They haul me through a crowd of high ranking korabi thronging a massive hall. This must be the royal court. Everybody here is overdressed and none of them have the scent of the guards who patrol Megaris. They look at me dispassionately. This isn’t cruelty. This is something worse. This is indifference.
They should be freaking out at me. They should be cursing at me. Laying their claws into me and tearing me apart in animal vengeance. I just can’t stop imagining the worst of all possible outcomes.
The king is pacing furiously back and forth in front of his throne. He is a monster of a beast. He has hair almost all the way down to the small of his back, a great golden mane which any human woman would be wildly jealous of. I notice his hair first because it is flowing in such a spectacular way over massive, muscular golden shoulders. Then I notice everything else. The fancy blood-red robes, the general ambiance of disrupted celebration. They were going to really enjoy watching Lyric die.
I’m right on schedule to service their bloodlust. My sacrifice will replace hers. This is all working out rather well for the korabi, and for Rath, and for Lyric. For everybody besides me. I’ve never been lucky.
I am dragged toward the throne, wondering if I should put up a fight, but not really being bothered. There’s no way I could run, after all, and fighting them will only end in me being beaten.
“Sire!”
“What!?” Krush turns toward the soldier dragging me with a fearsome growl. He doesn’t even notice me at first, that is how insignificant I am.
I cannot do anything besides notice him. I stare at him like he’s the last thing I’ll ever see. I’ve seen pictures before. Images. Videos. But Krush in person is something else entirely.
He is an incredible creature. All korabi have different colorations, but the royal line is burnished gold. I do not know if it is natural, or an augmented affectation. I know that his eyes are silver, narrowed with rage and ringed with jet black lashes. He is handsome, in the way all very dangerous things are handsome.
“King Krush! We have taken the final human rebel into custody and now we present her to you.”
The king glares at me and I wish I could curl up and just die. It would save me a lot of suffering. I see a future of pure pain in his eyes. I see torture and torment. I see pure rage, pure and cold.
“What is this supposed to be?”
“This is the last human fugitive. This is the one we’ve been looking for.”
The king stalks toward me until he is standing over me in all his royal glory. He is wearing a gold trimmed, ultra-constructed coat, open at the chest to expose his golden hued skin. His royal blood can be seen in every line of his massive body. All the korabi are massive, muscular beasts, but he is a particularly massive, muscular beast.
I was never impressed by the concept of a king. I always thought kings were the same as the rest of us. But being in front of Krush makes me think and feel differently. There is something different about him. I am so completely awed and overwhelmed by this beast whose presence extends several feet from his body. I can feel his energy interacting with me, crackling across my skin.
I can only imagine what he is going to do to me. The feed to the city has been cut, but it wouldn’t take more than a second to turn it back on and take me apart in front of it.
Internally braced for the worst, I tell myself that this was all worth it. I got most of our family out. I got Lyric out. I got Frenchie out. I got Henry out. I got Giselle’s baby out. Even Taddy. I did what I could, and really, I should have been killed a hundred times over by now. It is okay to die now. I’ll join the others in my family who never made it out of korabi custody. The ones who were caught in the slaughter. My mother.
I close my eyes and accept my fate.
Instead of grabbing me and taking his fury out on me, Krush speaks. His voice is rich with inherited authority and undeserved gravitas. Oh, and disgust. A lot of disgust.
“One eye? One leg? What kind of broken excuse for a human is this?”
His ire is focused on the soldiers who brought me in, not at me. He is angry I am not more impressive. I don’t make much of a trophy.
“This is the last of the human nest we uncovered. The others have been exterminated or are presumed escaped outside the city walls,” the soldier announces.
“So this is the dregs. This is what you bring me. Another female, and this time, one missing limbs. How am I supposed to take revenge on this?” He throws his muscular arms in the air, his claws twitching with annoyance.