30. THIRTY
THIRTY
DECENDING INTO MADNESS
I had been here for over a month now. I was beginning to lose track of time.
They had all seen it now. The Elorium had confirmed Iwould make the wrong choice. Everything changed after that. They started talking in rooms I wasn't allowed to enter. They whispered when I entered, watching me like I was already gone.
They knew the voices were no longer whispers. TheyknewI heardmusic playingwhen no oneelse could.
My paranoia was through the roof. I was seeing things that weren't there and hearing voices that weren't real.
Maybe they were playing games with my mind. Perhaps this was all an illusion. Seraphina had the ability to bend energy and twist perception. She knew how to get inside my head, and it was working.
So, when she came for me, I didn't speak. Instead, I hummed to block her out. It was a low, quiet tune, the one my mum used to hum when I was small. It wasn't comforting anymore. Now it felt like a barricade, a way to say no to Seraphina without giving her the dignity of words.
She stood by the door, saying nothing at first. She didn't need to. Her silence carried the weight of this place, the kind that settles in your chest and makes your bones feel like they’re being crushed from the inside.
I didn’t stop humming, nor did I look at Seraphina. I wanted her to feel the discomfort, so I deliberately kept my gaze elsewhere.
She stepped closer. I sensed it before I saw it, the shift in the air. Her magic didn’t need spells; it was evident in the way she moved and how the silent energy around us seemed to move with her.
Eventually, she spoke, as I knew she would.
“Your madness is unpredictable,” she said.”
I stopped humming, not because I wanted to, but because the tune had changed in my head. It wasn't my mother's melody anymore. It was slower now, off-key, as if someone else was humming through me.
"You still hear them?" Seraphina asked.
I nodded. But not at her. My attention was fixed on theceiling, at the crackthathadn't been there yesterday.It lookedlike a mouth now—a thin, smiling mouth.
"You know I hear them. Why do you ask?" I whispered.
"You're no longer sane," she replied, her voice flat.
"The madness has taken root much deeper than we thought. The more you fight it, the more it grows within you."
I smiled to myself, still humming. Now I was the mad one. How convenient for Seraphina to turn this on me.
Seraphina tilted her head, studyingme like I was a painting she didn't like.
"You're too far gone for us to help you. Vareth is inside you deeper than we thought."
“What” Ilaughed. I couldn't help myself. It came out sharp, like the soundofglassbreaking.
"Then why are you still here?" I asked.
"If I’m lost, why do you keep watching me like I might still be useful?"
She didn't answer. Instead, shestepped closer and laid something on the bed, a white gown, pale and ceremonial, embroidered with runesand symbolsI didn't recognise. It shimmered faintly, as if it were meant to be worn at sometwisted wedding.
"You'll wear this,"Seraphinasaid, eyes fixed on the dress, then shifting to me.
I stopped humming just long enough to meet her gaze.
I saw her for what she was. The enabler, the torturer, the one who told Donte he would be loved just to lure him into her web.
What had she done to him. She was the one that was sick in the head.
I felt a surge of fury that threatened to drown out the humming.
"You can take your hideous gown away," I said.
"That's not what I'm wearing today."
Before she could reply, Imoved towardsthe wardrobeandopened it. Ipulled out a midnight-blue dress with a snood I could hide beneath when I wanted to block all of them out.
Then, for the finishing touch, I reached beneath the bed and dragged out my old, scuffed black boots, the ones with the worn soles and fraying laces that neverseemed to sitquite right.The boots I had imagined stomping across their marble halls in and then stomping on their skulls with.
These boots reminded me I didn’t need to dress up for them, didn’t need to bow or play their celestial games. They symbolised my connection to home, to my beautiful cottage, and not to this large, creepy fucking house. They were mine, the last piece of me they hadn’t managed to twist.
"That's it," a voice whispered, soft and close.
"Let them all see what they've made."
I didn't flinch. I barely noticed the voices anymore they had been with me too long. They no longer felt likewhispers that freaked me out.
"This," I said, brushing the skirt down with my palms, "is what I'm wearing today. The dress Donte bought for me," I said his name to see if I got a reaction.
Then I saw the gold necklace with the star wheel.
“Put it on,” the voice murmured. More a command than a suggestion. I had found it in the Chamber of Souls. It was wrong in a way I knew was right for this outfit. I smiled slightly, just at the corner of my mouth, enough to make Seraphina tilt her head and narrow her eyes at me.
They thought I was going mad. Maybe I was. So, I decided to dress for it, in a gown and boots that were fit for their little theatre.
Let them think I was losing it. I liked the contradiction. It felt like a private joke, one only I was in on.
Seraphina didn't argue. She just watched me with those still, unreadable eyes,as if I were a puzzle missing too many pieces to be worth solving. Or maybe I imagined it. I was imagining a lot these days.
I'd long since stopped trusting her, stopped trusting any of them. They thought I couldn’t see the manipulation beneath their grace.
I saw who all of them were now. She called me gone.
Yet she was the one who had spent centuries cutting the soul out of the brothers until they were nothing but handsome broken hunters.
I was the mad one, how contradictory. Maybe I was losing my mind, but at least I still had a heart.