Chapter 4

Trust Me

My back slams into the marble, and all the air is knocked from my lungs.

The King writhes in my grip. I shove him off me, away from the Amethyst Throne, and get to my paws, gasping for breath. My claws rip tears in his purple suit. When the King stands, he’s confused and horrified. I keep myself between him and the Throne, crouching low.

“What have you done?” the King snaps.

“I want Bryant back. I need to understand why you’ve done all of this. I don’t get it. I knew you as Ice, and you never would’ve done this. What changed?”

The King steps toward the Amethyst Throne, but I hold my ground. The Dragon rumbles behind me, breath shaking in its throat, a low, threatening kind of growl.

My fur prickles and stands on end. Everything turns a bit sharper. My tail twitches.

“Stay,” the King orders, voice sharp and curt, leaving no room for discussion.

I frown, ready to disobey, but he’s not looking at me. I follow his gaze, and the King is looking at the Dragon.

It snorts, narrowing its eyes, but when the King flattens his expression, the Dragon sits back like a sulking kitten, grumbling and irritated. Its snakehead tail hisses, tongue flicking out. It shoots me a withering glare, one that tells me as soon as the King says so, it will come after me.

We’re the same thing, the Dragon and I. We’re borne of the same magic, borne from the same being. The King created us both. The Amethyst Throne runs through our veins.

The King made me into who I am. The King created the Dragon and made it who it is.

How can the Dragon be who it is —some twisted, callous creature who obeys the every word of the King— and yet I’m still me? What’s the difference between the two of us? The King made both of us. How could the King have made something like the Dragon? How could he have made something like me?

I turn around.

“What have you done?” I ask. “Have you always been this way? Did I just never see it as Ice? Or did something change so drastically? What happened to you, Bryant?”

A whimper slips from my throat, and tears drip down my cheeks.

I want to understand, but I have no idea where to even begin. I remember him when I was Ice, and I remember everything he’s done since he brought me back as Jabez, and I know he’s done things to others outside

Who knows where the Generals came from. None of them are natural. Who knows what other families he’s destroyed.

What have you done?

I stare at the King through watery eyes, silently begging him to come back, to offer some explanation, to offer some reasoning, something that would make it clear why he did it all. But I know there is none. Nothing could explain what he did to me, to my daughter, to Freedom, to Astra.

At last, though, I see something shift in the King’s gaze. A recognition I haven’t seen in decades. A softness I haven’t seen since I last saw Bryant as Ice.

“Ice,” he says with a soft gasp under his breath. “Jabez.”

“Bryant.” I don’t let my expression waver. I don’t give in to the hope that traitorously blossoms in my chest. It wouldn’t take much for that same hope to shatter as fast as it came.

“What have you done?” He repeats the question, but there isn’t the accusation behind it. There’s confusion, but not anger.

“I took you from the Amethyst Throne.”

“Why?”

“I want to know why you’ve done this all. I need to know.”

Bryant is quiet for a few moments.

“I didn’t want to say goodbye. We could be together forever. We could be best friends, just like we were when we first met, only this time, we’d never have to say goodbye,” Bryant says, and my chest constricts like a snake is wrapping around my middle, squeezing until I feel like I can’t breathe.

“It doesn’t work like that, Bryant,” I reply. “No one gets to live forever. Lucius claimed me. I lived a happy life. I died that day, and I died as the happiest creature on this island. You loved me, and I loved you, and I knew nothing but that care for my entire life.”

“I brought you back so we could love each other forever. You’re my best friend, Jabez-.”

Tears roll down my cheeks, a sensation I’m so used to, but this time it’s different. It’s a different kind of pain. I know what Bryant is saying and I want to badly to be able to agree, but I can’t. I know that what he’s talking about can never be done. Not really.

“You’re calling me Jabez. My name was always Ice, but now it’s Jabez. You’ve changed me, Bryant. You fused my body with a human soul. I was a cat. I was Ice. But you warped who I am, Bryant. I’m no longer me. I’m pain, I’m agony, I’m grief for a life I once knew but can’t know any more, I’m every day spent wishing for the release of unconsciousness, I’m everything I wish I was but can’t be any more. I was Ice, but now I’m Jabez, and I can never return to Ice, not after what you’ve done to my body and my mind.”

“I’m your best friend. You’re my best friend.”

“We were best friends, Bryant. You changed our relationship when you brought me back from Lucius’s claim. Our relationship was equal, but now it’s not. The power imbalance can never be righted. I can never forget what you have done."

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

I keep my back to the Amethyst Throne so I can see Bryant. He tries to move closer, but I step forward to crowd him away, and he drops to the ground.

“Please, Jabez,” he pleads. “The Amethyst Throne is angry. If I just go back, I can appease it. I’ll give it what it wants. It’s angry, Jabez. It’s angry.”

“No. You can never undo what you’ve done, but I can’t let you return. You’re not the same, but I want you back.”

“Please,” Bryant says, voice cracking. He kneels, braced on his hands, and he looks up at me. I flinch back when I realize the height difference, how I’m looking down at him down my nose. I’m trembling as I distantly watch a tear track down Bryant’s cheek, feeling like I’m trapped outside my body. My heart flutters in my chest, and the veins all throughout my body burn.

I stay, looking down at Bryant. A part of it feels good, and my stomach twists at that realization. A part of me enjoys seeing Bryant on his knees, for once looking up and not down, for once the subject and not the ruler. I stay like that and hold my head a little higher. It’s not that I want to do anything to Bryant. Instead, I just want him to realize what he’s done, to acknowledge every wrong he’s committed, to say that he knows he can never take it all back. I want to hear him say sorry, even if I know it won’t change a thing.

“Jabez!” Bryant cries, snapping me from my thoughts, the way I’m trying to sear the image of Bryant on his knees into my head.

His purple eyes are wide, face frozen in absolute fear. The expression feels all to familiar. I felt it the day I realized the King had brought me back, I felt it the day I saw the Justice fly away with Astra, I felt it the day the Judge and Justice ruled in favor of the King and took away Astra, I felt it the day I told Brook in broken words that she had to take Astra as far as she could get from the King, I felt it the day the King cursed me, I felt it the day I realized the curse really wasn’t going away, and I’ve felt it every day I feel the curse claim a bit more of my body, my ring, my soul. The first time my heart beat under the influence of the curse, the first time I lost consciousness from pain, the first time I lost consciousness from exhaustion, the first time I realized I didn’t remember hours and hours of time, the first time I realized I had to find a way to live with the curse because I couldn’t find Astra and break it.

I want to feel bad for Bryant. I know how that fear I can see on his face feels. I know how deep it can dig. I know that it doesn’t come from nothing. I want to want to do something. In some distant, deep part of me still hung up with our relationship as Ice, I do feel bad. I want to comfort him.

But the larger part of me feels numb. I can’t forget what he’s done, no matter how much I also can’t forget my life as Ice.

“Jabez, listen to me very carefully,” Bryant says, looking above my head. He slowly gets to his feet.

“Why should I?” I say, shifting on my paws when my joints start to ache. I just sound tired. I’m drained to my bones. I’m too tired to care. I want to sleep, but I know that no amount of sleep would ever make me less tired. The exhaustion I feel can’t be cured by sleep. I don’t know if it ever can be cured.

“Please. I’ll explain, but I need you to trust me.”

“My trust in you disappeared long ago. If you think you can trick me into bowing to you again, you can’t. I want so badly to get what we had so long ago when it was you and I in my life as Ice, but we can never get that again. Not after what you’ve done to me and every other being on this island.”

A thump echoes behind me, but it sounds too far away. I can barely hear it, and I’m too wound up with what Bryant’s saying to be able to pay it any attention.

“I know, I know, Jabez. But you know how I feel about you. Please! You have to listen to me! I’m trying to save you!”

“That’s what you told me after you brought me back. You murdered a human for their soul, all so you could bring me back to life.”

“I couldn’t bear the idea of having to say goodbye to you, Jabez! Can’t you understand that?” Bryant’s hands curl into bloodless fists and he shouts, but his voice cracks. His eyes turn red with tears and anger.

I shake my head. “I didn’t want to say goodbye either, but I never would have murdered another for that. Death is a part of life, Bryant. Everyone dies. Lucius has never given anyone back. Erebus exists to continue the cycle of life after Lucius claims another soul. They each balance the other out. You took me from Lucius. You threw off their balance.”

“It’s one little cat I brought back. Neither are gonna care.”

“You murdered someone to do that. You destroyed their life and the lives of everyone who knew them. You committed one of the few things that can never be taken back-.”

“Ok, ok, ok, you win. You have to trust me, Jabez. Please. I’m trying to save you.”

Bryant looks above me.

“Why? You brought me back from the dead. You cursed me. I have lived in endless, never-ending pain for decades. I can’t ever escape it. Why do you claim you are now trying to save me.”

I start to turn around to try to see what he’s looking at, but Bryant snaps out an arm and keeps my head facing him. I scowl, and ice crackles at my paws. I can feel the energy seeping through my skin with every crystal that forms.

The ground begins to shake, and then it begins to rumble. There’s another thump, and this time I can clearly hear it.

“What?” I snarl. Anger is exhausting, and the few times I’ve gotten truly angry have all resulted in me losing consciousness.

“It’s the Amethyst Throne,” Bryant whispers. “I have to go back. I can make it calm down.”

“No, don’t you pretend you’re trying to sacrifice yourself,” I snap. “I believe that somewhere deep, deep down you really do care, but it’s buried beneath the decades you had to take back your curse and let me get my daughter back. You’ve had so long to step off the Amethyst Throne and try to make things right. You forced me back to life, so now I’m forcing you to stay off the Throne. I’m making you do the only thing you can still do right. I loved you, Bryant. I was the happiest cat alive as Ice, and now I don’t know who you are.”

I have to widen my stance and brace myself when the marble beneath my paws nearly ripples with how much the ground shakes. Cracks splinter up the pillars in the Throne Room, and dust and debris falls to the ground like stone snow. I sidestep a falling chunk of rock the size of my head.

The quick movement throws me off balance, and dizziness sends my head spinning. I stumble as I lose my sense of where I am in space and vertigo makes the room look like it’s tilted at a sharp angle. My eyelids flutter as I begin to sway, but before I slump to the ground, Bryant wraps his arms around me and yanks me out of the way as something slams down.

A roar sounds somewhere above me.

“Stop!” Bryant shouts.

My consciousness swims in my mind, and I distantly register that I’m laying on Bryant’s chest, head on his shoulder, and that he’s beneath me. I start to shift to roll off him, but he holds me tighter.

“Stay, Jabez. It’s not safe.”

I shake my head to clear my mind. “I can’t. I can’t trust you.”

“Please, I’m trying to help.”

I life my head to look him in the eye, and he holds my gaze for a moment. “Don’t,” he says.

A growl rumbles behind me. The Dragon.

“You’ve got your Dragon working for you?” I get my forepaws under me and push myself up.

“No, no, no, no,” Bryant replies quickly, holding up his hands by my paws. “I didn’t do that. I took credit for the Dragon, but the Amethyst Throne created it. The Amethyst Throne controls the Dragon. Usually it’s just sleeping. The Throne wants me back, so it has the Dragon working for it. The Dragon can move; the Throne can’t.”

“The Amethyst Throne has power in my body. I’m certain it has power in your body, too. Tell the Dragon off.”

“I can’t.”

I step away from Bryant and turn around to face the Dragon.

“You can’t have Bryant back. He has to realize what he’s done.”

I want to spit and snarl, but I can’t challenge the Dragon, nor the Amethyst Throne. So I just hold the Dragon’s purple gaze.

The Dragon takes a step forward, and I hold my ground, tail twitching by my hind paws. I draw my ears back and breathe slowly. I see the snakehead tail on the Dragon, its fangs, its hood, its twinkling eyes.

“Jabez!” Bryant shouts.

I see movement out of the corner of my eye, and I dive out of the way, paws scrabbling on the marble floor.