The thought broke something inside my chest. The ache carved through me as my throat tightened.
I lowered my gaze. I didn’t want them to see how much I wanted to live. It would only make them happier to kill me.
She walked toward me slowly, holding her favourite blade. It no longer caught the light, coated in blood, dirt, and grime. She lifted it to her nose, inhaled deeply and chuckled.
Then she lowered herself to meet me eye to eye. ‘Such prospects wasted.What a shame.’
I didn’t respond.
Without hesitation, she drove the blade toward my throat. Moonlight glinted in the corner of my eye, and as it connected, everything went dark.
My veins, tendons, muscles, and bones stretched, ready to snap as a blinding light assaulted my senses, pushing me forward. It struck me with a crushing wave of heat that even my fire-craving soul found unbearable.
It charred every cell in my body. And then it vanished.
My hands slapped against the tiled floor in an unfamiliar room, the impact echoing as I collapsed.
For a moment, I relished the freedom from the restraints, allowing my lungs a full inhale and exhale. My breathing rasped, and it felt as though my lungs could no longer draw a deep breath, but at least the pain of the rope digging into my ribs was beginning to ease.
Blood oozed out of the cuts on my body and kept smearing across the pristine floor beneath me. My limbs wouldn’t even twitch as I craved to move and assess the place I landed in.
The high, mirrored ceiling frightened me. Or rather, what it reflected. My hair was caked with dust and dirt, my cheekbones hollowed until they jutted from my face as though I were already half a ghost. The little curves I’d gained were gone. I looked like death, or as though its claws would claim me at any second. Only there wouldn’t be much left to claim.
It shouldn’t have been possible to feel an ache in my cells, yet I was certain I’d somehow achieved the impossible. Down to the very mitochondria, every part of my body seemed to beg for time to recover.
How did I even survive?
‘You look truly pitiful,’ a melodic voice rang out behind me, but I didn’t have the strength to even flinch at the stranger.
I shifted my gaze to at least see some of her silhouette and sighed as her expression appeared benevolent. ‘Who are you?’
Her faint footsteps echoed through the vast hall, lined with arched windows that poured in harsh sunlight my eyes struggled to adjust to. The space lay empty, with nothing to soften the rays before they reached me. It almost felt as though they were searching.
At the very centre stood a throne woven from thick rose vines, its thorns so large they could have passed for blades. Their pointed tips looked sharp enough to shatter bone.
‘I am Melinda,’ she said, her voice resembling a combination of the gentlest birdsong and thousands of wind chimes.
The name didn’t ring a bell. ‘Where am I, Melinda?’
The girl scrunched her nose. ‘I don’t usually get referred to by my name.’
A coughing fit made me drool slightly, earning me a sharp look of disgust. She stared at the fleck of foam clinging to the corner of my mouth as though it might somehow cross the distance and soil her immaculate golden dress.
‘Isn’t that how you introduced yourself?’ I asked, coughing again.
‘Indeed. I am not used to speaking to your kind anymore,’ she stated dryly.
Alarm bells rang out in my head. ‘My kind?’
She clasped her slender hands over her flat stomach. ‘The beings of your realm.’
‘My realm? This is Medeis, right?’
The beautiful blonde waves of her hair caught the sunlight like a torch, blinding me, but I couldn’t mind. She was breathtaking. ‘Not at all. This is the God realm. I brought you here because you needed my help.’
Deep breath. Was I dead or imagining things? No… it felt real. The pain and cold at my back couldn’t be an illusion.
‘That’s hardly new. I never not need help. Why now?’ Wait, did that mean… ‘Are you a Goddess?’
