Chapter 19
HAZEL
My consciousness existed in two states: limbo and pain.
I had no idea how long I’d been here, and all I knew was that I’d do anything to stop feeling like this.
To stop feeling anything. Dreams of Draya no longer comforted me, rather they terrified me.
Instead of creeping in to caress my face, he’d crawl over my body and use his claws to rip open my skin, then he’d consume my flesh piece by piece.
I watched from my paralyzed dream state, feeling every centimeter of his fangs cutting through my muscles, and his tongue running along my tendons and bones. Yet I could do nothing.
This agony lasted for what felt like an eternity until I finally jolted awake to something other than pain. Air filled my lungs, a deeper breath than I’d taken in weeks, and my eyes shot open only to be blinded by pale blue light emanating from the creases in the black stone ceiling.
A scream crept up my throat, but my mouth was so dry that no sound came out. It only burned. When my eyes adjusted, I focused on the woman sitting next to me – Cordelia, the doctor.
She held a pouch of liquid in front of my face, nodding for me to take a sip.
I had no choice but to trust her, and I was glad I did.
Cold water ran down my dry throat, soothing the hoarseness and cooling down my burning body.
It was only then that I realized I was drenched with sweat, and gooseflesh pebbled over my skin.
I was undoubtedly ill, and I wondered if I was dying of consumption just like my mother. How poetic.
“Miss Emerson,” Cordelia said. “Do you know where you are?”
I nodded, not ready for words and unwilling to give them to this woman who’d put me through hell.
“You’re going to need to bathe and eat, then we will have a chat about… everything,” she said, her dark eyes roving over my frame.
I tried to lift my leg to step out from under the quilt, but it barely moved. My chest tightened, and my breathing quickened as I realized my body was utterly spent. The soreness hit me all at once, confining me to the bed, and it felt as if my muscles were detaching themselves from my bones.
What happened while I was asleep?
Cordelia’s shirtless male assistants entered the room, swiftly picking me up from the bed and depositing me into the pool.
Shivers wracked through my body as they immersed me in the freezing water, but I was in so much pain that I didn’t mind.
The cooling sensation of the water sluicing over my skin came as a relief to my aching muscles.
The men made quick work of washing my body, and I faded into what felt like a lucid dream until I was deposited back into my bed, somehow already dressed in a new set of dry linen garments.
This time they gave me trousers and a shirt, which felt odd, considering I rarely wore pants.
But who was I to make demands at a time like this?
I must have fallen back asleep, because I woke again a few hours later to Cordelia gently shaking my shoulders and urging me to drink more water. Food had been delivered, more cooked fish, and I ate as much as I could, though it didn’t amount to much.
“Hazel Emerson,” Cordelia said, still standing over my bed. My gaze locked on her dark eyes, and her somber expression brought my consciousness into focus. “You are part Talassi.”
“Oh,” I croaked, unsure what to say. I’m… Talassi? Various emotions fired through my mind in all different directions, and I couldn’t form a response.
“The good news is, you’re free to stay within the Talassian Capital for as long as you need,” she spoke again. “The bad news is, we need to work on activating your magic, or else you will not be able to stay here much longer because your body will not be able to handle the depths.”
I nodded, desperately trying to keep up with her words.
Two weeks ago I’d convinced myself that I’d made up an entire species in my head as a coping mechanism for the torture I’d been put through on Akala.
Now, I’d learned that not only were the Talassi real, but that I was one of them? This was absurd.
Was I to just… acclimate to Talassi culture and build a life in this underwater volcano? Where did my Talassi heritage come from? Was my mother one of them? Why hadn’t she told me? I closed my eyes, shaking my head, wishing I could make sense of anything I’d just learned.
“Rest a little longer, but next time you wake, we will begin working on something small like your hands,” Cordelia offered before exiting the room.
Once more, I was left lying in the rope swing hammock, staring at the cavernous ceiling and wondering how in the world I had ended up in this situation.
By the time I opened my eyes again, my head felt a small bit clearer and my body wasn’t quite as lifeless. My muscles and joints still ached, but I could tell the food and water had done me well. Maybe I would recover quickly, after all.
Cordelia seemed to appear out of nowhere, abruptly yanking the quilt off and gesturing for me to sit up. The cold air sent a shiver down my spine, and I sucked in a deep breath before attempting to move.
As it turned out, I would not recover quickly. Sitting up felt like moving a three-hundred ton frigate with nothing but my bare hands.
“We need to get to work,” Cordelia said, interrupting my pity and wasting no time as she lifted my hand and held it between her palms. “Your magic has been lying dormant in your body since you were born. It might have released in small spurts, which may have resulted in some strange happenings, but after twenty-five years of neglect it is in pitiful shape.”
Strange happenings, I thought. I’d dealt with plenty of those throughout my life, so much so that my own father called me a witch. I suppose he was right, in a way, but I was not a witch in the way high society believed in such things.
“I can’t feel it or control it,” I said, my hoarse voice no more than a whisper. My eyes fluttered, exhaustion threatening to take over as I took a few shallow breaths. I’d never been so tired that merely speaking wore me out.
“I know,” Cordelia’s voice was gentler now, and her palms grew cold around my hand. “I worry that you may never be able to access the true extent of your magic, but I think we can salvage some. The first thing we’re going to work on is shifting your hands, and opening your gills.”
“Gills… Like a fish?” I asked, feeling lightheaded.
“Talassi are sea creatures, dear. So yes, gills like a fish,” she rolled her eyes before refocusing on my palm. Her touch permeated down my fingers and palm, the cool sensation stopping at my wrist. “I can feel a thread of magic in there, can you?”
I gave her a blank stare, utterly clueless as to what she was talking about.
She sighed, shaking her head. “I’m going to pull on it, but this will hurt.”
A second later, ice shot through my veins, my vision went black, and my body went rigid. It felt as if Cordelia was yanking at the cords of my flesh, willing them to bend in a way they didn’t want to bend. I let out a small whimper, but the pain didn’t subside.
“Do you feel those?” She asked, her steady voice bringing my focus to the task at hand. My eyes were still shut, but I could see cords of bluish light bending and thrashing in my mind. I must have nodded, because she continued, “focus on the threads of energy, and will them to be calm.”
I visualized the cords slowly finding their peace, their thrashing turning to smooth waves, and the pale blue glow burned just a tad brighter.
“Good,” Cordelia murmured. The pain was still there, but it had faded to more of a dull ache, so I pressed on. “Now latch onto them, open your eyes, and visualize their power dispersing into your fingers.”
I did just that, and the magic corded between my knuckles, back and forth until silvery, translucent skin had formed. A bridge of soft tissue connected my fingers together, and my hands had become webbed. They looked like they belonged to a silver frog.
“You’ve done it, Hazel!” Cordelia exclaimed, more excitement in her voice than I’d ever heard. “Now hold onto that magic, don’t let it fade just yet.”
I held my hand up in the pale blue light, examining my fingers and the newly formed scales covering my knuckles.
It was both terrifying and exhilarating, and I should probably have been more frightened than I was.
But I’d come to realize that allowing fear to take over my mind only drained the small amount of energy I had left, and it wasn’t worth the time.
Suddenly, a sharp pain drilled into my forehead, and before I knew what was happening my vision had gone black again and I slipped into that state of limbo I’d grown to loathe.
Eventually I slipped into a sleepy daze, and when I woke again, Cordelia was there to go through the same sequence all over again.
This lasted for what felt like weeks, though I had lost all track of time. I’d wake, shift my hands, succumb to a painful headache, enter the limbo state, then fall asleep once more.
I wondered if I was cursed to live this way for the rest of eternity.
Though I’d escaped the wrath of Lord Emerson and the cruel staff at the asylum, I wasn’t any freer than I’d been in either of those places.
What had I done to deserve this prison sentence?
Was I a murderer in a past life? Was this some twisted atonement for a sin I’d committed in some other dimension I had no recollection of?