Shifting, she peered through the bars below, her right hand spasming as she tried to grab the bars. She nearly forgot about its ruined state, with the far more pressing state of her wing, or lack thereof. Her first few fingers didn’t even twitch when she tried to move them; her thumb worked rather well, and her pinkie curled at her will. Was that what she had been reduced to? A half-broken pile of bones, more blood on the outside of her than the inside?
Her white hair fell over her shoulder, curls falling through the bars and swaying. It drew the attention of a few nearby Umbra, and they looked up with glee in their shadowed eyes. Pointing and laughing at her misery.
Her blood had congealed on the floor of the birdcage, but sluggishly, droplets still fell below. As if their slow fall was evidence of her dwindling will to?—
Live.
She let her eyes close, leaning against the bars as the cage swayed dangerously to the side. What would happen if the thread keeping it held aloft snapped?
"Give in, Luella. That’s all you have to do. Give in," Az whispered from her back, his hands on her shoulders. She flinched from his touch, not turning to stare back at him, afraid of what she’d see.
Would it be worse to see nothing, or to find his form actually there, taunting her with evil words?
The voice shifted into Bastian’s.
"If you give in, this will all go away."
Then Graves’s.
"It’s okay. I’m here now."
The rasping lilt to her feathered stalker’s tone made her tremble. She was scared of him the most. She remembered the way he touched her, cupped her throat and squeezed, then he had melted into shadows atop her.
"You’re not real," she whispered, staring down at the reveling Umbra, who danced and laughed and drank and hurt.
She felt his stubble graze her shoulder, saw the outline of his face in her periphery. The deep blue eyes, the tanned skin, the scar carved into the side of his face—she wanted to trace the shape of it, feel the slight ridges against the pads of her fingers.
"I’m as real as you are," Graves mumbled, lips against her shoulder.
Then, it must be Luella who wasn’t real.
She was mad, mad, mad?—
She hadn’t realized she had muttered the word aloud until Graves’s body shook at her back with low, growling laughter. His fingers dug into the base of her spine, too close to her vulnerable wing stump. She swallowed, hating to give anyone her back anymore.
"If you’re mad, then what does that make me?"
She inhaled sharply. "It makes you a nightmare."
She didn’t look at him, didn’t look, didn’t let herself look. She was so scared to look.
And eventually, he left. When she no longer felt his frigid weight at her back, she turned to find the birdcage empty, the floor covered in her dried blood.
Letting sounds turn to nothingness, she drifted, and when everything came back into horrible focus, it was to a loud silence. So quiet, she could hear the faint splatter of her blood as congealed droplets sluggishly fell to the pool below her cage.
One arm was stretched out, her fingertips dangling over the edge, wrist bumping against the bars, while her other was cradled to her chest. Every breath made her fingers spasm; focusing on it made it worse. Her fingers twitched uncontrollably. Yet, she found herself focusing on it because it was better than letting herself focus on the empty chasm in her back, where her left wing used to be.
Shadows slithered over the ground and tickled her ankles. Maybe if she stayed still enough, they’d mistake her for the cage—some ornamental thing.
The darkness coalesced into one entity, twisting before the bars until it formed an oval shape—like a mirror. She stared into the darkness, but didn’t see her reflection.
A face peered back at her.
The Tenebrae, wearing Caliban’s skin.
His hand ripped through the shadowy mirror, fingers reaching, until his arm followed, then his chest. He pulled his body through the portal of shadows until he knelt on the violently rocking floor of the suspended birdcage. The shadows disintegrated, twisting until they wrapped around his wrists and twisted up his arms, as if they could not bear to part from his flesh long.
"Conquered Princess," the Tenebrae greeted. He stayed kneeling, staring down at her with dark, dark eyes, intent on her back. "What a sight you are. Wingless andwanting." He nearly growled the word.
