She looks down at her body, at the sores on her legs, and the scabs where she’s lain wet and rotting. Her flesh is slung across the remains of her bones.
She runs a thick-nailed hand through her hair, feels it drift away in long grey clumps.
The golden creature shifts, and the barest movement of its weight is agony. She savours it – finally, something real.
whatiswhatiswhatis
She tries to say her name, but she can’t.
When she tries to, her tongue slips over it, oily and heavy.
She can’t say it.
She can’t say her own name.
The scream starts low in her stomach, then coils up through her guts like curdled smoke, filling her ribs, her throat, her mouth, the room.
The lamp gutters, a memory of shadow and light. She shrieks, and lashes out. There’s a crash, and for a brief moment the room is shrouded in blackness, before the gilded shape takes form again, clearer in the dark, lucent. A small, twisted body atop her ribs. Golden scales. A steady, buttery light flowing from its bones that pulses to the rhythm of the creature’s voice.
namestolenwas
youcanhave
ihaveiknowbecauseknowingis
youwant
It takes her all of a moment to agree. She nods.
Its talons flex painfully, pleasurably.
yesgoodis
herelistenandbuild
It winds its way upwards from her chest. Small precise claws picking their way over her collarbone, along her neck, until its sharp, angled jaw is lying in the hollow of her ear.
Her heart thunders in terror and exhilaration.
listenis
iknowingis
youis
arissa
arissafallon is
arissa
It bites deep, the teeth entering her neck like needles. She moves with it, is filled by it, becomes it.
Slowly, painfully, writhing with the gold in her blood, Arissa Fallon wakes up, and takes back her name.
58
The Gate. The Lock. The Light. The Blood. The Bone. The Dead. The Dark.
