Dance of Fate

Chapter Fifty Five

-Hybern-

The war camp Hybern brought me to was perhaps the worst thing I had ever seen. I'd thought the Court of Nightmares was bad, but this... 

Hundreds of fires blazed throughout the massive camp, soldiers sitting close to them to warm from the merciless cold. Tents in varying sizes crowded the grounds. But the pained screams that never dulled, like an eternal song of suffering, were the reason I could barely manage to keep my mask in place.

I couldn't bear to look. After I had seen the first- a young man, no more than twenty, nailed to a wooden post, his lifeless, brutalized body sagging- I had kept my eyes on the floor. 

"Isn't it beautiful?" Hybern drawled from beside me. We stood in front of his tent- the largest in the camp by far. I forced a smile to my lips, but it turned to more of a grimace. 

"It certainly is, your Majesty." I said, cursing myself in my head for the slight strain in my voice. The king didn't seem to notice, not as he surveyed the camp filled with thousands upon thousands of soldiers, of screaming and tortured humans. 

I bit down on my tongue, forcing myself to ignore the urge to free the helpless humans, to destroy this terrible place filled with suffering. To ignore all that and think. 

Hybern had not been exaggerating the obscene number of his army. And this was just Hybern's, without the help from other kingdoms.

Though Orion had mentioned that Monteserand, Vallahan, and Rask, the there kingdoms that would supposedly provide Hybern with aid, had been weakened drastically. Internal problems had surged in the kingdoms. It had been difficult to suppress my smile at that. I knew exactly whose doing that was.

But this camp alone surpassed the Night Court in numbers. Drastically. Perhaps all of Prythian's armies, especially since Tamlin could no longer be counted on to provide forced. 

The High Lord barely disguised his horror. I couldn't say I blamed him. Even if I was not yet convinced of his true allegiance, I knew he had some shred of decency.

"Looking a little pale, Asteria." Orion hissed from beside me. I glared at him sidelong, willing enough of my power to show for him to keep quiet. 

He smiled tauntingly at me. "Why don't we join in on the fun?" Those silver eyes narrowed on me. I kept my expression bland and bored, shrugging with too tense shoulders. 

Orion signaled to a soldier that had been warming a metal stick over the fire, then prodding a human girl with it. The soldier grabbed the sobbing human by the shoulder and dragged her to where we stood. 

Oh Gods. 

The soldier dropped her brutalized, bare body at our feet. She managed to raise herself to her hands and knees, sobbing through clenched teeth. It was an effort not to shudder. Her pale skin was covered in burns, her too thin limbs shaking from cold or fear. 

Yet she raised her head and looked Orion in the eyes, pure defiance in her gaze. Without breaking his stare, she spat on his boots.

Orion smiled at her, then kicked her in the jaw. A crack sounded, and she was sprawled on the floor. 

The metal stick was in his hand, the tip burning red. He put it under her chin, lifting her head. She screamed, the sound ringing in my ears. 

The male took the stick back, and extended it to me. "I bet you're itching for a turn. This is what you did for Amarantha, is it not?" Orion said to me. 

I reminded myself to look amused, to muster up that mask of cruelty I had wielded for fifty years. To drift into that place deep inside me of emptiness, to feel nothing.