Page 192 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

No one’s going to kill me now. I’m a weapon, a murderer, a monster, and that’s not going to change the moment I need to be. Every last organ inside of me burns as I focus on another guard. I fight the urge to gag against the smell of what I’ve come to know as burning flesh.

Like hair in flames and sweat that’s sickeningly sweet.

Burning hot steel touches my throat. My vocal cords work, but I can’t hear myself because all I can feel is the blaring agony of what must be a thousand degrees. Or hotter. I pull at the shadows holding my hands, trying to reach for whatever is burning me, trying to free myself from the pain before I crumple beneath it, but they won’t budge.

Stop, please, stop, I try to say, but I only manage a wheeze.

“How does that feel?” They’re behind me. Burning me.

Whatever this is, it is piercing into my skin. Even my blood burns.

“Queen Lusia wants her alive.”

It feels like the skin is being ripped from my neck, layer by layer. Ripping, ripping, ripping. Slowly, sweetly, like they enjoy the view of my flesh.

Spots of darkness fill my eyes as the burning of my flesh eases to nothing. The world does too.

* * *

I wake up with the same shackles around my wrists as Leiholan had on my first day at Visnatus. I don’t feel hot. For once, I just feel… warm.

I have no power.

I’m dead, for sure. This is where I die.

“He burned you good.” The woman in front of me is a blurry mess, but I can make out that she is looking at my neck. Touching it too, I think, though I can’t feel anything in that region of my body. “Fascinating what a resilient thing you are,” she whispers like she is talking to herself.

I blink with force until I can make out the world a little more. It’s the woman from the Gerner who examines my neck. Queen Lusia, Lucian’s mom.

“Do you even know what you are, darling?” I like that word better on Lucian’s tongue. “The things you’re capable of achieving.” She holds my chin like it’s hers. “Unfortunately, I can’t have you.” The blue of her eyes glow until they’re almost white.

“Where’s Lucian?” I ask. I didn’t even know I was thinking of him.

Queen Lusia’s mouth flips upside down. “You two have truly gotten under one another’s skin.” Her finger is on my neck, but I can’t feel it.“Is Lucian truly what you want to ask me about? Come on,” she beckons, “think deeper.”

It’s like my mind is blank, being beckoned by something beyond me. “What are you going to do to me?”

“Hm.” She smiles like my question brought her pleasure. “I’m going to let you go, and you are going to run.” Her hand clamps around my cheeks with so much force that it aches in my jaw. Speaking slowly, she says, “You will never stop. At any sign of trouble, you will run again.”

My words come out mumbled, because she has me fish-lipped with her death grip around my cheeks. “You want me to run?” I want to whack her hand away from my face. I clench my jaw against the ache. “Why don’t you just kill me then?”

“Don’t bother with riddles that have no answer.” Her unrelenting hand finally releases me. A key appears in front of my eyes. Salvation is the only word I can comprehend. “Do you understand?”

“Run, got it.” Been doing it my whole life anyway.

“What concealed your essence before? Can you get it back?”

The necklace. So, my eyes are really red and the dreams are really real. Even if I don’t want to believe it, I’d be lying to myself.

What does that mean for me?

“A memor. It’s gone.”

“I’ll cover you. It won’t last, nor will it conceal your eyes. You’ll be able to get out of the kingdom without notice, perhaps into the septic. I wouldn’t advise you stay here.”

I nod numbly. Notice from what? Apart from her guards who take her orders, am I running from something else?

“Okay.” Is she really going to let me go? On the pretense that I run? It just seems too good to be true. Things usually do. But I’m a sentimental idiot, and I say, “What about my mom?”

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