The Golden Chalice

✰✦✰ Chapter Thirty-Three ✰✦✰

✰✦✰ Chapter Thirty-Three ✰✦✰
" Put This Knife In Me Then Removed It"

I FELT MOMENTARILY dead when I saw his face. Jacks was standing in front of me. And there was no mistaking it—Apheses had just called him over—he was working with the enemy.

"Jacks—" I breathed. I scanned my mind frantically for words to use, to say to express the overwhelming amount of traitorous emotions assaulting me. Yet I came up short. My head was full of nothing. Of so much but nothing at the same time. This betrayal. . .it hurt so much more than I wanted to allow it to. For all that, I had told him things I'd never even dared to speak of to Sarinne. To a single soul. All because he knew things—he knew of my past, of so many things that the rest of us never had, it should've clicked. It should've occurred to me the moment Sarinne and I let him out of our cellar that nothing was right with him. That was a manipulative, untrustworthy son of a bitch that deserved nothing from us. But it hadn't. And we'd let him in. I'd let him in.

"Vilkov?" was all I managed to say. I glanced between Apheses and Jacks—if that was even his name—for answers.

"Oh, yes," said Apheses, unlocking the cell door and stepping out, holding it open. He placed a hand on Jacks's shoulder and beamed proudly, "This is Jacks Vilkov," he told me. "He was pretending to be your friend the whole time, Scarlett. He never knew Zacrus, you see."

I tried to get Jacks to meet my eyes but his stayed glued on the wall behind me and moved whenever I initiated eye contact. It hurt me more than I should've let it. He was never your friend. Get over it. Except he had been. He'd been someone I'd trusted, someone who'd managed to break down my walls and be let in. This man had laughed with me and made me feel like I could finally open up again, let people in and make friends after all these years. I had so many questions but they simply wouldn't escape me. They remained in my mind, chaotic and heavy and hectic. Just like my emotions towards Jacks in this moment.

"If there's nothing left to discuss," Apheses released a sigh, "we should probably get going. Don't want to wait too long for the ceremony, do we?"

"Ceremony? Wha—"

"Vilkov," demanded Apheses. "Shut her up and lead her up after me. She needs to be in the great hall in twenty minut—"

"Why wait?" I interjected. "Why only come for me now?"

Apheses lips rose in the twisted way they usually did. "Despite what you may believe, Scarlett, finding you was more difficult than we believed. And once we did, we knew you would put up a fight. Besides, isn't it more fun to stage the most perfect performance the world has ever seen? Trick the princess of Solaria to participate in an absurd little quest? And time isn't going to run out for me any sooner, dear. I'm immortal."

"And your wife? Does she know of this?"

"Of course she does," he replied, shrugging. "She's Fae, my dear. She wanted all of this. The fame, beauty, glamour and endless riches. But she's dead now. No more use to me." He laughed again. "She should've known better." Turning to Jacks again, he said, "I'm going back up now. Don't allow her to take too long to change."

Jacks only nodded.

Apheses patted him on the shoulder and for a split second it actually looked like it pained Jacks to be there, but the moment vanished and so did Apheses, walking down the corridor with his steps growing echoey. A silence ensnared us and I couldn't even tell what Jacks was thinking anymore. His expression was so empty. He might as well have been a corpse.

"Tell me you're some sort of fucked up double agent," I said. "Tell me you're going to help me out of here. Jacks. I need you to ans—"

"No."

"No, what?"

"No," he said calmly. "I'm not a double agent."

I swore I could hear my heart crack a little. "So you're working for the men that want me dead and gone once they've used me? For the men that tricked us and forced you to betray us—"

"I wasn't forced," he cut me off again. "I offered."

I felt like a dagger was being slid into me and then removed slowly. Agonisingly. My lips parted in shock and before I knew it, my hand flew to my mouth to stop the sobs that were going to escape. This was too much. This whole day. Night. Whatever time it was, it was too much. My body and mind and soul couldn't take feeling like I was being slapped by a hundred hands over and over again anymore. My parents were dead. Killed by Apheses. My sisters? Gone. Because of Apheses. My hope? Destroyed by Apheses. Freedom? Taken by Apheses. Trust? Demolished beyond recognition by a boy I'd considered a close friend.

I shook my head. Turned around because I simply couldn't take looking Jacks in the eye anymore. "How could you do this to me? I let you in. I told you about things that have haunted me since the day they happened—" My breath caught in my throat. "I can't—I can't understand why."

My head pounded painfully when I asked the question, "How did you know all of it? All of my past?"

Finally, I turned around. Jacks still wasn't looking at me.

"Damnit, look at me!" I screamed, my throat already sore from Apheses's powers.

Jacks didn't. Until he did, his pale green eyes suddenly so strange and foreign to me. No longer did the patriotic boy who was odd and also amusing exist. He was gone, long gone and now this stranger stood across from me, I questioned if I'd imagined our friendship. Had I been so desperate to start my life again that I'd lied to myself? Made myself believe that others could be kind and warm? It only caused me to cry even more. "How did you know?"

He stood straighter. His eyes flashed briefly. Hope surged in me momentarily until he said—"You need to get changed, Scarlett. Your clothes are under the bed. Please hurry."

And my hope was shattered.