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1
For the first time in my life, I wasn’t angry. The pain was gone, but everything had hurt for so long that the absence of it felt alien and strange.
A deep, heavy sadness grew in place of the pain and the anger. Sadness like I had never experienced before. This was a new, unfamiliar emotion. Unpleasant to the point of crippling. It curled around my mind, a fat leech, greedily guzzling up every drop of strength I had and leaving me an empty husk with no will or drive to continue.
I was floating, alone in a sea of despair, with no sense of which way was up or down. Except, I wasn’t alone. Not really. As I drifted in and out of consciousness, I had a vague sense of voices, hushed conversations, and the impression of touch and movement.
I knew I was not the one moving my body. There was nothing left in me to power my corporeal form. I needed to rest. My eyes were so heavy. Everything was so heavy.
“Kasha, take her to the East Wing,” a distant voice ordered as my body was shuffled from the solid, strong frame from which it had been nestled into what felt like a different pair of arms. These arms were thinner but just as strong.
“Come,” said an unfamiliar voice. The voice belonged to the being that now held me. The one called Kasha. “There’s an adjoining bathing room in her chambers. Meredith, is it? I could use a hand if you don’t mind.”
“Of course,” came Meredith’s reply. Her voice was warm, familiar, and safe.
“Get her cleaned up and let her rest. I will be back - I need to do some damage control. Dossidian, you’re with me.” Said the first voice. I realized I knew that voice too. I didn’t like that voice. I was glad the owner of the voice was leaving.
“She needs a healer.”
“Meredith is a skilled healer.” That was Conrad. Conrad was here. He was safe. The heavy fog in my mind thickened.
“Hurry up. She’s fading. I can feel her fading.” Rycon’s voice came next. The shock of his words coursed through me as the fog closed in. Was I fading? That was probably for the best. I was so tired. I wished for a moment that my mother was there and she was the one holding me. I felt my body physically spasm with the force of an unwanted memory. It scorched through the fog, burning away the thick numbness and bringing back the unbearable pain.
Clair’s body jerked, her hands tightening on my face before loosening completely. Her eyes widened, and she staggered backward.
“Mom?” I asked, startled. “Mom, what’s wrong?”
She was staring at me, stunned. Then finally, she glanced down, and my gaze followed hers. Blood was seeping down her front at an alarming rate. She wasn’t going to make it.
The memory was too much, the pain too sharp to endure. I let the fog come, and everything went dark.
2
The next time I came to, it was nighttime. For one blissful moment, I expected to open my eyes and find myself in my room in Toronto. As I took in my surroundings, my memory came rushing back, flattening me back to reality.
The memories came back in phases, each more unpleasant than the last. I had endured the physical and psychological torture for weeks in one timeline that had passed in just hours for everyone else. The brutal way I had murdered the fire mage Marcus for violating me. I had loaded his skull full of lead under the shipping yard. Clair, my adoptive mother, one of only two people on the planet who had ever bothered to love me, was murdered right before my eyes.
Then the massacre. I had killed dozens of magic folk and daemons in my mindless need for vengeance. Finally, the look on my adoptive father’s face when he arrived and saw Clair’s body before witnessing me being taken through The Veil to the Dominion of Sin.
To where I was now, which I could only assume was a room somewhere in the Court of Pride, Amon’s court.
I had been taken to fulfill the life debt I owed him. He had stopped me from allowing myself to be devoured by the all-consuming power and rage unleashed in response to Clair’s murder. By kissing me of all things.
He should have let me burn. But of course, then he wouldn't get to keep his little pet that he had so carefully trapped.
Though, the cage he had put me in was a pretty one. I pushed through the crushing blanket of depression that pressed onto me from all angles and did my best to roll onto my side. I was in a very large, soft bed. Someone had clearly washed my body and hair and dressed me in a black silk slip that slid like a living thing over my skin.
I tried to care that someone had clearly washed my nude, unconscious body, but there was nothing left in me to feel any way about it.
Though the room was coated in darkness, I had excellent night vision, thanks to the accidental metaphysical bond I had established with Rycon. It was one of the many traits I could borrow at will from the panther shifter.
The room was carved out of natural stone, with patches of deep green moss still coating some of the outcroppings. To the left of the bed was a large gaping cavernous hole that opened the room up to the night sky and what looked like a balcony that had been built into the stone as an addition. The light from the moon and the stars poured in from the mouth of the natural cave-like hole and bathed the space in silver. From my position, I couldn’t get a clear view of the environment outside. However, from the sound of the wind, I got the impression that this cave-like room was very high up.
Further to the left, another natural outcropping appeared to lead to a large, rugged stone bathroom. A golden clawfoot bathtub peeked out from the side, and a soft, warm glow of light filled the space as if someone had plugged in a night light to help me find my way.
Across from the bed, a wood and black iron door was built into the natural stone wall. A deep green settee was next to it, followed by a large black lacquer armoire.
In the center of the space was a round table with two chairs, and on the wall to my right was a large bookshelf stocked with what was easily 100 volumes.
