Chapter 7

Lost in the Current

Grey leaves first with Alex right behind him, her hand on his shoulder. She feigns a lunge at a Guard who gets too close, flashing her teeth, though she remains in human form.

“Fuck off,” she mutters.

Brook lingers, gently ushering Astra out of the Throne Room after a long look at me. I nod.

I’d made her promise to keep Astra safe all those years ago, when the Judge and the Justice ruled in favor of the King’s false claims that Freedom and I were abusing Astra, claims made after I refused to let things stay the same after I realized what the King did in bringing me back to life. Freedom made her promise, too. Brook has kept that promise. She could’ve said no, could’ve quit, could’ve left instead of spending ninety years locked away. Instead, she protected Astra in a way neither I nor Freedom could’ve done.

She didn’t have to but she still did anyway, and I’m eternally grateful. I want to keep Astra safe with my own power. I want to get to know her. But my own mistakes are still nipping at my paws, and I won’t risk them biting at Astra too.

I can take it. I can take it. I can take it. She can’t. She shouldn’t have to learn how to like I did.

Ky stands and stares at the King for a long time. A thousand emotions swirl in his brown eyes. He remains still, ears pricked and fluffy tail held out behind him. He doesn’t blink. Out of the corner of my eye, I see how the King doesn’t either.

“We will be back,” Ky says, “and when we return, we will not leave until we have gotten every bit of what we have come for. Farewell, cream puff. Remember that you had every opportunity to say no, to change your mind, and that you did neither. Remember that you brought this upon yourself. Remember that no one forced you into anything.”

Ky watches him for a moment longer, before ducking out the door, swiping a paw at a Guard and taking out his knee. Phoenix remains, slowly creeping closer to the King. His head is low, level with his back, and his tail flicks.

Brook urges Astra toward the exit, coaxing her every step as she protests and continually looks back at me.

Go, I silently plead with Brook. She can’t be here. You have to keep her safe. Please. Keep her safe like I cannot. I can make no promise about myself, but Astra has to be ok.

Brook inclines her head, ears drawn back, but she nods in another promise to do everything she can to keep Astra safe.

The snake bites down harder against my neck, and blood spills through my fur. I bite down on my tongue until the taste of rust fills my mouth. Astra’s so close. She’s almost out of the Throne Room. She has to get out. She has to leave. I grit my teeth, screwing my eyes shut and panting.

Astra’s almost at the door. She’s nearly at the door. She’s nearly out. She’s nearly away, somewhere the King is not. He never leaves the Amethyst Throne, so if she can just get away, then maybe she can get that much further. Brook had to make a portal to another world to keep Astra safe for ninety years, but if she can just get away maybe we can get just a little bit of time to figure something out.

The snake tightens its coils and jerks me back. My shoulder rolls beneath me as I move, and the open wound I’d clawed on my foreleg drags across the floor, sending searing pain shattering through my body. Every freshly broken nerve on the gash howls in unison, raw and split, screaming at a pain I know won’t kill me. I’m not in danger, not from that little wound at least. I exhale through my gritted teeth, wrinkling my muzzle. It hurts, yes, but it’s not life-threatening. Why does it hurt so much? Why don’t the nerves understand?

It’s a stupid question, I know, but if it won’t kill me, why do I have to feel it?

The snake jerks me back again. This time, I cry out as my body locks up and spasms. The pain coupled with another dose of venom is too much, and the sensations push me past what I can tolerate. I squeeze my eyes shut as I pant, mouth open and lips wrinkled to bare my teeth. The snake’s chains wrap around one of my hind legs, and the links catch on my skin around my ankle, pulling my leg to the side and twisting my spine until I’m forced to my back. A growl rumbles in my chest at how exposed I feel, how vulnerable, belly-up beneath the Amethyst Throne.

I push my head back to shove the snake’s head against the marble. Maybe if I can smother it enough, it will suffocate. Maybe I can make it panic enough that in a self-preservation attempt where it’s scared enough it can’t think, the snake will let me go and I’ll be free.

The snake writhes beneath me, and its fangs tug and yank on my skin.

I press my head back further. I sigh. There’s no way. The snake won’t feel the fear it and the Amethyst Throne have brought. There’s nothing I can do to make it that afraid. But the thought still feels nice.

Upside down, I see Astra turn around. Her blue eyes are so wide, so worried, so brutally honest, and I can see every bit of her emotion. Nothing is hidden, unlike the King.

Phoenix steps between Astra and the Amethyst Throne when Astra lunges, weaving around Brook’s hooves and skidding across the marble. She stops before she hits him. I roll over, and the snake shifts so it lays heavy across my back, a permanent weight reminding me of what’s happening. That the Amethyst Throne is always there. That I’m trapped with it. That I can’t escape. That my best friend has become someone I do not know, someone I cannot forgive, someone I can no longer understand.

“Go!” I roar, putting as much force behind the word as I can.

Grey, Alex, and Ky have all left, although I know they haven’t gone far and won’t, not until everyone leaves. Half the group is gone. The other half still has to go.

“Astra,” Phoenix snaps. “Get out of here! Brook will take you to safety.”

She flinches. “But Jabez-.”

“Isn’t coming this time," Phoenix interrupts. "Next time, ok? Go. Leave.”

“Go, Astra! Please," I plead.

Astra remains far too still. She looks between me and the Amethyst Throne, then at Phoenix and back at Brook, who keeps asking her to please come to her. I hold my breath, feeling the snake slither over my back as I hope with everything within me that Astra will just go. I want her to stay. I want to get to finally talk with her. I want to hear what she has to say. I want to know who my daughter is after so many years.

But I can’t. Not yet.

My stomach drops when Astra starts looking between me and the Amethyst Throne in a calculating sort of way. I get my legs beneath me, ignoring how the snake bites down harder in a warning. Behind me, I feel the Amethyst Throne start to rumble, as if some creature awakening from a slumber.

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Grey, Alex, and Ky all return. In her wolf form, Alex shoves a Soldier out of the way as she leads her brother and Ky back into the Throne Room. Another Soldier tries to stop them, but Ky crushes his throat. No more Guard or Soldiers come after them, and it seems the King has decided to let the group remain.

My skin prickles, and my fur stands up on end. I shift on my paws. The snake’s chain body hangs heavily to the side. It throws me off balance, and I lean to counteract its weight.

The snake works its fangs in my neck. I hiss in response.

Alex whispers something to Grey, who leans into Brook’s side. Brook replies as she walks closer to Astra.

My daughter still hasn’t moved, and she can’t be here, and the Amethyst Throne is going to get to her, and the King will try to take her away, and the King might succeed this time, and-.

I cut off my spiraling thoughts and force myself to take a breath. I pause for just a moment, and the Amethyst Throne acts.

“NO!” I scream when the power of the Amethyst Throne surges through the snake and into me. I gasp at the influx of energy, a tantalizing feeling I want but don’t wish for, not like this. Put the power keeps coming, pouring through my body past the point of comfort. I stumble and stagger to the side, legs buckling beneath me until I catch myself and manage to remain upright.

“Go, go, go,” I choke out, begging. “Go, please.”

The power builds and builds and builds, ice splintering through my body in spikes that shred my insides and freeze them into twisted shards. Every breath drags across my throat, scarred and raw and hypersensitive. Behind me, the Dragon roars, the kind of roar that starts in one’s gut and shakes everyone who hears it.

“Brook, get her out of here,” I plead, voice pitching ever higher as I struggle to reign in the power of the Amethyst Throne. I squeeze my eyes shut, unable to face the group as a whole, but mostly my daughter.

I hear Brook move, but I cannot tell if she manages to bring Astra away.

My daughter speaks, and her voice is still everything I dreamed of for decades, every day after the King forced Freedom and I to ask Brook to take her away. But right now it just makes me sick.

My hind legs fold into a partial crouch and I spread my forelegs wide to brace myself. I curl my tail in close to my body.

You can stop this, King. Tell the Amethyst Throne ‘no.’ Please. You’ve already won against me several times. You got me to give in, for some length of time. You have me now. We both know there’s no escaping easy. I cannot promise I won’t try, but you have me right now, chained to the Amethyst Throne by the snake. You have the Dragon to keep me here. You have me. You don’t need my daughter. She’s done nothing. You can stop this, King. Please.

But the power hits a breaking point, the King does nothing, and ice rips from within me and explodes in the Throne Room. Blinding arrays of jagged spines of ice tear through the air, blanketing the floor and smothering the columns supporting the ceiling in shards that wrap around like feathers on a wing. Windows shatter somewhere in the distance, and I hear several shouts and cries. There’s a commotion, a struggle, and yowls and snarls that I pray to Lucius and Erebus are not Astra crying out in pain. I hear another roar that I think belongs to the Dragon, followed by the searing heat of what I can only assume is the Dragon’s flames.

Please, keep Astra safe, Lucius and Erebus. No matter what happens to me, Astra has to stay safe.

It goes on forever. Not really, but I feel like it’s never-ending, how ice pours from my body and my own abilities take the power of the Amethyst Throne and mold it into the ice covering the Throne Room. I lose track of time, swept away in the torrent of dark and freezing waters swirling within me until they crackle and hiss and burst into existence in a physical form.

I’m lost in the current, rocking and bobbing on the waves. When my legs give out, the ice catches me and keeps me upright as I sink further and further into its embrace. My vision blackens with spots and fuzzy smudges as my own power seeps from me like water leeching from rock. The ice holds me tight, unable or unwilling to let me go. I think it’s both.

I drop entirely into the hold of the ice. I cannot stand on my own, and I drift on the waves as I lose my grip on what’s reality. Nothing feels real as the Amethyst Throne channels its power through me and drains me of my own.

I cannot tell how long the Amethyst Throne channels its power through me, but when at last the ice slows and the shards cease shattering and splintering as they expand further, I sag to the ground, limbs limp. Sides heaving with ragged breaths, I blink until I start to see a little clearer.

Why? is all I can think. It’s a question I’ve thought again and again and again over the last decades. Sometimes in passing, sometimes in an all-consuming way that sent me spiraling for weeks and I didn’t do much to stop it because I knew the King would never let me go but I also didn’t care enough to even try. My lover was dead, and my daughter was gone but I could never search for her.

Except that now, Freedom is still dead, but I have Astra back. That’s reason enough to try. If it came down to it, I would stay with the Amethyst Throne to get Astra away. But after what the Amethyst Throne did just now and what the King didn’t try to stop, I can’t stay here. Astra could be hurt, and it could be my fault. I’d tried and failed to keep the power of the Amethyst Throne at bay. It’s a game, how long I’ll be able to hold out until the Amethyst Throne shows me just how much power it really has.

The snake wraps its body around one of my forelegs, pulling it backward until my elbow digs into my ribcage with a sharp bolt of pain. I hobble up onto three legs, then sit and brace myself with my other foreleg when I can’t keep my balance. The world tips to the side and I stumble.

“What the actual fuck was that?” Phoenix snaps, face scrunched up in a sneer of annoyance. He rolls his eyes and squints, tail flicking.

I pant for several moments until I can catch my breath enough to respond, lifting my head and searching until I can find the black cat. “The… the Amethyst Throne.”

“I wasn’t asking you, Jabez. I was asking the cream puff. I know you would never dare do anything to risk hurting your kid. And I can’t see you actually thinking you’d stand a chance if you went up against me or Ky or any of the others. Wasn’t you. It was the cream puff.”

Ky narrows his eyes, grimacing for a brief moment as he draws his ears back and lifts his chin. He doesn’t say anything.

“I didn’t do anything,” the King says. “It was the Amethyst Throne. It was the Dragon. See?”

I follow the King’s finger he points toward the opposite wall of the Throne Room. The doors are now smoldering bits of wood still alit in places with glowing embers. Cracks have splintered up the marble walls surrounding the doorway.

That was the Dragon’s doing, I realize. That was the Amethyst Throne.

I see Grey holding a shaking Astra with Brook standing over the two of them, nuzzling into my daughter’s forehead. My heart plummets through the ground when I see the singed grey feathers on the floor and the glowing green burns on Grey’s exposed skin. Astra had almost been caught in the fire, and Grey had to let himself get injured to keep her safe.

“Yeah, right, you didn’t do anything,” Alex scoffs. “You really are just as shitty a person as I thought you were before I had the misfortune to meet you.”

We can’t stay here. None of us can. Grey got burned because the Dragon tried to hurt Astra. If he couldn’t heal himself, who knows what the damage would’ve been? Astra can’t get hurt, but how many will have to sacrifice some part of their being to ensure that? I can’t protect her here. Maybe to an extent, but not in the way I have to.

I know that Astra cannot stay here. No one can. I could stay. I could remain with the King. It might keep him happy. He’d have me.

But there’s the nagging little thought in the back of my head. That What if? that’s now speaking so loudly.

What if the King decides me chained at the foot of the Amethyst Throne isn’t enough? What if he goes after Astra and I can’t do anything because I’m stuck here? I cannot stay here forever, live for an eternity with the King because the Amethyst Throne channels its power through us and sustains itself through our vessels.

We can’t stay, I tell myself. My daughter needs me. I can give myself to the King, but he could decide tomorrow that only me isn’t enough.

I was his and he was mine when I was Ice, but I’m still his and he’s no longer mine after he brought me back from Lucius’s claim as Jabez.

I can’t keep making the King happy in an attempt to appease him. It won’t work like it did, though I don’t know that it ever really did. I can play the part I know the King wants. I can pretend like things are still the same as they were when I was Ice. But in my heart, I know it’s not true. And I also know it cannot guarantee Astra’s safety in the way it did when I never sought out the location of the portal Brook had created.

I know that I have to escape.

The snake exhales in a long hiss, and its chain body slithers across my body. I ignore the warning.

I lock eyes with Brook. She inclines her head in a silent question, asking what I’m going to do. I tick my head to the side and lick my nose as I ready myself.

I crane my neck, twisting to the point of pain, and grab onto the chain of the snake. I hook my claws through the links and try to block out the pain from the snake biting down harder in retaliation.

Now or never. It’s now or never.