinid defenders, hemming her in. Doubt chased the small white light, flitting through her nightmare with a dark wil-o-wisp that flew beyond her memory.

Haven’t I given the humans enough? They took everything I had, everyone I ever knew is dead, every child I bore is gone. That is all that life is… Stolen sons and slain daughters. Why not punish the traitors instead of me? God, why? They didn’t even let me hold my children before they took them.

Blackwood’s shade tore a felinid in half, rending light with darkness as it came forward. Across the land light and dark battled for Nyota’s mind, doubt creeping ever closer. A dozen shadows of lightning priests rose behind Nyota, matched by the lost souls of Avignon. Holy staves encountered bloody spears, as priests subdued militia. They were fading quickly, losing ground until the white light zipped by, sending an arc of light into the tallest priest. He fell, doubling over as shadow burned from within, light filled the vessel, until ancient Pascal’s face appeared.

His eyes spoke, answering Nyota’s plea. ‘We’ve come at our lady’s call, preserve our hope. Press on, soldiers of Avignon.’

Thirteen souldiers did not relent, redoubling their violence against the traitor paladins. Yet it was not enough, their spears shattered, their souls scattered, and Blackwood’s specter wrapped an ethereal tentacle around Nyota’s arm. Its vile touch finally matching Blackwood’s soul and assaulting Nyota with memories.

She was in Blackwood Castle, hands, neck, and feet chained to the inclined plane reserved for birthdays. Midwives –felinid slaves whose tongues had been removed– attended to her, mournfully delivering her litter. As each child left her, Viscount Blackwood judged them. Runts were dropped into a bucket so a mage could crush the evidence into paste, healthy sons were handed to a midwife who took them away, her children’s first screams faded down the corridor. But her daughters…

Nyota screamed, trying to reject the memory, yet she was powerless, healing could not free her chains, or raise the slain. The memory faded into the blasted wasteland. Nyota twisted away from Blackwood’s shade, running on hands and feet through the ashes, fleeing from her allies.

Had she trusted them, her felinids and souldiers might have protected her, instead, she fled blindly, running headlong into a pit of shades. A dozen specters encircled her, daunting her til Blackwood arrived. Tentacles extended from his shoulders, dragging her mind into the past.

Blackwood stood beside the midwife, appraising Nyota’s newest child. An experienced midwife covered Nyota’s eyes with a damp cloth, pressing her head into the wooden slab.

“Bah, another whore, we have enough of these.” He said, taking the child.

Nyota screamed, thrashing against the chains in a futile gesture, hoping that maybe this time, Blackwood wouldn’t–

*CRACK*

“Dispose of this.” He ordered.

Nyota couldn’t see, but heard the midwife leave the room, walking down the outside corridor in silence.

She screamed with every ounce of her suffering, thinking her pain might dissolve the foundations of Blackwood’s stone castle. As effectively as her sorrow dissolved her joy.

Lightning flashed across the indoor memory. Radiant fury burned through the shades, freeing Nyota from Blackwood’s shade. It was too late, Nyota wept, curled into a ball. The memories had been too much, why had they taken everyone? It would have cost Blackwood nothing to let her hold even one child, he could have let them live, profited off selling them. Why–

Rhendal appeared within the dreamworld, riding a black furred cat with teeth that protruded beneath its lower jaw. Dozens of similar cats appeared, turning the tide on the shades of Nyota’s past. Furthermore the battle deepened, the white lightning spark dueling against its own shadowed wil-o-wisp, yet now there were three wisps. All bombarding the white light with javelins of void. Black sabercats walked through shadows, ambushing priests and shades alike.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Yet Nyota was blind to it all. Unable to discern reality from fiction, her heart raced with every looming shade, trying to flee into the living world.

—

She awoke drenched in sickly sweat, gluing her to the sheets. Her dress had been replaced with bandages at some point unbeknownst. Pain shot through her muscles, drowning her waking hours in a red-filled fugue.

Here she was blind, deaf, and broken. Her muscles spasmed, if they moved at all, her eyes were darkened, and only one ear remained. Whispers fuzzed through her ungainly ears, teasing their meaning, though their tone was consolatory.

I am dying… i’m sorry Lord Liam, I would have… liked to… stay at your… side…

—

Quetzalcoatl met her once more, this time he swallowed her whole, plunging her once more into the barren realm of shades and souldiers.

Daughter of Lightning, your family is broken, let your love shine through your wounds.

“Oh sure, a cryptid being cryptic, how useful.” Snapped the white light, shifting to an incandescent gold.

Eight shadow wil-o-wisps blinked into being –one for every word– and assaulted the sassy gold. But the golden light moved with a befuddling grace, eluding darting darkness with bolts of lightning. Four wordly wil-o-wisps popped, while four scattered, the incandescent gold pursuing them.

Shades appeared, emboldened by the lack of light, with Blackwood at their head. Gone were the souldiers of Avignon, or the shade priests. Gone was Rhendal and his Umbraquins. Gone were her protectors, gobbled up by the shades of Blackwood’s ilk.

Nyota ran, sprinting across lakes of ash, eliciting vile incantations at her resistance.

“Nothing more than a whore.”

“Get on your knees you filthy beast.”

“Down, get on the floor where you belong.”

Leave me alone! I always did what you asked, followed every command no matter what you took from me or how badly you beat me. I don’t deserve this!

“You’ll get what every cat deserves.”

“Shut up or I’ll let the hounds run you down. Ha, look at how they perk up, seems they’ve developed a taste for cat since we fed em your runts.”

Leave them alone! Take my life, spare my children!

Cackling ghosts tormented her soul, parading the lowest moments of her life with every grasping claw. These malevolent apparitions grew stronger, bolder, dredging up the twisted visages of tormentors before Blackwood. Masters from her youth whose names she never knew. They ran her down, chasing her into an ash-concealed pit.

Nyota tripped and fell, the pits’ edge colliding with her ribs and knocking the wind out of her. The shadowed masters caught her, wrapping their tormenting graspers around her memories and feeding her only the rankest remembrances.

Memoirs of another slave, a talk, dark furred man with brawny muscles appeared in her mind, making Nyota scream. She could never forget the nameless felinid. She screamed, howled into the void, lashed out, even attempted to heal the shades. Anything to avoid reliving that day.

It was all in vain. The memorial clicked into her mind.

Nyota was in an iron cage, little more than a four foot wide by four foot deep by four foot tall cell. Downright spacious when compared to the rows of enslaved felinids around her. They were packed into similarly small rooms, though they had more headroom, along with more cellmates. The slavers had packed them four to a cell, cramming them in so closely that they learned to live with the constant touch of two other sentient beings. Except for Nyota. Why she had been singled out, was unknown to her, though the reason would soon appear.

Nyota was special. Not just a felinid, but an Eclipsiarch, and the slavers knew.

Her master entered the room –control crystal in hand– with a male slave. The dark furred man with brawny muscles, whose name she never learned, but wish she had.

A key opened her cage, and the brawny man was ordered inside. Then the slaver said a phrase Nyota would come to loathe more than Blackwood.

“Make kittens.” Ordered the slaver.

The brawny man moved to comply, pressing Nyota against the cage’s floor. She hadn’t understood then what it meant, she only knew a man three times her size was above her, holding her down.

“Please don’t hurt me.” She whispered, curling into a ball with her arms above her face.

“I’m sorry, don’t resist and it’ll be over soon–” Began the brawny man.

His voice broke, hating to repeat the words. He moved closer, hands lifting the rags she wore, exposing her knees, then thighs, and then he froze. Impressive muscles tensing all at once, as if preparing for a fight.

Nostrils flared, he was scenting the air. Pupils dilated as he detected what she was, who she was. Brawny dropped her rags, retreating a foot and pressing himself against the far wall of the cage. Nyota mimicked him, squishing herself into the cage’s opposite wall, trying to hide in the corner. Her naive mind told her if she was a good girl, if she stayed quiet, and did not resist, then she wouldn’t be punished.

She was correct, but it brought no peace.

With his payday in danger the slaver gripped the crystal, choking the brawny man. He wouldn’t budge. The whip came next, slashing open his back with ever lash, yet he would not approach the eclipsiarch. Somehow he endured the slashing whip, a red hot brand, and the choking collar, Nyota had never seen a felinid defy their master, it brought only worthless pain, meaningless suffering, better to give in and do as you were told.

But brawny refused. Within the cellblock there was an empty wall, stained with something dark brown. Til that day of learning, Nyota had never seen it used. Presently the slaver left, giving brawny and Nyota a moment of peace.

“Why won’t you give in?” She asked, sincerity beading in her eyes.

“Why…? Because, when Perun Taloc greets me in Elysium I will not remember the master’s lash, my only testament will be those few who came after me, who I was able to protect.” He said.

The slaver returned, dragging a female slave of similar age in front of brawny. His eyes widened at the sight of her, likely his wife or sister, though Nyota would never learn which.

Please make it stop. She thought, recalling his silent defiance.

“Too late now vermin.”

Nyota had been forced to watch as they branded the woman, scarring her flesh with hot irons. Brawny still refused, openly weeping for the woman.

“Just do what they want! I’ll be fine.” Shouted the woman.

“Eris, I can’t.” Said Brawny.

The beatings continued until the slaver grew tired. Unable to sway brawny he gave up, changing tactics from coercion to punishment. Defiance could not go unpunished. He chained Eris to the empty wall, the action making every slave stare. They knew what was coming. Several begged them to have mercy, thinking if they all bowed before the slaver he might spare her. He left the room.

Nyota screamed, biting her tongue to wake from the nightmare.

The slaver returned with a table and two other humans. Eris understood too late, she was chained to the table, made immobile, then her own agony began. One of the men was a priest, a healer. There to act as a witness for the vivisection, though his smile conveyed his true purpose.

With his target helpless the slaver began, he knew his trade well, and kept the woman alive for eight grueling hours. A feat accomplished, in no small part, with the priest’s healing, his smile dragging out the woman’s execution. The master meticulously disassembled her body, starting with her fingers, removing them one at a time. Then came her ears, lips, and nose. Removed and placed in glass jars to be preserved.

The slaves begged him to stop, Brawny as well, but the slaver didn’t care, defiance had to be punished.

In a fit of agony Eris managed to dislocate her ankle, freeing one foot and kicking the slaver. He laughed at her, then surgically removed her legs, followed by her arms, and finally her torso. He left her face largely intact, so they could see her suffer, witness the tears streaming down her face and know exactly what she was feeling.

When her tears stopped the slaver grew tired of his game, plucking an eye from her skull, but allowing her to keep the other until the very end. Then he took that one as well, placing it in a jar of pungent formaldehyde.

This is what humans did… What they have done, and what will happen to Nyota, once they find out…

The white light was back. Had it ever left? She wondered. No, the mote of gold had never wavered, omniscient of her pain, yet powerless. Like Brawny, like Nyota.

The slaver didn’t feed them that day. Or remove Eris’ corpse. To remind the slaves he held total dominion over them. On the next day he came for Brawny, repeating the vivisection for all to see. Brawny lasted longer, but in the end only the slaver was satisfied. He left the pair of executed slaves there for a week, locking the prison during his absence. So the slaves could contemplate their defiance. So Nyota could weigh the price of refusal.

The golden light returned, hovering over Nyota’s head and freezing time.

Nyota cried for Brawny and Eris, never forgetting their sacrifice. She was grateful that they had died instead of her… But they were only the first of hundreds. For some reason every felinid she met placed her above them.

A sin she could never atone for.

I’m just me… She thought, I’m not special, or worthy, I have no power, or skills, no talents. Even my healing is weak, because I kept it hidden, only treating others while they slept.

‘Unprepared Daughter,’ Whispered Quetzalcoatl, ‘You are not to blame for a painful destiny, blame your forefathers, and foremothers who bore you into war. I cannot aid you on this trial, but know this, the Son of Lightning finds value in you.’

The golden light changed, assaulted by a dozen wil-o-wisps; the golden light swallowed their shadows, darkening in color but rising in tone to a brilliant gold. Uncannily reminiscent of the serpent’s eyes. A memory of the last time she had seen those eyes came to her. Baron Green had stretched out his hand to save her. He had thrown himself in front of her and taken the lightning.

A good man, why did he have to die? Perun Taloc, there was a human who you should have blessed, one who could rise to your ideals. I beg of you, lightning king, watch over him after I have passed from this world. I can no longer sense my body, so it won’t be long before I die. May Lord Liam find happiness with Sarah…

Her cage shattered abruptly, dumping her into the hellscape for the final time.

Dark trees covered in ash appeared in her mind’s eye, shouting echoed through the ash wastes behind her. Blackwood and her masters were coming. They would soon catch her, make her relive another nightmare, there were hundreds of unpleasant events in Nyota’s long life.

Nyota fled, sprinting through the woods with all the strength she could manage. Golden light following her as she ran, lighting her path more brilliantly than before, but not casting sparks.

Why aren’t you helping me? Thought Nyota.

“This is your trial, I have shown you the way, embrace yourself as I do. From your wounded past to your eternal future, embrace yourself Nyota Green.” Said the Light.

Green? He’s a Lightning Lord, stronger than I could ever be! He killed Heir Blackwood, the monsters, he is the future, if only he was here to free me once more, his lightning would kill these shadows, just like it slew everything.

She slowed to a stop, realizing a truth she already knew. Lord Green did not have healing powers when she met him… Nyota looked at her hand, the furless fingers and her dulled claws…

Green had broken her collar, saving her with the same hand he healed with. These specters were shadows of a past already lived. They would not be repeated.

“Silence whore!”

“We will flay you next.”

“You cannot escape your fate.”

They whispered in vain. For the first time since she had come to this dreamland she ignored them, reaching behind her head she touched the golden light. Accepting Liam’s fire into her soul.

Love, duty, protection filled her bosom, Liam’s vision of this world entered her mind, accompanied by how he wished to change it. Nyota gasped, wondering if his changes would be easier than destroying the world and starting over, just the two of them.

“Blackwood isn’t evil, he is a product of human hubris, killing him will change nothing, forgive yourself Nyota. Become the queen Brawny knew you are.”

The will to live dominated her mind, locking her in place.

Blackwood’s specter lunged for her. Nyota sidestepped, raising her hand as she mimicked Baron Greens odd manner of pointing she intoned the arcane word of power.

“Pew.”

[Lightning] increased to level 3

[Mana manipulation] increased to level 2

Lightning coursed through her body, lancing through her dream faster than light. It slew the specter of Blackwood as easily as it had slain his heir. The other specters rushed her en-mass, seeking to overwhelm her with numbers, desperate to avoid the doom they saw.

“Pew, pew, pew.”

What an odd thing to say, I wonder what it means? Maybe death to my enemies? Or some form of abbreviated prayer for their soul?

Bolts of lightning slew her specters, taking the memories of her abuses with them, until the hellscape lay empty, cleansed, ready for a healing rain. Nyota would never truly forget the violence done to her, but Blackwood wasn’t her enemy, he was a single lowly Viscount, a beta noble. His sins could be forgiven, after all, it was the King’s law that perpetuated slavery.

Golden light faded into being in front of her, materializing into the form of a man. Lord Liam stood in front of her, hand outstretched.

“Nyota,” it began, “Please do not leave me. I need you by my side.”

Terror gripped her heart, fearing this was some new trial devised by the winged serpent. Liam had never struck her, nor any of his servants. He had risked his life, had interceeded on her behalf against Heir Blackwood’s madness, shielded her from lightning, freed her, given her a new life-

“Come with me.”

Trap or not, Nyota was his. She grasped the offered hand, heart leaping as she surrendered completely. Finally awakening from the daze of nightmares.