Spires and Bones #2
Under no circumstances, will Euphemia go inside. If a man shrouded in death and flame is frightened of it, then she certainly is as well. No matter how intrigued she might be. No matter the impulse to peek through the doorway and glimpse the mysteries inside. She will resist temptation this time.
Euphemia turns her back to Nástrond—
And she comes face to face with the nightmare instead.
All sickly limbs and dying flames.
Her nostrils revolt at the charred stench.
But beholding the creature reminds her of something. When Euphemia had first arrived in this dream place, she had approached the nightmare, and only then had Ash appeared.
Perhaps it is a chain of events that will trigger him showing again?
Euphemia bites the plump flesh of her lip.
She’s not even sure why she’s so intent on seeing him again. She should just turn away and leave. Force him out of her thoughts the way she’s supposed to with every impure impulse she has.
And yet…
Cautiously, Euphemia steps toward the seemingly tranquil beast. Thunder cracks against her ribcage. Every instinct tells her to stop. Tells her to run like she should have the first night the nightmare appeared to her, all those months ago.
This is just a dream though.
The creature cannot hurt her.
But even that reassurance is no longer believable.
What of the mud on her feet when she awakens every night? What of the sodden bedsheets? What of the ashen handprints on her waist?
Inhaling sharply, Euphemia tells herself she only has to get close enough for Ash to appear. That’s all.
Euphemia cautions another step closer.
And another.
Each time she moves forward, she glances behind her to see if the skulled man has appeared, and each time she is disappointed to find that he has not.
Something is truly wrong with her to want such company. She should be grateful he’s gone. Perhaps this means her soul is becoming less damned? Perhaps her marriage is working?
A screech bursts from the nightmare like bats bursting from a cave.
Fire sears Euphemia’s hand—not real flames. Nothing touching her. But the memory of heat melting flesh. Flames destroying sinew.
The nightmare rears. Flames spread from its body like a plumage of fiery wings. Thankfully, Euphemia is far enough away not to be scorched. But she’s witnessed this moment before. Knows what’s to come next.
Euphemia staggers back.
Why had she gotten so close?
It’s going to kill her. Just like it killed her father.
Gathering her skirts, Euphemia spins around and runs. Across the meadow, wide and yawning. Rocks slice her feet. The nightmare’s guttural war cry bellows after her.
She rips through the thick fog, a sea of grey parting for her.
On the other side, everything withers. The vibrant hills disappear, giving way to a brackish marsh, hungry and noxious.
And drawing near, the palatial castle of bone still stands, inviting and ominous.
She should not enter.
Only danger awaits inside.
But danger lies out here too. The reverberation of it gallops behind her. A drumming beat signaling her impending demise.
The nightmare will soon reach her. Its flames, she will not survive again. She cannot outrun it forever—she’s not even sure she can outrun it for much longer.
“Help!” Euphemia shouts, her words made of tears. A fist of fear clenches her throat. “Ash! Where are you?”
But why does she call his name?
He is not here to save her.
No one is.
No one was there to save her father either.
Euphemia is alone. Always alone.
The only things she can rely on are her own two legs.
She’s had less before.
A lifetime of struggle flashes before her mind’s eye.
Before her family opened the tavern. Years of harsh winters freezing her to the bone.
Hunger that twisted her gut like sharpened claws.
She had survived then through sheer will alone.
And the night she’d been barefoot in a meadow with nowhere to run, helplessly watching her father become cinders and dust, it was Euphemia who had saved herself.
Euphemia who had run as fast as she could, as far away from the beast as her legs would carry her.
As hard as life has been, Euphemia is not ready to give up now.
With renewed determination, she bounds across the meadow with fervor. Every piece of resilience forges into the armor she needs to survive.
Hoof beats grow louder.
The steps to the bone palace draw nearer.
And the moment her foot touches the porous perron, the onslaught of galloping hooves dissipates. Not that she notices.
Euphemia throws herself across the threshold of Nástrond and slams the door shut behind her.
Her legs finally give out. Euphemia collapses against the door and sobs.
It’s not until her tears dry that Euphemia realizes the world around her is entombed in silence. Only a steady dripping echoing from deep within the bone palace accompanies her. The air is rancid and quiet in a way that reminds her of death.
Euphemia has traded one danger for another. Entombed herself in the very place that filled a beast of a man with dread.
She forces herself to her feet.
Presses her back against the door.
Scans her surroundings like she is so trained now to do.
Before her, ribcage corridors stretch in every direction. Spinal columns line the walls, and fibrous sinew stretches across the floor like cobwebs meant to ensnare.
Euphemia stares.
She has never seen anything like it. Not even in the fevered nightmares that have haunted her for nearly a year.
Then she notices the source of the dripping. A strange, green substance that oozes from the vertebrae rafters and sizzles as it lands on the stone ground.
Pressing herself flatter against the door, Euphemia contemplates fleeing this place and facing the nightmare again. But its garish whinnies taunt her from the other side of the door. Its low sniffs and grunts dare her to come out. To face it.
Euphemia squeezes her eyes shut. She’ll just have to wait this out. Eventually, she has to wake up. Right?
“Wake up. Wake up. Wake up,” she chants to herself.
A gust breathes from inside the bone palace, as if in mocking answer to her. And in it, a voice. Not words spoken, something more like hissing laughter.
Euphemia snaps her mouth closed.
Her body stiffens.
Eyes unblinking.
At the small of her back, her hand fumbles for the doorknob. But she cannot find one.
Frantic, she searches, keeping her shoulders taut and her eyes fixed forward, searching for the monsters that surely must be lurking nearby. But there is no doorknob to be found.
She is trapped.
“One does not enter Nástrond…and live to tell the tale.”
She should’ve listened to Ash. Should’ve heeded his warning at all costs.
Why must she be this way? This is precisely the reason the nightmare hunts her. It knows her soul is corrupt. Knows how easily she can be swayed by the slightest curiosities.
And now it has cornered her here, perhaps intentionally so.
Perhaps this was the fate she was meant for all along. The reason she keeps having these recurring dreams. For her to end up here.
For whatever reason, it’s that thought that eases the tension in her chest. Something like a burden lifted. If this is meant to be her end, so be it. She will face this fate with the honor of a soldier, just like her father.
Suddenly, a scream tears from the belly of the bone palace.
Incoherent.
Guttural.
Frightened.
Fear gnashes into her stomach again. Someone is in trouble.
Not just someone, though.
That voice. It’s difficult to hear it clearly as it ricochets against the bone walls, the cries muted by the wheezing breaths of this dreadful place.
But somewhere amidst her fear and disgust, Euphemia thinks she might know who those screams belong to.
She’s been haunted by them on her darkest nights, and oftentimes well into her days.
Screams that remind her of her guilt. Her grief.
They belong to her father.
Not a single rational thought could stop her from diving into the mouth of the beast now.
Euphemia bolts.
She catapults over masses of skeletons. Her feet slide across the slick, fibrous ground. Mandibles crack underfoot. Only one thought careens her closer to peril: She will not fail her father.
Not this time.
Not again.
Euphemia barrels down one corridor, then another.
The viscous liquid leaking from the ceiling assaults her more than once, her flesh stinging on contact.
Euphemia hisses through the boiling pain that reminds her all too much of the nightmare’s flames.
But she bites her tongue to prevent her own screams from echoing down these halls.
She will not let her presence be known. Not until she can reach her father. Not until she can rescue him.
The screams fade to moans. The moans wither to something muffled and equally as heart-wrenching. Until all Euphemia has to follow is a weak whisper of death.
But she knows she’s getting closer. Can feel it in the air. Like the deathly palace is being satiated, the ceiling drooling less.
She enters the final corridor, where the membranous ground has cracked open, the stonework absent in chunks that leave nothing but pools of that bile-colored, acidic fluid behind.
Her gait slows so she can tread more carefully.
Something hisses overhead.
Euphemia looks up.
The cave-like ceiling has become a woven tapestry of writhing snakes.
Euphemia stops breathing.
One of the snakes strikes out at her. She just barely manages to duck away in time.
But not even if the ceiling was covered in nightmares, the floors spewing fire, would she stop now.
Her father moans, sounding on the brink of a death.
He is so close.
Just beyond these skeletal walls.
Her father burning all over again?
Suffering?
Dead already?
Euphemia braces herself for what she’ll find on the other side of this corridor.
She’s about to find out when a hand clamps over her mouth.
The brawny arm attached to it yanks her back. Another arm wraps around her waist and then she’s being hauled off her feet. Ripped away from the precipice of reunion. Of the absolution that was just within reach.