Teisel stared at the picture of the queen, blinking back tears as she remembered her mother. She felt her throat constricting, her heartbeat going wild, and her eyes tunneling as they focused on that single moment.

  “W-what…” She trailed off, closing her eyes and burying her face in her hands. “It… it doesn’t make any sense.”

  But it did.

  “It can’t have been… My mother wasn’t the queen.”

  But she was.

  Teisel remembered how people had treated her mother—the sight of the two nubs where her antennae had been—and she remembered nights spent with the sound of sobbing from her mother’s bed. She remembered hours when Teisel wanted to play but she knew her mother was just too tired.

  Teisel looked up at Druin, her face covered with tears. “You… you knew.” She saw his face and knew the answer before he said anything. She’d trusted him. He’d pulled her out of the depths of her sorrow and given her hope.

  He nodded, calm and collected as always, “I knew.”

  Suddenly, there was only anger; it surpassed her sorrow and confusion with its brilliance. Her beautiful brilliant hope waned down to a dying ember and snuffed itself out. Her love for him, her trust, her belief that he was a good man… “And you never told me. How many years have you just let me persist in ignorance!?”

  Druin took a step back, at the violence in her eyes, but it wasn’t a serious step. He didn’t think she was a threat even if she lurched from her chair and started clawing at him. He was still calm. “We all agreed that telling you was a horrible idea. You didn’t inherit your mother’s strong gift since you were born after hers was removed, so you weren’t a threat to the legitimacy of the council. Unlike your brother, who needs to be treated with more delicacy.”

  And that was the other thing.

  Teisel had a brother, a murderous brother. And Druin hadn’t seen fit to explain to her why Ulenik hated her. She felt her face heat up, her hands balled into fists. The pang in her chest was weak for now, but she knew it would only grow stronger. “Does he know? Is he aware that the annoying brat he forced off that pipe was his sister?!” Her voice sounded strangled, like a woman at the edge of her mind.

  Without Druin to trust, how did she knew she wasn’t actually useless? How did she know that what she was being prepared for would actually protect people? It wasn’t a secret that the alanerea had left behind who they’d been, so how did she know that anything she was doing would help? Without Alner keeping the council in check she was… less than useless.

  Druin adopted a more sorrowful expression, “Yes, Ulenik is aware.” He sighed, “He doesn’t seem to care. In fact, that might have been part of the reason he did it. He was worried you might be a threat later.”

  Teisel looked back at the painting of her mother, so different from how she remembered her. She was prouder, her smile genuine, her eyes sparkling. The difference Teisel supposed was the two large antennae that sat on her head, right next to the crown. Teisel felt her voice grow quieter, it was still ragged, but she was willing to give him a chance to explain himself. “Why didn't you tell me before?”

  Druin paused for a long moment, examining Teisel. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Oh? Really? Did he really not care about her so much that what she thought of something huge like this was less than consequential? “Then why are you telling me now, did you finally get a guilty conscience?” She clenched her teeth, feeling her hands ball into fists.

  “I didn’t want you to find out after next week,” Druin said matter of factly.

  Teisel paused, confused. What was happening next week? “Why?”

  He looked her up and down. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Those words, Teisel decided, were the worst words she could ever have imagined.

  Looking back, Teisel reflected that Druin had expected her to die. He’d expected her to fail the process of what happened next, he’d expected her to never wake up again, and he wanted her to know before that. He’d been too cowardly to tell her the truth and in doing so she didn’t think she could ever trust someone again.

  The fact that he hadn’t stopped the process in the first place was a betrayal. The fact that he’d known what the council had planned for her. He’d known and he’d also known that she’d loved him. She’d looked up to him and seen him as a hero, someone in the world who could do no wrong.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Yet, Druin had known from the beginning and expected her to die.

  And he’d done nothing.

  --

  Teisel was shoved roughly into the chamber. The tears falling down her face had no effect on the guards around her as they remorselessly locked the watertight door behind her. She put her hands against the glass, feeling the tears drip from her face like an ocean that drowned out her anger and just turned it into helplessness.

  They’d sprung it on her as a surprise. They’d sprung it on everyone as a surprise. But Druin had known.

  Teisel wanted to rip at the tubes connected to her, she wanted to pound against the glass, she wanted to tear at the sterile black suit of rubber, she wanted to scream for help to yell that they were terrible people, sacrificing the one for the many.

  But…

  This way they said she could be useful, they said she could protect people. So Teisel just cried. She didn’t believe them though, she couldn’t believe anything they said or did, they’d prepared her for this and hadn’t told her what she was facing. Now she just wanted it all to end.

  She leaned against the tube, clutching at the strange mask tightly as green water began to flow into the tank, it was cold, colder than death. She breathed as evenly as she could, and soon enough she knew nothing besides the reality of who she was.

  Teisel was useless.

  Teisel was in pain.

  Teisel would never trust again.

  Teisel was alone.

  -

  When Teisel regained consciousness, it was different.

  Everything was different. She could sense minds through her gift but… that was it for a long, terrible time. She couldn’t feel her body; she couldn’t feel anything.

  But as time ticked onward, Teisel became aware of something else. It wasn’t a body, but she felt that she could move it. Experimentally, she shifted things about to make them more comfortable and the sensations changed.

  It was weird, it felt wrong, and it was absolutely far too easy, but Teisel could do it.

  ~Hello Teisel.~ An unfamiliar voice spoke to her. He was… Teisel could tell exactly where he was.

  ~Hello?~

  ~I’m glad you can hear us. Can I have you try and move the city to the north?~

  Teisel paused, thinking about the alien sensations. ~I’m not sure what direction north is.~

  There was a moment of silence, ~The opposite side of the city to the reservoir. That is North.~

  Teisel thought for a moment and then moved it. It was easy, like those robotic devices except a million times better. ~What now?~

  There was silence for a long, lonely moment. Teisel examined each mind in the city to identify who was who. She found that she didn’t know anyone. And… she found that she couldn’t contact anyone, not even the stranger who’d been talking to her.

  Why would they do it that way? Teisel sent a connection request but nothing happened. She felt at the minds, trying to get a sense of anything besides their location, but… there was nothing.

  Teisel tried not to panic, she really did. But when you wake up and find that nothing is as it was, it’s very difficult to not panic. All Teisel could focus on for the long lonely time before she was contacted again was that Druin had known and he hadn’t seen fit to even warn her. He’d known. He’d known everything that was about to happen to her. Her anger cultivated itself, multiplying as she gave it fuel. The loneliness she found was good fuel for that, good fuel indeed.

  This continued for days, weeks, months. Teisel couldn’t contact anyone unless they contacted her first. She couldn’t see anything; she could only dream.

  And so she dreamed.

  She dreamed that she was falling.

  That there were monsters pulling her downward.

  That there were traitors around every corner.

  That she was alone.

  That she was useless.

  Over and over, month after month, year after year, decade after decade. She barely even noticed when people stopped ordering her around and when the alanerea left her behind. She barely noticed when the niortak moved in. She barely felt the change when she started following the sun, wishing for its warmth at all times because when the sun was out, the darkness wasn’t as dark.

  But as the centuries passed by, Teisel only became more and more certain that the only way out was to end it all. She hated falling, but she was useless; she was alone with nothing for every moment. She was surrounded by strangers, monsters, everything. And yet, in that field of horrors, Teisel could only feel more and more alone.

  The city AI probably took over when she stopped responding.

  Everyone will leave you. You’re useless. You aren’t worth the trust of people. You aren’t worth their time, or their knowledge; they don’t even know you exist. They don’t care; they shouldn’t care. You’re useless. They’ll just leave you anyway because they take joy in knowing that you are suffering, like Druin did.

  Your pain is silent, no one can see it; no one cares enough to look. No one can see you, no one can hear you, you’re useless, a monument of a time that no one even remembers.

  It would be better to just… not be in the way anymore.

  And so Teisel finaly fell.

  She turned off the engines, she shut down the metal folk, she turned the anti-gravity to the lowest setting it would let her, and slowly, laboriously, the city of Teisel made its way toward the ground.

  When something changed, Teisel was barely even aware of what was happening.

  -

  ~Who are you?~ She asked softly to the strange mind in front of her.

  “Ah, you felt that, didn’t you?”

  ~Of course I did.~

  “You can ignore me, I’m sending assistance already.”

  ~What are you doing?~

  “My job.”

  A moment passed, and then another. After five long stretches of time, everything changed.