The King's Remorse

Unbound - Jabez - Chapter 11 - One by One

Chapter 11

One by One

TRIGGER WARNINGS: this chapter contains scenes of fantasy-typical violence; there is not gratuitous detail although there is still some; the violence in this chapter was ordered for manipulative reasons; Jabez's headspace in this chapter is not in a good place

Myles has an air to him that puts me at ease. He's all soft curves, friendly brown eyes, and a warm smile with curly hair that falls over his forehead and ears in tight coils.

Wyatt leads Brook, Astra, Ky, and I across the Sea in the opposite direction of the approaching Guard and Soldiers. We follow Wyatt, and they soon draw to a halt near the very edge of the Sea at a tent a little smaller than most, one for only a single person.

"Myles," Wyatt calls, slapping the back of their hand on the flap of the tent.

"Oh, hello," Myles says as he steps out. He's dressed in the usual attire of those in the Sea: An off-white shirt and beige shorts. His sleeves bunch up at his elbows when he leans against a red wooden staff.

"We need your help," Brook says.

Myles nods. "I can do that."

"The King has sent Guard and Soldiers here," I say, voice high and thready. The muscles spasm in my neck when I try to move my head, and I grit my teeth, biting my tongue before I can cry.

One glance at Astra tells me she's beyond her limit. She's pressed up flat against Brook's foreleg, cheek buried in Brook's feathers. The look in her eyes is distant, somewhere far, far away.

Keep it together. We have to keep it together. We have to make it out of here.

I turn my whole body around. The Guard and Soldiers are closer, and the sunlight reflects off the Soldiers' armor in harsh beams of light. They're closer than they were before. A small group of people rushes out from the Sea. I look away before I can see what happens, but I can still hear. I pin my ears and squint my eyes against the shouts of those asking what's happening and why and the slick squelch of bloodied weapons and the thud of bodies collapsing to the ground. I catch my own name, and I stumble.

Please, I beg whoever has fallen and met Lucius just now, I don't want this. Please, you have to know that.

I flinch when I feel a hand on my shoulder and then cry out as the snake's snapped-off fangs still lodged in my neck stick and press against my vertebrae.

"Sorry," Myles says.

"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I can't stay with the King but if I di-."

"Hey," Myles interrupts. "You can't do that."

"I won't let you," Ky says.

I close my eyes and take a breath, willing myself to stop trembling and shaking so I can just think for one moment.

"You have friends here who need you, and the King's gonna make his own choices. You are not responsible for what the King does. The King has had his chance a million times, and he has made his decisions very clear."

I sit down.

"You... y-you can't do that," Astra says, wings low at her sides. The long fur on the back of her neck falls over one shoulder. "You can't leave."

"I know, I know," I reply quickly. I can't hear how broken her words are again.

I can't leave her. I won't. I left once. I can't again.

When memories of my life as Ice with Bryant before he took to the Amethyst Throne and became King of Ragdon, I try to shove them away. That was so long ago. A lifetime ago. I know all that, and yet... he has sent his Guard and Soldiers.