Chapter 2

Never Her, Always Me

The world returns to me slowly, like it usually does.

It's not the first time I've lost consciousness, and I know it won't be the last. I've long since stopped counting the number of times it has happened.

The darkness has claimed me again and again. When the pain reaches its breaking point, when the dizziness hits and everything starts spinning, when I see stars and lose touch with reality, when my energy levels drop too low and my mind can't stay in the present.

But this time it's different.

I feel different as I come back to my body. A part of me still wishes I was still in the embrace of nothingness, but another part of me itches with anticipation. It wants to wake up.

That fact alone is enough to make me draw in a deep breath and shift my legs. My paws still feel foreign to me as I flex my toes. I'm used to the feeling, but it hasn't gotten any less unpleasant.

"Oh, yay, I think he's waking up," someone says above me.

"It looks like it," replies someone else.

I wade through the fog in my brain and manage to piece together that the second voice belongs to Grey.

"Jabez, can you hear me?" This time, Brook speaks.

I groan in response and try to move more, but all I'm able to do is clumsily bring a forepaw closer to my chest.

"Is he ok?"

My heart starts to race when I hear Astra. It was real, seeing her. She's really here, which means she's no longer in the world Brook created, and that means the King can get to her. I whimper in the back of my throat. The best friend I knew for my entire life as Ice cursed me after I got angry with him for bringing me back to life, and then he tried to hurt my daughter to get back at me. He can't hurt her. The King can't hurt Astra.

He can't hurt her. Me, but never her. Never her, never her, never her. Always me.

I'd long ago come to some sort of internal acknowledgement that the King could do what he wanted to me. I could take it. His anger was directed at me. But he couldn't hurt Astra, and yet Astra now walks the island of Ragdon, where the King sits on the Amethyst Throne. The King can hurt me, but now he can also get to my daughter.

My heart races in my chest, and my thoughts screech to a halt. I feel every squeeze and release of my heart. I feel it clench and then let go. I can feel my blood sluggishly pulsing through my veins. I can feel the protest from my veins when the water freezes and crystalizes. I grit my teeth against the pain and grimace as it spreads through my body in sharp, biting pin pricks.

For the first time since the King cursed me, my heart beats as it should. It starts, and it doesn't stop. The King's curse made it so my heart would only beat four times a year, and my blood was so close to frozen that it would take hours for just one heartbeat to occur.

My paws tingle with the renewed blood flow. The prickling sensation spreads through my body, and the stillness I'd grown used to shifts away like ice floating down a stream.

I blink open my eyes, squinting against the light until I adjust.

"What happened?" I ask.

"You said Astra's name, and then almost immediately after you collapsed. You were unconscious for a while," Brook replies. She ducks her head, and I meet her gaze, but only for a moment.

I can't look away from Astra. I curl my claws into the back of a forepaw, because if it's a dream, I don't want to wake up but I also need to know.

Please, let this be real.

I've had too many dreams where I got my daughter back, and the heartbreak of realizing it wasn't real and reality still exists hurts far more than the physical symptoms from the curse ever could.

My claws dig into my skin, and I don't wake up. I shift to lay straighter. I gather my paws beneath my body, muscles tensing.

"This is real," I whisper.

Phoenix widens his eyes and nods in a dramatic move. "Yes," he says slowly, "this is real. We're all here."

"Please," I say, "you can't be here. Astra, you can't be here."

I get to my paws and take a step back as panic seizes my now-beating heart.

In dreams, I'd fantasized about how it might feel for my heart to beat once more. It was a sensation I'd never thought about when I was Ice or in the beginning as I'd adjusted to my life as Jabez, the King's pet more than I'd ever been as Ice.

I'd belonged to the King as Ice. I had always been his, have always been his. But we'd been friends when I was Ice, the little white cat he'd found and we'd found each other and we'd grown close. We'd been friends. But after the King used the power of the Amethyst Throne to take me from Lucius's claim and form me into Jabez, the relationship fractured from equal to something far more one-sided.

I was the King's, but he wasn't mine. I'd never be able to shake off the hold he had over me. The power of the Amethyst Throne coursed through every fiber of my being, and I'd never be able to dig it out. I could never escape the King, but he could escape me.

Every time I fantasized about my heart beating again, I'd somehow gotten away from the King. I was free. I never would've imagined it would be when I faced my daughter after close to a century.

Astra stands across from me, looking at me with a sad, confused expression.

"What is it, Jabez?" she asks. "Are you scared?"

In an instant, I'm back to the first time I ever saw the King. He wasn't the King back then. He was younger. He'd largely stopped aging when he took to the Amethyst Throne, but he'd still age for another twenty years at the first time we met.

I was a kitten, skinny and timid, white fur matted with mud and twigs. The King was a lanky kid, on the verge of adulthood and just beginning to figure out his place in the world. He kept to himself, as I'd learn. He was quiet, thoughtful toward me, but that would eventually begin to change. The thoughtfulness would warp into something far more calculating.

"Hey there, little guy," the King had said when he'd found me on what would eventually be named the Freedom Coast. He had crouched down and reached out a hand.

"Are you scared?" he'd asked softly when I'd tensed and hesitated before cautiously creeping out and nuzzling into his fingers when he ran them along my whiskers and over my ears.

Well over a century later, I wished that I had run away. I'd have lost out on the friendship that grew for some twenty-odd years, but I wouldn't have to face what the King did and losing my daughter for ninety years and having to live through losing the love of my life.

Even with my frozen heart and the physical pain that tried to break me down, the grief always won out. The curse could never drown out the grief of losing my family. Of having to try to somehow make sense of the love the King had shown me as Ice and the cruelty he showed after taking to the Amethyst Throne.

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I blink, and Astra's waiting with her head tilted to the side in a gesture that makes me smile for a moment. The expression feels so strange, but it also makes a flicker of warmth bloom within me. I want that sensation again.

"I am scared," I admit, willing the tears welling in my eyes to slow but they don't. They never do. It's a subconscious habit to snap the icicles on my jaw now. It has been for longer than I can remember.

I'm so cold that the salty tears freeze. The water turns to ice, leaving the salt behind. The salt dries out the fur on my cheeks, leaving it patchy and discolored in spots.

"Why are you scared?" Astra asks.

I sit down and force myself to stay in the present. Or, at least try to stay in the present. I don't want to get lost in my head, not when I have what I've wanted to badly here in front of me, even if the joy of seeing my daughter is overshadowed by the sharp, jagged fear of knowing what the King might do.

I pause and think over my words. I don't want to lie. I could never lie to her, but I also don't want to scare her. Astra deserves a world with peace. She deserves to get to be a child.

"The King is a very bad person," I say, swallowing down the immediate guilt that bubbles up in my throat. My mind shares memories of me as Ice cuddling with the King, him feeding me strips of meat, us going on walks, nights huddled together while the King made up stories and talked until the first light of dawn, nights where we snuggled and slept soundly in the hold of Dreamland.

"The King is a very evil King," Alex says.

I'd forgotten she was there.

I shake to try to free myself from the threads keeping me partway to unconscious, to try to clear my vision, to try to jumpstart my brain and let me think.

Grey watches me with concern, and I turn away. Phoenix narrows his eyes at me, and I draw my ears back and shift on my paws under the open scrutiny.

"You know the cream puff," Phoenix says.

I nod. "I do."

"You've known the cream puff for a very long time." It's not a question.

I nod again. "I have."

"And you're still with him?"

Phoenix lowers his head and flicks the tip of his tail. It's clear how he's waiting, and it's clear that he already knows the answer.

"I..." I blink back the memories of standing before the Amethyst Throne and holding the gazes of the Judge and Justice as they questioned me about the abuse the King claimed Freedom and I had committed against Astra. "I do not agree with everything the King has done, but it is true that I have known him for a long time. I knew him before he first sat upon the Amethyst Throne and became the King of Ragdon."

Phoenix hisses and bares his teeth. Ky speaks up before his brother can.

"The cream puff is no King, is what Phoenix was going to say." Ky turns around. "Take a deep breath, Phoenix. In... and out... we will get nowhere if you burn it all down."

"Ragdon would get a reset. Burn everything the cream puff has ever touched, and we'll get to start anew."

"You're the only fireproof one here. Take a breath, Phoenix, and we can see what we can work out through a conversation." Ky smiles. "Most tend to respond better to words than threats."

"Threats are more direct. No room for misinterpretation."

I take a step backward.

"We can have a conversation, Phoenix. Not everything requires jumping straight to violence."

"He follows the fucking cream puff. Jabez sides with the fucking cream puff. What more justification do I have to offer?"

"Listen to him!" Ky shoots back, holding Phoenix's gaze, even as his brother bares his teeth and flames crackle and curl across his body. Oranges and reds and yellows flicker in reflections on his long upper canines.

"Why? Jabez just said that he knows the cream puff."

"Jabez is here right now. His daughter is Astra, and she went into hiding from the cream puff. Jabez knows Brook, too. There's clearly more to the story, ok? Jabez hasn't attacked."

"I don't think he could, now, could ya?" Phoenix slides his attention over to me, eyes narrow slits of fire.

"I... I couldn't beat you physically in a fight. I can use my magic, though, if I have enough energy." My voice is quiet, rough.

"Do you like the cream puff?"

I rock on my paws. "I don't like what he's done," I whisper. "I liked him when I was Ice, back before he took to the Amethyst Throne. I don't like what he's done since he first sat on the Amethyst Throne."

"I can't..." Phoenix scoffs and throws his head to the side, stalking off as he lashes his tail.

"Phoenix, give Jabez a chance to talk," Grey says.

"No. He had the chance to condemn everything the cream puff has done, and he hasn't."

"He's Astra's father," Ky says quietly. "Let him speak."

Phoenix goes very still, and my fur stands on end. I take a step closer to Astra. Brook seems to notice, too, and she pricks her ears. Her horn starts to glow as she taps into her powers.

The fire on Phoenix's fur dies down to almost nothing. The flames barely reach further than his short fur. He looks over his shoulder, a wrinkle to his muzzle. His ears are pinned and his toes curl into the ground, claws unsheathed.

"Don't," he grinds out. "I know what you're doing, and it's not gonna work."

"I know you're angry, and I am too. I know you don't want to do that to her."

I look between the brothers. Alex shares my confused expression. I glance at Brook, but it's clear she's realized more than I have. When she notices my attention, she shakes her head.

Ignoring Phoenix, Astra picks her way over to me.

"You're older than I am?" she asks.

I hesitate, and then laugh. "Yes, I am."

"I'm ninety, so that would make you... whoah, are you a hundred years old?"

"I'm older than that." I push back the instinct to do the math. I know how many years I lived as Ice —a little over two decades— but I don't want to let myself realize how many years it's been with the curse.

"Astra, get away from him," Phoenix growls. "He's with the cream puff."

"Phoenix," Brook warns. "He's not the enemy."

"He knows the fucking cream puff. He's known him for a goddamn century if Astra's ninety but she's ten. However the fuck that portal worked. He's gonna bring the cream puff and his Dragon and the Guard and Soldiers out here and the Generals are gonna tag along, and it's gonna end up as a bloodbath. I'm not risking Ky like that."

"I can take care of myself, Phoenix." Ky frowns at his brother, flicking his fluffy tail. "And if you'd just give Jabez a chance to speak, I think we could all figure this out."

"The Generals would've already brought the Guard and Soldiers here by now. Jabez has had enough time," Alex says.

"He's getting too close to Astra." Phoenix scowls at me.

I can see the edge in his eyes, the hard lines of his body as he tenses, the waiting in his flames. I can feel the heat with my powers, and the ice in me calls out to the water in my surroundings, itching to drop the temperature.

"He's her father. He hasn't seen her in ninety years. Who wouldn't want to be close to their family in that situation?" Alex retorts. Grey places his hand on her arm and moves around Phoenix's side.

"Get away from him, Astra," Phoenix repeats.

"B-but." Astra's face falls.

There's enough hurt and confusion in Astra's voice that I react. I don't have much energy and certainly not enough to do something I know will further antagonize Phoenix, but I can't see her like that. I am her father, and I have the ability to keep her safe, even if I know it will cost me.

I take a step in front of Astra. Not enough to block her from Phoenix's sight, but enough that it's clearly intentional.

Brook reacts first, but Grey manages to try to get around to Phoenix. He shifts into a dove in a flurry of feathered wings, but he's not fast enough.

Phoenix lunges, all flashing fangs and fire and fur as dark as night. His purple claws reach out toward me, and I scramble back, reacting on instinct. I feel the energy seep from my body as my powers turn the ground to ice. Phoenix slams into me, and my back hits the ground hard enough that my teeth rattle and my neck twinges as it's twisted at an awkward angle.

Brook brings Astra away, and my focus goes solely onto the black cat pinning me down. Phoenix has a paw on my abdomen, another on my chest, and a forepaw by my cheek.

"What do you think of the cream puff?" Phoenix hisses, teeth in my face.

"I want him to stop," I choke out, paws sliding on his throat and jaw as I try to push him off.

I bunch up my hind legs and kick at Phoenix's belly. He growls and makes a grab for my neck. I dig my claws into his face.

"Phoenix, cut it out," Ky snaps, shoving at Phoenix's side. "You want to kill someone, go find Guard and Soldiers. Jabez isn't fighting back, not really. He's just defending himself."

When Phoenix doesn't stop, I reach out with my powers, chest heaving and vision blurred with panic, and I feel the call of the water in Phoenix's veins. It makes my heart twist, replicating what the curse has done to me, but Phoenix's teeth are snapping shut far too close to my throat and he's not stopping, even with Ky and Grey and Alex all pushing.

"I'm sorry," I whisper before I squeeze my eyes shut and let my powers turn Phoenix's blood to ice.

I go limp beneath him and wait, and it's only another moment before Phoenix collapses atop me. He lands heavy and motionless, and I release my power, allowing Grey and Alex to roll Phoenix to the ground. I take a breath, checking that there's no lasting damage or remnants of my ice, and then stand up. Now upright, exhaustion hits me like a punch to the gut and I sway, stumbling as my head spins and my limbs tingle.

I make myself look up, head low, and I see Astra staring back at me. Her wings droop at her sides, and her eyes are wide

"Astra, I-," I try, taking a small step forward.

She takes a step back, and my heart plummets through my paws. The exhaustion slips from my mind as panic begins to set in again.

There's fear in her eyes, the same fear I've seen too many times in my nightmares when Astra turned her back on me. She's scared, her pupils wide and dark against the blue of her irises.

I can't see her do that in real life. I'd never live through it. And so I turn around and leave, almost stumbling on my paws as I ignore Brook's calls for me to stop and Grey and Ky asking me to come back.

I trot off into the forest as fast as I can, blocking out the pain and exhaustion and the way the edges of my vision blur and warp, an early sign I'm going to pass out and lose consciousness. There's only one place for me to go, only one place where the door is always open, even if it's with strings attached.

I scent the air, find the right way to go, and make my way back to the King's castle.