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I take in a breath. “I guess so.”
Kane is no longer anywhere close to the front. Cricket, our gatekeeper, ensures he stays deep inside the inner world for this. Though I’ve switched alters many times to cope with the stress of our new reality. Kaspias hurt our family, caused irreparable damage, scars that may never be healed, and cost me the woman I loved. Yet, he was still Kane’s twin brother.
And that means something to all of us.
My mind spins with questions. Why would he help us? Why save Skylenna? The part of my mind that has been soiled by the Mind Phantoms believes it’s because she was the traitor all along. He helped her because she was just as evil as he was.
But I shake my head against the dark thought.
The memory that Sophia saved where the deeper alters lie gave me much clarity, much to think about regarding Skylenna. So many traumatic memories we all hold are tied to her, and she never seemed to age in any of them. Once I was given a sliver of the truth from someone in our system, it was much easier to believe. Easier to accept.
The way she cried for me after seeing me again. Her emerald eyes were bright red and gushed an endless supply of tears. She could hardly talk. The supreme, unyielding sadness made her entire body shake. God, I could feel the pain and heartbreak from miles away, couldn’t I?
Nothing killed me more.
And that kiss.
Fuck, that kiss was world-ending. Her body leaned against mine like she’d done it a thousand times before. Her lips had mine memorized, and she understood me in ways that could only be described through her passionate touches.
Skylenna is wholeheartedly in love with me.
I have to do everything I can to recover my memories. To find her and learn all I’ve lost. What must it be like for her to look into the eyes of someone she would die for only to have them stare coldly back at her? To hate her with every fiber?
It’s been a few days since we now know she escaped. A few days for me to wonder how I would feel if something terrible happened to her. A few days to watch Ruth and Niles wither away at their imaginations running wild with possibilities of her demise.
“Dessin?” Niles inches toward me cautiously, looking at the skeleton that was once Kane’s brother, then back to me.
“I’m getting us out. Tonight,” I say, taking one last look at the strings of meat hanging off his bones. I don’t know what happened to him. But at the very least, some day, I can tell Kane that his brother died a hero.
60. Long Live The King
Skylenna
As the sun rises, a burst of burnt amber and apple cider light filters through the hole of the underground drain pipes that reek of a molding mummy, a basement of mildew, and the sodden aroma of my growing dread.
I haven’t been able to leave this narrow, gray passage due to a storm of soldiers, Blood Mammoths, and beasts of all sizes searching for me. They’ve shouted in foreign words, only exposing one I actually understand: Skylenna.
Chunky sewage and dirty water collect around my thighs and hips, and occasionally that horrid creek brings dead animals, like mice or kittens floating like rubber duckies in a child’s bathtub. Mushy and decaying.
And I’m sitting in my own piss and shit.
My stomach is empty, grumbling, chewing on itself as I starve and grow dehydrated to the point of dropping dead. My skin is pale and pruned. My mind is swirling with doubt, and the fear of failure won’t seem to leave me be! The nightmares grow more powerful each time I close my eyes. Ruth dying. Niles dying. Never seeing Dessin again. Being killed before I can reach the army. It’s all there.
But as I stretch up to my tiptoes to look out the hole blazing with the morning sunrise, the village is finally quiet. No more stomping hooves or shouting soldiers. It’s quiet and…hopefully, safe to flee. As if I even have a choice anymore. Another few hours in this hole, and I’m dead.
I lift my arms to grip the edges of that drain hole, but my God, I’m so terribly heavy with the disgusting water soaking through my leather. My boots feel like they weigh fifty pounds a piece.
“Arrrrgh!” My arms tremble as I pull myself up another few inches. It’s agony. I’m weak and hungry and exhausted. My boots splash back into the gray water as I let go, huffing and grunting from the energy I wasted.
“Fuck!” I hiss, my bottom lip jutting out in frustration. “I can do this. I have to do this!”
Jumping again, I use the muscles in my thighs to give me some added height in hopes I won’t have to use as much strength to pull myself up. But gravity hits me like an avalanche.
Again, jump, pull, shake, slip.
Again.
Again.
