Chapter 11

  Righthand Man to the Cream Puff

  Righthand Man to the cream puff.

  That hurts more than it should.

  Maybe I cannot change. Maybe I will always be who I am. Maybe I will always be the righthand man to the King. Maybe I will always be the Dust Devil. Maybe I will always be a Soldier, a member of the army of the King of Ragdon, someone who will obey, because that’s what I was taught, what I was told I should do.

  Phoenix gazes at me, no trace of mercy in his eyes. He flicks his tail behind him in time with the flickering of his flames, and I take a step back as he steps forward, massive paws leaving equally huge paw prints in the soil, singed at the edges.

  “Scared?” he taunts. “You should be.”

  “Imagine how Grey felt,” Alex repeats, and I feel like I cannot breathe with how tight my chest clenches.

  “What happened?” Phoenix says. “What exactly did you do to Grey?”

  The air shifts into something waiting, as if Phoenix’s fire has sucked up every bit of the oxygen.

  I look between Alex, Brook, and Phoenix as fear snakes around my heart, and I take another step back. I stop when Phoenix sends a line of flames behind me, blocking my path.

  “No, you don’t get to run. You will stand here and face your fucking dues. We will see if you’re as much of a monster as the cream puff.”

  “I’m not him, though,” I whisper, protesting the thought that I could be like Bryant.

  He told me to. Doesn’t that count for something? I know I killed Grey, but Bryant is responsible, too, right? It can’t just be me, right?

  It couldn’t be.

  You did your duty, the snake tells me. You’re innocent.

  Is this what innocence feels like? Does innocence close up my throat until I feel I cannot breathe? Does innocence get three beings staring me down like I destroyed the world, because maybe I did?

  “Sit,” Phoenix snarls, lurching toward me and throwing himself up onto his hind paws.

  He leans his weight onto my shoulders, and he forces me to the ground. I drop to my knees, and the black cat stands over me, muzzle just a whisker-length away. The blazing heat of his breath washes over my face.

  “What exactly did you do to Grey?” he repeats.

  “I… I took his life.”

  “No shit,” Phoenix snaps. “How? That is how you will die. You will feel every bit of what Grey felt, drawn out so you can feel every agony he withstood before Lucius took him into their realm. Admit it, Righthand Man to the fucking cream puff. Tell me what you did. Speak the words out loud. Tell the world what a fucking monster you are. Only monsters take another’s life for no reason.”

  But Bryant has told us all what a monster you are, a part of me whispers, and the snake agrees, telling me that yes, Phoenix is a monster. I shouldn’t listen to him.

  As if reading my mind, Phoenix tilts his head to the side, wrinkling a lip as his ears fall to the sides of his head. He cuffs me across the cheek, claws sheathed.

  “Are you really going to listen to someone who orders the deaths of those who disagree with him? I was ten when I likely first made his list of monsters. What reasonable person believes a ten year old poses enough of a threat to them, a full-grown adult, that they tell the world that ten year old is a monster? Who labels a child a monster?

  “What person,” Phoenix continues, narrowing his eyes as he leans in closer, until all I can see are his flames against his inky fur, “summons a being who possesses enough power to slaughter hundreds indiscriminately, all out of still anger against those who disagree with him? What type of world is it if you cannot say that you disagree?”

  I swallow, mind whirling.

  Phoenix’s words swirl in my head, mixing with the questions of Pisces about if I had ever felt I could ask questions of Bryant. They both say the same thing, but all I can do is shake.

  I can’t take that final step; it terrifies me, but what it is, I don’t know. The dust of the Dust Devil locks me in place, and I cannot move.

  Phoenix slaps me across the face again.

  “Answer me!”

  When I don’t reply, I feel the sting of his claws against my scalp, then the sticky warmth of blood trickling down my forehead and the sting of a droplet as it drips into my eye.

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  My armor feels too tight, and the collar of my undershirt feels like a noose, cinching ever tighter around my throat.

  The power of the snake and the Amethyst Throne pull me one way— I hear the demands laced with every ounce of pressure contained within the snake’s body to kill, to destroy, to do what the King —Bryant— had asked of me. The Phoenix is right in front of me. I should kill him, right? I should take his life.

  But Phoenix’s question lingers in my head, and I gaze distantly at Phoenix’s massive paws. A small littering of scars dot his toes, his wrists, and a scattering wind up his forearms.

  The weight of Alex and Brook’s united attention presses hard on my shoulders, but neither say anything. Perhaps they know so well that Phoenix alone can take me out.

  Is this my punishment? Am I to be taken out by the Phoenix?

  Fight back! The snake rises up in my mind, chains clinking over each other as it curls up and hisses, cracked fangs catching the light as venom beads along its lips. You’re a coward. You do not deserve the power of the Dust Devil.

  I don’t want this. I wanted to serve my King, and look where that got me.

  “I was supposed to follow his orders. Everyone was supposed to be guilty,” I whisper.

  My armor groans as Phoenix rounds upon me, forcing me to the ground face-down. I cough as I breathe in dust and dirt. It’s supposed to be the very thing I can control, but now it’s beginning to suffocate me like it did the Guard and Soldiers in the first demonstration Bryant showed me.

  “Does that give you the right to send someone to Lucius?” Phoenix snarls. “Who decided they were guilty?”

  “Bryant.”

  “Do you trust someone who wishes to kill if someone disagrees with them?” the black cat hisses. His whiskers brush my hair, and I feel the searing heat of his flames against my neck, over where Pisces still lays embedded within my flesh.

  Phoenix leans his weight on me, and I feel my armor begin to give. The bend in the metal presses into my ribcage, making my breaths shallower.

  “I-…”

  “Look at you. You can’t even say no to your cream puff. See? You’re all the same.”

  Phoenix slaps a forepaw against the back of my head, forcing my face further into the ground.

  “I thought everyone was guilty,” I grit out. “I thought they were, but then I wasn’t convinced of Grey’s guilt.”

  “Why murder him? You could have said no, and you didn’t. You are all the same. You will never change, because you cannot. You are so far trapped beneath the cream puff’s thumb that you will never be able to pull yourself free. You could have stayed free, but you chose to not. You had your choice, but it’s too late.”

  I catch Alex’s eyes. She’s watching, but her face holds only raw grief, the kind that has yet to even begin to scab over.

  Brook approaches, and I flinch when her hooves stop so close to my hand. She lowers her head so she’s looking me straight in the eye. The knotted scar over her eye extends far down her cheek.

  “If Phoenix decides to finish you, I will not stop him,” she says. “I would suggest explaining why you still killed Grey, even when you were not convinced of his guilt. Nothing you say or do will ever undo what you did to Grey, but you can explain.”

  Pisces swirls on my neck, echoing Brook’s sentiment.

  “There’s a snake.”

  Phoenix scoffs, and he drags me across the dirt. “Blaming your actions on someone else.”

  “No,” I try to correct. “The… the Amethyst Throne, when Bryant made me the Dust Devil… the power came with a snake. It’s in my head. It… sometimes it controls me. Its purple eyes stare at me, and it leans its weight against me, and its venom is so strong, and—.”

  Brook cuts me off. “What does the snake look like?”

  “You believe me?” I ask. I turn my head as much as Phoenix’s forepaw allows.

  Her expression doesn’t change. “I never said that. I ask you to explain what the snake looks like.”

  “She tells you to,” Phoenix spits next to my face, and I hear his teeth snap shut. One of his elongated canines brushes the delicate skin of my ear.

  “It has amethyst eyes.”

  “Let him continue,” Alex says. She holds her arms wrapped around herself, as if trying to physically hold herself together.

  “It’s grey. It’s metal. It has a metal head that has a diamond on the top. Its fangs are broken, and its body is a long chain. Its venom burns in my head.”

  “That pain is less than you deserve. Whatever you feel,” Phoenix rumbles, “know that you deserve far more. There is never enough for someone who takes a life when they are not guilty.”

  I curl in on myself as much as I can, still pinned by Phoenix.

  “The King is a murderer. He doesn’t need to have touched someone to have taken their life. He is guilty because he ordered the death, just as you are guilty because you carried out the order and made the choice to send someone to Lucius. You could have chosen to to do fuckin’ anything else, but you chose to listen to someone who orders the deaths of innocents and children and who put a child on his hit list.” I feel Phoenix’s dew claw catch on the collar of my shirt, pulling it taut against my throat. “Did you know that I was ten when Bryant told his Guard and Soldiers to kill me if they saw me? I’d killed in self-defense after I saw the murders of my parents and my newborn sister I never got to meet in life. Tell me, Righthand Man to the cream puff, is that something a fair leader would do?”

  I close my eyes as I swallow. My mind whirls with voices from too many sides pounding from every angle. I tremble. I cannot think, but I try to put all the pieces together. Despite knowing how things can fit together, I cannot make sense of the picture.

  “That’s…” I exhale, knowing the answer in my gut but grimacing as the snake hisses and writhes in my head. “No. A fair leader wouldn’t do that.”

  “Lucius and Erebus, took you long enough. Fuck. You’ll always be the same.”

  Do I want to change? I think.

  The snake spits at such a thought, hissing about what a traitor I am for even thinking such a thing.

  Pisces swims across the back of my neck, and I feel the fish coiling around each other within my flesh. I roll my shoulders at the sensation, though the movement is limited by Phoenix’s weight against my back and the bending of my armor.

  Would you be thinking this much about such a thing if you truly held a relationship with the King? Do you have anyone with whom you feel you can be yourself without judgement?

  Think about everything the King has given you, the snake says. You wouldn’t be here without the King. You wouldn’t have learned to be a Soldier. You wouldn’t be the righthand man of the King of Ragdon. You wouldn’t have the gift of the Amethyst Throne.

  Have you ever been able to say no? Would you be thinking this much, Pisces asks, if you wanted to remain with the King of Ragdon? If you choose, there’s another life out there, one where you can make your own choices. You can make choices where you do not murder.

  I shudder as I exhale. That is what I did to Grey.

  I can feel his blood running through my fingertips, and my fingers tremble. How stained have my hands become? How much would I have to scrub before the water runs clear? How deep would I have to go before my skin is no longer red? Would I have to tear all the way to the bone?

  Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter of The King's Remorse! Please comment your thoughts -- I'd love to hear what you think! And please consider a favorite/follow!

  Well, Luke has met some of the rest of the group

  He's certainly having a hard time, but what will come of this?

  Phoenix does not trust him, and Alex still has Luke under the influence of Pisces

  Any guesses as to how the rest of the story may play out?

  I hope you're having a nice day, and if not, I hope tomorrow brings something nice for you!

  -Werewolf14- :)