“This is the only way. This is what you weremadeto do.”
As if her body were not her own, it moved toward the noxscura, toward the inevitability that would consume her. She wanted to be free of noxscura, not absorb more, but once the remnants in that pool wormed their way inside her, there would be only misery and pain and death.
Celeste steeled herself—she wouldnotbecome a harbinger of those things, and she would not inflict those terrors on anyone else.
“No!” She threw herself backward, and Syphon’s grip faltered. He made an animalistic sound that rumbled through her painfully, but she didn’t stop thrashing. “Let me go!” she screamed.
“You must!” The force on her limbs intensified, pushing her to the edge of the cot. “Isn’t this what you want? Freedom for us both? To no longer be so weak, so pathetic?”
Tears didn’t come, but neither did her own arcana, exhaustion nearly overwhelming as she fought. He was right—she wanted freedom, she wanted release from all of the awfulness, yet the price was much too high.
She closed in on the metallic sloshing, and she could feel the blood pouring out of her all over again, the burning of her flesh, the darkening of her mind. “Please, don’t make me,” she croaked.
“You are too afraid to do what is best on your own,” he hissed into her ear as the noxscura lapped at her chin. “You’ve forced me to take on this burden, but you should pitymefor what I have to do to you.”
Celeste’s scream was drowned by the thickness of noxscura pouring into her throat, climbing down into her gut, flooding every vein. She choked on her next shriek, fighting as tears, blood, searing hot pain, all melded together and dragged her downward.
She would die this time, surely, and if not? If she survived, it would be so much worse.
Celeste’s arms were no longer held, but she was sinking. She flailed for purchase, limbs crashing blindly around her. There was pain and noise, the upturning of a chair, the shattering of a vase. She grasped at whatever was near, but her arm was again caught and held.
“No!” she screamed, her throat no longer thick with dark arcana, but she was still blinded by the magic.
A voice called to her, the words garbled, but they were not laced with sharpness. Another deception? The touch on her skin was gentle this time, and her own name was spoken kindly into her ear, but it was just another attempt to manipulate before berating her once again, surely. Dark gods of the Abyss, she could not take much more.
“Please,” Celeste shrieked as pathetically as she could, “please, don’t make me, I can’t!”
The thickness and weight on her body was dissipating, but her arm was still caught, and she knew it would push her under again just as she’d been pushed under before.
The voice told her that it wouldn’t, it called her by name instead ofpetorwitch, and it was trying so hard to sound kind. But would it stay that way?
Maybe…maybe if she could find the right words. Lies, promises, pleas—there had to be something that might allow her to bargain her way out.
“I’ll do better next time, I promise,” she sobbed. “I’ll try harder. Please, just don’t hurt me.”
“Celeste, you’re…”—the voice droned out and then back in—“…wake up.”
All at once she regained control of her body like breaking the surface and taking a breath. There was strength and power and noxscura, and Celeste threw her arms out as she slammed herself backward into a wall, out of her captor’s grip. The familiar shadows of her noxscura surrounded her, utter darkness closing in, all-encompassing and safe.
She wrapped arms around her knees, every breath sharp as they stabbed one after another in her lungs. Eyes wide and head whipping side to side, she saw nothing, but she could sense a figure beyond the shield her arcana made. She was not alone, the silence stretching until a voice broke in.
“Can you hear me, Celeste?” asked Reeve from beyond the shadowy barrier. “You’re having a nightmare.”
The noxscura was slow and deliberate, but it crawled back to her until the only shadow left in the room was the darkness of fully fallen night, moonlight breaking through the single window near the ceiling. Celeste was on her cot, and her chamber was almost as it should have been, though the linens were cast everywhere and the furniture was upended, a total mess in her frantic spell flinging. And, of course, there was a half-naked holy knight standing in the middle of it all looking utterly distraught, sword in hand but leveled at the ground.
“Are you awake?” he asked, but he moved too quickly as he reached for her.
She shrieked, crumpling in on herself as she squeezed her eyes shut into the safety of the darkness again.
In the quiet that followed, there was the sound of metal against the stone floor, and then a touch on her elbow, calloused fingers that didn’t grab or push but only gently rested on her skin.
“It’s me, it’s Reeve.” His voice was close and soft. “I heard you screaming. I thought you were being attacked.”
She lifted her head to see his hand had been allowed through the noxscura. When the shadows again cleared, Reeve was kneeling on the cot before her, the sword abandoned on the ground. His brows were drawn together in worry, and he rubbed her arm.
She loosened her own grip from around her knees, checking the room once again, but there was no sign of Syphon. “A dream,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I woke you.”
Reeve lifted her arm, and she let him, afraid to pull away, but he did nothing coarse with it. Instead, he turned it over slowly and brought the fingers of his other hand to her wrist. The touch was painful, and they could both see the marks where claws had sliced into her skin.
