Someone who clearly yearned for a swift death.
Elyria groaned as she rolled onto her back, her body aching from the unforgiving stone floor beneath her. This was not her first time in a cell. Hells, it was likely not her first time inthiscell. Which is how she knew not to think about whatever might be coating the stone, about who might have been in here last, and what they did while they were. She knew not to think about how long her face had been pressed to the somehow simultaneously stickyandslimy surface.
She knew not to think about whateverthat smellwas.
She closed her eyes again. She wanted to go back inside her head, to the visions of Evander that had now come upon her twice. She wanted to gaze unendingly into those luminous eyes, to feel his bronze skin under her fingers, to see his black-and-gold wings shimmer as she lay on her back, his strong body moving over her.
How many nights had she sought solace at the bottom of a bottle, hoping for exactly that? Drunkenly prayed to see him again, even if only as a ghost?
Why was she finally being blessed with it now?
As if in answer, Elyria’s mind was awash with images again, only the warm memories of the past were nowhere to be found this time. Instead, she saw only agony. Evander writhing in pain, dark veins creeping from his golden eyes. His beautiful wings, shredded, black blood pooling on the ground.
Elyria’s eyes shot open, blinking rapidly to stop the wetness that had begun to gather.
What the quartered hell was that?
“Oi! Lightbreaker’s awake!” a rough voice from a neighboring cell whisper-shouted. “How’s the head, Rev?”
The words bounced around noisily in Elyria’s skull; she winced but didn’t answer.
“What’s the matter with her?” another voice asked. Smaller, lighter. Curious.
“Dunno. She weren’t in such good shape when they brought her in.”
Elyria focused on the ceiling directly above her, keeping her gaze locked on a crack in the stone until her eyes began to burn, and she wasforced to close them again. Blessedly, she was met with the black of the back of her eyelids and not another nightmarish depiction of her former love. She kept her eyes shut and tried to block out the world.
“Perhaps she is ill,” the small voice said.
“Couldn’t be too ill, not with the fight she gave ‘em,” said someone new, a third speaker. “Did you get a look at that one guard? Nose bleeding like a faucet, shiner blooming ‘round one of her eyes.”
Pride unfurled in Elyria’s chest at the description of what her singular punch had done to Taryn’s face.
“Should we be talking about this?” The small voice was barely more than a whisper. “About her, right in front of her?”
“She’s asleep again, innit?” the first person said. “Not too impressive, if you ask me.”
“Noctis damn you, watch your tongue, man! You’re talking about the warrior who took down two dozen men at the Battle of Luminaria on her own.”
“It was three dozen, at least.” The small voice again. “And they weren’t just men. They were cultists. Malakar’s own.”
Someone sucked in a sharp breath. “Humans are bad enough on their own, but cultists? They’re a special breed of dark.”
“Sanguinagi.” The word came from a new voice that could only belong to a nocterrian—somehow simultaneously soft and hard, masculine and feminine. “Blood mages.”
“Still a stars-damned bloody nuisance, even today, thanks to Varyth fuckin’ Malchior at the helm.”
“Heard some members of the Cult of Malakar got picked off outside Crystalfell just the other week.”
“They made it that far into Nyrundelle? Four hells.”
A few moments passed in tense silence. Elyria’s skin prickled under what she felt suddenly sure were multiple gazes focused on her.
“My uncle was on the battlefield on the day of the Shattering,” one of the previous voices resumed. “Said it was near a lost cause—Malakar had already taken the castle. His cultists overwhelmed them. Queen Daephinia’s forces had all but given up. Until her. He didn’t see her on the field, but he saw what she left in her wake...”
Elyria stopped trying to keep track of who was speaking. It hardly mattered. She wished they would all cease entirely. She just wantedquiet.
I could make them be quiet, she thought idly. Confident that the baffling, unsettling visions had passed, she reopened her eyes and let them drift across the grime-covered stone ceiling, then down the bars of her cell.
