And then it came crashing back.
For a moment… nothing.
And then the cold began to seep in.
It triggered a memory, buried deep in his soul. One that woke him up at night when he least expected it. An image burned in his mind of lying at the bottom of a fountain, gazing up at the ripples of the surface of the water. Feeling the water in his lungs. The ache of the desperate need for air that would not come. Seeing the distorted faces of his family above him.
Judging.
Celebrating.
Laughing.
Water began to fill the coffin. “No, no, no—” he moaned. “Please, no—please—please—” Maybe it was all just a joke.
A prank.
Like they used to play on each other as children. That was all it was. That was all it had to be. Mael was just playing one of his cruel tricks. That was it. This was just like the times he spent at the bottom of the fountain.
They had attached a chain to the coffin, surely.
They wouldn’t do this to him.
He pounded on the lid. “Let me out! Anyone! Please!Mael!”
The water reached his chin. It was coming in fast. It was so cold. He lifted his head, trying to hold onto what little air he could in the pitch-black space.
“Nadi! Lana!”
Clawing at the lid with his nails in desperation, he wept. “Please,someone—anyone?—!”
He pulled in his last gasp of air before water filled the space.
It wasn’t a prank.
It wasn’t a game.
Panic welled in his body. He thrashed, kicking violently in the coffin, punching at the lid, the sides, trying to destroy the silver box in any way he could.
But it was hopeless.
Utterly hopeless.
His lungs began to burn.
He thought they might explode.
When he could not hold onto the air any longer, it left him in a rush.
And what took its place was so much worse.
It was so very cold.
It reached a tiny hand out to him, broken wrist bones jutting from a child’s arm.“It’s not so bad, look—” He reset them back into his arm with a sickening crunch. “You see? Just like that. I don’t know why he’s screaming so badly. Raziel is such a baby. Mael didn’t mean to push him from the tree. Raziel’s just so much smaller than he is. But off he goes, crying to Daddy, like he always does.”
A shattered memory. He pushed it away. But another one came to take its place.
“What have I done, Mother? What did I do wrong?” He stared down at the silver shackles that bound his wrists. They ran through loops buried in the stone blocks at the bottom of the fountain in the garden.
