I lost the air I needed to breathe. Everything in reality flipped upside down.
I blinked, sliding to my knees as I looked across the dungeon cavern and stared into the eyes of Evanae.
Chapter 58
“NO!”I screamed at the top of my lungs. The Zamariens whipped around and found me pressed into the wall.
“Well, well. Another one to have a little fun with,” Tharic said, his eyes gleaming. “Stars only know how long I’ve waited for the chance to breakyou.”
Tharic started floating towards me, rolling up the sleeves of his robe. I was about tofyusewhen a star gate surfaced, and dragged me through, leaving the Zamariens gaping on the other end.
I was jerked across the starry passage and spat out into my bedchamber. I shot to my feet, running to the door. I yanked on the handle. It was sealed shut.
No.
I slammed myself against the door again and again, eyes blurry from sobbing. The stupid door wouldn’t budge. Ifyusedand began raining starfire bolts on the hinges. The door was sealed shut. I threw the satchel across my chamber, screaming at the top of my lungs.
I yelled and yelled, carelessly throwing my body into the door. When it refused to budge, I aimed for the glass walls that led to the balcony and the cloudy exterior of the wingtower.
I rushed the glass, prepared to shatter the entire thing. My shoulder collided with the glass and the bone snapped. The glass didn’t have a single crack. My shoulder throbbed as I was thrown back by an unseen force into the bedchamber and smacked into the floor.
My baby sister had been taken. She’d been tortured. She’d been ripped apart like some animal. By the rotting Zamariens.
NO.
Rage consumed me. I was getting out of here, no matter what it took. I charged for the glass again. The glass didn’t break, but a part of my shoulder blade did.
I tried again and again and again, until I could visibly watch the seven suns set in the distance. Still, no matter how unfruitful I was, I kept trying to break the glass. Then I’d try the door. Then I’d try the glass again.
Nothing worked.
I screamed, yelling at the top of my lungs as I wailed with anguish for my baby sister. I was isolated. Alone. Broken. My hearts had been shattered and I no longer knew what to do. All I could feel was pain. Sorrow. Hopelessness.
Defeated, I stomped over to my washroom, back in my Seraphim skin, curled into a ball in the basin, crying my eyes out as the filth of the dungeons washed away. With a wave of my hand, I made sure the satchel was tucked away somewhere it wouldn’t be found in one the nooks behind the platform my bedcloud was perched on.
I had to figure out a way to get Evanae out. She was still so young. She wasn’t a youngling, but she was still developing into an adult angel. She had so much life ahead of her yet to live. This was never supposed to be something she experienced.
Sobbing, I dressed myself. My body was clean, but my soul was forever tainted. I didn’t hear when the knock came at my door. When the voice warned of a summons. Lost in my despair, I was completely taken off guard when a star gate came for me and spat me out in the presence of the Farasee Council.
This time, Seventh Choir wasn’t present.
It was just me.
I looked around to see if the monstrous Zamariens had also been summoned, but they weren’t here. I cast about, finding the Iris there again, watching me curiously through their unseeing eyes. I wondered how much more they noticed because of their blindness. Farasee Asarah sat in the middle like earlier, surrounded by Farasees I didn’t know besides Presbitari Davithius and Farasee Esau.
The two males I knew watched me. Both looked cataclysmically sad. I couldn’t imagine the reason for their sorrow, especially Esau, but it sure as Hèls couldn’t be worse than mine.
“Disciple Safah,” Farasee Asarah said, addressing me without any pleasantries.
I could no longer look at her and see my Granmanmi. That female was long gone. If she ever existed at all.
Did she know the temple was in custody of Evanae? Did she know her own Granfifi was in the dungeons being brutally tortured and tormented?
I said nothing, glaring at Asarah with a feral rage I was struggling to keep leashed. My eyes burned from hours of crying. I was starving. My body ached. And I wanted to claw out the throats of every Farasee in this place. What had Quazar called it? A Hèls-infested temple.
Stars, if only he knew how right he was.
Then again.
