Her ankles felt not of weak and broken, but of strength, as though she could run for miles and miles without tiring. She inhaled deeply, feeling the fog enter her airways and dive into her organs, filling her with ice and fire all at once.
It’s not real,she told herself.
The ground vibrated, his deliberate steps coming towards her, seconds between each. She stood her ground as it began to speak again.
Rupture and rapture
The little red raven sleeps
Tell me dear of your greatest griefs
—She was in the Throne Room.
Her gaze narrowed around her at the throng of people scattered around the room. A hand covered hers on her side, and she looked up to see it was Rhaif’s hand. Her immediate reaction was to flinch away from his grasp, but he clenched his fist around hers.
Men spoke around her. She opened her mouth to retaliate, but it wouldn’t move. Her free hand reached to her lips.
Her sewn together lips.
The rate at which her heart beat made her shake. She ripped at the seams, pushing the pain of it tearing her flesh to the back of her mind. But each time she cut the seam, it would grow back.
Her brother stood over her, his hands pushed behind his back. His head tilted mockingly at her, and a quirk of a smile rose on his lips.
“Silence,” he mused.
The blood in her boiled. She lunged out of the chair.
Rhaif’s image disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
The screech of her raven sounded overhead. Belwark hands grabbed her body. She was shoved backwards.
Her body fell into a free fall of black.
—A foot kicked her in the back.
She fell face first into the wet dirt, realizing she was once more in the forest and not in his shadow dimension.
Her hands pushed to the ground, and she rose her chest to see into the abyss in front of her. The smell of decaying flesh filled her nostrils. She flinched at the reek of it, her stomach turning over. The ground vibrated again.
And when she blinked, her eyes opened to the red pupils of the Berdijay kneeling before her.
Antlers rose out of his head, its body reflecting in the shadows and golden fire pulsing through the make of its body as though its nerves were on the surface of its body and the golden glow was its energy surge. Its great flattened head, no more than black swamp-like hair covering everything about it except its eyes, tilted at her.
Rupture and rapture
Your raven calls
Tell me queen
How will you fall?
It knew who she was.
—Its enormous hand wrapped around her body. She let him take her off the ground, lifting her foot after foot as it stood. She pushed herself up in its palm and grasped onto his fingers. A deep purr echoed from its insides. She didn’t blink as she pushed her core outwards into his. She felt his core shake, as though he were allowing her to fill him.
Speak, Queen Ravenspeak.
Fear evacuated her body. She suddenly felt empowered in its grasp.
