Chapter 57
notgonebutbrokenis
hollowthefluteandthemouthoftheflute
hardthestoneandharderthesky
—memoryhereeyeseaten
She is nothing. She is a heart in the darkness. The sky wraps around her. She is grey and boneless. She dreams of breathing. She sweats. Her legs run wet and hot.
There are edges to her, to the place in which she finds herself. She presses against them. They fill the curve of her neck, her spine, her thighs.
Sometimes they give a little, like the rind on a fruit. She brings her weight against them and they belly outward, rubbery, impermeable.
She turns. She twists. Her spine runs with wet fire. She chokes on nothing. But always there are the edges.
Sometimes, something solid lingers against them, something broad and vast.
The edges are cold. She is cold.
The darkness pushes in. It is not her, and so she can thread it around herself. It tastes of things she once knew words for.
She presses against the ragged scraps of herself, and for a moment, she hears voices.
Something lingers beyond them, waiting. Waiting for her. Her back arches in desperation, and her fingers touch the fraying edge.
She has fingers.
She has a throat. She swallows, spitting the burnt sugar taste of magic, gags and gags again.
Still, the edges hold her back. She presses against them, feels the rind of her skull flex and shift. She is near to something.
Exhausted. Unsure.
The edges fall around her in folds of grey, and she almost sinks back into darkness.
Almost. And then from those edges, a soft golden light, like a kindled lamp.
Gold light, sweet as sugar, humming with its own soft rhythm. Something moving in the light, ambered muscle and burnished scale. It butts against her like a hungry kitten. Then it speaks.
hellowhatis
She struggles to respond, hanging wordless. Language chokes her throat.
hellowhatisneedwant
Desperate, she presses against the edges, seeking the shape of a reply.
hellowhatis
She wants to speak. She can’t.
goneis
Rage flares in her, and the golden light flares in response so furiously that she flinches. She flinches.
notgoneis
The voice is stronger now, distinctly curious. She moves frantically, trying to hold its attention, battering herself against the edges, until pain fills her. Pain. She’s here, and she’s hurting. She hurls herself towards the light.
Nonononono. She replies. She replies. She is. Not gone.
Its response is quick as a fish in a pond.
hellowhatis
She strains against the edge, presses herself against the gold. She can taste it, bright and warm, sticky and sweet.
hungryisfragmentis
She swallows the gold light down. The edges shudder and purr. The thing inside moves closer. A tendril of golden light. A curious claw.
noteatisbecomeis
She presses herself to it, and it gathers against her gratefully, coiled as a cat, a heartbeat, thrumming as it speaks inside her mind.
shapedisthankis
There is a pause. It waits for her, waits for a response.
She presses against its golden skin and feels that hammering heart.
hellowhatis
What is she? She doesn’t know.
The gold pulses, rubs against her wrists. Not just light, but a creature. A sense of bone and scale.
Its voice soft, comforting.
knowingisibecause
She pulls it tight against her. Feels something small and sharp against her ribs. Claws? Teeth?
As she takes in a breath, she feels the wet weight of her lungs move. Lungs. In a body.
hellowhatis
It’s insistent now. Buzzing, resonant along the edges.
She presses against them, reaching for the shadows beyond, her fingers edged in gold.
And like silk before a shear, the edges give way.
Its voice is triumphant; jubilant.
whatis
She is lying in a bed, in a room, in a tower.
In her bed. In her room. In her tower. In Hesper.
A lamp gutters nearby.
She throws up in her mouth, feels it run back down her throat. Swallows.
whatiswhatiswhatis
Its voice different now. Closer.
The room seems empty. No edges, except those of the walls, the roof, the door.
Only the quiet hum of the gold remains.
Slowly, agonisingly, she moves her head to glance down at her chest.
The source of the gold curls there, a soft glow against the lamplight, her blood on its talons.
Its eyes are lazy and amber, its voice familiar, persistent.
whatis
She looks down at her body, at the sores on her legs, and the scabs where she’s lain wet and rotting. Her flesh is slung across the remains of her bones.
She runs a thick-nailed hand through her hair, feels it drift away in long grey clumps.
The golden creature shifts, and the barest movement of its weight is agony. She savours it – finally, something real.
whatiswhatiswhatis
She tries to say her name, but she can’t.
When she tries to, her tongue slips over it, oily and heavy.
She can’t say it.
She can’t say her own name.
The scream starts low in her stomach, then coils up through her guts like curdled smoke, filling her ribs, her throat, her mouth, the room.
The lamp gutters, a memory of shadow and light.
She shrieks, and lashes out. There’s a crash, and for a brief moment the room is shrouded in blackness, before the gilded shape takes form again, clearer in the dark, lucent.
A small, twisted body atop her ribs. Golden scales.
A steady, buttery light flowing from its bones that pulses to the rhythm of the creature’s voice.
namestolenwas
youcanhave
ihaveiknowbecauseknowingis
youwant
It takes her all of a moment to agree. She nods.
Its talons flex painfully, pleasurably.
yesgoodis
herelistenandbuild
It winds its way upwards from her chest. Small precise claws picking their way over her collarbone, along her neck, until its sharp, angled jaw is lying in the hollow of her ear.
Her heart thunders in terror and exhilaration.
listenis
iknowingis
youis
arissa
arissafallon is
arissa
It bites deep, the teeth entering her neck like needles. She moves with it, is filled by it, becomes it.
Slowly, painfully, writhing with the gold in her blood, Arissa Fallon wakes up, and takes back her name.