She was material. Flesh to carve. Magic to mine.
A resource.
A thing.
This couldn’t be real.
“Your tears mean nothing,” Tyrina said coldly, discarding the braid like waste. “You deserve every bit that is coming for you, and more.”
“I didn’t—” Luna’s voice was barely a whisper.
The slap came out of nowhere, snapping her head sideways. The sting registered only faintly, a dull ache blooming slowly across her cheek.
Crouching beside her, Tyrina put down the scissors and reached for another instrument. A small, thin blade. When she reached for Luna’s hand, Luna tried to recoil, but her fingers barely twitched.
Panic fluttered in her chest, from disbelief that this was happening to her swallowing everything else, drowning her senses in quiet, heavy fog.
The blade pressed beneath her fingernail, lifting it with slow, excruciating precision.
Pain shattered the numb haze as it erupted through her, stealing away her breath and her ability to think. Her entire body convulsed weakly, a cry lodged in her throat. She needed to pull away. Needed to move. But her limbs refused; her muscles like stone.
The knife twisted, prying upward, peeling nail from flesh.
She screamed. Pain exploded, searing like lightning, blinding her. Her mind fractured from it.
She had no coherent thoughts. No focus. Just desperation.
Run. Fight. Do something.
But she couldn’t.
The unicornbane dust paralyzed her, burning every shred of her magic, every ounce of strength.
She lay utterly still, caged within her own skin—sobbing quietly, choking on the weight of her helplessness.
With each nail peeled away, Luna could feel herself coming apart, dissociating somewhere far away from the pain . . . from the sickening sound of flesh separating.
Stop. Please.
Someone begged, their voice raw from screaming. Was it her? She couldn’t tell.
“Soon, you’ll look like the monster you really are,” Tyrina mused softly as she flicked the blade again, freeing another nail.
Luna’s fingers throbbed, light dripping from the open wounds, but she barely felt it. The pain was somewhere far away—muted, like a sound underwater.
This body wasn’t hers anymore. It was something she watched from a distance, a shape curled up on a filthy blanket. Bleeding. Broken. Not her, not really.
She was somewhere above it all, floating just beyond reach.
The hand on the floor, twitching. That wasn’t her hand.
The shaking breath. Not hers either.
She tried to focus, tried to come back, but her mind slipped again, sliding along the edges of reality.
A traitorous shell, that’s all her body was. Useless. Heavy. Refusing to move, refusing to fight. Too weak to do anything but lie there and suffer.
She hated her body. Hated everything about it.
