Chapter 12
I wake at the foot of the ruin. Night hangs over me like a blanket.
At first I have no idea how I got here. I reach for memories and they dissipate like cobwebs between my fingertips. Last night … I was in the dark. And before that, there was a bright fire. Too bright. Scorching, like the sun.
And I was powerful. I was unending.
MIDONIA. His voice reverberates in my head.
I get to my feet and realize they’re bare. All I’m wearing is my gauzy underdress. My hair hangs loose all around me, lifted by the cold wind. It’s no longer raining, but the sky is heavy with clouds, blocking out the stars. And as I lift my gaze to the ruin, I realize it is not a ruin at all.
Before me rises a great castle, almost a cathedral in shape, with towering buttresses, gothic spires, and stained glass windows. It’s impossible. It can’t exist here. And yet there it stands, its doors wide open. Waiting for me.
MIDONIA … COME.
His words lap at the base of my spine and pull me forward. It’s as if he has picked up a tether that was always attached to me, that was only ever meant for him. And now he reels me in, into the shadows where he lies waiting.
I go willingly.
My tender feet smart against the rough ground.
I pick my way over the dirt path, avoiding loose rocks and fallen pine needles.
But the moment I step through the doors, my skin is soothed.
The floors are cool, smooth stone. All the discomfort from the forest seems to be washed away with every step I take.
By the time I am standing in the vestibule, all my pain is gone.
I’m not even cold. My breaths come easy.
The room around me glows, and I realize there are crimson candles all along the walls and on the floor, flickering like a sea of fireflies.
Not for the first time, I wonder if I’m dreaming.
Maybe I’m still in my hut in the village, restless and tossing in my blankets, while the black ruin cuts through the forest and grasps me by the throat.
But it feels real. And more than that, I want it to be real.
My fear is gone, washed away, and only eagerness remains.
To see him, to be near him. I can still feel him inside of me and all around me, consuming me.
It should be a horrific memory, but it’s not.
The shameful truth is, I wanted him. I still want him more than anything.
You’re traumatized, comes my own voice from far away, the rational part of me, the persistent part. Confused.
I walk further inside. I pass through a grand hallway, hung with dark banners and glowing with more candles, the moonlight filtering in through stained glass windows.
And as I go, I begin to feel him. Not the memory of him, but persistent in the here and now.
A deep, low hum like the song of a black hole, he draws me to him with his sound, a beckoning finger urging me forward.
At last I pass into an immense throne room.
Candles float through the air, drifting like impossible clouds, dripping red wax onto the marble floor.
And there, filling the throne like a trapped shadow, is Anguish.
He is shapeless in his darkness. He is a storm cloud. He is a warning. He is an invitation.
‘Midonia,’ he says, and as my name unfurls from his countenance his dark form congeals and solidifies, until he is no longer a figment of nightmare but a man.
Black clothes adorn his figure. He lounges on the throne as if he’s too good for it.
His gaze is as red as the heart of a burning coal. ‘You returned to me.’
‘What is this?’ My voice is hoarse. I’m trying to make sense of everything that’s happened, of what I’m seeing, my mind grasping for strands of meaning.
He stands. With every movement, black smoke seems to curl from his shape, unfurling and coiling into the edges of the room, joining the shadows there. ‘This is my home.’
I can’t help the wonder that fills my words. ‘I thought it was … it was a ruin before.’
‘It is. It was.’
‘What changed?’
He steps toward me. I move toward him too, the distance between us closing with every slow step. ‘Your perception.’
‘What do you mean?’
Candlelight dances across his face. As he comes to stand only a few breaths away from me, he reaches for me with an outstretched hand.
His knuckle brushes my cheek, down to my jaw, and then he drops his hand.
A heaviness seems to fall over him. ‘What happened tonight … you are not the same woman you were before that ritual. You see things more clearly now. You are coming into yourself, and I don’t think the sisters accounted for it. ’
‘I don’t understand.’ I’m confused, impatient, aching in all the wrong places.
His touch is a licking flame across painfully tender flesh.
I lift my gaze to his. Until now I’ve been avoiding it, the strange red glow, the intensity I know I’ll find there.
He reminds me of the fire. He reminds me of losing control. ‘The ritual. Tell me what happened.’
‘What do you remember?’
‘After I came here, Irena took me to the dining hall. There was a fire. Chanting. And then …’ I look away. His gaze is too engulfing, his presence overwhelming. I think I know what he means. I do feel different. Again, that feeling warms me from my toes upward, shimmering through my body. Power.
‘The sisters forced you to succumb to me,’ he finishes, his words dripping with acid. ‘Their god.’
‘… Yes.’ But after he emerged from the fire, it didn’t feel like being forced. It felt like letting go.
‘Listen to me.’ His clawed fingers find my face again, and this time he holds me firmly but gently, one thumb pressed against my chin.
His shadows embrace me, and the castle fades away until there is nothing but the darkness and Anguish.
‘I have as much freedom, as much choice, as you do. I am held here, just as you are. Whatever I tell you next, you must believe me. But Midonia …’
I try to back away but his grip is too tight; he holds me helpless before him. ‘What?’
‘If the sisters have their way, you will never leave this place alive.’