Chapter 26 #3
Not this.
Anything but this.
It was the worst night of my life and I have no wish to relive it, not when I’ve already done so in a hundred nightmares.
I stare at my outstretched hand. The black lace pattern upon it makes me shudder. If I don’t step through this door, I die.
Steeling myself, I close my fingers around the handle, open the damned door, and step into the past. But no matter how braced I thought I was, the reality is worse. Worse than any nightmare fogged by sleep and time, for this is sharp, harsh, and painfully real.
‘My baby…’ The queen’s voice is hoarse. ‘Save my baby. Please, Reeva.’
I clench my eyes shut, sweat budding on the back of my neck as the air contracts in my windpipe. I’m standing in the scene that ruined us. The scene where Kyor’s lie is born, but his sibling is not.
It was the beginning of the end – the igniting of this cycle of torture that has defined my life year after year.
‘You don’t need to show me this,’ I say to no one. ‘This will not better me. This will not make me stronger. I know what happens, and I don’t need to see it again.’
There’s no response. No rippling of air taking me to another place. No break from the queen’s screams, which tear again and again through the night.
My heart bangs against my ribs as a tear escapes from my squeezed-shut eyes. No. It can’t expect this of me. I can’t live through this all over again.
I want to see something that will help my powers, my strength and control, not relive the moment that destroyed my parents, nearly killed my brother, and ruined my sister’s life. This can’t help me. This is torture, plain and simple.
‘Whatever you think I’m going to learn from seeing this, it’s a waste of your time and energy!’ I call out. ‘Please. Whatever it is you want me to learn, I can learn it some other way. I do not want to see this.’
Stifling heat clogs my throat with my every breath, yet I refuse to open my eyes, knowing what I will see.
My mother, skin translucent and pale, working to the point of nearly draining herself as she fights to save the queen and her child.
Blood soaking the sheets.
Kyor clutching his mother’s hand, his then brown eyes filled with tears.
I know all of this. There is nothing I can gain from being here. And I will not do it. I will not live through this again. I’ve suffered enough.
‘I don’t need to be here!’ I shout again, this time with enough force that the entire image in front of me rattles. Rattles and then shatters.
With a sudden yank, the heat is gone, replaced by an icy chill that bites my skin.
Gasping for breath, I stumble back, my feet slipping on the slick ground as I double over. Bile stings the back of my throat as I retch again and again, as if I can purge the horror of that moment from me.
I brace my shaking hands on my knees, trying to stem their quaking, but it isn’t enough. My vision is blurring, tunnelling, the world narrowing to fragments. Light and shadow become all that exist to me as the echo of my shattering past rings through my skull again and again.
To pass through the Veil – to live – I have to relive the worst moment of my life. Possibly over and over again until I learn whatever sick lesson it wants me to learn.
I drag in a breath but it catches halfway.
My heart is racing too fast, too hard, slamming against my ribs like it’s trying to break free. I claw at my chest as if I can force it to slow.
I can’t breathe.
Panic tears up my spine, sharp and merciless, flooding every inch of me. I am too aware of everything: the cold, the slick ground beneath my boots, the raw burn in my throat, the worsening ache in my hands, the way my fingers won’t stop trembling.
Fen’s mind brushes against mine. Breathe, Little Raven. All will be well. Just breathe. Breathe in and out.
I try to do as he suggests, but it’s as though my lungs are made of steel. This isn’t like the fight with Kyor, when my breath was stolen from me. This is me stealing my breath from myself, my panic stripping the air from my lungs.
I squeeze my eyes shut, but it only makes it worse. The darkness pulses and then the memories of what I saw – what I felt – press in harder, tighter, until I think I might shatter with it.
Breathe, dammit, Rose! Fen’s voice is urgent.
It comes in jagged, broken pulls, each one a fight.
In. Too shallow. Out. Too fast.
Again.
Slowly, the vice around my chest loosens by a fraction, each exhale lessening the trembling until I can finally pull in something that resembles a deep breath, then another. It’s still unsteady, but it’s mine.
You’re okay now. Only when I hear the edge of relief in Fen’s voice do I realise how panicked he truly was.
I’m okay now, I agree as my lungs inflate and deflate with increasing ease.
My heart is still drumming, but my breathing is controlled when I eventually lift my aching hands from my knees.
The Veil’s wall of fire is still burning brightly, as though nothing has happened at all.
Dashing tears from my eyes, I turn away and head towards the stairs.
I fucking hate this thing.