24.8

The day was nearly over before the fairy dust's magic finally released Zyrdicia. She immediately fell into a very deep sleep.

Exhausted to the brink of delirium, Dirk had never been more relieved to see her slumber. He slept far better than he had in a very long time. He awoke fourteen hours later. His muscles ached with a sweet, athletic soreness. She still lay next to him, pinned beneath his arm, unconscious.

An hour passed. The chambermaid noticed him lying in bed awake and brought hot tea. Even this did not awaken Zyrdicia.

He arose very carefully and pulled on a pair of black, silk pajama bottoms. He pulled the magical shackles as quietly as he could from the locked box he stored in a secret compartment in the wall near his bed. He wound the shackles through the bed's iron headboard. Taking the utmost care not to wake Zyrdicia, he lifted each of her hands up gently and secured them both in the shackles.

He then went to the table and poured himself a cup of tea and sipped it while watching her sleep. The morning's edition of the Lyrian Liar was tucked under the tray. Dirk was certain that Cai must have had it brought to him; no one else would dare to bring the tabloid to his attention. The seneschal had made himself very scarce during Zyrdicia's absence.

Dirk steeled himself for bad news and flipped it open. The headline blared in huge letters: "On Again, Off Again - On Again!" In slightly smaller type it read: "Dirk says: 'She adores me, as I do her.'" Beneath the headline, there was a row of three large photographs of him and Zyrdicia engaged in their lustful public display at the Spider's Web. Inside the paper, there were a half dozen more photographs. As much as he disliked having his personal life made a topic of gossip, these pictures brought a smile to his lips. He and Zyrdicia looked very, very good together.

He chuckled to himself at how effectively he had managed to crush any hint of a civil war. After reading his comments in the tabloid about her defiance being a mere game, the Karteian military would be afraid to take a side for fear that her war against him was a hoax.

On the bed, Zyrdicia stirred. Her eyes fluttered open. Her disoriented gaze moved slowly around the room as she struggled to get her bearings. She tried to move her hands then and found them caught in the shackles. Dirk watched confusion fill her expression for a brief instant, only to be replaced by shock as bits of the memory of the previous night seeped back to her consciousness.

"You fucking asshole," she murmured groggily.

"Ever congenial when you first awaken, my dear," he mocked. "Hi."

"The last time you used these shackles, I kicked your ass. Have you already forgotten coming within an inch of your life?"

He retorted coldly, "I remember that all rather differently."

"How many of your ribs did I crack?" she taunted.

"I recall subduing you and taking you as I should have long ago." He forced himself to check his annoyance. He added in a warmer tone, "I also recall the most remarkable pleasure. As for the shackles now, I'll let you free as soon as I'm convinced you've come to your senses."

She frowned angrily, struggling to remember how she had arrived here. As the memory came flooding back, she mumbled to herself, "Of all the people I could have gone home with." Her tone turned toxic as she said to Dirk, "Since the novelty wore off of this the first time we did it, why the hell am I here?"

Dirk replied, "I was lying when I said that to you. Everything I said to you that night was a lie. You were very stupid to have believed it."

"Everything you've ever said was a lie. I get that. But you can ponder how stupid I am soon enough when you lose your entire fucking kingdom and watch me suck the blood out of your own heart."

"You can't possibly still be angry at me. Not after yesterday," Dirk said, exasperated.

"Oh, please. Are you so naive as to think having sex changed anything? It didn't the first time. Why would it now?"

Dirk distantly recalled saying something similar to past conquests the morning after having them. It sounded strange now to hear it from a woman. He tossed the day's paper on the pillow next to her and said, "The Liar certainly seems to think it changed something."

Zyrdicia twisted slightly to see the front page. She exclaimed, "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I should have killed you instead of keeping you alive to torture. You did not do this!"

He said, "Oh, come now. It could be worse."

"How?"

"They could have printed another lie about your plans to leave me."

"In case you failed to notice, I already left you--" she paused then, noting his knowing expression. She glared silently, wondering what he had meant. A long silence followed.

He broke the silence, answering her unspoken question. "Yes, I saw that article about us they printed."

"Which one of the dozens they've printed would that be?" she asked, sneering.

"The one with the picture of you and Magnus and the story about you ending our relationship. I'm sure you remember it. It appeared the day before your interview about being in love with me, and the day after we discovered the Edict is no impediment to consummating our marriage."

She said with perfect, affected calm, "I never held that interview they printed. They made it up."

"Charles already told me that he arranged to have you talk to the paper to serve as 'damage control' in case I'd seen the previous day's drivel."

"Do you think boring me with the Liar's publishing history is going to make me not destroy your kingdom and torture you for eternity?"

Dirk took a deep breath. She was already angry, and she was becoming more so by the minute. It wouldn't be long before she became violent and destroyed the headboard to free herself. Then she would attack him.

He sat on the edge of the bed, a few feet away from her, pretending to be unafraid. He fixed his gaze on her and said in a serious, carefully measured tone, "That night I believed you had betrayed me. And when you arrived, I thought you had come to taunt me about it. The thought of losing you to that undead assassin drove me mad with rage."

She said quietly, "I've had it with your lies. I'm done playing. Don't bother."

"Do you understand what I just said? The discord between us was based on nothing at all - a mere misunderstanding."

"I couldn't care less," she hissed.

He coaxed, "Zyrdicia, you cannot seriously still doubt that we belong together."

She glared at him cruelly. Her tone caustic, she said, "Just stop. We aren't going there again - ever. I hate you more than I've ever hated anyone in my entire life."

Dirk was momentarily at a loss for words. He had not expected this from her. He had thought that explaining the situation would somehow fix the problem. He had underestimated how irrational she was. Fighting the sense of defeat that threatened to overwhelm him, he ventured hopefully, "How can I prove it to you?"

"Open the shackles," she suggested, a wicked gleam twinkling in her eyes.

His expression dark, he met her angry gaze. He chided, "You're being very foolish."

"Open them," she repeated, the challenge in her voice unmistakable.

"So be it," he countered angrily. He zapped the shackles quickly with the monocle and growled, "We both know that you don't have it in you to kill me. Leave, then, if that's your desire. I'm certain that you will come to regret it." He paused, then added with a sneer, "But before you go, you should see the truth for yourself. Read my mind, Zyrdicia. Since you are so very certain that I'm lying, you really have nothing to lose."

24.8.1

Zyrdicia was furious at herself for being here, and furious at Dirk for having somehow orchestrated it. She wanted to make him suffer for forcing her to endure it. She resented the fact that being in Castle Blackpool made her feel strangely vulnerable. She believed that Dirk was mocking her just now.

When he invited her into his mind, she understood that he had some vicious thought waiting in his head to thrust upon her - perhaps he expected to dupe her with some cruel revelation about how he had toyed with her. And in that, she was sure that he underestimated her.

She knew where his greatest fears lurked inside his mind. Now it was her turn to be cruel.

She believed that he had previously deceived her with his thoughts of false affection for many long months - and she blamed herself for not seeing through it. She had never fully invaded his mind the way she did when she tortured someone. He only knew the gentle, friendly side of her mental maneuvers. But he was about to experience the brutal reality of what she could do inside another's psyche. Now that Azriok's power was fully at her disposal, the diabolical things that she could do with her mind were fearsome.

This time, instead of gently probing or even rummaging for his hidden thoughts, she did something she had never hated anyone enough to do: she summoned dream demons into his waking consciousness. She called the very same demons that had ripped her to shreds in her own dreams for decades.

From within his mind, she watched with cold detachment as they butchered Dirk's defenseless mortal psyche. By the time the demons departed, he was catatonic and nearly brain-dead. He slipped into a deep coma.

Too late, Zyrdicia finally realized the magnitude of her mistake.