Chapter 22 #2
Sitting upright, glossy pink crystals creep across my skin.
My fingers touch the table as ice ripples along my fingertips and crawls down the table leg.
One fire elemny has already fled, but the other stands there momentarily before he notices the ice moving towards him.
Deadly. Lethal. Looking for a fresh kill.
He darts to the door to flee when pink glaciers shoot up from the ground, skewering him until he’s hanging there.
The man’s arms dangle, and crimson slips onto the ice, feeding my hunger for revenge.
As I lean forward, white hair flows down my chest. It’s a strange sight to behold.
But when I touch the tips of the white hair, unknown to me, they burn black and ink their way up my shoulders and hairline.
My focus rolls away from my hair toward the tunnel leading to Elden Keep.
Fury and betrayal flutter through me when I think of my sister abandoning me, knowing all too well that something will happen to me.
“They should all die,” I say under my breath.
The door flies open, and an air elemny steps through with his gun poised toward me.
There’s an unsettling gaze in his bright silver eyes.
Dark circles plague them, heightening the colour until they look as pale as the moon.
He wears a black shirt, denim jeans, and a long grey overcoat that gracefully falls to his feet.
When he steps toward me, the boots he wears make no sound.
He’s a Knight of Eraminia. The look he gives says it all as the air ripples from his shoulders and brushes against my fragile, crimson-soaked skin.
Moaning groans come from the fire elemny hanging from the glaciers of ice.
The air elemny moves the direction of the gun toward him, shoots him blank in the centre of his head, and then lowers his arm.
He slips his free hand into his pocket. I step back and wrap my arms around my naked, blood-soaked body.
Pink frost ripples underneath my feet, trembling to the same beat as my erratic heart.
The air elemny pulls out a packet of cigarettes, shakes it twice until two sticks protrude, and then raises it toward me. “I think you need one,” he says.
What fucking line of dialogue is that?
I eye the packet, the air elemny, then back at the package.
Flesh peels from my bottom lip when I gnaw on it, contemplating if I should.
After a moment, I step toward him and reach out when the ice melts from my skin, and a shudder of pain slices up my waist, splitting from the movement.
Trembling fingers quiver at the blistering, red, and bleeding burn crawling across my skin.
A dark shadow moves over me when I bow into the pain.
Fabric, cosy and soft, shrugs over my shoulders and moves around the front to cover my exposed, broken, naked body.
When I look up, the air elemny stands over me with a deep, worry-filled frown.
It’s hard to tell, considering he seems to lack any form of emotion crossing his face.
“If you come with me, I can take you somewhere safe,” he says, but the lack of emotion in his tone makes me hesitate.
“Why?” I say with hostility. “Aren’t you here to purge the Kingdom of Crystal? Or is my mind tricking me? Are there no dead bodies riddling the outside?”
He tilts his head to the side, and through narrow eyes, he says, “I’m not a trained dog. I do as I please. So, did you want help? I’m not so generous as to ask a third time.”
My fingertips brush across the wound until ice creeps across it. The searing pain turns into a dull, numbing throb—enough to get me by for now.
As I rise, I turn away from the air elemny and glare at the door leading to Elden Keep. “If you had asked ten minutes before…” I bite my lip. “No. I still have unfinished business to attend to.”
“I see,” he says when I stand before the bolted-shut door. “Then I bid you farewell and hope you make it out safely.”
Sinking my arms through the overcoat, I bundle it around my naked body and button it until I conceal my nudity.
My lip curls when I stare daggers at the door that Typha decided to close on me in the act of fear and betrayal.
Even in a moment of weakness, panic, and the thought of freedom on the tip of my tongue, I would never do it.
If she were lying on the table, pinned by fire elemny who ripped at her clothes like they were paper-thin, I would fight until my last breath to keep her from getting raped and burned.
She deserves to see me like this. Typha deserves to see the look of utter hatred on my fucking face.
Mindful of my resolve, I take a deep breath and prepare myself. With a raise of my hands, I press them against the door, and with a grunt, it blasts inward with intense force.
My arms fall to my side, and a weak smile plays across my lips. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he says. A flurry of wind breezes around the room, and when I turn back to look, the Knight is gone.
I walk through the tunnel towards Elden Keep, devoid of emotion or urgency. Pink crystals throb to the pulse of beating hearts. They glow, caressing my skin with a pink hue.
Soon, crimson, hatred, and revenge will flow through Elden Keep.
A manic, hysterical laugh bubbles up from my lungs. “Come out, come out, wherever you are…Typha.”