Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
I thrashed around at the bottom of the coin with a desperate pain in my chest. I’d been free. For a moment I’d seen the sky through that hole in the cave roof and the trees and the grass and real faces of real people. The world had still been out there, and everything had been so everything.
It had been so much more than I’d remembered.
The smells, the sensations, the breeze, the sunlight, the grass beneath my feet.
It was too much and not enough all at once.
And now it was over. I’d failed somehow, ruined it, destroyed the only chance I’d had to taste the outside world again in so, so long.
Your fucking fault. You were too much. They didn’t want to deal with your insanity any more than I do and now here we are, back in here trapped for another thousand years never to see sunlight again.
“I know,” I breathed. Of course I’d scared them off. I hadn’t done anything right in over a century. Certainly not in this last week. I was hopeless. Useless. Broken beyond the point of return and fractured within my own mind.
It had just happened so fast, so suddenly, I’d barely even known what was happening when I was summoned from my jail and ripped back out into the world beyond this cage.
I’d had one chance in all this time, and I’d blown it.
Ruined it while barely even getting a moment to take it all in.
I was too full on. Too much. Too desperate.
But I’d seen reality for the first time in such a long time and I just couldn’t stop myself from falling apart over it. And now I’d destroyed my chance.
That man with the burning eyes and the soul as dark as sin had taken one look at me and seen everything in me that was broken.
I’d let him see it in my excitement, and I hadn’t even begun to make him understand all the possibilities he now had at his fingertips with me by his side.
For one fleeting, glorious moment I’d had a master again.
There had been a time when I’d fought against fulfilling the wishes of those who owned me with everything I was, but I’d long since learned that there was something far worse than being a slave.
And that was being forgotten. Alone. Abandoned to the wastes of time and left to rot while never ever decaying at all.
He’d never call on me again.
I dragged a golden cushion over my face and screamed into it. I screamed and screamed and let all of my rage and agony out until I was sobbing over the opportunity I’d just missed.
I was already starting to doubt his existence at all, wondering if my mind had just conjured up the idea of someone finally coming to claim me, but as the doubts crept up on my heart, shifting closer like clawing hands wanting to snatch the thundering organ from my chest, the memory of his eyes flashed through my mind.
I couldn’t have imagined eyes like his. I could hardly even remember what eyes looked like anymore.
But his had been deep and endlessly dark, almost as perfectly obsidian as his hair which had fallen forward to cover them as he’d stared at me.
There had been a depth to those eyes which beckoned me closer and asked me to jump into the darkness of them.
I’d seen secrets and pain hidden within them, the kind of hurt that I remembered only too well.
The ink on his bare chest had almost seemed alive with the memories of that pain too and though it hurt me to look on it, it was beautiful in a way which made me ache.
He was so raw and savage and mortal . I doubted he even understood how beautiful it was to be so fleeting in this world, for every beat of your heart to be driving you towards an end at one point or another.
It made every choice, every action, every moment, no matter what it was filled with so important.
He was breathtaking in his brevity on this earth and I so wanted to take a taste of mortality from him again.
But he wouldn’t be calling me from the coin after the mess I’d made of our first and only interaction.
Unless he did . He knew about my power and all I had to offer him, I’d managed to convey that much at least. I was almost certain he’d understood that. And I so wanted to make his dreams come true.
If I could make his life into an adventure worth writing songs about then it would be almost like living for myself again. I could give him everything he could ever wish for and in doing so I might even remember what it was like to feel alive.
I placed my palms against the cool, golden walls of my prison and tried to gauge if he was still there, closing my eyes and reaching out with my power for something from beyond this cage which trapped me so completely.
I couldn’t sense a single thing from the outside but as I hunted for a sign of him, I found a hum of new magic linked to me.
I opened my eyes and ran my fingers along the edge of the iron collar which cut into my skin just as it always had, feeling it even though I wasn’t allowing it to be seen at the moment, finding the edge of the chain which linked me to my new master, making me draw in a sharp breath.
I was bound to him. He remained my master which meant he still held my coin in his possession.
No matter what distance there was between us, this link would remain in place, and he would always be able to summon me to his side with nothing more than a call.
And all I wanted in this world was to make him happy, bring him joy and taste that emotion on him for myself.
If I could see happiness again then maybe I could remember what it felt like too.
I can’t believe you grew a tiny penis and showed it to him. He’ll never call you out of here again after that. What man wants tiny penis magic?
I sighed, slumping against the wall and letting my head knock against it. I was right. There was no point arguing with myself. I’d blown it. The one chance I’d had in centuries of solitude, and I’d ruined it.
“Did you see the sun?” I breathed wistfully.
“It wasn’t black at all. It was golden.” I conjured an image of the celestial being above my head and closed my eyes as I imagined warmth washing over my skin.
I’d only gotten a glimpse of it through the hole in the roof of that cavern, yet that tiny glimpse had been the key to endless memories of sunlight unlocking within my mind.
How much else had I lost while trapped in here?
How much more might I remember if I could only walk the world once again?
And now we’ll never see it. Thanks to you.
A tear fell from my eye. Then another. More and more until they raced down into the pool at my feet and sent ripples cascading away from me.
Good. Let’s hope we drown, and this suffering can finally end.
I opened my mouth to agree when a deep warmth built at the base of my spine, my entire body trembling with the magic of this prison as I fell apart and was ripped from the confines of the coin.
I gasped excitedly as I was drawn from the coin again and the two men stared at me in surprise is if they hadn’t been sure I would really come.
I took a single heartbeat to stare at them, noticing the one on the left frowning at me as he folded his arms over his tunic, cocking his head to one side like he was assessing a dangerous beast. But I couldn’t spare him much attention because my full focus locked straight on my master, the sharp and chiselled features of his face capturing my full attention as I fell into the darkness of his endless eyes once more.
For someone whose life had been so brief, I could tell he had suffered greatly.
The ink on his bare chest seemed to whisper to me, the origins of those patterns sending a shiver right down to the essence of my being as I remembered the deal I’d once made with a power such as those.
I didn’t regret it. But I still feared Herdat ever finding me and doling out her wrath in payment for my rejection, not to mention the power I had been forced into accepting.
Do it better this time, this is our last shot.
I hastily wiped the tears from my face and threw myself at the feet of my master, groaning softly at the press of soft grass against my flesh and the feeling of sunlight beating down on me once more.
We were out of the cave now, the roar of a waterfall coming from our right and that endless caress of sunlight shining down all around us and making me want to weep with joy.
“What do you desire, Master?” I begged, keeping my face pressed to the grass at his boots and biting my tongue to stop any other errant words from escaping.
I couldn’t ruin this again. I needed him to want me, to keep me, to allow me this glimpse of the world and many more besides.
I was a sponge all dried out and aching for moisture, and I needed to soak in everything this land had to offer me more than anything.
I would be whatever he wanted me to be and give him all he asked.
All I wanted in return was this brief taste of life.
“Tell her to get up, Drake, that’s not right,” the other one said, his voice rough and I drank in the knowledge of my master’s name with a deep sigh which warmed me from the inside out.
I wasn’t sure what kind of man he was, if he was cruel or kind, fair or easily angered, but I didn’t mind.
I’d take brutality and pain over the endless nothing of that cage – I’d take anything at all just as long as it was real.
“I dunno, mate, I kinda like it. I could get used to that,” my master replied, a teasing lilt to his words and I practically glowed as I realised I’d pleased him.
Shit, I was pathetic, but I needed this, him, all of it and if he liked me bowing at his feet then he could have me shackled to him in any way he wanted.
Whatever it took to keep me out here instead of in there.