My head throbs with a pulsing tension so severe it feels as if drums were being beaten together.
The room is dark except for a circular window in the ceiling. The moons' light that illuminates the stony floor is a pale silver, cloaking the rest of the room in dark blue shadow. There’s no lanterns or candles lit. But yet, that persistent humming still weaves through the darkened room, offering more warmth amid the disorienting space.
I go to speak but find my voice is nonexistent. Instead, my throat spasms and seizes with a harsh crack. My vocal cords feel snapped.
Pushing up to my side, I let the sheet slide the rest of the way to the floor. Glancing down, a pale blue dressing gown is now in place of where my tunic and leggings once were.
I reach for my throat as the ache begins to roar to something more.
Movement from the corner of my eye has me quickly turning my head in the direction.
Long navy drapes flow from the ceiling, clinging to the walls. It all looks very ethereal. The billowy fabric blows from a breeze that I can’t trace.
What in the earthen realm is this?
I lean forward and place my toes on the cool marble floor. This whole experience is beginning to feel like a fever dream as I step towards the beam of light centered in the room. Clinging to the shadows, I raise my eyes to the window and see the dual moons covered by soft clouds and brilliant stars that are possibly brighter than I’ve ever noticed before.
Looking down, my thoughts scramble to put together where I’m being held. The streaked marble of black and dark emerald forces a memory to the surface.
Cruel green orbs surrounded by wisps of black float like an evocation I’ve summoned.
Lips pursed and curled into something more sinister.
The Devourer, looking down at me like I was repulsive.
And Ihatedhim for it.
Emotion surges in my heart and before I know it I’m falling to my knees. The hard surface collides with my body and I raise my hands before slapping them down in frustration. A glint of a silver bangle reflects in the light. A culling band.
How easily I was blinded by malice masked as intimacy. That deception was mistaken as longing.
“Foolish, little warrior,”he had said.
I slam a fist against the marble floor again, this time until my hand smarts from the force.
With a sob, I lay my chest against the cool stone.
This is a hurt that cuts too much, deeper than I’d ever done to myself. This pain feels like it’s carving a piece of me with a jagged blade, twisting and slicing as it removes any goodness left in me.
I roll onto my back, until I’m facing the sky. My lungs force air in and out too fast and my chest feels like it’s squeezing with each inhale.
The rest of the world falls away as my hearing dulls, replaced with a sharp ringing that fades away into my shaky breathing. The ragged sounds tear from my lungs. Ugly, wracking sobs cleaves my soul from my body.
Hot, heavy tears spill and this time, I let them mar my skin.
They paint my face in rage.
Allowing myself to feel this devastation, this betrayal—I let it fill my veins. The dark poison courses through, flowing between breast to breast, sewing the jagged slices with thick cords that’ll certainly not heal without scarring.
I lay like this for gods knows how long until my eyes ache from any tears there once were. My chest vibrates as I suck in hefty breaths trying to regain my control.
Brick by brick, I wall up the brokenness, letting the void spaces fill with vacancy, replacing what’s left of me.
A heavy sigh is all I have left. With it, I breathe out the finality of my wounds before hurling myself forward to sit up.
I’m hollow.
It’s strange, to be suspended in emptiness, as if I’ve finally been forged intosomething else entirely.
