“In your hands, you hold the key. Walk toward it.”
I looked down, and sure enough, a long iron key sat in my palm. Twisted with strange markings. Ancient. Familiar.
My fingers closed around it.
I moved forward.
Each step felt harder than the last, like the air thickened the closer I got.
Something in me screamed not to continue.
“I don’t think I’m supposed to open this,” I whispered.
“You’re safe,” Thorne murmured. I felt his presence like a tether at my back. “I’m with you.”
I lifted the key.
The door pulsed beneath my touch, like it was alive. I slid the key into the lock. It resisted. Fought me.
But I pushed.
Click.
The door groaned open an inch, and the hallway plunged into shadows.
“Elira?” Thorne’s voice cut in, a touch more urgent.
I looked through the gap.
And I saw… myself.
But not as I was.
A child. Pale, hollow-eyed. Standing in a cage with metal bars and chains at her wrists. Her shadow writhed behind her like a second creature—twisting, shifting.
A man stood outside the bars. Bloody red eyes glowed in his face.
I started to shake.
“No…”
“Elira, tell me what you are seeing.” I could hear Thorne. “I can’t see you!” He sounded frustrated.
My whole body was rebelling. I wanted to be sick. The man loomed over me, his face hungry.
“Don’t hurt me. Not anymore, please.” I whispered, but my voice was so young. It was reedy and thin.
You’ve been a bad girl, Elira…
“I’m sorry!” I cried out. “I didn’t mean to.”
I have to punish him now. You know that…
“Don’t!” I yelled. “Don’t hurt him! Please! I’ll do anything!”
“Elira! Wake up! Elira!” Thorne yelled. I felt hands on my skin, on my forehead.
My eyes burst open and I hurled myself off the bed, before getting brutally sick on the floor. My breakfast poured out of me in a foamy pile.
