Blackwater is notoriously known for its cold winters. I’d like to think I’ve grown used to the chill, but what holds me now is a different kind of cold.
In my territory, where the wind would howl and the snow would cling to our skin, we’d still have our clothes, hats, and shoes to keep us warm—a barrier to protect us, if you will. But here, I have nothing. Isolated in a cold, dark place, wrapped in chains that feel like bent icicles digging into my flesh.
A weak groan escapes me, and I breathe as evenly as possible through my nose. It’s useless. My entire body shudders as the wind whips and the snow clings to me.
A blur of black dashes past, and I look to my left, watching the figure land several feet away. A dark cloak billows behind the figure, dark boots touching the ground. The figure shifts to a person, and he walks closer to me. The black cloak transforms to a stark white, and when I carry my gaze to their eyes, I have the urge kill him.
“You know, Caspian,” Manx says, approaching me. “You’re much luckier than you think you are.”
He snaps his fingers, and a chair appears right across from me. He sits on it, just out of arm’s reach. I can’t even headbutt the fucker if I wanted to.
“I was enjoying your memories,” he goes on. He looks me all over with eyes I used to trust. “Do you have questions?”
I grimace, look him up and down, then spit at his feet.
Manx chuckles, folding one leg over the other. “We have ten hours until I can claim you. Why not enjoy these last few hours we have together, just like old times? Look, I’ve shifted into someone you trust. That’s much better than my true form, which you do not want to see, believe me.”
Still, I say nothing, and as if that irritates him, he sits forward and says, “Fine. If you don’t want to talk, I’ll make you talk.” Shoving out of his chair, he walks away from it and shifts into a person I’ve never seen before. He becomes a man with short dark hair, like the ink of a squid. His skin turns a grayish white, like dirty dish water, and that cloak of his transitions to black again. His nose isn’t round and soft, but hawkish, crooked, and flared. But nothing beats his eyes—dark irises and pupils that have no life or color and seem to go on infinitely. This is the real Decius.
He lifts both arms in the air, creating a gray cloud above us. The cloud spreads, creating a moving image, and I wince when the cold chains tighten around me.
In the clouds, I see a woman, and not just any woman. It’s my mother. She’s out of breath as she bursts into my childhood cabin. I’m just a boy, no older than seven, lying on the floor reading a book.
“Caspian, come quickly!” she shouts, already grabbing my arm and yanking me up.
“Stop this!” I demand, but Decius only looks at me with a smirk, his face as sinister as they said he was in the stories I used to read about him.
He lets out a wicked chuckle. “I knew you’d talk to me eventually.”
“Do you get some kind of sick kick out of this?” I snap. “Torturing people about their past?”
“Oh, absolutely. In fact, it gives me much more strength. That’s what makes your Tether so sweet. The duress you’re under. The pain. The hurt. The resistance of who you truly are. Why do you think I led Magnus, your cruel, cruel father, to you and your mother? If he hadn’t taken you, you never would’ve become who you are now. All that pain that festers inside you will only do me wonders.”
“Do you remember what I told you about the hidey-hole?” my mother asks, rushing me out the door of the cabin.
“STOP!” I squeeze my eyes shut, refusing to look, but they’re immediately pried open again by a needle-like invisible force. I cry out as my eyes are spread open wider, forced to watch what happens next in the glowing clouds.
“Yes, Mum, I think so,” I tell her.
“Good boy. I need you to stay in there until I come for you. And no matter what you here, you must stay in there. Do you understand?”
“Why, Mum?”
She ignores my question, trudging through the forest, my small hand clutched in her clammy grasp. She walks around a tree with a large trunk, and a bed of moss and twigs. Releasing my hand, she shoves the twigs and moss aside, revealing a wooden plank. Removing the plank, she uncovers a hole in the ground—one I watched her dig months ago. Back then, I had no clue why she was digging it. “Go on then,” she says hurriedly. “In you go.”
“But I don’t want to go in there! There are spiders, Mum! I’m scared!”
“You must!” she declares, and after she does, the voices of men rise, echoing through the forest. She gasps, dropping to her knees and looking me in the eye. “This is the only way I can protect you right now, Caspian. We have no time. Please get into the hole, and I’ll come for you in a few minutes. Okay?” She forces a smile, one that doesn’t reach her eyes. If I’d known then what that smile represented, I never would have agreed.
Tears form in my eyes. My vision has blurred, but I nod and allow her to help me into the hole. Once inside, I stifle a sob as she covers it back with the wooden plank, whispering, “It’s okay, son. It’ll be okay.”
She shoves leaves and other things on top of the plank to cover it, darkening the hole by the second, and then I hear her steps scatter away. The voice of the men grow louder, booming as they call for her. “We know you’re here, Azira! Give us the boy!”
“Enough!” I shout, glaring at Decius. The sharp grip on my eyes weakens, and the vision in the cloud fades.
“Caspian, this isn’t Blackwater. You aren’t in charge here,” he says, smirking with his hands behind his back.
“I don’t care.”
“Do you not wish to relive these times? The last moments spent with your mother?”
“Fuck you.”
He sighs, moving closer. “I suppose it doesn’t make sense to torture you with things you relive daily. I know it’s all you ever think about—your mother. Her death. Your recklessness. But Willow…” A wide grin spreads across his face, and I jerk forward in my chair. The chains rattle, pressing deeper into my skin, and at this point I don’t care if they rip all of it off.
“You hurt a hair on her head, and I’ll tear you limb from limb, you twisted fuck,” I growl. “I swear on all of Vakeeli, I’ll find a way to end you.”
He laughs, his head falling backward. “And there it is. That calm demeanor you carry so well simply vanishes when your mate comes into the equation. You’re just like the Tether you descend from. The original, Lehvine. Always throwing threats even when he’s unable to do a damn thing. Tell me, how will you do any of what you say when you’re stuck here?”
“My clan will find a way out for me.”
“There’s no way to fight it. The only way is through Selah, but that won’t happen now because I have you. The Council will have to find another chosen man…and that will never happen. Not when I begin my reign.” He taps his chin, looking all around. “How about this? I let you and Willow suffer together. That’s rather poetic, isn’t it? She feels your pain and absorbs your memories, while you get to endure it all over again.”
He forms another cloud as I shout at him, but my shouting turns to screams of agony as he continues the memory—the one that ruined my life and changed me forever.
