15. Seren
SEREN
The room's gentle perfection is suffocating.
Curtains made of raw silk whisper with every subtle movement.
A breeze floats through the crack in the window, making their pearl-like sheen shimmer in the light.
A smooth walnut bed frame, chair and nightstand are the only items of furniture, each decorated in the intricate, hand-carved suns nestled in a bed of acanthus leaves.
Full-bodied cream rugs slumber on the cold marble floor, adding a touch of muted comfort to the overwhelming flawlessness.
Perfume softens the air. Oil lamps release thin plumes of white smoke, replacing my stale stench with a gentle, fragrant warmth.
It makes my skin crawl. This isn’t comfort.
It’s a golden cage built to suffocate and taunt me with its riches.
I stroke a button on my coat, watching my finger slide across the worn material. Dirt lines my nails and clings to my clothes, years worth of grime that was once a comforting weight, now feels heavy and soiled with monumental stains of neglect.
The room is a minefield of choice; each step I contemplate feels like a betrayal of my own history, my own people. To track dirt onto the rug is one kind of defiance; to seek rest in the perfect bed is another, far more dangerous one—at the risk of forgetting who I am.
I wrap my arms around myself, trying to contain the scent that is the last shred of my identity. Soft, pliable muscle turns to ice, as I’m caught between the urge to remain authentically filthy, and the terrifying pull of an ease that feels like a trap.
Instead, I slide down onto the floor, tucking my knees tight to my chest. The manacles bite every time I move, runes pulsing faintly with little bursts of light that make my shadows hiss and cower beneath my legs like wounded things.
My forehead finds purchase on my knees as the tears come in waves. Hot. Silent. Endless.
Sylas. What have I done?
If only he could see the room I was in now. He always was the one with fantastical ideas about what life would be like in the gilded city. And here I am, cowering on the floor like a trapped animal, eyeing both the exit and the white satin bedsheets with equal suspicion.
I try to remember his voice, his laugh, the way he used to nudge me when he’d stolen something from the market and wanted me to share the secret. But the memories blur at the edges, the clinical perfection of this place already scrubbing them away.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper into my legs. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I just wish it would all go away—and that you were still here.”
Cold, ghostly hands grip my heart—squeezing, pulling, tearing at my soul. I deserve this. I deserve the gnawing emptiness splitting me open from the inside. I did this. I am a stain in this polished world. A blemish they can never wash away.
Branded by that night, my soul wears a sigil of death and darkness—a mark so physical I can almost touch it.
Tears blur my vision. I claw at the manacles, but they only burn hotter in protest, branding my skin anew. My hands tremble as I press my fists into my eyes, forcing the pressure to build until it screams behind my skull.
Behind my eyelids, the glowing red lines shift, rearranging like veins under skin.
They whisper to me—promises of an end. I want to reach in and tear the map from my mind.
I want to feel that tapestry of red string curl around my fingers until I’ve pulled it all out, leaving nothing but the mercy of endless black.
I want to understand what is happening to me. But more than that? I want to go home. Back to how things were. Back to him.
I don’t care if it means returning to the suffering. I would trade it all just to be with him. I’d give anything for another day—one more moment to hear his laugh, to feel the steady rhythm of his breath while he slept.
Tears coat my cheeks like wet paint, etching grief into my skin.
At my feet, the shadows rustle like circling vultures. I want to scream, but only a broken whimper escapes. I curl tighter, shaking, until the darkness finally creeps in to swallow me whole.