LUELLA
Blood dripped over the edge of the birdcage, falling in tiny raindrop patterns to the pool of blood below.
Luella’s throat was dry. She shivered, but she wasn’t cold. She was empty.
Bereft of everything she never even knew she wanted, ripped away from her by a blade. Pure white feathers, the ends matted with blood, were pinned to the wall above the throne, taunting her.
The birdcage hovered farther from the throne now, its shadow darkening the thick pool of blood below. Blood leaked constantly from the wound on her back. It was on her arms, on her silk gown, on the rocking floor of the cage beneath her…
She felt like it was in her lungs, in her throat,chokingher.
It was a pain of spirit and flesh. It felt like her very soul had been cleaved in two. She was broken, no longer whole. Her right wing was tucked tightly against her, the edges of the feathers brushing her cheek and chin. She rubbed her face against them, a cut sob ripping its way out of her mouth and echoing around.
Drip, drip, drip.
A burning sensation washed over her, jolting her awake.
"Hold her down." The Tenebrae’s calm voice pierced the sound of screams.
It washerscreams. The spikes cut into her throat as she cried. She couldn’t move.
Disorientation mingled with the fiery pain until she felt sick.
She heard the crackle of fire at her back. Suddenly, the pain made sense.
"Don’t—no fire," Luella whispered weakly, trying to move her hands to make it all stop.
The fingertips of her left hand brushed the dancing edges of the flame, and she didn’t jolt from the lick of heat. It was pleasant, in a way, like coming home. She tried to reach out for it again, but it was held away from her.
"You truly are broken, then, trying to touch fire. What, do you wish to burn yourself alive?" the Tenebrae taunted, tone crisp and low.
She heard no traces of anger, but she felt the evidence of his savage passion in her very marrow. In the absence of her left wing.
"Leave me be," she rasped, each word drawn out in dwindling anguish as the fiery pain receded.
The ground beneath her was stable. Had the birdcage been lowered?
The Tenebrae crouched by her shaking form. The green in his eyes was vivid, like emeralds. "You will never be rid of me. You can try to carve me out, but I am inside you now." He reached for the collar at her throat and ran his index finger over the edge.
When he got to the center, he applied pressure, and the spikes dug into the front of her throat. She felt the skin give way—it was already bruised and thin, so it didn’t take much force to break it—and thin streams of blood dripped from beneath.
"You bleed so easily for me," he said. There was movement at his back as an Umbra left. Luella saw he carried a bloodied sword in his hand, the end still sizzling from the heat of the flame. She shifted and felt her back pull, blood falling lazily.
"All I am is blood now," she said softly, eyes unfocusing as he continued to stroke over the collar. "I will bleed"—a ragged breath—"but I will not die."
He withdrew his hand as she began the laborious journey of sitting up. She felt more blood on her back, a testament to her words. Her sanity slipped through her bloodied fingers, dripping from her body. It was outside of her now, in the blood pool, settling on the bottom, too heavy to float.
When Luella sat up fully, leaning to the right from the strange weight of only having one wing, she stared deeply into the Tenebrae’s eyes, searching for hints of Caliban. She was not afraid, as she said, "I am what you made me. And I will make you…regretever making me into this."
His black hair rustled from an invisible breeze, his porcelain skin clouded by tendrils of shadows. "I look forward to it, flightless bird. But don’t try too soon, you’ll strain yourself." His hand moved from the collar to her back. All it took was one whisper of touch against the throbbing, burned cut, and she gasped, falling back into nothingness.
Laughter echoed from below as the birdcage swung, suspended above the blood pool.
The cauterized wound on her back was itchy. It was nothing more than a stump of bone, where the blade had not quite cleaved her wing away at the root.
She wasn’t sure how long she lay there. Hours, days… An eternity.
She slipped into sleep and awoke on occasion to the sound of the Umbra’s revels.
