In the Wake of the Wicked (Veridian Empire #1)

44. Rose

44

Rose

C hecking in on Morgana and Beau wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. They were relieved to see I was alright, especially after my dramatic exit the previous evening. I didn’t go into much detail on the second trial. Keeping our reunion short and sweet was the only way to ensure I didn’t start envisioning their bodies lying dead at my feet.

When I finally made it back to my room in the palace, my sole focus was taking a bath. I soaked in the hot water for over an hour, till I couldn’t tell where the water ended and I began. I couldn’t seem to get clean enough. The feel of dirt, grime, smoke, and blood clung to my skin and hair no matter how many times I washed.

I wondered if I would always feel this way, if I would always carry the trials of this Decemvirate with me. Distantly, I recalled one of my last conversations with Ragnar and how he said death wasn’t the only outcome of this tournament. I was beginning to understand what he meant.

As I dried my hair with a towel and pulled my robe on, I let out a groan. I still needed to report in with Lark and the other architects. I wondered who else had completed the second trial. I’d been so isolated from the palace and tournament over the last night, it was easy to forget what was going on around me. When would the second trial debriefing and ranking be? What if someone hadn’t woken up?

A pounding sounded on my door. “Rose? Rose, are you in there?”

Nox . Relief flooded me at the sound of his voice. I was glad he’d made it out. I hadn’t realized how worried I’d been for him, so caught up in my own trauma.

“Yes, I’m here and I’m fine,” I called back. “Give me a second to change.”

“Always here to lend a hand if you need help, darling,” he quipped.

Laughter escaped me as I pulled on a pair of pants and a light sweater, then tugged open the door to find him standing with his arms crossed. “Same old Nox, then,” I said.

“A little dream won’t keep me down for long.” His words were casual, but his eyes were haunted. Guarded. Carrying a despair I hadn’t ever seen in him.

Before I could stop myself, I wrapped my arms around his waist. He hesitated before returning the embrace.

“I didn’t take you for a hugger,” he said with a tired chuckle.

“I’m not. You just looked like you needed one.”

Nox patted me on the back before releasing me. “So, that bad for you too, I take it?”

I let out a long breath and led him into my room. “This tournament is vile.”

“Can’t say I disagree with you.” He lounged in the chair by my bed. “When did you wake up?”

“Yesterday evening. You?”

“Two nights ago.”

I whistled. “Were you the first one out?”

“Yes. And I think you might be the second. Callum and Arowyn woke up this morning. I haven’t heard about Callista or Alaric.”

A thrill shot through me, followed by disgust. I threw myself onto the bed with a groan. “I hate that I’m excited about something as ridiculous as rankings after all this. It feels wrong. ”

“Yes, well, they’re turning us into what they want us to be,” he said, pulling out a dagger and a small piece of wood. “Competitive savages who care only about winning and power.” He put the edge of the blade against the block and began carving it.

“I didn’t know you were an artist,” I remarked, marveling at how skillfully his hands moved to slice away small shards of wood.

“I can make any creature you’d like. It takes my mind off things I’d rather not dwell on.” A sliver fell to the floor. “I’ve had plenty of time to practice.”

The off-handed comment made me wince and wonder what his life back in Drakorum was like. What the terrible things he’d “rather not dwell on” were.

“What happened?” I asked quietly. “In your dream.”

His lip twitched, deft fingers pausing before continuing shaping his new project. “I woke up to people screaming.” He spoke slowly, as if recounting the trial took all of his focus. “When I entered the hallway, chaos had broken loose. Mysthelm soldiers had invaded the palace and were going door to door, dragging out guests and setting rooms on fire. They killed the men, took some of the children hostage, and the women…” Nox closed his eyes and swallowed hard. Bile crept up my throat. “After taking what they wanted, they bound them all and forced them into carriages.

“At one point, some generals nearby were talking of their plans. They were preparing to transport hostages to their ships on the west coast to take them down to Mysthelm. They wanted the children for experiments, and the women…they wanted them for breeding stock,” he spat. “To bring magic to their kingdom permanently.” My nostrils flared at the thought, but I let him continue.

“I knocked out a soldier and stole his uniform so I could masquerade as one of them. I overheard them discussing how they needed to find a person of each magic to acquire all six. Like we were some sort of collectibles to possess.” His tone filled with anger. He dug into the wood a little too sharply, causing him to knick his thumb. I watched in fascination as blood welled and dripped down his hand, only for the wound to sew itself together almost instantly. Shifter blood .

“But they were looking for particularly powerful Veridians. And only among the children, so they could do experiments from an early age. Learn how to replicate their magic without the risk of them fighting back. Young ones are so much more impressionable, after all.” He accidentally stabbed the palm of his hand this time, cold rage taking over his features.

I almost didn’t want him to keep going. The idea of soldiers taking these innocent children captive to torture and use them and mold their minds against their will…it was unimaginable. But I knew he needed to talk about this. Knew he needed someone to listen, someone who could understand, because I felt the same.

“I followed the soldiers to the central sector under my disguise as they went from home to home, searching for targets. I learned Mysthelm had some sort of detector where they could test someone’s blood and see the strength of their magic. That was how they chose who to keep and who to…discard.” His cheek twitched at the term. “They struggled to find someone of Drakorum lineage they deemed ‘acceptable.’ Until the group I was with reached the final house.”

There was a shift in the air, tension ballooning around Nox as he spoke. I didn’t breathe, terrified of what happened next.

“There was a mother and her two children. I sensed they were Shifters, like me. A soldier pricked all three of them with his sensor, and one of the children…” He paused, his throat moving as he swallowed. “The youngest boy was incredibly powerful. I volunteered to take the family to the carriages as a ruse to help them escape, but the soldier wanted to hand-deliver this child. Said his blood was the strongest they had seen yet.

“I attempted to argue, and things escalated. He became suspicious of me and tried to restrain me, ordering the other soldiers to kill the mother and spare child and be done with the whole ordeal.”

Nox dropped his carving into his lap and met my gaze, his navy eyes burning. “I realized I had a choice. My magic was ten times stronger than any of those people. If they only knew what power lived in my blood, they would release dozens of hostages to take me instead.”

The room was silent, save for the sound of our breaths.

“I knew what they would do to these children. To me , if I let them. I’ve seen the kind of experiments those who live in fear conduct on people they don’t understand. I’ve heard their cries, I’ve felt their pain, I’ve lived —” He cut himself off. “For a moment, I considered staying quiet. Sparing myself.”

His eyes fell to the wooden armrest of the chair, and he slowly dragged a long nail across it. “I seized one of their sensors and pricked myself, and when the soldiers saw my level of power, I negotiated. All of the children’s lives for mine. They accepted.”

Nox went silent again, deep in thought. “How did you get out of the dream?” I whispered.

“Did you receive a clue for the second trial after finding your artifact in the first?” When I nodded, he continued. “That’s how I got out. When we left the house and they forced me into a prisoner’s carriage, something felt…off. There had been small moments that seemed strange throughout it, but this tugged at my mind. A strong gust of wind blew through the central sector, but it wasn’t normal wind. It blew upward . Coming from the ground. My clue was ‘wait for the wind.’” He chuckled, but there was no humor in it. “A bit blunt, if you ask me. I realized then it was the second trial. They locked me behind bars, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in my bed.”

I didn’t know what to say. Question after question ran through my mind, more and more reasons to hate Gayl and this Decemvirate cropping up with every passing second, but I was frozen. What does someone say to those who saw what we saw? Who were forced to make decisions that would impact us for life, whether or not they were real? The way Nox spoke of these experiments as if he’d lived them made my skin crawl. This trial seemed to have pulled on our deepest fears and traumas, forcing us to face them head-on.

I had no words to offer. Instead, I leaned over and rested my hand on top of his clenched knuckles. “Some trial,” I said.

“Some trial,” he echoed sadly. We sat there for a minute, letting his story settle around us. He didn’t pressure me to speak, but I found I wanted to share my tale with him, anyway. He was one of only a few who could possibly understand.

“My dream started similarly,” I began. I told him of the Mysthelm soldiers, the infirmary and dead patients, the men I’d killed, and how my family had been taken. I relived the destruction of the central sector and my attempts to get people to safety, of the plan to obliterate the shelter and the choice I had to make. Shame once again swept in that I’d chosen to save my cousin over an entire building of people, whereas Nox had willingly sacrificed himself for the sake of dozens. But his eyes never once judged, never questioned.

I recounted how I followed Beau and his captors to the river and was caught, and how my clue from the first trial was also what helped me come to the conclusion that it was all fake, right as I was stabbed through the heart.

“Stabbed? Well, now, that was a bit dramatic,” Nox said.

I tried to smile, but it fell flat. “What are we supposed to do now?” I finally asked. “The idea of facing everyone and having this trial paraded around as a success story, then competing in a third in just a few weeks…” I shook my head. “I don’t know if I can do it.”

“Are you kidding me?” He stood. “Don’t let them make you believe you’re not strong enough for this. You’re a viper, darling. They are the ones who should fear you .”

I scoffed. “That’s easy for you to say, the fearsome Shifter from Drakorum.”

“And you ,” he said, offering me a hand, “Are the fearsome Alchemist from Feywood. Don’t doubt yourself. Do you know why I called you a viper that first day?”

I shook my head, taking his hand and meeting his glittering eyes.

“Because I’ve seen what you’re capable of when provoked. You strike .”

Nox and I talked for another half hour before Horace banged on my door, telling me Lark requested my presence immediately . I supposed I’d put off meeting with her long enough.

“There you are!” she exclaimed when I arrived at her office, throwing her hands into the air. Shadows instantly billowed from them, sealing any space beneath the door so we could speak freely. “Do you know how foolish it was of you to go running off like that?”

“Don’t start,” I snapped, plopping myself in the chair across from her desk. “Let’s get this over with.”

Lark looked taken aback by my tone and shared a look with Horace. Leo had confirmed she and the other architects had no control over what occurred in the second trial and that the idea had been Gayl’s to begin with, so I wasn’t truly upset with her . But my distress from the last twenty-four hours was morphing into anger—an emotion I was comfortable with. One I knew how to wield.

She crossed to stand behind her desk, and when she met my eyes, the pity I found only increased my agitation. Did she have access to what I’d seen in the dreamscape? To what choices I’d made, what I’d had to endure?

Suddenly, it was difficult to meet her gaze.

“Please state your full name,” she said, sitting and pulling out a pencil.

“Rose Angelica Wolff.”

“What province do you reside in?”

“Feywood.”

“And where are you currently? ”

“In Veridia City.” She looked up and raised an eyebrow, as if to say, “go on.” I sighed and crossed my arms. “In the emperor’s palace, being asked annoying questions in his head architect’s office.”

Lark scratched at her brow with the end of her pencil. “Rose, I know you’ve been through an ordeal, but?—”

“ Been through an ordeal ?” I snorted. “You make it sound like my carriage lost a wheel or my cat got sick. What you did to us was traumatizing , Lark. I can’t believe you can sit there and act like you didn’t force us to live through our worst nightmares, all for the sake of appeasing the mighty Emperor Gayl. I thought we were on the same side.”

Alright, maybe I was a little upset with her.

For a moment, her face crumpled. Horace grunted behind us. “Hey now, don’t take it out on her. She was doing her?—”

I whirled around in my seat. “Doing her job? Yes, I know. And I suppose you were, too, taking me down to that dinner, acting like nothing was wrong. Did you know what I was walking into? Did you know they were going to drug me?” My voice broke, the strength of my anger fading quickly. “Did you know what they were going to make me do?”

Guilt filled his ruddy features. I don’t think I’d realized how fully the depths of this betrayal had gone until facing him now, someone I’d trusted and had even called a friend—such a rare word in this world of mine.

“Rose, please,” Lark began. “I hate that we put you through this. I hate that I couldn’t warn you or fight against it. But that’s why our mission is so important—to change the way this empire is ruled. To be rid of this struggle for power and not live under the fear Gayl has created. You can see that, can’t you? This is what we’re fighting for. What you’re fighting for.”

I blinked back the burning in my eyes and cleared my throat. “Why would Gayl even do this? Why did he push for this trial?”

Lark swallowed. “Our emperor may not be a good man, but he is a brilliant one. He takes pleasure from pain and turns it into a weapon. I don’t know what his exact motivations were, but he’s not a fool. He knows there’s unrest in the empire, and spreading fear through the strongest of each province? Fostering such a deeply embedded hatred for any opposing kingdom, for anyone who doesn’t believe what we believe, and reminding you that he holds the power?” She leaned back in her seat, looking wearier than I’d ever seen her. “You and I are simply pieces in his chess match, Miss Wolff.”

“It’s time to wipe out the entire board,” Horace grunted from the door.

Lark nodded. “Rissa has informed me that Gayl has sought you out as a sort of apprentice, given your shared Alchemy magic.” Gratefulness flared through me. It seemed Rissa hadn’t openly told them about my heritage. “I understand you’ll be meeting with him more often. There are two weeks until the masquerade ball, and then the third trial will commence soon after. We still have plenty of time.” Lark planted her hands on her desk and stood, summoning conviction into her voice as she locked onto my stare. “You want someone to be angry with? Turn that fire to him , Rose.”

A series of frantic knocks beat at the door, and Lark jerked to attention, reining in her shadows before motioning for Horace to answer it. A woman with a slight frame and dark hair burst in. I thought I recognized her from the challenger’s feast—another one of the architects, maybe?

“Lark, it’s the trial,” she rushed out, not seeming to care that I was present. “Alaric woke up, so we tried using the restoration potion on Callista, since she was last. But it—it won’t work.”

Lark strode around her desk, alarm instantly on her dark features. “What? What do you mean, it won’t work?”

“She won’t wake up.” The woman’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. “She’s dead, Lark. Callista is dead.”