Oredison Palace, Gazda.

The announcement.

Viera did the announcement. She told herself that the fake smiles were for her mother—that way she would be able to see that Viera was alright. It had been easy enough to do.

Malcolm had arranged things so her announcement would be in the throne room—rather than at the Gazda train station like all the others would be. Someone had given her a small printed card and told her to read it aloud. The whole thing took less than five minutes to do.

Afterward, reporters tried to ask her questions, but she'd been instructed not to answer any. Still, she had listened—heard all the things they said. She felt every flash of a camera or buzz of a microphone as it was pushed toward her.

The guards led her through the crowd towards a small antechamber off to one side of the throne room. She kept her head down, her eyes locked on the navy blue heels the stylists had chosen for her.

Why did you try to run away?

Do you not want to be queen?

Is it true your mother is a cripple?

Who was the boy with you?

Is it true you were kidnapped?

Did you use Leighton Seidel as a way to escape the Culling?

Did she use Leighton?

As if he were a tool and not the one person who understood her. As if he were just a ticket from the competition and not the person her soul longed for. As if she weren't here, in this throne room, because she'd been willing to give anything for him.

The only thing that kept Viera upright was the steadfast hand of guard cupping her elbow. She tried to turn, her eyes searching the gathered crowd for the person who'd asked the question, but it was impossible to tell which reporter had spoken. They were still yelling questions at her, their voices blending in a cacophony of sound and color.

Was the man you ran away with a lover?

Is it true your father is a drunk?

Where did the bruise on your neck come from?

Were you forced to run away?

Did you buy the train tickets?

Did your mother's passing come as a surprise?

Where did you get the fake border papers?

How are you handling your mother's death?

Are you—

Her heart seemed to cease beating in her chest.

Viera could not breathe.

It was unbearably hot. Her lilac colored dress clung too tightly to her torso. It crushed her ribs and pierced her lungs. The world seemed to rock and sway underfoot. She could not catch her balance.

Back and forth the room rocked. Perhaps this is what the sea is like, constantly moving in an endless pull and tug. She wished to be released from that current. It was all too much.

The crowd made a sound—a collective sort of gasp—and then the world was dark.

***

Viera awoke in a darkened empty bedroom. She couldn't remember how she had ended up there—she didn't care. The blankets were warm and she rolled over onto her side, clutching the rich fabrics to her chest. She was still wearing the dress from the announcement. The tight waistband cut painfully into her sides, but she didn't have the energy to get out of bed and take it off.

How are you handling your mother's death?

Her vision blurred as she stared out into the blackened room. Surely, if it were true, someone would have told her. Malcolm would have loved to tell her news like that.

So, it had to be a lie. Tightness blossomed in Viera's throat; a violent squeezing she couldn't seem to breathe past. No. No, it couldn't be true. She wouldn't accept it.

Viera sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Someone had taken the heels off. Her hair had fallen loose from the intricate plait and her eyes were crusted with smudged makeup. The stylists had tried to disguise her tired tear-reddened eyes, but it had proved impossible. But she had sat still as they slathered the heavy creams onto her face.

Sitting in front of those women, dressed only in a sheer robe, hadn't been nearly as humiliating as having Malcolm startle her in the bath. When she closed her eyes, she could still see him sneering down at her naked body. His eyes made her want to scrape the skin from her bones.

None of the stylists had even mentioned his being there. Not that they ever talked to her anyway. They only whispered to one another of his handsomeness and swooned over the deepness of his voice. Viera had wished the they would stop—stop talking about him, stop touching her, stop pretending she wasn't a living, breathing person.

Viera wondered if the stylists treated all of the goddess-touched girls this way, or if Malcolm had specifically instructed them to shame and ignore her. She had unintentionally angered him and now this was a game. Her running had publicly humiliated the prince, now the prince would privately humiliate her. She would be degraded until kneeling in the arena was natural—a sort of desired release.

She knew he must feel more like a man when he was hurting her. Kicking her when she was already vulnerable, desperately aching, must make him feel stronger. Viera knew this, had seen his type time and time again. Malcolm Warwick was just like her father.

He was the sort of man that would push a pregnant woman down the stairs.

Viera stood up from the mattress and walked towards the door of the bedroom. She tested the knob only to find it locked. In the slitted light beneath the door, she could see the slight movement of boots. Her room was guarded—Viera was always guarded—as if she might still try to run away. As if she didn't understand what would be done to Leighton if she so much as tried.

She knocked on the door.

Silence.

"E—Excuse me?" Viera called. She knocked again. Outside, the guards whispered something to one another. She pressed her palm flush to the door, the tightness in her throat only growing as she said, "I just—I have a question."

No one answered her.

She tried the doorknob again, rattling it as she said, "Hello? I know there are guards out there."

In the hall, the guards continued to whisper amongst themselves. Then footsteps retreated, stepping away from her bedroom door and heading away—to go fetch someone. She knew who would come.

The last person she wanted to see.

Viera turned and pressed her back to the cool wood of the door. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. Although she hadn't cried in hours, her eyes were still swollen and heavy. Goddess, she was tired.

She had no idea what time it was. Curtains were pulled across the glass doors opposite her. The moonlight silhouetted the guards standing watch on the balcony outside.

Back before they'd decided to run, Leighton had told her that if she were to join the Culling, he would do what he could to become a palace guard. No matter what was to come, she would not have to face it alone.

Viera hadn't understood why he cared about her enough to want to follow her into the Culling—into the palace, this nest of vipers. There were countless other girls who wanted him. She hadn't sought out his attention, and yet he had seen her when she had not been able to stomach looking at herself.

Now Leighton was little more than a slave. And he had been hurt. Malcolm had cut off his tongue.

Bile rose in her throat, hot and acidic. That shaking began again, bone quivering, mind splintering shaking. The power, that oily poison, rose up, straining and tugging at the leash she'd so carefully crafted. Viera didn't fight it. She just waited, listened to her heartbeat and the rushing sound of the poison as it shoved its way through every pore in her body. Like it could separate from her and become its own person.

She would kill him. Even if it were the last thing she did, she would kill Malcolm Warwick. He would suffer.

The door shuddered at her back as a key was forced into the lock. She hated him, more than she'd ever hated anyone in her entire life. More than she hated her father, or her mother's wheelchair, or the Culling, or the goddess, or Erydia.

She thought of his eyes, the way he'd looked at her body. How he'd sneered—as if she were his. Like she was his possession.

Viera didn't want him in this room alone with her. Not when she knew the guards wouldn't help her—would not stop him—if he tried to hurt her. As he'd said, Malcolm was a prince so it was whatever he said it was. He was the type who would rape her and call her struggling consent.

The doorknob turned and the door hit the backs of her bare feet. She leaned into it further, using all of her weight to hold the door still. Light from the hall broke through the darkness of her room, sharp as lightning, as Malcolm shoved the door again, managing to get it open a crack.

He spoke through clenched teeth. "Move."

"You aren't coming in," Viera said. "I just—"

"Get out of the way."

She shook her head. "No."

He shouldered the door and she conceded a step. Malcolm started laughing. The sound low in his chest. "What are you afraid I'll do, Viera? Hm? You think if I wanted you, I couldn't have already had you?"

She closed her eyes again, swallowing down the sob in her throat. "Please, just leave me alone."

"Don't you want to hear about your mother?" he said quietly. "Is that what upset you earlier, the questions about her?"

"Tell me," she whispered, fear and sorrow fracturing her voice. "Please just tell me if it's true."

"Open the door."

"Please."

"Move out of the way now." He shoved the door again, the wood seemed to groan, like it might crack. It bit at her heels.

Viera's chest ached and she was so very tired of fighting. Under his weight, the door slid open a fraction more. Malcolm's labored breathing filled the space between them. This was not his full strength, he could have gotten the door open if he'd wanted to, or he could have had the guards do it.

It was only a matter of time before he tired of this game and forced the door down, with her in front of it or not. So, she yielded a step, then another, until the door was open and she stood facing him within the shafted light of the doorway. Malcolm shoved his hands in his pockets and smiled at her—an endearing, patronizing action.

"There now, love. I knew you'd see sense."

She turned her face from him, swallowing hard as she prepared herself for the truth. Viera needed to know. She had to know if it were true. If it was...she didn't know what she would do.

The words hurt, cut her to the bone, as she whispered, "Just tell me if my mother is dead."

"Yes," Malcolm said simply. "She's dead."

Viera pressed a hand to her mouth. A sob broke from her throat, ragged and painful. She didn't realize she was backing away from him until she hit the edge of the mattress and sank down onto it.

Malcolm stepped towards her. "Don't you want to know how it happened?"

She looked up at him, this man who had taken so much from her. He waited, unphased, for her reply. But Viera couldn't speak around her sorrow.

Malcolm only raised an eyebrow at her and said, "Well, Viera? Aren't you curious?"

She managed a nod.

He stepped towards her, stopping just close enough that she had to tilt her head up to see his face as he explained, "Apparently, she tried to stop your father from going after you. Begged him not to report you missing. He stabbed her."

She was going to be sick again.

"Your sister arrived at your family's home yesterday morning and found your mother at the bottom of the stairs, dead. Your father was arrested and confessed to having fought with her. He claims she went after him with the knife and he managed to wrestle it from her. In the struggle, she was stabbed and, I suppose, pushed down the staircase." Malcolm shrugged. "Doesn't really matter now, I suppose. She's dead."

He was speaking so blandly, as if they were discussing the weather.

Viera shook with rage and grief. Malcolm just watched, amused, as she fought for words. Leighton was gone. Her mother was gone. "And my father?"

"Set free with no charges," Malcolm said. "A pardon from The Crown for his services in helping us retrieve you."

No— The image of her mother's body broken at the bottom of those stairs, of him stabbing her, it was more than she could bear. And he, the man who had beaten and broken so very much, would not pay for any of it.

This was a nightmare and she just wanted to wake up.

Her eyes burned but no tears came. Poison filled her mouth, coating her tongue as she turned within herself, to that goddess-given abyss. She peered within; at that the power she had shunned for so very long. It cracked open an eye and looked back at her. Waiting.

Viera lived in a new world without Leighton. Without unrestrained friendship and unconditional love. Her mother's light—the warmth and quiet understanding that had kept her sane for so very long—was gone.

This world was dark and cold. In this world, sadistic bastards would be crowned king. Violent drunkards could murder their wives and beat their children without fear of reprimand. This was a world where nine girls had to die so that one could survive.

And she did not want to live in it anymore.

Malcolm chewed his lip and shoved the toe of his boot against the wooden floorboards of her bedroom. He waited for her to speak. There was more he could say—he could tell her about how her lover had screamed and bleed when they took his tongue, or how he asked the guards to make sure the boy was flogged as soon as they arrived at the camps.

It had been some time since he'd picked a part a person. The prince enjoyed seeking out vulnerable spots in an individual's will and violating them. It was easier, less messy, than scarring the flesh. The marks he left were soul deep. They changed people.

And he wanted so desperately to see this girl break.

She was lovely and fragile—but it was not those physical things that made him want to ruin her. No, the prince wanted to quell the hope he still saw in her eyes. He wanted to empty her out until her only thoughts were of him and what he would do to her next. It was not enough to just upset her, Malcolm wanted her broken beyond repair.

But he hadn't expected it to be so terribly easy.

He said to her, "The other girls have advisors. Just fancy guards that are supposed to help teach them the basics of combat and such. Since you will not be fighting in your trial, I told them not to bother assigning you any. I'm sure I can help you come up with reasons to practice getting on your knees."

She glanced up at him then, met his shadowed eyes. "Go to hell."

Malcolm grinned, pleased to have struck a nerve. "You don't say that as well as your friend does—did, I suppose. He isn't saying anything these days."

Viera's throat bobbed as she fought to control herself. The darkness within her had gone silent, as if it too was trying to decide what to do. The bed sheets were cool against her sweating palms as she dug her fingernails in, tried to let the feel of the cloth ground her. The sudden silence inside her mind, in her gut, seemed to quiet the entire room.

"What? You have no response." Malcolm stepped closer to her, so close the fabric of his pants brushed her bare knees.

She could do it. She could do it and the guards wouldn't be able to reach them in time. For Leighton, for her mother, for herself—she could do it. And maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't be so bad to let that part of her have complete control.

Malcolm grabbed her chin in his hand and shoved her head up, so she was looking at him. "What is it? Hm? Have you lost your tongue too?"

Viera closed her eyes.

She felt his hot breath against her face as he leaned down. "You know, his biggest mistake was ever laying eyes on you."

There was a moment, motionless and delicate, in which Viera considered who she was—what she was—without Leighton. For the first time in her life, she looked at that swirling blackness inside of her and didn't recoil from it. Instead, she breathed it in.

Inhale.

Exhale.

She smiled, opened her eyes, and said, "Your biggest mistake was ever laying eyes on me."

***

His saving grace was that she was out of practice and there was not enough poison in his system to work with. She could fiddle with the vitamins in his liver and increase the toxicity of the foods already in his systems, but if these things were not already present, there was only so much she could do. Even so, Malcolm had felt her try to poison him.

If there had been more, she might have dropped him dead right then and there.

As things were, she managed to knock him to his knees where he abruptly and unceremoniously vomited all over the beautiful hardwood floors. Before she could do anything else, the guards were there, hauling her away from him, yelling for help and for a medic.

Viera didn't struggle as they pulled her away. She could not begin to give a shit—not about the guards, or the prince, or the fact that he was already back on his feet. That was fine, she told herself. This was merely a taste of what she'd do to him. Next time, she would be ready.

Malcolm was shaking with rage.

He wiped the vomit from his mouth with the back of his hand and spat, "You little bitch."

She was pressed to the wall by two guards. Their hands dug into her shoulders, their fingers clutching her thin wrists in iron holds. She let her ability run sharp talons across their bodies; let it search for natural toxins. But she wouldn't kill these guards—no.

One of the men shuddered as she withdrew that dark essence, coiled it back inside herself. She didn't care about the guards, she cared about the prince. His days, hours, minutes, heartbeats, were numbered.

Viera flinched, just slightly, as Malcolm approached her. She should have expected it, should not have been so surprised as the back of his hand collided with her face. Her skull hit the wall behind her with a thud and she cried out in pain. The guards holding her murmured their protests, sounds that were nearly drowned out by the sound of him hitting her again.

And again.

***

He beat her. Any of the guards who objected, who so much as questioned his orders to hold her down on the bed so he could access her back, where sent from the room.

She screamed. Over and over again, she screamed. When he got tired of using his fists, he used his belt. He yanked her around the room by her hair, slammed her against walls and heavy furniture.

It went on for an eternity.

And when it was done, when he had exhausted himself tearing her to pieces, he ordered the guards to lock her inside the bedroom again and refuse any food or visitors. She lay in the middle of the floor, the lilac dress nearly in shreds, her entire body a broken, bloody pulp, and watched the boots of the guards as they moved towards the door. The sound of her rasping inhales echoed across the silent room. Every breath wet and ragged.

She listened as they asked if she could see a healer—it was a request that Malcolm denied.

And so, she was left there in the dark, too tired to cry and too injured to move.

Even with the pain, Viera didn't regret trying to poison him. She did, however, regret not succeeding. But she had learned something too—something she hadn't known. The prince had poison already in his system. That gave her an odd sense of hope. It told her that, if she were careful, she could try it again.

She could kill him—

She would kill him. 

***

Thank you for reading this far. Don't forget to comment, like, and share. For more information on The Culled Crown series and other projects, follow me on Instagram (@briannajoyc) or check out my website (www.briannajoycrump.com).