Eveera
There’s a split road you come face-to-face with when thinking about death often. One that appears every time you toe the line, wondering what it’s going to take for you to cross it.
One way is the world taking you out, whether in battle or through natural causes. The other is the more selfish route – or at least that’s what people keep telling me.
I can hardly imagine many would mourn the Queen of Nightmares. In fact, I think a lot of people may even consider my death a favor.
An ache shoots from the soles of my feet up into my calf, disrupting my line of thought. I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here, staring at the fork, but I do know it’s been long enough that they hurt. I tried sitting down once, but the ground was so damp and cold that I nearly leapt out of my skin.
Picking up my foot, I take a painful step towards the selfish path –the natural choice for me.
“Don’t tell me that you’re seriously giving up.”
The sound of his voice sends my heart up into my throat. “Don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming,” I reply, my own sounding hoarse and gravely as I push past the lump in my throat, forcing the words out.
Blinking the tears that have welled back furiously, I lift my stare. He’s standing in front of me, those big brown eyes – soft and familiar.Axel.
“If I knew you were just going to give up and kill yourself, I wouldn’t have stepped in to save you in the first place. I have a permanent neck ache because of you now.” His mouth quirks up into a wry smile. A smile that now makes me physically ill.Because I’m the one who took it away.I remind myself.
“If I’d known the version of you that was going to haunt me would have such an attitude, I would’ve made this choice a lot sooner. Save myself the trouble.”
He sighs, circling me until he’s at my back. Both hands grip my shoulders tightly, and I flinch from how cold they are now. No longer is the warmth that used to radiate through them there. The nausea churns dangerously in the pit of my stomach as he pulls me back to stand squarely between the two roads. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, my voice cracking on the apology. “I’m so sorry, Ax.”
I feel the weight of his chin settle on top of my head, those cold hands leaving my shoulders so that he can instead wrap cold arms around my chest. My knees buckle into him, and he tightens his grip, refusing to let me fall.
“I made the choice, E. And it was easy.” The laugh that claws its way out of me is strangled – more of a sob, really. A messy, raw, and painful sob. Because he’s not real.
He’s not really holding me; his hands aren’t actually cold.His hands don’t even exist — they’re ash. As is the rest of him.This is all just some sick distraction from what’s really happening to me outside of my mind.
He says the choice was easy, but did he not consider what the aftermath of that choice would be? What that choice would do to me?
When my eyes opened again, it was due to the obnoxious rattling underneath my back. My head tilts side to side, showing me the same view inside the stupid carriage trunk I’ve grown so accustomed to.
Whatever road we’re going down now has dust billowing up through the slats, forcing me to cough. I try to cover my face, but I’m met with resistance, forgetting that the damn mage shackles connecting my wrists to my ankles.
My stomach dips with each rock we wheel over, the nausea I’d been experiencing in myepisodeunfortunately carrying over into the real world. Though, I can’t tell if the source of it is because of his shoddy operation of this carriage, or the tonic I’m force-fed daily.
“Can’t chance anything with you.” Ezra said – my Wield was too, “unpredictable.”
I’d argued that my Wield wasn’t unpredictable, that I have impeccable control over it. But he didn’t care; he just shoved the tonic down my throat and slammed the lid of the trunk closed.
That’s been the routine. Every other day, around dawn or dusk — Ezra whips open the trunk, checks the wards on my shackles, drugs me, and off we go again.
Until today.
We lurch to a sharp stop, and the carriage dips with Ezra’s weight. The crunch of footsteps echoes around me before my eyes are accosted by the bright daylight. He leans his aggravating face into the trunk, and I do my best to show with my expression the words –I will kill you.
It’s no use trying to say them out loud; the venom behind them is locked inside, thanks to his efforts in keeping me hidden. He’s made it so that I can’t speak unlesshewants me to. This way, I can’t tell anyone who I am if we’re seen.
“I’m doing this for you — for us, Eveera. It’s not safe anymore. They’ll kill you.”He tried telling me the first time I was truly lucid. My scowl deepens at the memory while the unsettling sensation of his Wield – a Wield he managed to conceal for five damned years – glazes over my body.
Ezra hoists my shackled self out of the back, throwing me over his shoulder like a sack of grain. The only protest I can muster is a huff as he ushers us into the new hideout.
In the far distance, there’s the familiar sound of a bustling city, but by the looks at the terrain, it’s obviouslynotObsidian. My head hangs and shakes back and forth.Where in the hell have you brought me this time?The question comes out in a series of grunts and sighs, which he ignores while shoving open the old, rusted door.
My eyes flinch again at the drastic change back to darkness as the door slams behind us. The glamour of his Wield melts off once we’re safely inside. Ezra drops me down onto the hard floor and gets to work fastening me to one of the support beams.
He works quickly, his expression turning sad when he rocks back on his heels and gives my restraints a once-over.
