“I don’t think we will be bonding over much, Prim.” Ilias knelt before the prisoner, his own smile just as hateful. He lifted the dagger into the candlelight, holding it mere inches away from Prim’s face. “You remember this?” He asked. “You gifted this to me when I was accepted into the Silver Guard. All of us graduates got one. But this one—this one is the most special of them all. Do you know why?”
He was met with silence. To which, Ilias’s mouth kicked up at one side, forming a smirk. “This one is special because it is going to be the one I kill you with. But, for now, I’m going to use it to cut out your tongue.” He huffed, cocking his head to the side. “It’s serrated, too. So it won’t exactly be a swift job.”
“And then? Are you going to kill me, Captain?” Prim laughed. “Put an end to all my misery?”
Ilias shook his head. “Not today.” He reached forward with unnatural speed, snatching Prim’s tongue from its rotting cavern before he brought his blade down upon it. He was not quick or precise. It was a sloppy and painful job that had Prim’s screams echoing off the walls of the prison. From her shadowed corner, Kaya watched with a sort of calmness that should not exist. Her breathing started to even out, her heart began to slow to its normal rhythm, and her tremors began to ebb away as she watched Ilias saw that evil muscle from Roman Prim’s mouth.
But Ilias didn’t stop. He merely tossed the tongue to the dirt and then began working again. Not at Prim’s fingers, but at his wrist.
He started by snapping the bone and then he sawed. And sawed. And sawed. Until so much time passed that Kaya needed to lower herself to the cold, stone floor.
And when he was done, Ilias moved the severed hand into an obscene gesture, bending all fingers down, save for the one in the middle. And then he tossed it to the ground at Prim’s buckled knees. He turned to her, then, and sighed. With a single exhale, all of the anger and malice he’d been carrying towards Roman Prim dissipated. He would have preferred seeing Kaya get her justice, but he had no qualms with having to do it himself. So long as the female, that now stared at him with the most peculiar look in her eyes, no longer had to fear that bastard harming her again.
His blade and hands wet with the dark blood of her worst nightmare, he walked towards her and she didn’t fear him. She didn’t recoil or look away. Kaya justlookedat him so intently. As if she were finally seeing him for who he was.
“I need to find a place to wash off.” He stated, lifting his hands to inspect them. “Let’s go.”
Kaya didn’t hesitate to lift herself off the floor and she followed him back out of the prison, the hollowness in her chest filling up just slightly.
?????????
Ilias knew some of the Drikieran people that took up camp a few miles from the prison in the Borderlands and they welcomed them with open arms—quickly ushering him to a washing area while the others flocked to Kaya, spewing praises and offering gratitude to her, for what her father was doing for them. For Driikona.
He watched Kaya from the crack of the washing tent. She stood there awkwardly, forcing a smile onto her face as she bowed her head to each new greeter, until she caught his gaze. Ilias averted his eyes quickly, the small smile on his face diminishing, turning to a hard line as he walked away.
The action sent an odd pang of discomfort through her chest. Ilias was a fickle creature, she learned. His fleeting emotions were hard to keep track of. It was as if he were constantly at war with himself, fighting a battle against nature and what he presumed to be right. If she were being honest with herself, she would have to admit that she was not much different. The war in herself was loud, filled with violent and bloodthirsty spirits that called for retribution—but Kaya was not bloodthirsty. And her form of revenge, her justice, was silent.
Kaya allowed herself to be dragged to the center of the encampment, where a fire blazed high into the indigo sky.
A female with a tangled mess of red hair approached her. Kaya tried not to notice how one side of her face was leathered and pink with scars, her eyelid drooping with the rough, tightened skin. She sat beside her on the log that doubled as a bench, her scarred hands folding in her lap.
“I hear them, too.” The female whispered. “Your shadows.”
Kaya stilled, licking her lips as she tried to breathe through the sinking of her stomach. “What?”
“They are very loud. They want me to tell you the truth—your truth.”
She didn’t know if she wanted to know the truth. There was something so ominous in this scarred female’s voice that made it feel as if an icy river ran through her veins in place of warm blood. Kaya swallowed deeply, but did not break the female’s stare—nor did she pull away when she reached her scarred hands forward. She placed them upon Kaya’s stomach.
“You are not the one that will save Driikona. It is notyourshadows Cadaith has chosen, but the shadows you will create. Born from you and yourmachna ii’loam.”
Kaya couldn’t move. Her stomach plummeted at the phrase, her shadows rustling—quivering to life at the base of her spine. “Can you tell me what that means?Machna ii’loam… what is that?”
The female smiled, the burns on her cheek tugging tightly at the corner of her mouth. “There are many names it goes by—a Credence, a Corebound, a machna ii’loam. But there is one name for it that is shared throughout the ether.” She paused, moving her hand away from Kaya’s stomach. “Amate.”
Kaya’s brow furrowed, her heart feeling as if were lodged in her throat. She immediately turned, her eyes landing on the washing tent just as Ilias emerged. His tunic was slung over his arm, his tanned and chiseled torso bared to the world as he walked towards her. Although her mouth was incredibly dry, she managed to swallow as she rose to her feet.
The scarred female tugged at her arm and Kaya turned, only to find the old book she’d been searching for placed upon the old log—the female, and any trace of her, was gone. She picked it up and scanned the crowd in search of her, but could find nothing.
Kaya felt the heat from Ilias’s body as he came to a stop next to her. Though her stomach was in knots, she shoved any thoughts in regard to the feeling as far away as possible as she lifted the book.
“Found it.” She sighed, forcing a proud smile onto her face, forcing away the haunting feeling that she was still being watched. “Now we can go back to G’Illach.”
His curiosity was evident in his pinched brow as he looked at what she cradled to her chest. He extended his hand, eyes meeting hers as she handed the book to him. He flipped it front to back, shaking his head slightly. “Where did you find it?”
There was no easy way to answer his question—no way to explain it to him without her sounding as if she’d lost her mind. “I guess the Santigha finally deemed me worthy enough to return it.”
“The Santigha? You believe that story?”
