A Gods-damned Cell
Silver surrounded Marius, but nothing was comforting about planes of the future today. Shivers wracked his body, his head pounded, and an obsidian wall slammed across his memories when he tried to remember why he had come to See the future.
He groaned. He’d been in the forest with Vivienne, returning the injured woman to her village, and then…
Nothing.
He couldn’t remember a single thing that had happened after that.
The obsidian wall was sleek; no matter how he prodded it, he couldn’t find a single crack.
A frown pulled at his lips as he bent and picked up a path of the future. The moment he touched it, darkness flooded his mind. A black mist shrouded the entire future from his sight, and he couldn’t See a single thing.
“Strange,” he muttered.
He tossed that path aside and picked up the next one. It was covered in ink.
He threw that one away, grabbing another. And another.
Each one was black and empty.
He kept searching.
Hours passed, and searching the silver planes depleted his energy, but he kept going.
And then, when yet another path was filled with nothing but blackness, Marius gasped as an old memory pushed to the forefront of his mind. His fingers spasmed, and he stumbled back as he realized what the empty paths meant.
Kydona have mercy on him. If he was right…
Oh gods.
He was going to be sick.
Using what felt like the final dredges of his magic, Marius left the silver planes behind. What usually took seconds felt like hours, and for a moment, he was bodiless. His soul hung in the in-between, and everything was too light.
And then, it was over.
He returned to himself, his mind settling in his body once more.
Cold.
His teeth chattered, and goosebumps littered his flesh. It was like he’d been dropped onto an iceberg. The air was frigid, and the ground felt like it was made of ice.
Marius’s stomach churned, and his head pounded against his skull. His eyes were shut, and he should have opened them, but he was so tired from using his magic. So worn out.
His head fell back and hit a cold wall. He should’ve been worried about that. A part of him knew that walls had no business being in the forest, but he was too tired and cold to care.
He hadn’t even known it was possible to be so cold, which felt like afeat in and of itself since he lived in a land where it snowed for ten months out of the year.
No one in their right mind would ever call Castle Sanguis warm, but right now, he would do anything to be inside its stone walls. The violet Light Elf orbs that lit the hallways didn’t give off heat, but at least they provided the illusion of warmth.
There was no such thing here.
He focused on his breathing until the light-headedness abated.
Hugging his arms around himself and clenching his jaw shut to prevent his teeth from clattering, he forced his eyes open.
A curse slipped from his lips, and his breath clouded in front of him. By the gods, the empty paths of the future had been disconcerting, but this was even worse.
