Derrick sawed away at his violin, the sinews in his forearms flexing as he played faster and faster. His hair was damp with sweat. He flashed me a triumphant smile but did not stop playing.
He would never stop. We would never stop. He was my forever.
But why was I still so empty?
My brows creased and the emptiness turned into darkness that spread through my chest, then up to my eyes.
Before I could scream for help, the darkness swallowed me again.
The night was still. Water gently lapped against my ears, carrying a gentle voice with it.
“You should be all better now. The poison is gone.”
My head swam, but my eyes slowly peeled open. Dark green tones filled my blurry vision. A soft pillow was beneath my head. A warm quilt covered my shoulders.
I must have been in my bedroom.
I blinked and found Annalisa asleep in my ivory armchair. Her curls were a blonde bramble. She wore nothing but her undergarments and her golden Thornebow pendant that gleamed in the hazy afternoon sun.
Slowly, my eyelids grew heavier and heavier until they closed.
“Are you dreaming, Sera? Are you dreaming of the life you could have had without me?”
The voice disappeared as water dripped across my eyelids. I slowly opened them to a dark room.
Someone tenderly dabbed a damp rag over my forehead. The smell of warm herbs hit my nose. A gentle hand rubbed medicine on my chest.
“Mother?” I murmured.
Then I tumbled into the blackness again.
“You should have killed me. Then you never would have ended up here.”
I chased the voice, but awoke to another golden afternoon. Freya’s drunken warbles echoed through my door as she sang:
“The sand is running down, but we dance all through the nights,
For the lioness loves the viper, even though she bites.”
She retreated to her room and left me in peace to fall back asleep.
“Wake up, please! It’s been two days! Wake up!”
Riyan. The voice was Riyan. How was he reaching out to me again? Why did he sound so desperate? Why did I need to wake up?
I pushed against the dark veil over my mind. Riyan was speaking to me for a reason. I needed to wake up.
“Wake up, Serafina!”
My eyes popped open.
Two days. I had consumed so much at the party, my body took two days to recover.
“No one is sure how you are still alive,” Brietta said.
She sat in my armchair with her hands folded in her lap. A cup of spiced cream warmed my hands as I sat in bed. I took small sips to calm my hunger pangs as she explained what had happened at the ball.
My cheeks burned with embarrassment and I gripped my cup so tightly I thought the ceramic might crack. I thought letting gowould have made me feel more at peace, but all I had done was make my situation harder by sniffing that damn dust.
