Chapter 6 The Pressure
Warning: This chapter contains domestic abuse, physical violence, and emotional trauma.
Chapter Six: The Pressure
When the steam from the egg slowed down, Neria didn’t have time to relax and think about what she'd do because summons came before the steam had even cleared from the room.
Two of her father’s personal guards were at her door.
They didn't knock and simply entered. Neria barely had time to shove the smoldering bag into a hollow space behind her wardrobe before they gripped her by the elbows.
These men didn't care that her dress was damp or that she was trembling. To them, she was just an object to be moved from one room to another.
The study of Valerius Virethorn was a place of oppressive silence.
Valerius was sitting behind a desk of dark mahogany. He didn't look up when she was shoved into the center of the room. He simply continued to stare at a ledger.
“I have spent twenty years building the Virethorn name,” Valerius said. “I have won wars, outlived kings, and secured our place in the shadow of the throne. And in one night, my daughter, the clumsy, useless girl I allowed to live in this house decided to play thief.”
“I didn't steal anything,” Neria defended herself in a cracking voice.
Valerius stood up and walked around the desk. Without warning, he backhanded her. The force of the blow sent her sprawling against a display case filled with crystal ornaments.
The glass shattered, the shards sliced into her palms as she tried to catch herself.
“Do not lie to me,” Valerius hissed. He grabbed her by the front of her torn bodice and hauled her up until her toes barely touched the floor. “The Prince is missing his egg. You were seen in the vaults. If you don’t tell me where it is, I will not wait for the executioner. I will finish what I started in the ballroom.”
He threw her down again, and this time, his heavy boot connected with her ribs. Neria let out a strangled cry, the pain was so hard it stole her breath.
It was the foster home all over again. The same attitude, the same helplessness, the same feeling that her life was worth less than the dust on the floor.
“Please,” a voice sobbed from the doorway.
Minara had a pale face and her eyes wide with terror. She was clutching the doorframe so hard her knuckles were white. “Valerius, stop. She is bleeding. Please, she is your blood.”
“She is a stain!” Valerius roared, turning his anger on his wife. “She is a failure who can’t even walk across a room without ruining a deal. And you,” he stepped toward Minara, and Neria saw her mother flinch with a reflex born of years of torture, “you encouraged her. You gave her those jewels, didn't you?”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the pouch Minara had given Neria. He must have intercepted the maids or searched Neria’s person while she was dazed. He emptied the pouch onto the desk. The gold and pearls clattered like falling teeth.
“These belonged to my family,” Minara gulped as tears streamed down her face.
“They belong to me,” Valerius corrected. He picked up a delicate pearl necklace, the one Minara had said was her grandmother’s, and slowly crushed the clasp in his hand before tossing it into the fireplace. “Everything in this house belongs to me. Including your lives.”
Neria watched the pearls blacken in the flames. A cold, hollow void opened up inside her. This was the tragedy of Neria Virethorn.
In the book, she was a villainess because she was bitter and cruel. But the book never mentioned that she was a girl whose light had been stomped out by a monster.
“Get up,” Valerius commanded, turning back to Neria.
He didn't wait for her to move. He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her out of the study.
“Let go!” Neria’s screams were heard even through the hallways, but the servants turned their heads. They closed the doors.
They vanished into the darkness. Minara followed, sobbing and pleading, but she was ignored like a ghost.
Valerius dragged her all the way to the front courtyard where the carriage was waiting. He threw her into the mud at the feet of the horses.
“You will go to the palace,” Valerius stated. “You will crawl to Prince Sebastian. You will tell him that you are a pathetic, confused girl who knows nothing. You will beg for his mercy so that he does not take his anger out on this house. If you fail to convince him, do not bother coming back. I will have the guards lock the gates, and you can die in the gutters where you belong.”
He turned to his wife and gripped her chin, forcing her to look at their daughter lying in the filth. “Look at her, Minara. This is the 'light' you named her for. A girl in the dirt.”
He shoved Minara back into the house and slammed the heavy oak doors. Neria lay in the mud, her blood mixed with the rainwater that had begun to fall.
Her ribs felt pressured with every breath, and her heart felt like it had been shattered into as many pieces as the crystal in the study.
She looked up at the grey sky, her eyes started blurring. For a moment, Neria wanted to just stay there. She wanted the cold to take her, to give up on this "twisted story" and go back to the darkness.
But then, a strange warmth bloomed in her chest.
Back in her room, hidden behind the wardrobe, the egg began to pulse. It wasn't soft anymore; it was a low, guttural throb.
Through the bond, Neria felt a reflection of her own agony, but it was wrapped in a fierce, protective rage.
The dragon wasn't just a pet; it was a mirror. It felt her blood in the mud. It felt her father’s boot.
Neria pushed herself up, her shaking hands sinking into the slime of the courtyard. She wiped the blood from her mouth with the back of a bruised hand.
‘He thinks I’m a victim,’ she thought, turning toward the distant spires of the royal palace. ‘He thinks he can use me as a shield.’
Standing up, swaying on her feet, Neria took a deep breath.
“This will be my story…”
And then, it hit her.
“Alistair!”
