Page 28 of Pain Run Rampant

It works, mostly… that is, until night falls and we set up camp and everyone has nothing to do but sit and stare at each other.

Weeks go by, and we find a watchtower—Catarin Tower, the same tower I hunkered down in when I was in search of Frederick’s dad’s stuff. Even though it’s not dusk yet, we call it a day so Frederick can look around at the books and see if there’s anything important he wants to bring with us.

As Frederick searches the tower, I stand on the balcony that’s on the highest floor, the one just off the sleeping level of the watchtower. I lean against the stone wall, staring at the sunseton the horizon. Acadia is so flat, you can see for miles all around. It really is something beautiful.

Only a few clouds in the sky, the falling sun has painted them in different hues. Some in pretty pinks while others in bright oranges while the actual sky slowly darkens.

I’m only alone out there for a moment, though. Within the minute, I hear footsteps as someone comes out onto the balcony with me, moving to stand beside me. I don’t need to turn my head to look; I can smell who it is.

Invictis.

What’s he smell like? It’s difficult to describe. He smells like warmth, like when you’ve been out in the sun long enough to get a tan but not long enough to burn, with a faint cinder-y background. It’s not the worst smell in the world.

“Do you remember when we first stopped here?” I ask him without looking at him.

“I do.”

“You were so good at lying. I never imagined you were… that you weren’t some wizard the empresses got jealous of and decided to imprison.” A bitter smile graces my face. “How stupid was I?”

Invictis leans his tall frame down, setting his forearms on the chest-high stone wall before us. Well, chest-high for me, not for him. “To be fair, you were as clueless as a person could be. Very easy to manipulate, in hindsight.”

His bluntness makes me laugh even though it’s the opposite of funny. “I believed you. I ate up every word you said, which when I think about it, doesn’t make sense. I’m not the kind of person who falls for shit like that.”

I kick at the stone balcony with the tip of my foot absentmindedly. Being gullible, wanting to believe the best in people; that wasn’t me. I’m as skeptical as someone can be. Falling for Invictis’s lies… what does that say about me?

Or, I guess, what does that say about him?

“Don’t feel too bad,” Invictis muses. “If it were anyone else I was bound to, they would have lost their minds immediately. So, yes, you did fall for it, as you said, but you held out—more than what could be said for anyone else.”

Again, I laugh, only this laugh is more like a chuckle, and I’m slow to turn away from the sunset in the distance and angle my body toward Invictis. I stare at the side of his face, take in his profile, before I say, “You’re not very good at making people feel better, are you?”

“Comfort is not familiar to me. Death is.”

“If death is your gift, why can’t you remember what happened before the first high empress? Why can’t you remember what this kingdom was like before it was Laconia?”

That gets Invictis to turn away from the sunset and look at me. I’m suddenly aware of how close he stands to me; just a small sidestep and he’d box me in against the balcony’s stone wall. With Frederick inside, on a lower floor, it’s too easy for me to imagine we’re alone here.

And being alone with Invictis… it was something I was used to, but now? Now things feel different, and if there’s one thing I learned in life, it’s that change is very rarely good. Just look at everything that happened to me before I came to Laconia.

Hell, look at me now: a high empress with no magic, bound to an ancient evil. A high empress who has a part of that ancient evil nestled away inside of her, a part so small even Invictis did not recognize it.

It must be the reason. That tiny piece inside must be why I feel so connected to this asshole. It’s the only explanation that makes sense; anything else… any other reason just sounds stupid.

“When you live forever, time ceases to matter. Your short-lived mind cannot comprehend how long I was trapped insidethose labyrinths, waiting for someone foolish enough to unleash me. Memories fade, even for me. The only thing that endured was my fury,” he tells me, acting as though it should be obvious.

“What are the odds that a group of people from another kingdom found the labyrinths, put you back together, and set you free with one order—and that order was basically the same thing you would’ve done anyway? It seems weird to me, like it’s too much of a coincidence.”

Invictis’s head tilts as he studies me, his blue gaze lazy. “If it is not a coincidence, what would it be, then?”

I’m slow in saying, “I don’t know.” What I want to do is ask Invictis if he can feel anything out there—another him—but I don’t. A part of me still stupidly hopes it’s just paranoia on my part and that all of my heavy lifting—AKA heavy fighting—is done.

I mean, if there’s another Invictis out there, somewhere, how the hell am I supposed to beat him if I can’t use my magic? Sure, I have the golden asshole next to me, but his heart won’t be in it. He won’t want to fight himself. Plus, if there’s another Invictis, that Invictis 2.0 will be whole. What if he’s too strong for me?

What if he somehow unbinds Invictis from me? Then I’m fucked every which way, and not in the fun way.

I’m too lost in my own head, and I don’t know how long my thoughts take all of my attention, but eventually I realize Invictis is still staring down at me, his golden brows slightly furrowed in concentration, like he’s deep in thought, too. He wears an intense look on his face, the corners of his mouth curved in a stiff frown.

I thought it the first time I saw him sitting on the throne in Acadia’s castle: a frown should not be that hot. No one should frown and instantly get sexier. It just doesn’t make sense.

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