Chapter 38 #2
Except when I finally understood where I was, I realized that running to find Rune right now wasn’t possible.
Apparently, I was in a jail cell made of stone blocks and metal bars as thick as my arms. A bed frame without a mattress was on my left, just inside the bars.
I’d dragged myself behind it when I lost control earlier.
Ahead, there were piles of hay in both corners, and a single barred window without glass was on my right.
“No.”
I had voice to speak with this time. I said the word out loud because if I was in a jail cell and those bars were locked, how was I going to get to the Hollow? How was I going to find Rune?
My body moved on its own and I was suddenly on my knees, looking down at myself, the dress I had worn that morning now dirty, wrinkled, a fucking mess—just like my insides.
I pushed my hair away from my face, too, looked at the bed frame where I’d woken up, at the dark corridor outside the thick bars.
There was nobody there, just torches with flames dancing on top of them silently.
Not even a single fae light floating near the ceiling. Just fire.
My hands shook when I grabbed the edge of the bed frame and tried to push myself up.
Impossible. My legs refused to hold me. The best I could do was sit on the screeching wood again until I gathered more strength.
Until the voices in my head stopped screaming, and I had energy to call for someone, to ask whoever the hell had put me in here to let me go— right now.
The sky outside the barred opening was dark, stars twinkling weakly in the distance.
I gripped the fabric of my dress in my fists and breathed, focused on the air going down my throat, closed my eyes and chased away the worst of the thoughts rioting inside me.
So goddamn difficult, and the more I pushed, the more vivid the images became.
The scream ripped out of me, finally taking a little pressure off me, but if someone was close enough to me to hear, they didn’t make a single sound. Not when I screamed and not when I doubled over and shook as the tears spilled from my eyes relentlessly.
For a moment there, I thought I was never going to be strong enough to think clearly, call for someone, or get myself out of this fucking place.
Because I could—I knew I could. I had light in my hands and no matter that it only made things float about—I could use it to somehow open those doors and set myself free. I could.
But the desperation refused to let go of me for a long time. It sucked at my hope, at any positive thought I tried to cling to, until I was almost empty, just a broken record replaying the moment Rune and the giant were swallowed by the ground.
Eventually, though, I pictured Rune there with me, and I imagined him telling me to breathe again, to wipe my tears, to raise my head .
We’re going to be okay, Wildcat, he’d say, and I’d believe him because he always knew.
I stopped crying as I thought of him. Stopped shaking, stopped bending over, trying to disappear into thin air. I sat up and breathed deeply, and I am not perfect, so I slipped a few times. Maybe more.
But I got myself under control again, and that was what mattered. There was no hope in me, but I did have a plan—to go to the Hollow and swim in the fucking lava until I found him.
I never said it was a smart plan, but it would get me going, at least.
And a moment before I convinced myself to open my eyes, stand up, break those bars to pieces in whatever way I could, I felt it.
The world stopped.
Time stood still, together with my heart. I didn’t move a single inch as my every instinct focused on that tiny thing in the distance, like my entire being depended on it.
In a way, it did.
I felt the fluttering of those tiny wings, saw the blueish white light in my mind’s eye, and then my heart started to beat again. My eyes opened. I stayed in place, looking at the dark sky through those bars, and I waited, fists tight and muscles locked.
I waited, and it came.
A bird as big as my fist flew in the air slowly, beating those small wings right behind the bars, casting blue light on them.
It was the bird.
It was my bird—my friend that Rune always made me to give me light. To keep me company.
It was my friend, and it looked exactly like the nightingales from the forest back home.
It was my bird.
In the blink of an eye, I was on my feet in front of those bars, fingers wrapped tightly around the metal as the bird lost more and more of its light, faded away by the second.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I didn’t shake anymore, and even my heart beat almost normally.
The bird faded all the way while I watched, unblinking—but it was okay. It had been there, and that was all the proof I would ever need. It had been there. I’d seen it with these same eyes that were dry now, and I knew exactly what it meant.
Rune was alive.
The thought echoed in my mind, chasing away with such ease every bad thing I’d tried so hard to fight against just moments ago.
Then I heard the footsteps behind me.