When I woke up there was only darkness.
"Are you awake?" said a familiar and unwelcome voice.
I lay on my side on a cold, bare bed. A dull heaviness clouded my head, which pounded in sync with my heart. My forehead was wrapped up and it itched.
"No," I replied, without opening my eyes.
"I didn't know Utanians spoke in their sleep," said Count Eu, master of my nightmares.
Always so cool and collected. Not a week went by that I didn't hear his laugh in my dreams. In them, he was always stabbing Solano's body, over and over. Laughing hysterically as I watched.
"What do you want?" I said, as I opened my eyes. At the sight of him, my stomach tightened and my senses sharpened. I had felt nothing but numbness for so long that I had almost forgotten how much he frightened me, though I'd never let him know that.
I sat up and held onto the edge of the bed, dizzied by the strain of moving.
"Ah. There she is. Our little rebel turned heroine," he said.
We were in a small, circular white room. The Count sat on a stool and stared at me with his arms crossed. The last time I had seen him was at the Victory Parades from the previous year, where they'd honor him as the war hero responsible for defeating Solano and the Paguans. His uniform reminded me of the repulsive scent of drying blood and piling corpses. A dim light on the ceiling illuminated his face, casting shadows under his beady blue eyes. There were no windows, no spyeyes. While that would have been a relief under other circumstances, it also meant that he didn't want his presence there to be recorded.
"I doubt those explosions were part of the show, were they? Is Toro OK?" I asked, straightening my back. A dark bloodstain covered the left sleeve of my jumpsuit.
"He'll live. He says you saved him. How does it feel to save a Balian?" he asked.
I had done that by instinct. Toro didn't deserve my hatred. I had hoards of it saved for the other Balians.I stared back him. My stomach felt like it would eat itself and the pain in my head wasn't receding.
"I've always wanted to know something, Alysia. How is it that an Utanian courtesan, linguist or whatever you were, ended up in our star system, fighting beside a man like Solano?" he said, and tilted his head. "Oh, I know what you'll say. It was love. But, why? What did you see in that deranged man?"
Power. Strength. All the qualities I had lacked before meeting him. Madness, too. There was a lot of madness in him towards the end. I had come to think that I had never loved Solano, but rather, myself under his madness.
"He wasn't mad. It wasn't his fault. You-"
"He declared war on three planets. If that's not delusional, I don't know what is," said Count Eu. He gave me a half smile, as if mocking me.
"What should he have done? Let you treat Pagua as a Balian satellite?" I said, not bothering to conceal my anger.
Count Eu laughed. "Loyal to the end, aren't you? You're just as mad as your rotting lover."
I slapped him on the cheek. Hard. The smack left a pink mark on his cheekbone, but his head barely moved.
He rose from the stool and jumped on me. The stool fell on the ground and banged against the wall. He took my neck in his gloved hand and choked it, forcing me onto the bed. His face was so close that I could smell his breath. I tried to claw at his eyes, but he pushed me back, leaving his face out of my reach.
"Listen to me, you bitch," he said. "I will cut off what's left of your wings before you touch me again. You're not Utanian anymore. You're as much a Paguan as your savage friends. And I will destroy you just like I did with your pathetic planet. The only reason you're still alive is because we will use you. You-"
The sound of muffled footsteps could be heard from outside, and the door slid open.
"That's enough, Eu," said a deep voice.
The Balian Emperor walked in.