5 Kora #2
Kora’s lips curled, a satisfactory smile surfacing, as rage darkened Barron’s features.
For a split second, she thought she would return to Thanos’ embrace, the thunderstorms dancing in Barron’s eyes deepening to unfathomable darkness.
But all at once, his face smoothed out, and he straightened, adjusting his shirt.
“You’ve not restored her enough,” he snapped at Blake. “She needs rest, before we can re-power the velesma.” Blake’s jaw continued to grind, the muscles twitching as his fists clenched. “Escort her back, perhaps tomorrow she will be ready to . . . listen.”
With an abhorrent wink, Barron departed, surrounded by a diseased bubble of guards that marched in uniformed steps back to the Citadel.
Blake approached and her heart hammered as he bent down, his hands gently sweeping under her arms to help her up.
She cried out in agony as her legs wobbled, unable to support her.
The individual fibres of her muscles screaming, her bones creaking.
Gods, she could do with some of Thanos’ reality bending right about now.
Anything to grant her what she’d lost—no, stolen, by Blake.
Blake picked her up, cradling Kora’s small frame in his arms. She moaned, attempting to twist away, but his grip tightened.
“Stop it, Kora,” he spoke quietly as he followed Barron. “Let me help you.”
“I don’t want your help,” she croaked. His familiar scent of petrichor washed over her, followed by something unfamiliar and bitter, and flashes of his old, warm embrace under the thick canopy of the Emerald Forest made her stomach churn.
“You told me we could be friends once,” Blake murmured, his head annoyingly close to hers. Kora inwardly cringed at the flashback, of her desperate final attempt to stitch whatever they had back together.
Before she discovered what a monster he was.
“That was the blood loss, it was a mistake. You’ve done too much, Blake. Too many lies.”
“I promise to do better.” His chin brushed her forehead. “Just you wait. You’ll see this is the only way forward.”
“Stop promising things you don’t mean.” Kora’s eyes fluttered, her energy seeping from the strain of re-awakening from the void. Her core was hollow, her essence evaporated, yet a tiny spark of light warmed her chest.
A small kernel of life.
The familiar dirt-packed, blood-soaked ground of the barracks caused bile to rise within Kora. Thank the gods, it was empty, the male soldiers that’d previously filled it sent away on Barron’s orders to infiltrate and cleanse the islands with their new world order.
They guided her through Mossfell Castle, an eerie path similar to her arrest earlier in the summer, except the castle was quiet. Not one servant was seen, no scurrying courtiers whispering about her, not even a simple guard.
Blake constantly remained several steps behind Barron, his head low and breath sickly against Kora’s head.
Two dark-armoured guards flanked Barron, their steps uniformed, their eyes husks through the slit of their helmets.
A lone figure guided from the front, dressed in the traditional empire garb with a hooded cloak to keep the chill at bay.
Clothing Kora had once revered, worn proudly as a Captain. Now it was gaudy to her.
As they weaved around abandoned wooden benches, emptied kegs and dusty target dummies, Kora cast her stare to the domed ceiling, painted with tales of the Galenite War.
What she once saw as horrific, innocents dying at the hands of Galenites, Kora now only observed the destruction of the empire, their golden vices spearing the chests of rebels and pirates, and celebrating on the mounds of their discarded bodies.
It'd all been a lie. Weaved by the empire. The Windwards had tried to save her from Barron’s clutches.
A trio of siblings she’d once known from her past, and was curious to understand how, and why.
And Raiden. He was . . . Kora frowned, dragging her gaze from the ceiling.
Who was Raiden? He was enticing. A diamond that sparkled in the smothering darkness sweeping across the islands.
Something about him called to her but terrified her at the same time. His elemental power was formidable, and a threat. If he wanted to, he could kill her without blinking, she was sure of it. Deep down, she knew he wouldn’t, but his agenda was shrouded in mystery, much like the Mist.
“Raiden . . .” Kora attempted again, blindly whimpering within her mind, within the darkness that enveloped it.
Nothing.
Almighty Thanos, she’d been so wrong. So blind. Shame consumed her. She’d believed and supported tyrants, who were spreading like a disease across the land. What Barron called a cleansing was his noble way of dressing up what really was happening.
Guilt continued to wrack through her in unrelenting waves, smothering her as Blake descended the stone steps to the spiral dungeons, his footsteps echoing off the cavernous walls.
Kora reluctantly nestled into his strong frame as the familiar cold winds bit her cheeks, threads of ice slinking through the rips in her clothes.
She was going to die down here.
“Blake, stop coddling her. Kora may walk the rest of the way. Your betrothed is waiting for you upstairs,” Barron’s voice bounced around them. “I have matters to attend to. I suggest you think long and hard, Kora. Don’t think I won’t resort to . . . dire circumstances to get what I want.”
She shuddered as Barron receded through the barracks with the two guards, disappearing through the opulent gilded doorways of the castle.
The hooded figure descended to the dark pits of hell.
Blake carefully balanced Kora on the steps to the dungeons, his movements gentle and cautious.
She swatted his hands away, grasping onto the nearby stone railing as her knees buckled.
“He’ll kill you,” Blake whispered, his eyes wide. “I know him. He’ll kill you if it means Galen can’t have you.”
“I’ve made my peace with death.” Quite literally. “Barron should be worried about what awaits him.” Kora straightened and gasped as she was met with a skeletal figure. She stumbled back and Blake steadied her shoulders, his form appearing behind the frail female.
“Is that . . . is that me?”
Mirrors lined the walls of the stairway, descending into the darkness of the dungeons. They rattled from the biting winds of the cyclone, and cracks lined the edges of each mirror precariously hung on the stone.
“Barron wanted prisoners to witness their own walk into hell.” Blake swallowed as he hovered behind Kora. His fingers were still stained, connected to blackened veins wrapped around his wrists like unnatural, magical shackles.
A croaky groan echoed from her lips as she peered at the crooked, shadowed reflection.
Her hair had somehow grown, the matted lengths reaching the tips of her shoulders, and caked in dirt from being buried among the earth.
Every angle of bone protruded from her pale skin, her freckles stretched over her cheekbones.
Crusted, dead, flaking skin lined her dried, cracked lips, and her once captivating lapis lazuli eyes were sunken, shrouded by edges of death.
“I . . . I look like Jack.” Brushing back her hair, she winced at how sharply her collarbone cut through her clothes.
Blake frowned. “Who?”
“Jack Flint.” Kora caught his gaze in the mirror. “He looked exactly like this on Hell’s Serpent. So did his twin.”
Blake stilled, his pallor paling as the flickering light from the torches in the dungeon illuminated half of his body. Those shadows continuously danced behind him, taunting from the dark.
“You drained their lives, didn’t you?”
“I did what I had to,” he answered, choking. “Barron always pushed me to my limits, and if I didn’t leech from others, I would’ve died a long time ago. It was survival.”
“Barron wasn’t on my ship. He was nowhere near us, yet you continued to steal others’ lives. Don’t use him as an excuse. How many of my crew died because of you?”
“If I hadn’t, I would have been dead,” he repeated. “I needed to be capable of protecting you. I can’t let anything happen to you . . . I need you, asterya.”
“The only person I needed protecting from was you,” Kora scoffed. Blake winced, his shoulders drooping and those dark currents slinking around him, brushing his neck in comfort, increasing in size.
“Let’s keep moving.” The hooded figure—a dungeon guard presumably—appeared at the base of the stairwell, clutching a wooden torch in his slender, pale hand. His cool voice drifted through Kora’s mind, circling the drain of her memories.
As Kora pivoted to descend to her doom, the flickering light caught the shine of her metal collar in the distorted mirrors and she lunged to inspect her neck.
“No!” She shakily probed the tender flesh, cocking her head. “What did you do?” Her scar had spread, reaching down the side of her face in a thin, jagged sliver before arching across the left side of her neck and disappearing under her thick, metal collar.