THE PRICE OF WAR [Taka x Reader]

XXXIV. Torture

You opened your eyes and the rest of your senses began to activate little by little. The room was lit by the dim light that came in through a window crack. A terrible cold sensation ran through you from head to toe. You were lying on the floor. You tried to sit up, but at the slightest movement a waterspout fell on you. You tried to cover yourself, but the cuffs on your wrists and ankles prevented you. Laughs. Goblin laughs. Footsteps approached slowly as you tried to catch your breath. Your head was spinning.

"Who ..." you spluttered.

"Oh, don't you recognize me?"

Bars stood between you and the voice. You managed to look up enough to see his feet, then his body, and finally his face. A face with a twisted smile and an ice cold expression that made you recoil in fear and hide in a corner of your cage.

"The missing princess, huh? Who'd say!" he laughed, but it didn't take long for his expression to change. "I don't know how you managed to escape. You should have died that day "

"You ..." you murmured "You killed my parents ..."

"And what good has it been? The plan was to overthrow the monarchy! To all the members! Don't you realize that you've messed everything up?" he yelled as he pounded on the bars of the cell.

"Where are they...? Where is everybody...?

"What? I thought I told you the other day"

"The other day...?"

"They're dead, my dear. Your friends"

His impassiveness pierced you like an arrow.

"You do not remember anything, don't you?" he smiled.

"I don't understand anything..." you started to sob "Let me get out of here..."

"I think I need to refresh your memory," he said, and another waterspout fell on your head "A month ago you arrived at Lyned Castle and we managed to stop you before you and your friends did something crazy. Unfortunately your friends did not listen and we had to..."

"Stop lying!" you yelled.

"We had no other choice. We had to do it for the sake of our cause"

"Shut up!"

"Scream as much as you want. Those that you hope they come to save you are already dead "

"No..." you sobbed.

"Oh, I'm sorry I'm being so abrupt..." Dryon said after a minute as he knelt down near you, on the other side of the cell "But sometimes you have to pay a high price to achieve what you want, right?" You would never have found out your true origin if you had not experienced firsthand the horror and misery of war. Do you know why we are at war? Because years ago, a group of powerful men tried to divide what cannot be divided: the land, the people. Your father was one of those men. Greed corrupted him, a greed that resides on the throne and contaminates whoever sits on it. You and I can change that ... "

His cold hand landed on your shoulder and you raised your head slightly.

"My goal is to make this country a paradise. A place where there are no borders or corrupt kings. A country where its own people decide their destiny, as it always should have been. And you and I as its advocates. My leadership and your power together will be the engine of this new era. All you have to do is accept that your world must be left behind. It is time to change. We have suffered enough. Don't you think... Aalyn? "

You didn't answer him. Dryon smiled.

"I get it, you need time. And I have to start not being so stubborn. Set her free" he ordered his vassals "And serve her something to eart. The poor thing must be exhausted "

The goblins obeyed, opened your shackles, and took you out of the cell. The room was circular and there was a table and a bed under the small window.

"Oh, and if for whatever it is you try to use your power to scape..." Dryon mentioned before leaving the door "Don't do it"

Then a goblin put a plate on the table and the door was closed. Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, in Mizumura, Tomoya and Ryota were playing with their children when several villagers alerted of the arrival of someone. But the only thing at the entrance to the village was a flock of dozens of cranes squawking impatiently.