A sweet, seductive voice hums from the mist, tickling my ears, and an icy chill strokes my cheek.Come…
My physical eyes blink as they begin to cool. My gaze lifts to my father. Our eyes meet and his widen at what I know he sees within mine. No longer the green of summer, my eyes are the pure matte black of the pit. Fear flickers across his face, the stake twitching. I smile. And fall.
It’s like plunging into black oil. The power clings to me and pulls me under. Deeper. Darker. I smile, my lips stretching too wide. A giggle bubbles up until it transforms into an endless, wild laughter. The ironwood shatters. All of it. Tiny splinters shiver in midair and Viola’s body squelches on the ground. The sound jolts my body.
I scream and it echoes with the abyss. Power explodes forth. The splinters dive towards the source of my suffering, slicing through my father’s feeble magical shields and burying deep in his flesh. His cry of agony brings a smile back to my face.
A tornado begins.
Magic roars. Weavers attack. I hum, my tornado building. I dip back in my oily sea, falling deeper and deeper. There’s no light, only my sweet oil. My arms swish back and forth in slow, luxurious sweeps. It’s lovely, this darkness.
Coolness wraps around me, chilling my bones. I don’t like the cold. I want warmth. Like a hot bath that I can sink into. Something that will ease the aches of my soul. Something to get lost in.
The darkness whispers its sweet hum.Why not a fire…
Yes, I can do that. A fire will warm me. But… this oil… I lift my hands, feeling the darkness all around. Fire and oil… would be… bad…
It will feed the fire. Like a lamp in the night.The voice wraps around my mind.It will be so lovely.
It would be. The fire would be pure. Yes, it will cleanse the impurities. There’s so much that needs to be cleansed. Like cauterizing a hemorrhaging wound, a fire could cure it all. Yes. A fire.
A fire.
A… fire…
I lift my hand to summon my flame. Instead of the heat I’m familiar with, an icy chill nips at my palm. My brows furrow and the oil shivers, sliding around me in long strokes.
Something slides across my palm. Something I cannot see. The darkness hisses.A fire. We must have a fire!
But I can’t summon it. Someone is holding my hand.
Then an arm wraps around me. Holding me. I shiver violently, my eyes burning. It feels so nice to be held.
A fire! A FIRE!
But something else sounds. Something from a great distance away. My heart thumps painfully and I gasp, awareness flickering. “Come back…”
I choke, oil pouring into my mouth. I try to scream, but I can’t. The oil is trying to silence me, trying to pull me under. It’s inside me. It consumes me.
“Come back…”
I can’t. I sob, my hand tightening on the one that holds it. I feel fingers and I scream, my hand burning. I look down. Fire. No.Light.
The darkness shrieks, the noise making me recoil. So horrific, but the light grows. The oil tries to drown it, tries to drag me deeper, but I thrash.
“Torment…”
I scream, “Lucas!”
“Come back, Torment…”
I fight with all my strength. I kick. I scream. My hand tightens around Lucas’, his rings biting into my skin. The pain focuses me. I reach out, sobbing. “Lucas!” Claws sink deep into me, sink into my chest where it tries to touch my heart. It tugs, the ruptured agony of my soul choking me. “I can’t…”
“You can. Come back, Tor. Come back to me.” His voice rasps. “I need you. Jinx needs you.”
Jinx. I choke. Jinx! My magic stutters, but then I throw everything I have into my perception, into the unbreakable strand that is twisted within my Entropy Soul Thread.Jinx!
Tori?
