33. Echoes of Pain – Rosemary #2
Clawing at the ground, I clutched at the soil as I raised a defiant look to the queen. "May the gods forgive me."
I was no longer proud. No longer ready to tear her to pieces.
My life was a series of trials, and each one seemed harder than the last. I couldn't do it anymore.
There was nothing left to fight for. I called to the earth, trying to give myself to the stone beneath me.
But my magic, already weakened by weeks of starvation and despair, couldn't find purchase in this place.
The iron bars that caged me seemed to leech away what little power remained, leaving me as helpless as any mortal.
I had nothing left, so I begged the land to take it all. Take me. Let me end.
"Oh, sweetheart," the queen chided, and my eyes snapped open, meeting hers.
"You'll never touch the source here. Never. You’ll do exactly what I said you would. You’ll rot down here in the dark silence with the rats.
There is something you should know about sleeping curses though.
When someone is trapped in a slumber curse, they feel everything.
They feel it all until not a bit of them is left.
So that sweet sister of yours, you can be sure she felt every single lick of flame until only dust remained.
Elias's death, luckily, was relatively quick. "
"He was your son!" I screamed, not bothering to hide the tears threatening to fall. Everything in me weakened, and I cowered before her. "Please," I said, my fingers clutching at my chest, at the pain exploding within my heart. "Please, just kill me."
"No," she said, standing and turning her back to me.
"I have something better for you." Her red painted lips smiled as she glanced over her shoulder at me.
She waved a hand to something at her side, but I couldn't make anything out.
Did the air wrinkle? "I thought I would introduce you to one of my favorite creations.
It's been called an echo by many, but I call it pet.
Don't worry, it won't kill you. It can't pass through the iron bars to devour your soul.
It can, however, play with your mind. What little of it is left, that is. Enjoy."
The queen disappeared up a curving set of stairs, leaving me alone in the darkness.
Except I wasn't alone. I could feel it close, but I couldn't yet see it.
It was part of the shadows. The unseelie queen's laughter echoed as she left me, and as her creation reached toward me with icy fingers of death, my mind fell open in easy prey against the echo.
The world shifted, reality bending like heated glass.
I stood frozen in the corner of my bedroom, watching flames consume my sister's bed.
Her pale skin turned ashen in the harsh, flickering glow, her body serene in eternal slumber even as the fire licked at her.
Her eyes flew open, her body unmoving as the fire devoured her.
I screamed, a raw, unnatural sound escaping me as I watched her skin melt and char into ash.
My body strained against an invisible force, fists slamming at the air until my palms were bloodied and my shoulders bruised.
Nothing brought me closer to her burning form.
The fire ravaged our home, reducing everything to cinders except the corner where I stood.
I begged for the flames to take me, too, my throat raw from screams and heat, but they refused to reach the fabric of my dress.
No matter how often I reminded myself it was an illusion, the singed air felt real.
The acrid taste of burning flesh lingered on my tongue.
The burnt image of my sister turning to ash seemed real.
The air reeked of her final moments, and my heart held the torn remnants of witnessing it all.
The floorboards beneath my knees sent shockwaves of pain through me as I collapsed in the corner.
My fingernails dug into the crevices, heat searing my fingertips as tears streamed down my ashy cheeks.
A shadow fell over me, and I looked up into Elias's steely gray eyes.
He crouched before me, his fingers softly brushing my heated cheeks, wiping away the dampness with his thumbs.
His head tilted slightly, a dark curl falling over his brow.
I ached to brush it away, but I bit my lip, allowing myself to get lost in his gaze.
A slow grin lifted the edge of Elias's mouth, and it looked wrong somehow. I was just about to ask him about it when he spoke. "I meant to deceive you. I never loved you. It was a lie. All of it. And it was so easy to betray you. The seelie really are the dumber of the fae."
I pulled out of his grasp, my elbow slamming into the wall, but I didn't even pay it any mind. My teeth clenched against the pain, but my glare lifted to watch this twisted version of him. "I don't believe you," I screamed, and he didn't even flinch.
His fingers curled around my shoulder, the skin of his flesh peeling back as I cowered from him.
His entire form shifted. He went from my beautiful Elias, my handsome prince, to a dead, grotesque thing clamping its claws around my shoulder.
His flesh peeled back from that stupid, ugly grin, until only decaying gums and rotting teeth remained an inch from my face.
"Then you should not cry knowing that I am dead because of you," he said.
The nightmare shattered like breaking glass, but before I could catch my breath, another vision claimed me.
My mother stood before me, her finger shaking angrily as she stared over my shoulder to where Briar lay motionless.
"You failed! All you ever do is fail. It should have been you in that bed.
You have failed me. You have failed your sister. And you have failed your people!"
I rushed forward, my small hands wrapping around her wrist as I begged her to reconsider.
"No, Mother," I cried, but I couldn't get the words past the lump in my throat.
I coughed, choking on something warm and thick.
Blood bubbled out of my mouth, sputtering down my chin and dotting the pale flesh of my open palms.
"That is the blood of your people. Of your sister. Of us. That is our blood now on your hands."
I gagged, my fingers wrapping around my throat as my eyes widened in panic.
The blood spewed from my lips like a river of red.
It filled the small room, floating beneath me as I gasped for breath.
I choked. I coughed. I spewed. The blood lifted around me.
It soaked me through. I was going to drown in their blood.
Just as the darkness of death threatened to consume me, a bright flickering of light broke through the icy hold of unconsciousness.
But the relief was short-lived, I was back in the burning cottage, watching my sister die again.
The echo fed on my terror, my guilt, my deepest fears, weaving them into an endless tapestry of torment.
Yet somewhere deep inside, beneath the layers of manufactured horror, a small flame of defiance still flickered.
This wasn't real. None of it was real. And no matter how many times the echo forced me to watch my loved ones suffer and die, no matter how convincingly it wove its lies, I would remember that truth.
I would survive this. I had to.