And there, in the distance.A woman.
Waves of cold reach out with icy fingers, trying to pull me closer.Pale hair drifts on a wind like golden smoke.Eyes as black as coal shift, as the gaze slides over me.Fear dries my tongue, which swallows all sound.Not like screaming would do any good here.
Pounding echoes in the quiet chamber of my mind, as my ears give noise to my heart beating frantically in my chest.The corners of her mouth turn upward into a genuine smile, as the words she doesn’t give voice to slither in my skull.
Well done my child.You’ve taken the first step.
Her voice is everywhere and nowhere at the same time, pressing against the marrow in my bones.I try to speak, but the pressure in my throat seals the words away, drowning them before they can reach the surface.
The space where she stands yawns into an open void, until it consumes me.
I fall—and this time, the dark reaches back.
12
SEREN
Iwake to the sound of chains.
Not loose, not rattling, but taut.Stretched so tight they seem ready to sing a final note of capture.The metal is cold and unyielding against my skin, thrumming with a low, metallic pulse.
My world goes dark behind clenched eyelids.Red lines burn strong in the gloom, as I try desperately to shake away the dream, but it’s no use.I can’t tell what’s real anymore.
Something has settled in me, turning me into the host of a rot I don’t recognise.The Seren I was, feels lost.Gone.Dissolved into the black ink of this new, terrifying self.
I try to jerk upright, to see the face of my captor, but the silver manacles drag me back down, pinning me against the bed of dark green leaves that blanket the ground.My shadows surge in response, but the moment they brush the metal they shriek back to me, as if smothered.Caged.
A nauseous shudder ripples through me at the sight.The manacles don’t just hold the shadows; they crush them, pinching the ink-black tendrils until I can feel the phantom pain in my own wrists.
Darkness falls over me as the figure blots out the green light emitting from the hanging death-apples.Like two coins of polished silver, his eyes gleam behind gold-rimmed spectacles; a sharp, cold light glinting beneath the shadows of his hood.His presence presses down harder than the bindings, and for a moment, I can’t think.Can’t breathe.
“Don’t bother struggling,” he says, his voice low and flat.“The restraints were made for your kind.”
My kind.
The words slice deep, a lifetime of ostracism eating into the wound.
I fight against the dryness in my throat as my words find purchase against some fragment of saliva.“Who are you?”
His face bears the contempt his voice wishes to speak.He doesn’t answer, not with a name anyway.
Instead, he grabs the chain between my wrists and hauls me to my feet with an ease I didn’t expect.His breath washes over me as we come face to face.A distinct scent of warm, honeyed light with a hint of cured leather—chemical against the Hollow stink.
The manacles flare as if sensing the primal urge to resist.Searing heat lashes my skin, and my knees nearly buckle.
“You’re coming with me,” he growls into my face.
My voice breaks, half snarl, half plea.“Where?”
His grip tightens as his gaze looks to the world above.The corner of his lip curls, exposing perfectly straight, white teeth.
“No!I can’t?—”
His grin widens, revealing more than just a smile; but a glimmer of something cold and calculating.The chain between my wrists jerks and I stumble forward, until he’s dragging me through the blackened forest like an animal.Like the monster that I feel.
“Wait!My bags—” I struggle, fighting against the chains back to where they lie.“I need them.”He chuckles as if I’ve just said something worthy of his response.“Not where you’re going you don’t.”
I resist, trying desperately to claw back to my life littering the ground like trash; the sketchbook to my soul, the last of my money, Da’s picture, their rings.Left to the earth, with no home to claim them.Like me.
