Chapter 2

  Kill, Dust Devil

  No, this can’t be.

  The snake in my head makes a rhythmic sound, one that echoes in its throat, and I want to scream. It knows my thoughts. It hears every one, weighing each and every single thought like the Judge and Justice do words and actions.

  When did my thoughts become no longer my own? I want to ask, but I already know the answer: When Bryant let me allow the snake into my head. That is when my thoughts were no longer my own.

  Except that some small part of me says earlier. Far earlier.

  I eye the bodies of the Guard, trying to work out how they died. I don’t remember anything, and the gap in my memory confuses me. Twisting my hand palm-up, I curl my fingers to look at the black claws that have replaced my fingernails.

  “What is on your mind, Dust Devil?” Bryant asks.

  “I am wondering how they died,” I say, answering immediately and honestly. “The Guard.”

  “Oh,” Bryant says with a shrug. His voice is light. Far too airy, nonchalant. “I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out. You killed them. You killed the Guard.”

  I tense up, breath catching in my throat. If this wasn’t what My Sovereign- Bryant. I have to get his name right because I can’t disappoint him because I have to be a Soldier because I can’t do this wrong because I have to get this right because how can I not remember this because how can I not remember something so small?

  “I killed them?” I echo.

  Bryant nods, looking all too pleased. “Yes. Your Dust Devil powers are working splendidly.”

  He claps.

  I nod in return, feeling somewhere so far away, a thousand, a million years away. Maybe Lucius or Erebus made a mistake, but I know that’s not possible with either of them. Instead, I look at the bodies of the Guard and feel nauseous at the sight of blood for the first time in my life. I swallow down bile.

  I don’t recognize any of the Guard, but that doesn’t say much; I don’t interact much with either the Guard or the Soldiers.

  They died gruesome deaths, with sand still running from their noses and mouths. I see dusty, sandy soil pooling from between the pieces of the leather armor of the Guard. Blood stains the dust a dark red and turns it into a thick mud. My hands are clean, but when I look at them I could swear I can see the flood running down my wrists beneath the plates of my own metal Soldier’s armor and between my fingers and dripping to the ground. Nostrils flaring, I wonder how much blood is on my hands, streaming across my skin from my palms and fingers, staining the edges of my nails —claws— a rusty blood russet. I begin to shake, but I force myself to stop; Bryant doesn’t want to see that.

  What have I done? Mother, what have I done?

  I thought she followed the King of Ragdon. I thought she liked Bryant. I thought she agreed with him.

  I don’t understand.

  Mother, are you proud? Bryant, are you proud of me, my King?

  Bryant must see my confusion.

  He leans forward on the Amethyst Throne as it swirls with a myriad of purple colors, responding to Bryant’s shifting emotions. I push myself to my knees, hands flattened on the marble floor that reflects the flickering torches on the walls as I try to not poke myself with the black claws that have replaced my fingernails. The horns on my forehead weigh my head down strangely and make me want to lie down. My boots force my ankles at an awkward angle, but it’s ok: I can see Bryant —the King of Ragdon— in all his glory.

  “Let me show you again. The Amethyst Throne will showcase the power it has gifted to you again, I’m sure.”

  Bryant shouts for the Soldiers standing at the doors to the Throne Room to send in Guard and Soldiers, whoever’s closest.

  Looking at the bodies around me and the way the Guard lay contorted in positions past what the human body can naturally do, I shiver as fear curls in my stomach.

  Are you not grateful?

  No, I am. I’m grateful, I promise. See?

  I smile, to show Bryant that I agree with his decision, no matter how the traitorous part of my brain that the snake keeps eyeing with a hawkish attention balks at the thought. How could Bryant ask for more Guard and Soldiers? I didn’t understand the reason.

  He doesn’t need a reason, though. A King does not need a reason to do anything. He’s King. That’s the reason, isn’t it? That’s what my mother said. That’s what being a Soldier taught me. I didn’t need to understand; only Bryant did.

  xxxx

  “Stand, Dust Devil,” Bryant says when one or two dozen Guard and Soldiers enter the Throne Room.

  They keep their heads down, then drop to their knees in a deep bow when they reach the foot of the Amethyst Throne. None look at me.

  I rise to my feet, unsure of what to do. I look around, as if that may answer my internal dilemma.

  Don’t you see? the snake in my head murmurs, chains slinking over each other as it slithers in my mind in a slick kind of way.

  No.

  You’re the Dust Devil. They’re all beneath you.

  But they’re not.

  But they are. You have the power of the Amethyst Throne. It gave you a gift few have ever received.

  How many?

  You and Bryant are the most powerful.

  That implies more.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  The snake doesn’t reply. Its eyes just glitter, unreadable. It shifts and its coils slide across each other, dragging across my mindscape. The sensation makes my skin crawl.

  “Kill them, Dust Devil.”

  I blink at Bryant’s order.

  I’m Luke, I want to say,

  No, you’re not, the snake chitters, hissing rhythmically.

  I feel the power of the Dust Devil rising within me, building and building. I feel the energy of the dust and dirt in the Throne Room, everywhere in every nook and cranny cleaners of the Throne Room hadn’t been able to reach. Magic flares.

  “Kill, Dust Devil,” Bryant says, repeating himself, and I know I must obey.

  If I didn’t before, I must now. Not that I had any other choice. A Soldier as I am, Bryant can order me as he wishes, and I will obey, because I am a Soldier. I am a Soldier, I remind myself. I am a Soldier. It’s a fact I seem to be forgetting recently. Forgetting more and more.

  When it becomes clear that I don’t know what to do, the snake presses forward, leaning hard against the front of my mind. I shove back, instinct telling me that if the snake wins whatever this mini battle is that I won’t remember what happens next.

  That’s not true, the snake says.

  Liar, I reply. Liar, liar, liar.

  The snake’s heavy weight is almost too much to bear, especially as the Guard and Soldiers draw closer, weapons at their sides and arrows nocked in bows, arrowheads pointed at my chest. The faces of the Guard and Soldiers are impassive and blank, as hard and set as the weapons they hold in their fists.

  When I take a step back, the Guard and Soldiers move forward.

  “Kill, Dust Devil,” Bryant repeats yet again.

  No. The King of Ragdon had to say his order three times, something I don’t think he’s ever had to do in his entire reign, perhaps in his entire life. He is King, after all. Hasn’t he always had such immense power? How could he ever had not?

  Yes, the snake chuffs, exhaling through its nose and squinting its eyes. It curls its tail. Bryant repeated himself. Kill, now. Now, Dust Devil. Don’t hesitate. Don’t think, just do. Do it. Do it! Do it, Dust Devil!

  I feel the immense pressure, the immense weight of the snake crushing me from all sides, pushing, prodding, leaning on me and trying to bend me to its will, into turning my focus to taking the lives of the dozen or two Guard and Soldiers still slowly advance upon me.

  Why? They’ve done nothing to me.

  The King of Ragdon ordered it. Their deaths are what he wants.

  In that case… If he wants it? With that logic, surely that makes it ok… right?

  I try to justify their deaths in my head. I try to justify that blood on my hands.

  I look down at my fingers, to where the black claws still curl gently from where my fingernails used to be.

  Do it, Dust Devil. Kill them. Use the power of the Dust Devil.

  But… I think, musing my confusion over in my mind. But what is the power of the Dust Devil?

  Let me in, the snake replies. Let me show you.

  It winds across the boundary I’d erected to keep it out of the forefront of my mindscape, pressing in an insistent kind of way. I don’t want to, but the light keeps glinting on the weapons of the Guard and Soldiers and it’s so bright and I feel cornered because they’re all around and everywhere and closing in around me and I’m still on my knees and I can’t move and I just can’t and I slip and the snake takes over and then it’s all over.

  The ground rumbles with a thundering sound. Head ducked, my spine unrolls as I straighten and I become the Dust Devil; I’m no longer Luke. I’m now someone else. I stand, and it’s over.

  I hold my hands palm-side out at my sides, or maybe it’s the snake, the Dust Devil, doing so. At this point, I don’t know who’s who. It could be me, or maybe it’s not. I don’t know.

  The snake lifts my hands, or maybe I do. Dust and dirt and whatever little similar bits lay around nearby that those who clean the King’s castle couldn’t get to swirl, caught up in the magic of the Dust Devil.

  Lazy, don’t deserve… the snake mutters in my mind, but I shut it out.

  I want to say something, but I’m caught up in the horror of watching that very dust and dirt target the closest Guard and Soldiers, shooting toward them and wrapping around them in tight bands. They drop their weapons in loud, sharp clatters that make me want to cover my ears and grimace.

  Stop, they didn’t do anything to me. I don’t want them dead.

  The King of Ragdon said—, the snake starts.

  I… I trail off when I realize what I was about to say, and I cannot even think it, both because the snake will hear it, but also because I cannot even admit it to myself. The realization of what I was about to say shakes me to my very soul, the deepest parts of my being. It burns, horrifying and cold, a dreadful kind of feeling that sends me reeling, yawning open wide.

  I turn my full attention to the dust that wraps around the Guard and the Soldiers, coiling around each of them like sandy snakes.

  The first one reacts, and I gasp, an outward reaction I couldn’t control. They claw at their throat as dirt and dust pour from their nose and mouth, and they choke, coughing until there’s nothing left in their lungs and they begin to suffocate. I rotate my hands palm-side up and curl my fingers into fists. A burst of purple dust explodes from my knuckles. Energy surges through me like lightning, and I gasp at the exhilaration sensation, like balancing on a razor’s edge.

  See, the snake murmurs, isn’t it nice?

  I almost revel in the feeling, the euphoria of the magic soaring and searing through my veins, through my body, through every bit of my being with every beat of my heart.

  I… I…

  I don’t know what to make of the magic, the power I can wield. The snake steps back, giving me more control, and I brush my fingers against the bands of power. I can feel the thrum of the energy, and it scares and intimidates me, yet it also draws me in, luring me closer with promises of what I’ll be able to do.

  The righthand man of Bryant, the King of Ragdon, the magic tells me. You are the righthand man of the King of Ragdon, of Bryant. This power gives you that ability. You earned it through your actions, through your sacrifices. This power is yours. It is yours. You own this power, Dust Devil.

  Stay in control, I tell myself, working to not lose myself in the current of the abyssal swirl, endless and depthless and so, so tempting. The power has to yield, not us. It’s for Bryant. Isn’t it?

  The snake doesn’t reply, but it tilts its head.

  My hands shake as I twist them. I don’t let myself feel as I bring the rest of the Guard and Soldiers to the ground under my own decision. I say that I’m sorry the entire time, repeating it over and over and over and over in my head, because I cannot speak. My voice ran off somewhere, dashing off with its tail between its legs. The King of Ragdon asked me to do so, so I have to.

  Right?

  Yes, the snake snaps.

  Ok, I say quickly, before anything else can consume my mind.

  The snake seems satisfied, and we watch as the Guard and Soldiers fall one by one under the magic of the Dust Devil. I hold my hands in fists, keeping the Guard and Soldiers bound under the power as they slowly suffocate. Magic dances through my blood vessels and soaks into every bit of my body, intertwining with every piece of me. Everything that makes me me, until I don’t know what’s the power of the Dust Devil and the Amethyst Throne and what’s me. Who’s who? I don’t know. I cannot feel what’s me and what’s the Dust Devil. It happened so fast.

  I lost myself to the pain in my ankle over a long time, a gradual time. I don’t know the moment I forgot when I didn’t have pain and that constant dull ache that turned into the stabbing throb if I walked wrong or too long or someone hit my leg in training or I got injured.

  But now, with the power of the Dust Devil and the Amethyst Throne racing through me, I feel alive. I feel powerful. I… I feel. It’s tantalizing. It’s addicting.

  Do I want this? I ask myself.

  A part of me does. This feeling, I want it. I want it forever. I want it more. I want more of it. I want to feel this powerful. I want to feel this in control. I want what the power of the Dust Devil, this gift of the Amethyst Throne, can give to me.

  Yet another part of me does not. That part does not want the snake able to see every thought I have. It does not want to give up control over every thing I do by having the snake in my mind; that compromise is far too much for that part of me. Why must we make such an allowance? Why must we give up so much, allow such a cost to occur? The snake gives up nothing and gains so much.

  Is this power worth it?

  I look up and see the pleased expression on Bryant’s face, the easy smile spreading across his face as he takes in the bodies of the Guard and Soldier with dust sliding from their noses and mouths as they lay in crumpled heaps on the ground. He turns toward me, head tilted. His inky black hair shifts to fall over his forehead, making his purple eyes stand out ever more. That smile doesn’t waver as Bryant’s attention focuses on me, and that settles my decision.

  Yes, I respond to my own question. This power is worth it.

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

  Up top is the snake, the one inhabiting Luke's mind. However, it's also the same snake who bit Jabez on the back of the neck; there's no spoiler in saying that, as there is only one snake. It's the same snake the whole time

  What will happen now that Luke seems to have accepted his role as Dust Devil?

  I suppose another question is this: Has Luke actually done so and accepted that role?

  How will these deaths of the Guard and Soldiers affect Luke?

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

  -Werewolf14- :)