Emilia’s screams remained locked in her throat as Petros brought out the chaotic’s helmet. She tried calling on her chaos, prepared to smash everything around her to pulp if only she would not have to face the horror of that contraption. But the chaos was still within her, frozen by the priest’s stasis. He was powerful, too powerful.

Petros approached with that helmet, the same type she’d seen on that girl years ago. The priest relaxed his magical hold on her enough to pry her lips apart and insert the mouthpiece. The lower half of the helmet was strapped around her neck and chin, the mouthpiece slipping down her tongue to pin it into place. After adjusting the straps, Petros fastened the top half of the helmet. His pinched face was the last thing she saw before the metallic darkness. There were no eyeholes in this helm. She could not see or speak.

Her harsh breathing echoed. As she lay there, she felt Petros affix two metal containers to her hands, binding them at the wrists. She couldn’t move her fingers now. Lying on a bed, she heard the clank of chains as they bound her body to the cot.

Emilia could not move, could not see, could barely think with all the darkness around her. She could not touch.

If she didn’t know what was around her, she could not destroy.

Footsteps filed out of her cell; yes, she was in prison. Emilia heard the distant echo of Petros’s voice.

“Can you hear me?” he asked. She tried to move again. Impossible. “Good. I was concerned one of you might have been chaotic after that assault on the Volscia party. I will admit, I did not think it would be you. You were too much of a mouse.” Emilia gurgled in her throat, and saliva flooded her mouth, making the tongue depressor painful. “The rest of the competitors will be brought here. None of you can be trusted. The Dragon picked a faulty crop this time around.”

He patted her arm. Her stomach seized as he sat beside her on the cot.

“You wanted to take the throne as a chaotic, didn’t you? You wanted to spread your poison throughout the empire?” His voice became a whisper. “That is heresy beyond even what I have committed.”

Murderer! Liar! It didn’t matter if Emilia was the same; she wanted to hurl those words at him. She screamed low in her throat.

“Don’t think yourself the victim. Those soldiers you destroyed had families of their own. There’s nothing to burn now. There will be no box of ashes for their loved ones. You did that, you evil, wretched thing.”

Evil. Could an evil being turn things to beautiful crystal?

But…she had destroyed the Volscia ballroom. She had killed Huigh. She had murdered those three men with a mere twitch of her eye.

“I believe you know what we do to chaotics in this empire, but I wanted to assure you that your punishment shall be tenfold worse. We’ll do the vivisection and the nails and the boiled lead.” His hand trailed down her thigh and squeezed her kneecap. Emilia tried, but of course she could not take herself out of his hateful grip. “But we’re going to break both your legs before we begin, right here, and flay you from the tips of your toes to the shattered joints of your knees. We’ll cut off your ears as well, and every one of your fingers before we finish with you. Why? Because it will give us pleasure and for no other reason. Only after all that agony—and after we have set fire to your hair and blistered your scalp—only then will we allow you to die.”

Emilia felt as if she were standing at the precipice of an endless fall as the priest rose.

“Pray to the Dragon to protect your soul, if a demon like you knows how to pray.” Petros left, slamming the cell door behind him. As Emilia lay in the blood-scented darkness, she whimpered.

Nothing. There was nothing to be done now.

She had exploded every scrap of bone, blood, and muscle inside three living bodies with a mere thought and the will to guide it. She’d grown so distracted by the shiny novelty of her gift that she’d ignored the destructive limits of her power. She’d done it to save Lucian, yes, but was that an excuse?

Petros was a murderer, but he was also right.

Evil had to be purged from this world.