Chapter 6
He’s Nobody
The sad thing about the leather strap is that I’m pretty sure it could be easily removed.
Perhaps the Amethyst Throne cursed it somehow, but the leather in itself doesn’t look all that complicated. It’s just a strip with a metal buckle at the end. It looks like one of the belts I’ve occasionally seen people wear. The strap is bound too tight to just pull it off. I can’t take it off, and neither can the creature.
But I’m fairly certain that anyone with opposable thumbs and a bit of basic dexterity could undo the buckle.
But until it’s off, the creature cannot talk.
I want to say something. I want to speak, to talk to them, to figure out what’s going on. The snake has me chained to the Amethyst Throne. That much I know for certain. But I want to help.
“Hello?” I whisper, pricking my ears for any sign of response from the creature.
They freeze, pressing their body up against the far wall so much that I’m somewhat surprised they don’t melt into it. Their mottled, green fur shifts as they push themselves further against the wall. They crouch to the ground, long ears pinned to the sides of their skull. Their eyes are so wide that I can barely see the beige against the white. One of their twisted antlers carves a long gash in the wall. I wince at the sharp sound, but the King doesn’t blink.
“A-are you ok?” I ask.
The creature shakes their head, desperation written across their face.
Of course they’re not ok. Who would be? Their mouth is bound shut. They cannot speak. Their voice has been stolen.
“Who are you talking to?” the King snaps, bringing me back to reality.
“I-…” I pause, working over my words as the collar of the Amethyst Throne’s magic tightens until it digs into my neck just enough that I can’t forget about it, but not so much that it impedes breathing. I curl my claws into the marble and wrap my tail around my body, trying to push away the instinctual panic over the collar around my throat.
“There’s a creature in the corner,” I say.
The creature stiffens, and their tail presses into their abdomen as they flatten to the ground. The patterns on their fur morph into new shapes. I begin to be able to see the wall directly behind them.
The King hums.
“Does he have green fur, long ears, and a leather strap around his muzzle?” the King asks.
I frown. “Yes.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. That’s Outis. He’s nobody. Don’t worry about him. Pay him no mind. He’ll probably disappear soon enough.”
I glance at the King, then turn my attention back to Outis. I tilt my head to the side. Outis looks above me, gaze fixated on the King. His nostrils flare.
“Outis is nobody?” I echo.
“Pay him no mind. He never leaves, but he’s nobody. Life goes on without him.”
How can he be nobody? He’s right there. It’s impossible to be nobody when you’re right there.
I don’t respond to the King. The shackles around my wrists cinch and my toes tingle, but nothing further happens.
Outis tilts his head to the side. We watch each other for several long moments. He relaxes the slightest amount, but when the King’s cufflinks on his suit jacket rap against the armrest of the Amethyst Throne, Outis flinches and vanishes in a green cloud.
xxxx
I need to escape. I know that.
I can’t stay here, forever trapped in some terrible limbo, partway between belonging to the King in some glass prison and the freedom to finally be with my daughter that’s now so tantalizingly close after being only a dream a breath away for so long.
But at the same time, if I’m here with the King, maybe that will be just enough to keep him from going after Astra. He’ll have me. His anger was only ever directed at me, not my daughter. She never did anything to him; I did. I told him no. I turned my back to him after realizing that he’d brought me back from the dead, back from Lucius’s claim. I found my version of peace with Freedom and Astra, and I’d drifted away from the King. His anger was at me for leaving him.
Maybe having me back with him will be enough that he won’t want to lash out at my daughter.
Maybe if I just stay here and live with the snake, Astra can find her own happiness. We never met, not really, at least for her. I knew her for the months after she was first born and that flicker of a moment when I got to see her again. She doesn’t really remember me. She doesn’t really know me.
Maybe she’ll forget and she’ll grow up thinking that I never really existed. She can grow up and live her life how she wants, a long life where she’s happy and makes friends and is kind. I know Brook will teach her not to judge, to be respectful, everything Freedom and I would’ve done ourselves, if we’d had the chance.
You can’t give up, some small voice in the back of my head tells me.
And I know that, but is it giving up if it’s the only thing I can think of that might keep Astra safe?
I’m no match for the King, the Amethyst Throne, the Dragon, now the King’s snake. Who knows what else he has, what else the Amethyst Throne has? Giving in, at least for now, and not fighting the snake might work. It’s a better shot than certain death if I challenged the Amethyst Throne.
I can take the pain. I can suffer it long enough to build up a tolerance and bide my time. I know I can adjust. I know I can get used to the pain. I did. I have for decades.
Astra can’t. She can hate me for not being there. She might already. It would destroy me inside, but the King can’t get to her. He’s already gotten to me. It’s too late. But Astra still has a chance.
My eyes burn with tears, and my vision blurs. My skin prickles in a thousand places. Freezing tears on my cheeks, the twisting sensation in my forelegs, the snake’s teeth always shifting just enough that the wound can’t ever begin to heal over, the patches of split nerves around scars where feeling never returned quite right. Tiny little agonies that have become background noise, a low drone I’d learned to ignore until it got too bad that I no longer could.
Except now the snake is here, and it’s a pain that’s screaming in my ears, something far louder than anything I’d heard. And it’s a different pitch to anything I’ve felt; it’s a pain I don’t know where to begin tuning it out.
But if adjusting to the snake and everything it brings keeps Astra safe, I’ll find a way. I have to. She grew up without me, and I couldn’t keep the King from taking her away. He took her from me, but if I can play nice with the King, perhaps she’ll get a shot at a happy life.
I shove the thought out of my head that I know who the King is. The only thing I’ve seen him do in person was tell the Judge and the Justice that Freedom and I abused Astra, but I know he’s done terrible things to others. I don’t have to have been there to know that. He might’ve been nice to me when I was Ice and played the part after he brought me back from Lucius’s claim, but that could’ve all been pretend. Maybe he was only ever nice to me but hurt others.
Maybe…
I shut down the train of thought and sigh. I stretch out a foreleg, but tuck it under my chest when I see the scars. I know they exist and I know how each one got there, but I don’t want to see them right now. Not when I’m fighting against the snake. The King, too.
What did you do, King? Why did you have to do it all? Couldn’t things have stayed how they were? Were they ever how I remember them?
xxxx
Flames engulf the entirety of the two wooden doors to the Throne Room a short while later. I’d dozed off, but I quickly wake up again. Smoke billows to the ceiling, and I sneeze, wrinkling my nose at the sharp scent.
“Phoenix,” the King spits.
“Cream puff,” Phoenix spits right back, squinting and stalking forward with confidence I wish I had. His strides are long and smooth. He’s angry, furious, glaring at the King with such rage that I almost expect that the King would burst into the same flames crackling on Phoenix’s fur.
"I expected more of a challenge coming in here. I must say I'm really awfully disappointed. No matter, though."
Alex is right behind Phoenix, and she quickly shifts back to her human form when she sees me. The pewter pendant swings around her neck, her brown hair swishes around her face and shoulders, and her orange eyes are wide.
“Jabez!” she gasps. “Are you alright?”
“Bad question,” Ky replies, slinking into the Throne Room along the same wall I’d seen Outis pressed up against earlier. His long fur shifts with every step. The red bandana around his neck falls to one side.
“True. I’m sorry, Jabez. We’ll get you out of there.”
“I woul-.”
Phoenix cuts off the King.
“Is that really the best use of your time?” Phoenix’s eyes trail over me, and my fur prickles. I don’t hold eye contact. “Or are you really just that much of a shitty person that you can’t even make anyone want to spend time with you? You really gotta chain someone just so they won’t abandon ya?”
“Tell them, Jabez,” the King says.
“Tell them what?” I reply, watching as Brook hurries in after Astra. Ky quickly pulls Astra to the side.
“Shit,” Brook says as soon as she finds me.
Brook tries to step in front of Astra to block her vision, but my daughter still finds me.
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“Jabez!” Astra shrieks.
She freezes as she looks at me, but then she turns her attention to the King. She glares at him, curling her lips into a snarl and flaring her wings out to the side as her fur fluffs up.
“Let him go,” Astra demands.
“Can’t do that, little cat,” the King says
“You have to let him go,” Astra repeats with a determined nod.
I’m torn between the pride of seeing my daughter but also the terrorizing fear of her being in the same space as the King, the exact same place where the King took her from me and Freedom ninety years ago. My vision flickers between the present and the memories of the Judge and the Justice presiding over the faux trial, the crowd of Guard and Soldiers, the false emotion of the King as he spun his tail of abuse.
“Astra,” I say.
“Jabez!” she repeats. She pricks her ears, and her blue eyes are wide. I can see bits of Freedom in her— the claws on her feet, the wings, the splashes of color across her fur. Pride blooms in my chest, but it’s smothered by how scared I am.
“You gotta go with Brook, ok? Go with Brook. Please.” I gather my legs beneath me and lift my head to hide the snake’s fangs in the back of my neck. I try to pretend, to give the illusion that I’m more ok than I am. I know Astra’s smart. I know that she knows this situation isn’t alright, but if she thinks it’s better than it is, I’ll save her that pain.
My heart rate spikes, and I find Brook, silently pleading with her to get Astra out of the Throne Room.
She can’t be here. The King is going to get to her again, just like he did before.
A part of me wonders how Astra even managed to get into the King’s castle in the first place, but Brook’s panicked and apologetic looks tell me it was probably her darting away. The few months I had Astra held several of those events— Astra running off without warning. She could move fast and far on her own, but her magic, even though she lacked much control, let her go even further.
A horde of Guard and Soldiers pile into the entrance to the Throne Room, but Ky and Alex halt them. Grey stands beside Brook to help her, while Phoenix takes another few steps toward the King.
I catch a glimpse of Ky, who scrambles back several steps when two Soldiers launch a volley of attacks with their swords. His eyes glaze over as he swishes his tail, and a dozen Guard and Soldiers drop to their knees, then turn to attack their fellow brothers in the King’s army. A trickle of blood drips from Ky’s nose, but he quickly licks it away.
But when a Guard breaks past Ky and Alex, Phoenix spins partway around to wrestle him to the ground. Phoenix sinks his teeth into the Guard’s neck, shaking his head until he stops moving and blood sprays across black fur and the marble floor.
When Phoenix turns to the Amethyst Throne, lips pulled back into a scarlet smile, I feel the snake chitter and the Throne thrum with energy.
“You know,” he purrs, “you should listen to kids.”
I watch Astra. She has her back to me and protests against Brook’s attempts to bring her away.
The King leans forward, elbows on his knees and fingers laced together. He stares at Phoenix with something in his eyes that I can’t identify. “Why would I listen to someone who ran?”
“Why would I listen to someone who chained his fucking friend so he couldn’t run away? Why would I listen to someone who cannot make any relationship that isn’t just one fucked up power dynamic where everyone else cannot leave?”
“I could say the same to you,” the King replies. “How many friends do you have?”
“I have all the friends I need.”
“And so do I. Jabez knows we are friends. He’s just remembering it now.”
I close my eyes and take a breath, sighing. The King could stop this. He knows I don’t hate him, not like I know I should. I hate everything he has done, but I cannot forget how he was when I was Ice. But if I could just get my thoughts in a line, string them together, stop swimming in the depths of my mind from how tired I am, the pain I’m in... maybe then I could work things out.
“You’re fucked up.” Phoenix snorts. “I hope you know that. Can you even make a complete list of everything you’ve done? Can you tell me every single thing you have done to those on this island?”
“You would like me to tell you every way I have helped this island? I can start with Jabez. He was the first. He died, and the-.”
“No,” Phoenix snarls, taking another step closer.
“The Throne,” I bite out, panic rising in my throat.
I can feel it through the rumble in the floor, the vibrations in the snake’s body, the prickling of the hair along my spine, that instinctual feeling of just knowing something is very wrong.
“Go. It’s the Throne.”
“We’re not all that different, you and I,” the King says to Phoenix, leaning to the side as he studies the black cat.
“Yeah? Fuck you.”
“You’re less creative, I see.”
“Why would I waste my words on someone who believes what you have done is right? You might claim not to remember everything you’ve done, but you will. I will make you.”
“Please.” I force the words out, wishing with everything in me I was free, gone from the touch of the King and the Amethyst Throne.
But, still, I’m stuck. The snake’s body lays heavy over me, a weight I can never forget. A weight that presses down across my body like a brand.
The power of the Amethyst Throne builds up. It funnels its energy into the snake, that then channels it into me. My fur stands on end, and I pant against the raw power churning within me, a boiling pot with no outlet.
“What is there to remember? I’ve only helped Ragdon. It’s my duty, as King of Ragdon, to help my citizens. I alone can help them, and I accept that duty, just like I did when I first took the Amethyst Throne. Everything I have done has been to bette-.”
Phoenix spits and snarls, eyes flashing.
I swallow down the nausea at the sensation of the Amethyst Throne’s magic coiling around my insides. It needs somewhere to go, but there’s nowhere. I don’t know what to do with it, and I don’t have the energy to use it up. The power seeps through every cell in my body. I lick my nose as I start to shake and my mouth waters, a side effect of how much my head spins. I get to my feet in an instinctual movement to feel less vulnerable, but I sway and have to lock my joints and brace myself.
Phoenix ticks his head to the side and pulls his lips back into a wide snarl that’s all bloodstained teeth. His tail lashes, and he widens his stance, violet shock of hair falling over his eyes until he shakes it away.
He leaps forward with a roar, and a wall of fire descends upon the Amethyst Throne. The King doesn’t blink, and I have a split second to be confused before a wall of ice rips from my paws. I drop a moment later, gasping for breath as I feel the power of the Amethyst Throne draining from me like water through a broken bucket. The snake’s chain body gets twisted beneath my side. It squirms and writhes, pulling its fangs against my flesh until its body wriggles free, though its teeth still remain firmly lodged up against bone.
My vision blurs from exhaustion and pain. I shudder, dragging in air through gritted teeth.
I spasm as the power is drained from me faster than it ever has been before. Ice spreads further and further in jagged spikes, and it seeps the energy from me just as quickly as it moves.
Phoenix tears at the wall of ice. I can feel every score he carves into its surface, the sharp curve of his claws, the weight he throws at it when he leaps yet again, the heat of his fire, every point of contact with his flames as he tries to melt his way through.
“Stop, stop, stop!” someone screams, though I don’t know who.
I slump to the side, unable to hold myself up. The embrace of unconsciousness hovers nearby, vast and clawed and soft and all-consuming. It’s an acquaintance I’ve gotten to know that’s neither friend nor enemy. My breathing slows, and I sigh in a long exhale.
“Phoenix! You’re killing him!”
I hear an echoing roar, a short snarl, and then a rumbling hiss.
“Fine.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m a monster, but I’m not as low as you, cream puff. Using those you know as living shields? Only the lowest of the low would think of such a thing, let alone actually do it. I want to kill you, and I will kill you. But I won’t kill Jabez. It’s not his choice to stand in my way. You forced him to fight. Consent is a thing, remember? I tell others to get out of my way so they can. If they stay in my way, that’s on them. But you don’t even give the option. Low. Next time, fucking lift a finger yourself. Ain’t that hard, fucker. We will free Jabez, and then I will rip the life from your body and send you to Lucius in so many pieces not even they will be able to identify you, much less take you. They’ll just send you off to be forgotten, because no one will ever want you. That’s a promise. Unlike you, I don’t break my promises. Fuck you.”
I try to move to see where Astra is, to find my daughter, but I can’t. I can barely keep my eyes open or track the reply to Phoenix. My body is numb, and I can’t move. Each breath drags against my throat like grit in a breeze.
A few moments later, I hear footsteps around me, and then there are hands all over me, and my nerves scream underneath their touch. The collar of the Amethyst Throne cinches ever tighter, and I wheeze and choke as I try to breathe. The snake rips out chunks of fur as it coils around me and works its fangs in deeper, carving across bone. Someone’s fingers dig into the skin under my jaw to turn my head to the side. An arm brackets around my forelegs to hold me still. I’m held upright, slumped against someone’s body.
I feel someone grab at the snake’s head. Its fangs twist in my neck, teeth against bone and breaking through flesh and muscle and sinew. I ground out a cry, screwing my eyes shut as every muscle locks up in pain and my jaws part in a scream.
“You know,” the King says slowly, drumming his fingers on the arm of the Amethyst Throne, “you really shouldn’t do that.”
“And why not?” Alex says.
“If you break him free, the Amethyst Throne will just have to reclaim him. The power of the Throne through the snake’s venom causes irreparable damage every time it has to bite again. The damage slows once it has its bite, but biting again would just speed it all up.”
The King lets his gaze trail over to me, and I watch him back through fuzzy vision with the feeling that I’m seeing my body watch the King. Someone —Grey, I think— still holds me up, supporting my weight. No one tries to tug on the snake again. The look the King has is the same look he had when I was Ice. He’d watch me as I curled up in his lap, chased insects around him, played with bits of string he found, purred as he stroked my fur. But this time I feel so much worse. There’s not the same love, the friendship we’d had. The relationship is now so much more one-sided. He can leave, but I can’t. My vision blurs in and out of focus, and I look away from him.
“Who knows what agony would await if such a thing had to occur,” the King continues in a drawl. “You wouldn’t want that level of suffering on your hands, would you?”
I'm set back down, and I sink into the floor, breathing through the sharp jabs of pain as my muscles complain and my joints crack. Footsteps retreat, and I distantly watch Grey and Alex and Ky go.
I fight through the haze of the venom, the unrelenting pull of exhaustion, the promise of unconsciousness. The tantalizing whispers of its mercy, the release I’d get, but I say no this time.
In a jerking motion, I roll to face Phoenix and Brook. I see Astra half-hidden behind Brook’s foreleg and hoof.
“You have to go,” I ground out, cutting Alex off before she can reply. “Leave.”
Astra flinches back, and I hold her gaze.
“I’ll survive. You have to go.”
Her expression falls into something sad, and I twist and curl my paws beneath my chest to hide how I dig my claws deep into my foreleg. She can’t see my fear, how I don’t know if I just lied to my own child because I don’t know if I can survive this. I’ve lived through more than I thought I’d make it through, but I don’t know if I can stand against the snake long enough to survive it. I know I have to, but I don’t know if I can.
But I do know that Astra can’t stay here. None of them can.
The King chuckles from above me, and I hear him shift in his seat, the whisper of his suit creasing.
“You have to leave,” I say, louder this time when no one moves. Blood smears beneath me, warm until it freezes.
I get my paws beneath me and try to stand, to tell them all how they cannot stay, but the snake tightens its grip on the back of my neck and I drop, clenching my teeth to muffle a yowl. Pain bolts down my spine, and my nerves sing with the burn of the venom. I shudder, and my jaw glances off the ground as I collapse.
Astra starts forward. Brook lunges after her, but Grey gets to my daughter first. He scoops her up, only grimacing as she claws at his arms. Green glows on his skin, slowing slightly the more Astra tears at him. He flinches when one of her wings catches him in the side of the face, but he holds onto her.
“Please,” he says, “you can’t.”
“Let me go!” Astra wails. “I have to help him! He’s my dad! Freedom is dead, and you won’t kill him too.”
“Oh, little cat, you must be mistaken,” the King purrs. He stretches out a leg to rub at my shoulder. I growl, and it’s worth it. “I didn’t kill your mother. That was all Arcane’s fault.”
“Fuck off, cream puff,” Phoenix growls. “No one believes a word of your lies.”
I close my eyes. I did, though. I believed the King. I believed him for years.
“It would be best not to waste your words,” Ky says. “None of us will fall for your lies.”
“Why would I lie? I did not kill Freedom. I didn’t lay a hand on her.”
Phoenix curls his lip. “Just shut up, would ya? We both know what you did. You don’t gotta lay a hand on someone to kill them, do you?” He narrows his eyes. “Jabez here sure knows as well. I’ll bet he remembers every second of it-.”
I interrupt Phoenix before things go on too long. They all have to get out of here. I don’t want to find out what happens when the King and the Amethyst Throne send out the Dragon. I don’t want to find out if the Amethyst Throne has another snake. I don’t want to find out what else it may be able to do.
“Go,” I plead yet again. “You have to leave.”
“We’ll leave with you,” Brook replies, ears drawing back in determination. She takes a step forward, and her hooves echo in the Throne Room.
"Jabez!" Astra writhes in Grey's hold.
I bite my tongue until blood pools in my mouth. Alex steps up beside her brother and murmurs something to Astra. She looks between me and Alex with her ears pinned to the sides of her head.
“No, that can’t happen right now. The snake isn’t coming off. You have to leave. Now.”
No one moves, and I lay there, panting. My heart races, and the haze of the venom creeps over my eyes until my vision blurs and turns double, until my legs start to tingle and feel like foreign objects somehow attached to my own body. I keep one of my forelegs beneath my body so Astra doesn’t see the wound. I doubt she would leave if she did, and I can’t risk that.
“GO!” I shout with as much force as I can manage, flashing my teeth in a show of energy I have to fake.
But they can’t stay here. I can’t let anyone else get stuck.
“Go,” I repeat, this time softer than before.
And they do.