"How are we feeling?" Veyra asked with false pleasantness.
"Like I'm being tortured systematically," Liora said, her words slurring slightly as if she were drunk. "Because I am."
"Yes, well." Veyra tapped something on her tablet with manicured fingers. "I'm here to conduct an assessment of your current state. Alpha Thessian wants to know if you're ready to confess yet."
"Never," Liora said, though the word came out weaker and less defiant than she intended.
Veyra raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow in what might have been amusement or skepticism. "Never is a very long time, Princess. Let me ask you some questions, simple ones. Let's see how your cognitive function is holding up under the stress." She glanced at her tablet as if consulting notes. "What's your full name?"
"Liora... Liora Ashenbane. Princess Liora Ashenbane." The words felt strange in her mouth, as if she were saying someone else's name.
"Good. What's today's date?"
Liora's mind went completely blank, as if someone had erased that information entirely. Date? What was the date? She'd been here for... how long exactly? Three days unconscious. Then... how many hours awake? The numbers wouldn't stay in her head long enough to calculate.
"I... I don't know."
"It's October 15th," Veyra supplied without judgment. "You've been in Blackmoor for four days total. Now, can you count backward from one hundred by sevens?"
"Why?" Liora asked, confused by the request and unable to see its purpose.
"Because I'm testing your mental acuity, seeing how much damage has been done. Go ahead. One hundred, ninety-three..."
"Ninety-three," Liora repeated obediently. Her mind felt like it was moving through thick mud, each thought requiring enormous effort. "Eighty-six. Seventy-nine. Uh... seventy-two?"
"Close. Seventy-two would be correct. Continue."
"I can't," Liora admitted, her voice breaking with frustration and shame. "I can't think clearly. I can't, everything's fuzzy and disconnected."
Veyra made a note on her tablet with what might have been satisfaction. "Cognitive impairment setting in right on schedule, exactly as predicted. Tell me, are you experiencing hallucinations?"
Liora's eyes drifted involuntarily to the corner where ghost-Aria stood watching with those dead, accusatory eyes. "Yes."
"What kind?"
"Does it matter?"
"Answer the question, Princess."
"I see..." Liora swallowed hard, her throat dry and painful. "I see the woman from the photographs. Your Luna. She's standing right there in that corner." She pointed with a trembling hand.
Veyra followed her gaze to the empty corner, then looked back at Liora with something that might have been sympathy or might have been satisfaction, it was impossible to tell. "Interesting," Veyra said, making another note. "Guilt manifesting as visual hallucinations of the primary victim. Classic psychological response."
"It's not guilt," Liora said desperately, needing someone to understand. "It's just, my brain is breaking down from lack of sleep. That's what happens to anyone subjected to this. It doesn't mean I....."
"Let me tell you something, Princess," Veyra interrupted, moving closer to the cage so Liora could see her expression clearly. "In my twenty years as Beta, I've interrogated hundreds of suspects, killers, thieves, traitors, all manner of criminals. And you know what I've learned through all that experience? Innocent people don't hallucinate their victims like this. They don't carry that kind of psychological weight, that burden of guilt that manifests in such specific ways."
"You're wrong," Liora whispered, but even she could hear the doubt creeping into her own voice.
"Am I?" Veyra pulled out her phone and pulled up a video file with practiced efficiency. "Let me show you something that might change your mind. This is footage from inside the settlement. One of our pack members was livestreaming a cooking demonstration when the attack started. She kept recording throughout, captured everything."
She held the phone up to the bars so Liora had no choice but to see.
The video showed a cozy kitchen that looked warm and inviting, a woman in a cheerful apron laughing at something off-camera, her face alight with joy and life. Then suddenly there was screaming in the background, shouts of terror and confusion. The camera swung wildly as the woman dropped it in panic. Running footsteps pounded across floors. Gunfire erupted, loud and close.
The camera landed on its side, showing a tilted view of the kitchen door as the world had gone sideways. And through that door walked the woman with Liora's face.
This footage was different from the security camera footage; this was close, clear, and detailed in a way that made denial impossible. Liora could see every feature of the woman's face with terrible clarity. The same small scar on her left eyebrow that Liora had gotten falling off a swing as a child. The same slightly crooked front tooth from when she'd been hit with a ball during a royal garden party. The same birthmark just above her collarbone that she'd always been self-conscious about. It was perfect. Too perfect. Impossibly perfect.