Chapter thirteen
Fallyn
As I always was when my body was unconscious, I was in a world of shadow, as if the shadows were all that existed here. Outside of time, light, or life.
My feet thudded against the ground, but I never moved anywhere.
My heart raced and my lungs burned from the effort, but I couldn’t move from this place.
It was like I was suspended, but I could firmly plant my feet on the ground.
Crows cawed from somewhere around me, the only accompanying sound to my ragged breaths and his ever following, ever present footsteps.
“Leave me alone!” I screamed, lashing out with magic, but as always in this never-ending nightmare, my magic didn’t come to my aid. I had no weapons, nothing to stop or even delay the inevitable. There was nothing to dilute the cresting fear that threatened to consume me.
Ensconced in shadow, he moved forward. I only saw glimpses of him, and never of his face. But I did see his blood-soaked blade in his hand. I closed my eyes, waiting for my familiar death.
As many times as I’d felt this, the explosion of pain never dulled in intensity. He chose my abdomen this time, filling my mouth with the coppery tang of my blood. I screamed, the sound weakened by my punctured diaphragm, and I fell weakly to my knees.
“Why?” I always asked. As always, there was no answer. Only the plunge of his blade.
I woke as I always did, terrified and in agony from the wounds inflicted in the dream and with a wail on my lips.
While I knew no injury existed, the pain bled from the space between waking and dreaming, refusing to quietly give me reprieve.
Ever had they haunted my waking life like death haunts of sick and frail.
Every stranger a suspect, every too long glance from a stranger was a danger.
Night terrors, my parents had dubbed them, even as they attempted to soothe them away.
They rocked me, read to me, gave me tonics from various healers, even dishing out more coin than we could afford for specialty healers, but the result was always uselessly the same.
It led to me despising sleeping near anyone.
Even as an adult, the moment I was finished for the night with a male suitor, he was quickly dismissed for the night.
Many tried to stay with me, tried to convince me it was fine, but the hot shame I endured when someone witnessed my worst fear come to life, still tasting the blood when I woke, still feeling the cold sluice of the blade through my flesh, wasn’t something I’d ever been strong enough to bear, especially not from someone transient in my life.
So when the male from the cave was in the room with me, was indecently over top of me, my face flooded with color.
Shame and anger blended into one as I sought to lash out in my haze, reality and the nightmare seamlessly blending, to get him anywhere but where I was.
My eyes darted around for an exit, my lungs aching for breath.
“Easy there, little shadow,” he murmured, his voice the soft caress of the beckoning dusk.
Of boldly lengthening shadows, and the calm that came with the fading evening light, making the nightmare dissolve before my eyes, leaving space for only reality.
Though at present, I wasn’t sure if that were a good thing or not.
“You’re safe, as promised.” His hands grasped both of mine above my head, keeping me from thrashing at him, not making me feel very safe.
His eyes were the most unsettling. Black enough that his irises were eclipsed by his pupils, forging them into one, but littered with golden flecks, as if his eyes held the perfect canvas for a glittering sky of another world.
A world of golden stars. “Can I let go, or are you going to try to rearrange my face again?”
Again?
At my look of confusion, he angled his head to show me where my fist must have connected with his face.
As if to help make his point, my hand sang, quite on cue to snag my awareness.
He smiled through a furrowed brow. “As impressive as your right hook is, I quite like where my features are, if you please. So if I let go, am I in any danger?”
Was I in danger?
I shook my head. Immediately true to his word, my bodily autonomy was returned to me. I shifted back on the cot, creating further distance between us. If he were offended, he didn’t show it. He also didn’t provide any further information, seeming content to let me set the pace of our interactions.
“Who are you?” I glanced quickly around to gauge my surroundings. I was on a bed. A dusty bed, but a bed nonetheless. “Where are we?”
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
I deadpanned. “Do you always answer a question with a question?”
“It’s something I’ve been accused of, yes.” He mused with the expression of someone in on their own inside joke. “You can call me Ash. You’re quite safe, I assure you.”
Safe? That word again. I almost laughed, bitterness coating my tongue and choking me before I could.
I’d never been safe. The male haunting me in my nightmares made sure of that.
For my whole life, I’d been forced to look for him, to pick his face that I’d never seen from amongst the crowds, forced to elude him.
Forced to endure the pitying stares of those around me.
“I’ll ask again. Where are we? And how did we get here?
” My eyes traced every shadowy nook and cranny, the small window above me hoping for some sign.
None came; all that was familiar had morphed into something foreign, contributing to my discontent.
Darkness layered on darkness left traces between tensions and textures.
Only when I brushed my hair back did I notice a new texture, one that stole the warmth from my blood.
My hand looked like it had been dipped in ink to my knuckles, the black absolute and final against the softness of the shadows around us.
I felt my eyes widen. I felt the O my lips made.
Fear spike in my chest. The curse touch.
I snarled at him in earnest, spitting at him like a viper. “What have you done to me?”
He responded by showing me his hand in kind, the ink stretching to his wrist before settling back easily in his chair. Crossing his ankle over his knee, he replied gravely, “I could ask you the same thing.”
“You can’t keep me here,” I objected behind my shield of crossed arms. “I won’t be kept like a pet. And you should know, I bite.”
His eyes glimmered with distinct possibilities roaming in his head, likely indecent ones. “Oh? I didn’t realize that was on the table. I like when pretty little things like to show their teeth.”
Don’t show fear. Don’t balk. I revealed my wrath, baring my teeth, searching for anything strong enough to be used as a weapon aside from my words.
“You’ll find nothing you can use to hurt me.” His eyes tracked every subtle movement. Eyes that would be mesmerizing if not for feeling like his captive.
“I don’t need anything besides myself to hurt you,” I retorted with more confidence than I truly felt.
“I already rearranged your face once, by your own admittance. Imagine what I can do when I’m conscious.
” His smile widened, baring his own teeth, a subtle warning of its own, or perhaps a dare in the way he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“Go ahead, little shadow. I don’t mind a little poison with my pretty.”
I had no idea what to say back. “You’re a psychopath.”
His hand roamed his chin in a display of thoughtfulness. “Well, that seems rude, given I’ve saved your life. I think I prefer the term interesting. Or creative may be more accurate.”
“Call yourself what you will. Being creative, as you say, is only helpful for those who seek to deceive.” His deep chuckle sounded through my barbed words.
“Not just teeth, but a smart mouth as well. Sounds like you’re your own brand of interesting.” My growling stomach cut through the tension like a knife, Ash’s face lighting instantly in a laugh that heated my cheeks and flamed my outrage. “Hungry, little shadow?”
I hadn’t thought about it, but my body was famished. Hunger gnawed on my insides like a mouse trapped in a well, its clawed paws scraping the sides.
“Fuck you.”
“Sure, but you should eat something first.” I was dumbfounded even as pink touched my cheeks, from anger more than anything else, I had no doubt.
I searched for words, coming up empty when he stood, leaning directly over me.
“Hades got your tongue, little shadow?” He stood there while I glared at him, giving him nothing, before I softened ever so slightly.
“I’ll go get you some food. Don’t go anywhere.
Oh right, you can’t.” His upbeat voice was like a grater to my last frayed nerve.
The sound of the door’s rusted hinges squeaking closed and the click of the lock meant one thing: I could search for my escape.
I wasted no time. I launched to my feet, surprised at how steady I felt overall, despite my hunger, soreness, and exhaustion. I tested my arm, surprised to find it healed. It wasn't even bandaged. How was I healed?
Standing on the plush mattress, I was able to look through the window.
It was small, barely two feet tall, only just enough to invite light in.
I guess Ash enjoyed the darkness while sleeping.
My short stature meant it was hard to discern how high up I was, but given that I could see tree branches extending above me, I hazarded a guess of a second story window.
I had to be able to reach the window. Glancing around, my eyes snared on his chair.
It would be light enough for me hoist into position but sturdy enough to support my weight.
I hopped down from the bed to drag it over on top of the mattress, securing it under the window as best as I could before mounting up.
I could glance out just enough to further affirm my suspicions of this being a second-floor room. Possibly third floor.
My breath caught in my throat—the window did indeed open.
A plan began to form in my mind, lighting like a beacon of hope.
I could bide my time. Eat what he offered me for strength, and then under the cover of nightfall, I’d escape.
I hurried to put the chair back precisely how it had been prior to Ash leaving, and smoothing the indents from the chair’s legs where they met the mattress.
I didn’t want him thinking I had any hope of escaping.
Whatever he had in store for me, I wanted him to think me too broken to revolt.
I glanced around the room now, seeking a weapon as mine had clearly been confiscated.
A lamp to my left looked sturdy enough; it would cave in someone’s skull if need be.
I fought the rising revulsion of my thoughts but reminded myself I was being held hostage.
My father was likely being put on the pyre and I was missing it. My friends would be searching for me.
Father.
I choked on a sob that wouldn’t be stopped.
Like a wall of emotion, it hit me hard, threatening to force my knees out from under me.
My mind turned against me, the images from yesterday forcing itself to the forefront of my mind, so tangible I almost wondered if it were even a memory. If I might let it swallow me whole.
The thing that chased me, chased me from a chasm that ripped a scar in the ground. Out of the very depths of the Underworld that cursed thing came, and it stole my father away from me. My final parent. I wasn’t supposed to send him to the pyre for many years yet and now—
I love you, Fallyn. Run!
His last words before his blood spurted onto me echo in my mind and steep into my soul, forever altering it.
All I could do was crumble under the weight of my grief. There was no fighting it, no crawling out from it.
Fuck the fates for taking the last of my kin. Fuck Hades for creating the chasm. I wasn’t sure if spite had made me sensitive, or if the gods above were laughing at my torment. I didn’t care.
Fuck them all, the new god and the old ones.
At least maybe this meant my betrothal to the prince was over.
Word of my potential demise must have reached him by now.
The one good thing of being held against my will.
After I said goodbye to my father, to my friends, I’d retreat to the other side of the mountains after all.
Anxiety sank its fangs into me with a ferocity I hadn’t expected when I saw my hand again.
The curse touch.
Ash had cursed me.
We were bound together until it ended.
More than anything else, fuck Ash.