Chapter 10 #3
Standing before the white basin and oval mirror, I hold on to each side of the smooth porcelain, staring at wide, scared eyes, bright blue.
Flecks of silver cutting through, as if to say, look at me, I’m Halo.
My pale skin glows under the downlight. No matter how long I stay under the sun, it never browns like Melek’s or even Nix’s.
Creases form between my forehead at the thought of my brother.
I shut that down. Far down. The necklace.
I need to find it before Melek or Mary does.
If I think about him, not even the rage will centre me. Instead, grief will find me and swallow me whole. And I already feel the lingering edges of sorrow, thanks to the ritual. For a year, I let anguish take me under until I sought comfort in using my husband’s body.
Glaring at the dark under-eye circles not even Halo make-up can cover, I allow myself to remember the first time I laid eyes on Melek…
The domineering commander, willing to let his keepers hurt and kill factory farmers.
He may not have been the one strapping us seronds to Xs, but he may as well have been, in my eyes.
That girl had grit and determination and sorrow, forged by ancestral rage, until the icy water of existence so eloquently dampened her soul.
At that time, all choices had been stripped from me.
My half-hollow heritage ensured that. Melek would be my husband.
In my mind’s eye, I can still see the exact jacket he wore, down to the embossed snake buttons.
I remember looking at them and thinking, what a strange creature.
We’ve never had a snake on the lightning fields.
They are supposedly extinct. The only times I’ve witnessed them have been within the emblems of Halo and on my own gold wedding ring.
It is said the snake symbolises renewal—eternity.
Eternity seems like a long fucking time for Halo scum to be running the world.
“Argh.” Holding my ring before my face, I go to rip it off. The snake eating its own tail barely budges, my fingers swollen. “Fuck.” I moan into the small toilet closet. Even this physical reminder of him, I can’t remove.
I should be fucking embarrassed at what has happened to me since falling at his feet.
Melek was right. I lasted exactly one year before I succumbed to him.
To this. There have been many verbal tussles since our meeting, and one topic he has never entertained—my family.
There was Storm, the lightning farmer. Now, there is Alora, the wife of the Halo lord commander.
The only thing I’ve been allowed is my silence, wrought in tears alone.
I always thought he would break first. Melek wanted me, beyond the token wife he needed to placate the council.
He has always lingered a beat too long on my body—trancelike.
It was unnerving, giving me time to observe him right back.
So, I knew he desired me. Didn’t all men want the same thing, after all?
However, after entering our home, my commander shut himself away.
He ignored me in the beginning. So, I spent my time ignoring him.
One of us walked into a room, and the other left.
And when one of us wanted more, we clashed in spectacular fashion.
It was always in the air that surrounded us; a disturbance in the atmosphere that could never wait.
To many a vase’s dismay. I’ve never been so wilfully lax in the pursuit of precious household objects before.
The anger Melek brought out in me was the culmination of years of abuse at the hands of Halo.
Not just for me, but every woman before me.
And throughout it all, during that first year, he never touched me.
Not a fist in ire, or a backhanded slap when I spoke out of turn, which was often.
Melek preferred his jabs through mere presence alone, or lack thereof, when he would walk away from me mid-sentence.
He was the ultimate vexation on my soul, and he knew it.
I was already in hell. To add salt to the wound, he expected me to sleep in his bed.
I thanked an unknown entity—not the hollow god—that Melek’s bed was big enough to house four bodies instead of two, though my husband’s body did account for two.
And he continued to keep his word. Not a finger graze or an accidental arm around the waist through the night.
It bugged me, how unaffected he was. Melek was clever.
One of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met.
He knew exactly what he was doing when he made that deal with me.
Instead of hating him, it made me hate myself.
Irrational sensations I’d never experienced before awakened within me at his constant nearness.
I was meant to be his unravelling, but I think he was mine. My greatest temptation.
Holding shaking hands before me, the marks on my palms are faint lines compared to what they used to be.
The golden snake band wraps around my old wounds as if to taunt me.
When I look up, blue eyes spin grey. The very same that have been the catalyst for every tragedy and now beauty in my life.
Hanging my head, I rub a hand over the child within.
“Any colour but grey, please,” I plead to whoever will listen.