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  Fighting Sanity

  Being a bastard on Bassinor has been difficult enough, but Erinii Zakkata has always done her duty to family and that was what landed her in the facility to begin with. Gassed into a hallucinogenic state, she has spent four years trying to swim out of the fanciful creations of her mind, and with a little intervention from a familiar face she manages to find reality again. Or did she?

  Until she can find a way to escape she has to appear to be a madwoman in a psych facility, and when the role comes far to easily, she has to wonder if she has made it out of her nightmares or is she still trapped in her own mind, living out an escape that seems far too good to be true?

  A representative from the Citadel is now featuring heavily in her fantasies, but is he real or just another illusion to keep her from escaping her imprisonment?

  Time and a heavy detox will tell.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Fighting Sanity

  Copyright © 2012 Viola Grace

  ISBN: 978-1-77111-165-2

  Cover art by Martine Jardin

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Devine Destinies

  An imprint of eXtasy Books

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  www.devinedestinies.com

  Fighting Sanity

  Tales of the Citadel Book 4

  By

  Viola Grace

  Chapter One

  Four years. She had been here for four years. She rubbed at her eyes as her mind cleared and she was able to see her situation with intense clarity. Her talent flickered weakly, wrapping around her and shifting the contents of her chamber in short jerks. The vents in her ceiling popped and she cursed. Just a little more time and she would have been able to work something free. She had no idea where she would run, but she wanted so desperately to be free.

  Erinii Zakkata stared at the blank walls of her cell. She could hear the cries and moans of the other imprisoned talents through the stone that surrounded her in the power-segregation facility.

  Thick green mist was pumped in through the vents and as she breathed in, the grim surroundings faded away. She was off to her mind-crafted world and the creatures her brain used to keep her company.

  * * * *

  Erinii sat up and smiled at the bright and cheerful environment that surrounded her. Birds twittered, the nearby brook babbled and she was free to wander around serenely in the hallucination that her mind had woven for her.

  Ahead of her, a wall opened and one of the squid faces came forward, pausing at a respectful distance. He was wearing a purple squid on his face today and it contrasted sharply with his bright blue eyes.

  “Zakkata, please come and have your meal.” His voice was muffled as the squid faces always were.

  She got to her feet, her pretty gown weaving itself out of nothing to drape to the tips of her glittering shoes.

  “Who are we today, Zakkata?”

  She smiled politely and curtseyed toward him. “I am a princess, of course.”

  “Very good. Your tea party awaits, my lady.”

  He walked with her down the hall to where fascinating creatures cavorted and frolicked, some letting out the most horrible screeches while throwing their food around.

  She sat gracefully at her table, accepting her tray with a gracious smile. The squid face that delivered it didn’t speak, but she could feel its disturbing scowl underneath the creature that wrapped its face.

  She sipped at her tea, frowning at the tepid brew. She was about to ask for a hotter pot, but the two squid faces near her were in deep conversation.

  “They have been asking for her, you know.” The server was muttering while darting worried glances toward Erinii.

  “Have you heard what they want?” Her escort stood with his arms crossed loosely over his chest.

  “No, but someone outside our government is making inquiries. How they learned she was here is a mystery.”

  “Her initial arrest was public. If they were looking for someone like her, it wouldn’t have taken much investigation.”

  They continued their conversation in low tones and Erinii knew that she was the topic of their discussion by the glances that the serving squid face kept throwing her way.

  She sipped at the disappointing tea and watched the trolls and fairies gambol about for hours. Sandwiches were sitting on her tray, but she didn’t wish to eat them.

  The candies held no appeal for her either, so she hid them within the uneaten food.

  “You were not hungry, my lady?” Her squid face was at her side.

  “No. The candy was nice though.”

  She saw a resigned disappointment in his eyes. “I am glad you enjoyed it, my lady. Shall we return to your rooms?”

  She got to her feet without his assistance. Erinii moved through the halls of her castle with a loose and graceful stride. It was hardly ladylike, but she liked keeping her body in good shape.

  The squid faces in the hall stepped aside to let her pass as if afraid of her touch. Respect would not have had them flattening themselves against the wall with the whites of their eyes showing.

  As her companion stopped and opened her door for her, she had to ask. “Why are all the servants so afraid?”

  His eyes welled with something she couldn’t name. It could have been pity, but there was a strange longing as well. “You have not always had the most polite of temperaments. They fear a tantrum of sorts.”

  She blinked and accepted his earnest words. She raised a hand to touch him, but he brought his hand up to stop her.

  “You cannot touch me, my lady. It is forbidden.”

  Erinii nodded with a jerk and returned to her chambers. Her day stretched before her and after another peculiar meal in the strange fairyland of her imagination, she slept as the green mists slowly dissipated.

  * * * *

  Her head pounded and her mouth was dry when she woke. The clarity of her thoughts was new. “What the hell?”

  Her whispered words were muttered into her pillow. She slept on her stomach and for once, she was grateful. If Erinii were careful, no one would know that her mind was her own for the first time in years.

  Her talent spluttered, but she managed a thin covering over her mouth and nose to act as a filter against the gas. It might take some tweaking, but she was going to get out of this mad house and damned soon.

  It had been four years since her talent had made itself obvious in a public setting. A protest against her government had drawn rioters to the public squares. She had left her work as a clerk and noticed a large quantity of armed men, government men, heading toward the gathering.

  Her half-sister and brother were participating as objectors and she needed to warn them. As she ran, her reflexes took over and she tipped everything into the street that she could. Light posts, trash containers and any number of vehicles shifted behind he
r to block followers and delay the arrival of the armed men.

  She had found her siblings in the crowd and warned them to run, but by that time, the army was upon them. Erinii had waved her arm and the guns pointed at the objectors took aim at the sky.

  The crowd had turned to stare at her and with that one action, she had done what no amount of negotiators had managed to do—unite the objectors and the government with fear.

  They had turned on her, beaten her almost to death and when she woke, she was in the facility with others of her ilk—uncontrolled talents who had dared to step into the public eye. She was now part of the dirtiest secret on Bassinor—a line of DNA that cropped up at random and could not be stopped unless each and every carrier was expunged from the population. With over thirty percent of the population carrying the gene in its dormant form, there was no way to cleanse the taint of power from their planet.

  Erinii was one of the descendants of those tainted genes and her power of telekinetic control had to be locked away for the safety of the population, lest she choose to reign over them.

  It was a spurious argument that had united her people and locked her in a facility where she was dosed with gas and locked in her mind every day. As she pasted a false, vacuous and cheerful smile on her face, she had only one question.

  What had changed?

  Chapter Two

  As the gas flowed from the ceiling to pool around the edge of her bed, she hoped that she had gained enough strength to keep the gas out while enabling herself to breathe. Watching her door open, she tried to keep the blank and cheerful expression on her face.

  “Good morning, Zakkata. Who are you today?” The breather strapped to his face made the expression in his eyes all the more poignant. She knew those eyes.

  “The Swan Queen, of course.”

  She got to her feet and swept past her stepbrother Davio and then waited for him to escort her down the hall.

  Images of the last few years in a drugged state flickered through her mind. The breathers did resemble squids, wrapping their limbs around the face of their wearer and protruding downward to house the filter.

  The stone walls were actually a solid-pour composite designed to keep the psychic emanations to a minimum.

  As she entered the dayroom, she was hard pressed to keep her face in its bland configuration. Patients were arranged haphazardly, some tethered to their chairs and some roaming free. These were the tumbling trolls and fairies of her imagination.

  They were wearing the same tight, sleeveless top and black tights that she wore as well as black slippers. They shrieked, moaned and rocked in place, each had a caretaker with them, but no one was moving to help them.

  Keeping her features straight was the hardest thing she had ever done. She took the seat that Davio directed her to and smiled politely at the server who brought her a tray containing a sandwich of dried bread with some protein spread on it and an array of pills.

  “Thank you, squid face.” She smiled beatifically at the server and the startled man bobbed his head.

  As he had yesterday, the server walked over to Davio and began speaking. “They are lobbying to get her freedom, you know. Can you believe it, after what she did?”

  She blinked and smiled as she nibbled at the food. She palmed the pills calmly and wedged them into half her sandwich.

  As she ate, minute amounts of the gas seeped into her lungs. It didn’t have a firm hold on her, but the shrieking prisoners were changing into jesters before her eyes and the few folk who were sitting immobile were pieces on a game board.

  She stood and pointed. “I want to play the game.” It seemed best to go along with the hallucination.

  Davio was at her side, “Please, my lady. Have a seat. The game will wait. You need to eat something.”

  “The candy was good but the sandwich was a little bland.”

  The sadness came to his eyes again. “Did you enjoy the candy?”

  “I did. It reminded me of being a little duck on the pond and wishing for a bit of sweet to call my own.”

  A flicker of light entered his eyes. “Did you get sweets as a little duck?”

  “Eventually. My father was a swan and he had other swan babies. They took pity on me and now, I am the Swan Queen.” That was as much as she would tell him while he was wearing that mask.

  His eyes brightened with tears and he put his hand near hers on the table. “It sounds like you were a lucky little duck.”

  She inclined her head regally. “And now I am a swan.”

  He lifted her tray and walked away with it, dropping the waste into an incinerator. He returned to her and stood at her side until a chime ended mealtime.

  She walked in silence back to her cell and nodded politely as she passed Davio. She had given him the opportunity to turn her in and if he took it, she would be back on injections to maintain her catalyst levels.

  “I am glad to have met you, Swan Queen.”

  She took up a decorous pose on her bedding and watched him close the door. She followed her drugged exercise routine, doing push-ups and sit-ups as well as a regimen of stretching.

  By dinner, she had worked up an appetite, taken a sonic shower and was sitting back on the edge of her bed as if nothing had happened.

  Davio returned to her rooms and she followed along with him, trying to act as if she was wearing a floor-length gown.

  A caretaker in a mask came and spoke to Davio as she nibbled at her meal of meat and roasted vegetables.

  He nodded at the other male in the mask and then walked to stand next to her. “My lady, there is a visitor for you.”

  “I was not expecting visitors today, squid face.”

  “I am sorry, my lady, but they will not be denied and this is not the appropriate place.”

  She shook her head and got to her feet. “Of course not. No one should be allowed in my private apartments. I will meet with this visitor and give them a piece of my mind.”

  With absent hands, she straightened her invisible gown and adjusted her tiara. Davio walked with her through the throng of chemically insane talents and their caretakers. She moved her skirts out of the way smoothly and the caretakers of the other prisoners winked at each other as she passed.

  It took them ten minutes to walk to the mysterious location of her visitor and the gasses thinned to nothing by the time they arrived.

  “It’s horribly rude to be taken from my meal.”

  Davio nodded, but there was a strange tension in his limbs. Whatever was on the other side of that door, he wanted her to make a good impression.

  He paused for a moment and unclasped his mask, stowing it on his belt. He knocked and when the door opened, he gestured for her to enter.

  She lifted her imaginary skirt with one hand and swept forward with all the regal bearing she could muster.

  Erinii wished she could pinch herself, because she wasn’t sure that the male in robes standing near the window was real.

  “This is patient Zakkata. She currently believes that she is the Swan Queen. There is no sanity for you to speak with, Instructor Nemilin.”

  The male had long black hair and chalk white skin. His eyes were brilliant blue and their gaze bored into hers.

  Hello, Erinii Zakkata. I am here to request that you be remanded into the custody of the Citadel.

  She blinked and concentrated. I would be only too happy to leave, but my government has consigned me here, so how are you thinking of getting me loose?

  You are lucid?

  Yes. I have been avoiding the catalyst medication that they make us take. With the catalyst, the hallucinogenic gasses have a very dramatic effect.

  He bowed low, “Greetings, Your Majesty.”

  She inclined her head. “Greetings, Instructor Nemilin, you have interrupted my meal. An appointment should have been made.”

  One dark eyebrow lifted in amusement. “Pardon my abrupt appearance, Majesty. I was not planning to visit you but could not pass up the opportunity once I had hear
d of your charms.”

  She tried to blush and batted her lashes. “Oh, sir, you do go on.”

  The administrator was looking between the two of them. “You see, Instructor. This woman is clearly out of her mind with delusion.”

  He inclined his head. “I will take her anyway.”

  “I am sorry, I can’t allow that. She is a danger to herself and others.”

  Fifty meters outside the gate, I have a shuttle. It counts as a consulate and carries immunity from seizure. I will remain here for precisely twelve hours. If you can get to the ship, you will be free.

  I understand. What is the penalty if I leave now? She cocked her head and waited for his reply.

  Go.

  Chapter Three

  Four years of repressed energy turned the wall into tiny bits as she slammed an invisible fist through the window. With her indoor slippers, she ran through the hole in the building and tried to find the shuttle as the Instructor had described it.

  The first green gas bomb went off and she shielded her body with a four-foot bubble while a second and third exploded within an arm’s reach of her. Erinii deflected the weapons trained on her and kept going, snapping the gate in two as she approached.

  She heard the shouts and ran as quickly as she could, her cardio was the only part of her exercise regimen that she had been unable to maintain. Her skin burned and her pulse raced, but she managed to make it to the silvery ship that opened at her arrival.

  A skimmer cut her off, blocking her from gaining sanctuary. The administrator was in the skimmer with the instructor.

  The moment that the Citadel representative was out of the skimmer, she shoved the transport device aside while clutching the administrator in a fist of power, lifting him fifteen feet off the ground.

  She faced the instructor and asked him, “Was your question genuine?”

  He stood with his foot on the step of his shuttle. “It was.” He extended his pale hand to her and she took the few steps necessary to close the distance.

  He was completely unfazed by her grip on the administrator. The moment that she took his hand, he pulled her inside and pressed a number of keys on the door pad to seal the hatch.