Author’s note: This chapter is hands down the most violent chapter in the entire book. Seven revisions and it is still painful to read. That pain serves a purpose. Sometimes people are evil and there is no sugarcoating that. This chapter is more violent than all other violence in the book combined. Featuring an extremely toned down description of a scientific vivisection, which is the dissection of a human being while they are still alive. It''s an old practice, and I used a college approved textbook as the base. Sadly, vivisections occurred in our history by the tens of thousands. If you''re here for the comedy aspect of this story, the jokes. I recommend skipping this chapter.


    ~~~TLDR, Nyota suffers, unlocks lightning, and understands that killing Blackwood wouldn''t heal her. ~~~


    Nyota lived in constant agony, it gnawed at her body. An uninvited guest that settled into her bones and refused to leave, drowning her beneath waves of anguish. She knew nothing of the world beyond what little could touch, her vision clogged by thick cataracts.


    Sounds came to her across a chasm, distant, quiet, and distorted with echoes. Her ears discarded her will, twitching as they pleased instead of gathering sound. Rampantly disobeying her in favor of drowning crisp words into an unfocused haze of static.


    Sleep was her only relief, freedom from physical pain yet haunted by visions of the feathered serpent. His icon appeared in her mind, motionlessly condemning her folly. After all, this pain was her fault, she had dared attack a greater being, and was judged lacking.


    Daughter of Lightning, I am sorry. This trial is not for you, nor are you ready. Said the feathered serpent’s icon.


    Memory of its white scales and golden feathers made her heart skip a beat, mingling beauty with the terror of death. Nyota re-lived the lightning’s discharge each time sleep gripped her consciousness. Body stiffening as voltage paralyzed her. Yet the feathered serpent remained foremost in her mind.


    In the waking world, Nyota’s pain continued to escalate, like a storm gathering strength. Every day brought a new hurdle of suffering, her skin bled, then she was stripped naked Air burned her skin like a firerod, torturing her flesh, for reasons unknowable by her senseless body. Vague sounds of men moved around her, holding total power over her exposed form. Nightmares of destiny pounded her consciousness. She felt no chains, but every movement was pinned by pain. Nevertheless, Nyota had always guessed this would be her end. No matter how many of her kin died to shield her, the King’s law demanded her death.


    Is this how the king killed my brothers and sisters? Has Blackwood finally surrendered me to vivisection? Wondered Nyota.


    Whispers evaded her ears, exalting the softest touch into a surprise. People spoke words she did not understand, then poked her with cold tools or smeared slimes across her figure. Nyota’s mind wandered in and out of consciousness, disoriented by sleepless transitions between worlds.


    Where am I? Am I dead? Where is the endless field of Elysium, or Perun Taloc’s throne? If this isn’t heaven… then… do slaves go to eternal Hades? Is our weakness so abominable to Taloc that he would cast us into the inferno? No, I am alone here.


    The feathered serpent’s image appeared in her mind once more.


    Daughter of lightning, you are not ready. Cry out to your lord, leave this place


    Perplexed by pain Nyota’s mind worked, her lord, who was her lord? Viscount Blackwood?


    Cry out to Viscount Blackwood?


    Never!


    He’s killed everyone I''ve ever met! He would never aid me, or save me from lightning…


    An ideal tickled her psyche, a hand intercepting lightning and splitting apart. Then it was gone, taken by the feathered serpent.


    “Give it back!” Shouted Nyota, trying to recall the face connected to that hand.


    This trial is not for you.


    She couldn’t remember the idea, only felt a burning within her heart that whatever the serpent took from her was more important than her life.


    “It just is!” She shouted.


    Voice falling upon a deaf void. The serpent of white and gold swam through her nightmare, encircling her with coils until they blocked out the sun. The feathered serpent’s iridescent scales beckoned to her, calling her deeper into the dream.


    This will end you, for you are unprepared, but Therun Perun Taloc is our adjudicator, not I. Said the feathered serpent.


    Nyota extended her hand, nearly touching the tempting scales when screaming filled her ears, recollections of Viscount Blackwood’s ‘practical exams’ for Heir Blackwood. Feline wreckage she had been forced to clean up when his impatience –inevitably– killed the vivisection.


    How important is your lord? Asked the feathered serpent.


    Her reply came instantly, speaking without her logic’s consent.


    “He is everything.” Answered Nyota, taking hold of the memory Quetzalcoatl had stolen.


    A small white light appeared in the darkness of her dreams, too faint to dispel the darkness entirely, yet too bright to ignore, hovering beside her, never leaving her.


    It brought pain.


    Quetzalcoatl turned its enormous head towards Nyota, swallowing her with a toothless gulp and depositing her in a realm of ash and shadows. Lightning suffused her, carving Lichtenberg marks across her bones, remaking her.


    Ash rained from the sky, shadows wandered the wasteland, ducking between hollowed trees, and incinerated stumps. The white light beside her warded them away at first, yet soon the shades grew in number, drawn towards the light like the insects they were.


    Nyota fled, running through an ashen desert with the shades drawing ever closer. Ash lay in a heavy fog, choking the ground and muffling footsteps; miring Nyota and allowing the shadowy figures to resolve. They drew nearer, faceless heads mounted upon echoes of her previous masters. Foremost among them was Viscount Blackwood, seeking the carnal pleasure of her misery. He haunted her nightmares in ways they had never haunted her life.


    Perun Taloc why torment me so!? Thought Nyota, hastening into a sprint.


    The white light zipped alongside her, shooting arcs of lightning into piles of ashes. Creatures emerged from the mounds, shrugging off ashes as they rose. Nyota ran past, failing to notice the risen creatures’ form. Screams clashed with yowls, bludgeoning the air with violence. Nyota found a burnt oak and ducked behind it, peeking around with one eye.


    Confusion calmed her, the spark-born creatures were shades as well, yet instead of faceless shadows they were beings of luminous faces and bodies concealed in flickering light. Nyota saw through their deception, recognizing them as the slaves who had sheltered her, had raised her, protected her, taught her, and ultimately died to draw the human''s ire from her.


    “Leave them alone! You all died for me, why sacrifice Elysium for me?” Shouted Nyota.


    Her cry echoed across the world, a proclamation of thunderous volume. She clamped a hand over her mouth, horrified by the booming words. Shades drew nearer, overwhelming her felinid defenders, hemming her in. Doubt chased the small white light, flitting through her nightmare with a dark wil-o-wisp that swallowed the orb of white memories.


    Haven’t I given the humans enough? They took everything I had, everyone I ever knew is dead, you killed my sons, stole my mother, and secreted away my daughters. All I ever had is gone. That is all my life is worth. All it was worth. Taloc, why not let me rest. Why not punish the traitors instead of me? God, why? They didn’t even let me hold my girls before they collared them, dragged them away.


    Blackwood’s shade tore a felinid in half, rending light with darkness as it came forward. Across the land light and dark battled for Nyota’s mind, doubt creeping ever closer. A dozen shadowy priests rose behind Nyota, counter matched by the lost souls of Avignon. Arlet''s face appeared on one, Lyon''s on another, a bowman rose, his arm healed from a once grievous wound, a man Nyota had once healed. Holy staves encountered bloody spears, as priests subdued militia. They were fading quickly, losing ground. Darkness pressed closer.


    Golden light flashed. The white orb, Nyota''s guardian broke free of its nightmare, zipping through the air. Light arced into the tallest priest. He fell, doubling over as shadow burned from within, light filled the vessel, until ancient Pascal’s face appeared.


    His eyes spoke, answering Nyota’s plea. ‘We’ve come at our lady’s call, preserve our hope. Press on, souldiers of Avignon.’


    Thirteen souldiers did not relent, redoubling their violence against the traitor paladins. Yet it was not enough, their spears shattered, souls scattered, and Blackwood’s specter wrapped an ethereal tentacle around Nyota’s arm. Its vile touch finally matching Blackwood’s soul and assaulting Nyota with memories.


    Suddenly, she was in Blackwood Castle, hands, neck, and feet chained to the inclined plane reserved for birth-days. Midwives –felinid slaves whose tongues had been removed– attended to her, mournfully delivering her litter. As each child left her, Viscount Blackwood judged them. Runts were dropped into a bucket so a mage could crush the evidence into paste, healthy infants were taken away for judgement, carried into the hallway by midwifes, her children’s first screams faded down the corridor. Punctuated by the chopping of an axe. Her sons and daughters sorted by a blade…


    Nyota screamed, trying to reject the memory, yet she was powerless, healing could not free her chains, or resurect the slain. The memory faded into the blasted wasteland. Nyota twisted away from Blackwood’s shade, running on hands and feet through the ashes, fleeing from her allies.


    Had she trusted them, her felinids and souldiers might have protected her, instead, she fled blindly, running headlong into a pit of shades. A dozen specters encircled her, daunting her til Blackwood arrived. Tentacles extended from his shoulders, dragging her mind into the past once more.


    Blackwood stood beside the midwife, appraising Nyota’s newest child. An experienced midwife covered Nyota’s eyes with a damp cloth, pressing her head into the wooden slab.


    “Bah, another whore, we have enough of these already.” He said, taking the child.


    Nyota screamed, thrashing against the chains in a futile gesture, hoping that maybe this time, Blackwood wouldn’t–


    *CRACK*


    “Dispose of this.” He ordered.


    Nyota couldn’t see, but heard the midwife shuffle out of the room, treading away in silence.


    She screamed with every ounce of her suffering, thinking her pain might dissolve the foundations of Blackwood’s stone castle. As effectively as her sorrow dissolved her joy.


    Lightning flashed across the indoor memory. Radiant fury burned through the shades, freeing Nyota from Blackwood’s shade. It was too late, Nyota fell. Heart wounds reopened, she wept. Limbs tucking into a ball, making her as small as possible, to hide from the world''s cruelties. These shades knew her failings, attacked her most bitter memories, bringing that which she dared not confront to the fore. Why had they taken everyone? It would have cost Blackwood nothing to let her hold even one child, he could have let them live, profited off selling them. Why–


    Rhendal appeared within the dreamworld, riding a black furred cat with teeth that protruded beneath its lower jaw. Dozens of similar cats appeared, turning the tide of battle against the shades of Nyota’s nightmares. Umbraquins, panthers of the darkest hue emerged from shadows, lunging for the priests and specters. Each entering their own duel of claws, staves, and magic. The white lightning spark dueling against its own shadowed wil-o-wisp, yet now there were three wisps. All larger than the first, all bombarding the white light with javelins of void. Rhendal walked through shadows, ambushing priests and shades alike.


    Yet Nyota was blind to it all. Unable to discern reality from fiction, her heart raced with every looming shade, trying to flee into the living world. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    —


    She awoke drenched in sickly sweat, gluing her to the sheets. Her dress had been replaced with bandages at some point unbeknownst. Pain shot through her muscles, drowning her waking hours in a red-filled fugue.


    Here she was blind, deaf, and broken. Muscles spasmed, if they moved at all, eyes unseeing, and only one ear remained. Whispers fuzzed through her ungainly ears, teasing their meaning, though their tone was consolatory.


    Ah, Lightning Lord Liam, he''s important. He would have saved me. Protected my children. No more. I am dying… i’m sorry Lord Liam, I would have… liked to… stay at... your… side…


    —


    Quetzalcoatl met her once more, this time he swallowed her whole, plunging her once more into the barren realm of shades and souldiers.


    Daughter of Lightning, your family is broken, let your love shine through your wounds.


    “Oh sure, a cryptid being cryptic, how useful.” Snapped the white light, shifting to an incandescent gold.


    Eight shadow wil-o-wisps blinked into being –one for every word– and assaulted the sassy gold. But golden light moved with a befuddling grace, eluding darting darkness with bolts of lightning. Bolts to slay. Four wordly wil-o-wisps popped, while four scattered incandescent gold pursuing them.


    Shades appeared, emboldened by gold''s disappearance. With no other monster than Blackwood at their head. Gone were the souldiers of Avignon, or the shade priests. Gone was Rhendal and his Umbraquins. Gone were her protectors, gobbled up by the shades of Blackwood’s ilk.


    Nyota ran, sprinting across lakes of ash, eliciting vile incantations at her resistance.


    “Nothing more than a whore.”


    “Get on your knees you filthy beast.”


    “Down, get on the floor where you belong.”


    Leave me alone! I always did what you asked, followed every command no matter what you took from me or how badly you beat me. I don’t deserve this!


    “You’ll get what every cat deserves.”


    “Shut up or I’ll let the hounds run you down. Ha, look at how they perk up, seems they’ve developed a taste for cat since we fed em your runts.”


    Leave them alone! Take my life, spare my children!


    Cackling ghosts tormented her soul, parading the lowest moments of her life with every grasping claw. These malevolent apparitions grew stronger, bolder, dredging up the twisted visages of tormentors before Blackwood. Masters from her youth whose names she never knew. They ran her down, chasing her into an ash-concealed pit.


    Nyota tripped and fell, the pits’ edge colliding with her ribs, knocking the wind out of her. The shadowed masters caught her, wrapping their tormenting graspers around her memories and feeding her only the rankest remembrances.


    Memoirs of another slave, a tall, dark furred man with brawny muscles appeared in her mind, making Nyota scream. She could never forget the nameless felinid. She knew what this was and screamed. Howled into the void, lashed out, even attempted to heal the shades. Anything to avoid reliving that day.


    It was all in vain. The memorial clicked into her mind.


    Nyota was in an iron cage, little more than a four foot wide by four foot deep by four foot tall cell. Downright spacious when compared to the rows of enslaved felinids around her. They were packed into similarly small rooms, though they had more headroom, along with more cellmates. The slavers had packed them four to a cell, cramming them in so closely that they learned to live with the constant touch of two other sentient beings. Except for Nyota. They''d seperated her from the others while still in the warm place, the sandy ocean where the sun never seemed to set and her mother had once sung to her. Kheresh maybe? It was so long ago. Why she had been singled out, was unknown to her, though the reason would soon appear.


    Nyota was special. Not just a felinid, but an Eclipsiarch, and the slavers knew.


    Her master entered the room –control crystal in hand– with a male slave. The dark furred man with brawny muscles, whose name she never learned, but wish she had. A key opened her cage, and the brawny man was ordered inside. Then the slaver said a phrase Nyota would come to loathe more than Blackwood.


    “Make kittens.” Ordered the slaver.


    The brawny man moved to comply, pressing Nyota against the cage’s floor. She hadn’t understood then what it meant, she only knew a man three times her size was above her, holding her down.


    “Please don’t hurt me.” She whispered, curling into a ball with her arms above her face.


    “I’m sorry, don’t resist and it’ll be over soon–” Began the brawny man.


    His voice broke, hating to repeat the words. He moved closer, hands lifting the rags she wore, exposing her knees, then thighs, and then he froze. Impressive muscles tensing all at once, as if preparing for a fight.


    Nostrils flared, he was scenting the air. Pupils dilated as he detected what she was, who she was. Brawny dropped her rags, retreating a foot and pressing himself against the far wall of the cage. Nyota mimicked him, squishing herself into the cage’s opposite wall, trying to hide in the corner. Her naive mind told her if she was a good girl, if she stayed quiet, and did not resist, then she would not be punished.


    She was correct, but it brought no peace. Only regret.


    With his payday in danger the slaver gripped the crystal, choking the brawny man. He wouldn’t budge. The whip came next, slashing open his back with every lash, yet he would not approach the eclipsiarch. Somehow he endured the slashing whip, a red hot brand, and the choking collar, Nyota had never seen a felinid defy their master, it brought only worthless pain, meaningless suffering, better to give in and do as you were told.


    But brawny refused. Within the cellblock there was an empty wall, stained with something dark brown. Til that day of learning, Nyota had never seen it used. Presently the slaver left, giving brawny and Nyota a moment of peace.


    “Why won’t you give in?” She asked, sincerity beading in her eyes.


    “Why…? Because, when Perun Taloc greets me in Elysium I will not remember the master’s lash, my only testament will be those few who came after me, you must live. Remember it was I wo protected you.” He said.


    She remembered. The slaver returned, dragging a female slave of similar age in front of brawny. His eyes widened at the sight of her, likely his wife or sister, though Nyota would never learn which.


    Please make it stop. She thought, recalling his silent defiance.


    “Too late now vermin.”


    Nyota had been forced to watch as they branded the woman, scarring her flesh with hot irons. Brawny still refused, openly weeping for the woman.


    “Just do what they want! I’ll be fine.” Shouted the woman, staring at Nyota with hate in her eyes.


    Then she too caught scent of Nyota''s heritage. Hope and hate abandoned her eyes. Resigned to her fate she wept.


    “Eris, I can’t.” Said Brawny.


    "I know." Whispered Eris.


    The beatings continued until the slaver grew tired. Unable to sway brawny he gave up, changing tactics from coercion to punishment. Defiance could not go unpunished. He chained Eris to the empty wall, the action making every slave stare. Old slaves pressed against the bars. They knew what was coming. Several begged them to have mercy, thinking if they all bowed before the slaver he might spare her. He left the room.


    Nyota screamed, biting her tongue to wake from the nightmare. But she was now within a dream, where her tongue could not feel the suffering of her heart.


    The slaver returned with a table and two other humans. Eris understood too late, she was chained to the table, made immobile, then her own agony began. One of the men wore purple robes with fanciful trim, a priest and a healer. There to act as a witness for the vivisection, though his smile conveyed his true purpose.


    With his target helpless the slaver began, he knew his trade well, and kept the woman alive for eight grueling hours. A feat accomplished, in no small part, with the priest’s healing, his smile dragging out the woman’s execution. The master meticulously disassembled her body, starting with her fingers, removing them one at a time. Then came her ears, lips, and nose. Removed and placed in glass jars to be preserved.


    The slaves begged him to stop, Brawny as well, but the slaver didn’t care, defiance had to be punished.


    "You should have obeyed when you muts had the chance." Said the slaver.


    "Quite right. Tis only correct that cats serve humans." Said the healer.


    In a fit of agony Eris managed to dislocate her ankle, freeing one foot and kicking the slaver. He laughed at her, then surgically removed her legs, followed by her arms, and finally her torso. Each piece he displayed to her, explaining the process as he went. Careful to leave her face largely intact, so they could see her suffer, witness the tears streaming down her face and know exactly what she was feeling.


    When her tears stopped the slaver grew tired of his game, plucking an eye from her skull, but allowing her to keep the other until the very end. Then he took that one as well, placing it in a jar of pungent formaldehyde.


    This is what humans did… What they have done, and what will happen to Nyota, once they find out…


    The white light was back. Had it ever left? She wondered. No, the mote of gold had never wavered, omniscient of her pain, yet powerless. Like Brawny, like Nyota.


    The slaver didn’t feed them that day. Instead locking them in their cells with Eris’ corpse. To remind the slaves he held total dominion over them. On the next day he came for Brawny, repeating the vivisection for all to see. Brawny lasted longer, but in the end only the slaver was satisfied. He left the pair of executed slaves there for a week, locking the prison during his absence. So the slaves could contemplate their defiance. So Nyota could weigh the price of refusal.


    The golden light returned, hovering over Nyota’s head and freezing time.


    Nyota cried for Brawny and Eris, never forgetting their sacrifice. Everything she was hated their sacrifice, knowing she was the cause. Yet part of her understood, and was grateful. They had died instead of her… She would live another day, be a good girl and never offend anyone. But they were only the first of hundreds. For some reason every felinid placed her safety above their own.


    A sin she could never atone for.


    I’m just me… She thought, I’m not special, or worthy, I have no power, or skills, no talents. Even my healing is weak, because I kept it hidden, only treating others while they slept.


    ‘Unprepared Daughter,’ Whispered Quetzalcoatl, ‘You are not to blame for a painful destiny, blame your forefathers, and foremothers who bore you into war. I cannot aid you on this trial, but know this, the Son of Lightning finds value in you.’


    The golden light changed, assaulted by a dozen shadow wil-o-wisps; this time the golden light swallowed their shadows, darkening in color but rising in tone to a brilliant gold. Uncannily reminiscent of the serpent’s eyes. A memory of the last time she had seen those eyes came to her. Baron Green had stretched out his hand to save her. He had thrown himself in front of her and taken the lightning. One more man who sacrificed for her safety.


    A good man, worth more than I''ll ever be. Why did he have to die? Perun Taloc, he was a human you should have blessed, one who could rise to your ideals. I beg of you, lightning king, watch over him after I have passed from this world. I can no longer sense my body, so it can''t be long before I die. May Lord Liam find happiness with Sarah…


    Her cage shattered abruptly, dumping her into the hellscape for the final judgement.


    No memories were worse than those two days. Others were similar, over her decades of slavery there had been great pains. Had it been eighty years, or two hundred? She couldn''t guess, days, nights, and masters all blurring together with pain. Dark trees covered in ash appeared within her mind’s eye, shouting echoed through the wastes behind her. Blackwood and her masters were coming. They would soon catch her, make her relive another nightmare, there were hundreds of unpleasant events in Nyota’s long life.


    Nyota fled, sprinting through the woods with all the strength she could manage. Golden light following her as she ran, lighting her path more brilliantly than before, but not casting sparks.


    Why aren’t you helping me? Thought Nyota.


    “This is your trial, I have shown you the way, embrace yourself as I do. From your wounded past to your eternal future, embrace yourself Nyota Green.” Said the Light.


    Green? He’s a Lightning Lord, stronger than I could ever be! He killed Heir Blackwood, the monsters, he is the future, if only he was here to free me once more, his lightning would kill these shadows, just like it slew everything.


    She slowed to a stop, realizing a truth she already knew. Lord Green did not have healing powers when she met him. Nyota looked at her hand, the furless fingers and her dulled claws.


    Green had broken the collar, saving her with the same hand he healed with. These specters were shadows of a past already lived. They would not be repeated.


    “Silence whore!”


    “We will flay you next.”


    “You cannot escape your fate.”


    They whispered in vain. For the first time since she had come to this dreamland she ignored them, reaching behind her head she touched the golden light. Accepting Liam’s fire into her soul.


    AWAKEN


    DAUGHTER OF LIGHTNING


    Love, duty, protection filled her bosom, Liam’s vision of this world entered her mind, accompanied by how he wished to change it. Nyota gasped, comprehending the concept of freedom. What it meant to pursue happiness. Understanding drove curiosity, wondering if changes would be easier than destroying the world and starting over, just the two of them.


    “Blackwood isn’t evil, he is a product of human hubris, killing him will change nothing, forgive yourself Nyota. Become the Queen Brawny knew you are.”


    The will to live dominated her mind, locking her in place.


    Blackwood’s specter lunged for her. Nyota sidestepped, raising her hand as she mimicked Baron Greens odd manner of pointing she intoned the arcane word of power.


    “Pew.”


    [Lightning] increased to level 1


    [Mana manipulation] increased to level 2


    Power coursed through her body, lancing through her dream faster than light. It slew the specter of Blackwood as easily as it had slain his heir. The other specters rushed her en-mass, seeking to overwhelm her with numbers, desperate to avoid the doom they saw.


    “Pew, pew, pew.”


    What an odd thing to say, I wonder what it means? Maybe death to my enemies? Or some form of abbreviated prayer for their soul?


    Bolts of lightning slew her specters, taking the memories of her abuses with them, until the hellscape lay empty, cleansed, ready for a healing rain. Nyota would never truly forget the violence done to her, but Blackwood wasn’t her enemy, he was a single lowly Viscount, a beta noble. His sins could be forgiven. After all, Blackwood was no architect, merely a servant to the King’s law, King Aldric perpetuated slavery. Her true enemy.


    Golden light faded into being in front of her, materializing into the form of a man. Lord Liam stood in front of her, hand outstretched.


    “Nyota,” it began, “Please do not leave me. I need you by my side.”


    Terror gripped her heart, fearing this was some new trial devised by the winged serpent. Liam had never struck her, nor any of his servants. He risked his life, interceeded on her behalf against Heir Blackwood’s madness, shielded her from lightning, freed her, taught her what freedom was, given her a new life-


    “Come with me.”


    Trap or not, Nyota was his. She grasped the offered hand, heart leaping as she surrendered completely. Finally awakening from the daze of nightmares.