Y’shennria might’ve told Nightsinger I’m a lost cause already—any moment now, she could shatter my heart. Unlike most, my witch is a soft thing; she doesn’t want to shatter me, but for all she knows, I’ve been caught and am being eternally tortured by the humans.

And that’s…not too far from the truth, actually. The fact I didn’t wake up in a dungeon is promising. But waking up in the palace could mean anything. Princess Varia and Lucien obviously brought me back to question me, but that could mean torture if I don’t cooperate. And when they’re done with me, when Lucien is done with me, they’ll no doubt burn me as an enemy of all humans. Apart from the newly discovered white mercury, burning is the only way a human can slow down a Heartless’s magically fueled regeneration.

My head still spins—why did the prince ask his sister to spare me, the traitor? Why did he ask her to appeal to the king for me?

he wants something from you.

The hunger echoes in my skull, as it always has, for the three years since I became Heartless. It’s a terrible, dark voice that haunts every Heartless, rushes in and fills the gaps when a witch takes our heart and makes us their immortal thrall. It wants only to kill, to maim, to feast on humans. It thrives on my sadness, my pain, kept at bay and suppressed only by my witch’s magic. On every other day that ends in a y, it wants to break me. But right now, its words ring true. Lucien is a logical person. And no logical person would ask his sister to spare someone who tried to kill him. He must want something from me. Something. What could he want now that I’m a traitor in his eyes?

your body.

The fracture in my willpower yawns wider and wider and then shatters me. Is that all I am to him now? A thing to be trapped and used? I can’t get the look on Lucien’s face, as he watched me transform into the monster, out of my head, the sheer horrified expressions of those men as I ripped them to nothing but shreds. After everything. After I promised to never kill again.

My eyes brim with hot tears. “Wh-What a way to go,” I choke. “Trapped under a couch and crying.”

pathetic, the hunger taunts. it’s better this way.