Unbound

JABEZ

Chapter 1

I Didn’t Look For You

I know I should be dead.

I know I was dead.

And I know I was once natural.

I was a pet. A house cat. I belonged to the King before he took the Throne, and he called me Ice. I was his, and he was mine. We were best friends, and our lives were one.

And then I died. Old age took its toll, and Lucius came for me.

But then I lived again.

I lived again in a body I didn’t recognize, with a mind far too human and a voice that spoke like a human, with magical powers I didn’t used to have.

Instead of being able to curl up comfortably in my best friend's lap like I’d done a million times, I now stood at the King’s hips at the shoulders. My once-white fur had turned a pale blue while horns curled down behind my hears. Turquoise hair arched over my forehead, and six shards of ice jutted out from the end of my tail, three on each side.

The King used the power of the Amethyst Throne to fuse my then-dead body with the soul of a human he had killed, and that warped power gave me control over ice. I can sense the water in every living thing, and I can freeze it and bend it to my will.

I’d never wanted to be brought back to life after I died. I’d lived a happy life with my best friend, and I’d died in his arms. I’d done my best to comfort my friend as I slipped away under Lucius’s touch, done my best to show my friend just how much I loved him as I fell into the buzzing white warmth of a forever slumber.

That bond was why I stayed, the close tied of a friendship stronger than anything. Why I didn’t immediately leave once I’d realized what the King had done.

But I didn’t recognize the person on the Amethyst Throne. I didn’t recognize my best friend in the King, although I knew he was the same person.

I forgave him for what he did, even though I never wanted to be brought back. Lucius had taken my soul. Lucius had claimed me and brought me to death. I saw Ananta, the black vulture, flying over me, circling until Lucius arrived and reached out their hand.

It was my time to die then, nearly a hundred years ago.

Even still, I managed to find happiness in my new life.

I found Freedom, fell in love, and had a daughter with her. A sweet little creature named Astra.

But the King took all of that away when he started a trial against us with a claim of abuse against Astra. The Judge and Justice stepped in, ruling in the King’s favor, and Brook had to take Astra away.

She created a portal to make a world for her and Astra, one where the King couldn’t touch them.

I stayed when the King forced me to, even after Arcane killed Freedom in a tragic accident.

The King cursed me out of his anger of Astra being out of his reach, and I took it. Astra will break my curse, but I will never seek her out. Brook is keeping her safe, and so long as she stays in the portal world, the King cannot reach her.

But now, after so long without Freedom or Astra, I still remain with the King.

He’s taken everything, but he is the only one I know.

He was once everything to me, in my life as his house cat, Ice. Now, ninety years after he took Astra from me and Brook locked herself and my daughter away, sixty years after Freedom died from Arcane’s mistake, sixty years after the King cursed me, I still don’t know what our relationship is. I don’t want to see him, but I can’t leave. I remember who he was before I died and he stepped onto the Amethyst Throne. Freedom said he’d never chance. He hasn’t, and yet I can’t just leave.

I don’t know where I’d go.

And so I spend my days wandering the grounds of the castle. I meander around the outskirts of the Sea and make my way around both sides of Ragdon Volcano— across the Lava Flats and up toward the Arcane Delta. I always hated the name. The King named it the Arcane Delta to celebrate Arcane ridding the world of Freedom. A celebration of a murder, even if it was accidental.

It’s been ninety years, and I’ve traveled across the entirety of Ragdon. I crossed the Badlands, visited my and Freedom’s home at the base of Ragdon Volcano, tried to walk away from the memories since I cannot run. The curse causes far too much pain. I don’t know the damage it’s done to my body, but I can feel it seeping through my cells a little more with every year that’s passed by.

Once, I trekked around Ananta Spring and walked along Roya Point to reach the Garden. I never drew close. I couldn’t make myself draw close, but I could see it and that was enough.

The Garden loomed off in the distance, stone walls tall and looming and as cold as the Judge and Justice were the day they took Astra away from me and Freedom. Moss grew in a light green against the flat grey. I saw the Garden decades ago, but the sight is still seared in my memory. Two tall spires towered over the rest of the Garden. On each one, the Judge and Justice stood watch, bodies curved neatly into seated positions and wings held folded at their sides. They were so still that they looked carved from stone. I knew they guarded, not to keep anyone from coming into the Garden, but instead to keep anyone from coming out.

The Garden is where problematic citizens of the King of Ragdon are sent so they can learn better. That’s what the King says.

I know it’s instead a prison. It’s where the King sends those he doesn’t want to deal with. The Garden is as far away from his castle and the Sea as anyone can get. The Aiyana River nearly cuts Roya Point and its surrounding land off from the rest of Ragdon. No one reaches the Garden by accident.

But the one time I visited the Garden, the Judge turned its head. Its eyes were closed, but it opened them to gaze at me. Its red eyes glowed in the afternoon sun. I stared back silently, wishing I could make it understand what it did when it ruled in the King’s favor and sent Astra to live with Brook, who later took my daughter away to live in a portal so the King could hopefully never reach them. Freedom and I had asked her to do so, but Astra would’ve been safe with us.

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Except that she wasn’t, because the King lashed out at her in his anger toward me.

When I refused to help him find the portal so he could find Brook and Astra, the King cursed me. He used the same power of the Amethyst Throne he used to bring me back to life and froze my blood until it was nearly solid. Nearly. And then he made it so every few months, my heart would beat once. The result was excruciating pain that never ended. My blood expanded in my veins, but the curse refused to let me die.

I took the curse. Finding Astra would break it, but I couldn’t do that to her. I did and still do take everything the curse throws at me, because it’s what I can do for my daughter. The King can be angry at me. I won’t let him take out his anger toward me on her.

xxxx

I’m walking at the base of Ragdon Volcano.

It’s one of the days where I start moving and don’t stop or really think about where I’m going. I don’t walk fast; I can’t. I’m too tired to move fast, and I know that if I keep expending energy meandering along I’ll eventually grow too tired to even stand up. I just can’t find it within me to care. I’ll sleep for as long as I can until the pain or nightmares wake me up, and then I’ll keep going because it’s all I can do.

I let my head and tail sag. No one will try to come after me. The Guard and Soldiers don’t bother and the Generals know better. They might beat me, but there would be no benefit. I’m fine being known as the traitorous best friend living out his days cursed by the King of Ragdon and the Amethyst Throne.

The King will probably never change, but I’ve never been able to quite give up hope that just maybe. Maybe he’ll wake up and realize. Maybe he’ll understand what he did. Maybe he’ll be able to see just what he did to me when he brought me back and how I was so happy to die in his arms that way because I’d lived a life knowing only love and affection and he was my best friend and I got to slip away into the peacefulness of Lucius’s touch feeling his fingers through my fur and hearing him say over and over how much he loved me and how much I meant to him. Maybe he'll get that I didn't want to wake up all alone, cold and confused and scared in a body that's never been mine, even after nearly a century.

But it’s been so long, and with every year that ticks by, I find it more and more unlikely and that breaks my heart more than the curse ever could.

I’m stuck in my head, letting my thoughts take over my consciousness, leaving me disconnected from reality in a pleasant way I’ve grown fond of, and letting my paws run on autopilot.

“What the fuck?” a voice growls. “Him again?”

I’m brought back to reality, and I can’t quite say I want to be back so soon. I always know I’ll have to return, but daydreams where I’m reunited with Freedom and Astra and the best friend I once knew are so tantalizingly wonderful and reality is so cold and painful.

The voice is familiar, one I know I’ve heard before. But I can’t quite place the gruff irritation, the almost juvenile scoff.

I stop walking and lift my head to look back. I’m greeted with the sight of six individuals.

Six individuals I have seen before, just at different times.

I recognize Brook immediately. She’s about the same age, but there’s an exhaustion to her that’s new. Deeper lines in her face that I recognize; I have many of my own. They’re lines that only come from stress. I then see Grey and Alex trailing a ways behind. Grey still looks like one of the fresh-faced new Guard or Soldier recruits, the ones in the first days before reality shatters them to their souls. I wonder how long it will take for him to break. I’ve never seen anyone make it out on the other side without scars, both physical and mental. Especially mental. Alex looks tired, and it strikes me that she might break first.

Maybe if Grey can cling to his belief that no one has to kill he’ll make it. Maybe Alex will find some way, too, even if I know she will kill far easier than her brother.

Maybe the King will fall easy, even though I’ve been wanting that for almost a hundred years. Even though I want the King to stop, I don’t want him dead.

But when I see Ky and Phoenix again, I know the chances of the King living are slim, if there’s a way to actually defeat him. I could never do it, not even alongside Freedom. The two of us were too weak to go up against the King and stand even the slightest chance, even when our daughter’s wellbeing was on the line.

So what’s so different now?

My gaze shifts to the side, and I see what’s so different. Something that hadn’t quite clicked when I’d seen Brook in person after ninety years.

Astra.

She’s standing in front of me.

She’s grown up. Still a child but not the infant I’d last seen. She has feathered wings like Freedom’s, and swirls on her wrists like Freedom did. Horns peek out from beneath the hair on her neck, and she still has the six grey plates on her tail that match the shards of ice on my own tail.

She’s the perfect mix of us. She’s so beautiful.

The joy of seeing Astra again is shattered when I realize what seeing my daughter means.

Someone found the portal, and the King can get to Astra.

“No,” I gasp. “Please, no. This can’t be. I didn’t look for you, I swear.”

I stumble back several steps as the air is knocked from my lungs like I just got punched in the chest. I turn my attention to Brook, who looks just as shocked as I am. How is Astra here? I never searched for her.

“What happened?” I plead. “I didn’t search for you. Please, she can’t be here.”

I can’t lose you again, Astra. The King got to you, and there was nothing I could do. I can’t lose you again. I took the curse to keep you safe, and I never searched for you, even though you will break it and I’ve always known that. You can’t be here. It’s not safe.

“Who are you?” Astra asks.

Pain lances through me, sharper than any of the physical pain I’ve felt. I can take the physical pain, but this pain darts through me like an arrow, ripping through my heart, even though the question makes sense.

Astra was an infant the last time I saw her. She wouldn’t remember me.

My heart clenches as it tries to beat, and I groan as I sink to the ground. My body moves on its own as the pain makes me lock up. I feel myself stretch out a leg and rake my claws through the soil. My muscles spasm, and my tail lashes, a shard of ice on it cutting through my hip. I barely feel that pain over the agony of my heart straining to move nearly frozen blood through my veins. I curl my lips and bare my teeth as the throbbing comes in waves like the ones I’ve seen lapping against the shore of the Freedom Coast when the ache of her loss grew too strong and I wanted to wallow and speak to her. The pain rises and falls and digs its talons in deep, clinging onto me, never to let go.

I groan. The pain has been around for too long for me to beg for it to release me. I fantasized in the beginning, tantalizing dreams chasing me into my waking hours where I stayed with one paw still in Dreamland and I got to live as if the curse never existed. But I broke myself of that desire. The curse wasn’t going to go away. Astra would break my curse, but I couldn’t search for her. The King wanted her dead, and I couldn’t give him that. I had to keep my daughter safe in the only way I could; letting Brook take her into the portal and never seeking my daughter out.

Except that Astra stands before me.

Astra isn’t with Brook in the portal and I didn’t search for them, which means someone found them.

“Jabez,” Astra says.

Her voice is like music to my ears. I’d always wondered what she’d sound like as she got older. How she would speak. What she would say. What she would want to talk about. What she would want to share. In my dreams she would talk to me, rambling on about everything and nothing, and I would drink it all up, hardly saying anything so I could hear her speak. In my nightmares she would tell me how I abandoned her, how I never looked for her. I would try to explain myself and how I couldn’t search because it was the only way I could keep her safe since I couldn’t defeat the King and I didn’t know of any other way, but in every one of those nightmares, she always turned around and walked away, ignoring every one of my pleas.

“You’re my father,” Astra adds on. The realization is clear in her voice.

I squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for my nightmares to come to life and for Astra to accuse me of leaving her. The pain from the curse hurts, but I know it’s nothing compared to the pain that would be losing my daughter again, this time by her own decision.

“Please,” I beg, sides trembling. “Astra.”

The pain of my heart beating, of the curse that has all but frozen my blood, is nothing compared to what comes the second Astra’s name is out of my mouth.

My voice pitches into a scream I can’t swallow down, and my body shudders and spasms. My back arches, and darkness clouds my vision until everything goes black.

I sink into the depths of unconsciousness. It’s come sooner than it ever has before, only this time I don’t want its previously merciful hold. I have Astra back.

I fight against the slow and steady claim of unconsciousness, buck against its clinging depths that slowly pull me downwards, but in the end, it wins. My body still shakes as the voices all around me grow warped and then silent. The ringing in my ears whines, but then that ceases too. It’s all dark, and I’m simply gone.