I wish the big oaf would stop that. It’s merely prolonging the misery.
Yes! Let the misery end!a voice screams at full volume inside my head, making me wince.
“Shh,” I tell it.
Darkness tinges the edges of my blurry vision as the voices grow louder. As usual, I black out for an indeterminable period of time, but when I open my eyes, I notice someone has lit a few candles inside my prison to ward off the darkness.
And then I hearheragain, somewhere off to the side.
“If I didn’t know better, I would think you’re a masochist for doing this to yourself.”
I love and loathe that voice. It’s been nothing but cruel to me for as long as I’ve been in this hell, but it would be far crueler if it ever left my mind.
Even now, you can’t let me go,her voice hisses in my head.I reject you, Silas Crane. Leave my memory alone.
“Is there room for me in that…whatever that is?” she asks.
“Leave me alone to rot,” I slur in half-English, half-fae as the ringing in my ears increases in volume.
“Riamh sa’vita so, no gach ni vivit leanas,”thatvoice replies smoothly.
Meaning,Never in this life, nor any lives that follow.
It’s such beautifully spoken fae, but I know it’s coming from my head just like everything else. I’m momentarily distracted by a madness that seems to submerge the world around me. Everything is warped and false, twisting inside my brain to torment me.
This is all your imagination,voices agree.We can help you, weakling.
You only deserve one kind of escape,my handsome lunatic,my keeper’s voice agrees.The permanent kind.
The only thing I know to be true in this hell is that none of it is. Then again, sometimes I forget to remember that truth, just like I forget myself and all I’ve ever been.
Letting myself forget would be easier. Fading like my sanity would be a simple thing.
Let go,my father’s voice agrees.All you’ve ever been good at is failing, after all.
“As if you know. You only knew me as a child,” I defend myself in garbled fae.
That irresistible voice says something nearby me, but it’s drowned out as someone in my head snarls,Who cares about your past? This is the time to escape.Break free while you still can, before this one hurts you.
This invader is here to kill you!another hisses.Use her to fuel your death magic, and you can end this.
“If only I could threaten the voices in your head,” her voice sighs nearby.
My breathing grows labored as horrifying paranoia skitters across my chest like a large arachnid, its needle-like legs leaving body-wracking shivers in their wake. My head continues to throb, so I try to bang it against the iron frame I lie upon, but remember the blond human put a pillow behind my head to stop me from doing just that.
“I think I know how to snap you out of it.”
Death, the same voice agrees as an echo in my skull.
Snap out of it! She’s about to kill you!Fight!
“Fighting is pointless,” I drawl before realizing I used all the wrong words.
But then a familiarly breathtaking scent implodes the space around me.
My lungs constrict violently through the vicious burn of thirst in my throat. The voices in my head break into choruses of screams, the ringing in my ears intensifying as I instinctively struggle against my rattling iron chains. My fangs have descended on their own as blind need takes over.
That blood.
