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A cold panic crept inside my chest. There was only one person who called me by such a condescending title. Eivor hijacked my dreamland, searching for the secrets I kept buried deep in my memory. I suppressed them further, hiding them from her spirit currently tearing through my mind and twisting it like it was nothing more than a wet towel over a basin.
Just when I thought the torture couldn’t be any worse, there was a pain unlike any I’d ever felt, more visceral in nature, unrelenting and impossible to hide from. It engulfed me, distracted my thoughts from suppressing the important pieces of information in my head. All I knew was agony as she ripped me apart, piece by piece, by every stitch threading my soul together. I opened my lips to scream, but the effort was futile.
You will tell me what you know, you will keep the truth from my enemies, and you will show me where the floating kingdom is located.
At her command, the darkness unfolded around me as a thousand colors came into view, embracing me in their depths and pulling me further into a realm of colorful chaos.
There we are, little one, open to me. Show me the shades of your thoughts and the hues of your memories. I will find it, just make it easier on yourself and give me what I want. There’s still time to come back. I will forgive it all if you show me the way.
I shook my head again and fought against her spirit, blocking it with the darkness she attempted to wield. I used her own weapon against her, folding the abyss around my form like a blanket to hide from her.
Arya! Come back here before I—
“Arya!”
There was another voice calling me, and in the same direction somewhere beyond the chasm a light was forming. I needed to get to it before the queen noticed, before she used the light as an opportunity to sneak her power through. I focused on the brightness, letting it grow in my sight as my hollowed form shook violently the further I traveled from the darkness. Her cold hands ripped at my skin, trying to pull me back. The queen fought to keep me in the void, but I was tired—so tired of living in the darkness. With a violent surge of light, I broke her hold on me, feeling the weight of the void lighten around me until it was nothing more than a terrible nightmare.
“Arya, open your eyes, it’s me. It’s Azriel.”
My eyelids fluttered awake, and the physical world around me took form again. I was lying on my back, still in his bed with the covers twisted violently around my legs. Sweat soaked through the shirt I wore, making in cling against my frame, drenching my skin and dampening the sheets, outlining every curve of my figure as the thin material stuck to my bareness. My breathing labored as though I’d just run halfway across the realm.
Fingers traced my forehead, pushing back stray hairs stuck to the slickness of my skin. They were his fingers, his golden touch skimming my face tenderly as I caught my breath with eyes full of fear and concern. Past him, I heard whispers in the hall through a door thrown open in a rush.
“What happened?” I asked, breathless and hopeful he had some sort of explanation for why I felt the way I did.
“You were screaming, Arya. I came in here and found you…hovering in the bed.”
I sat straight up from where I lay. The blood curdled in my veins at the image he described. “What?”
“I don’t mean to scare you but I need to know what happened. You have to tell me exactly what was tormenting you.” His voice was gentle but demanding as he placed his hands over my shoulders. His touch was all I required to ground myself back to reality. I pulled my knees to my chest, not caring that the edges of his shirt were probably revealing vulnerable parts of me. He seemed to notice this and pulled a thin sheet across my knees.
“It was her, Az. The queen. I was in this… darkness. And I couldn’t speak or scream or run. Her voice called to me, taunting me, saying I chose the wrong side.” My voice trembled as I spoke, the terror in my heart exacerbated by the memories of the abyss. “She said she could see me and she was going to tear me apart to find what I discovered at the citadel. Then there was great pain. It was a kind of suffering I didn’t know was possible.”
I looked up at him, my eyes leaking tears I fought hard to hold back. The echo of her torturous touch was still alive on my skin, the impression of her remained as invisible claw marks burned across my back. “She found me in my sleep, Azriel. Even floating a hundred miles away, she can still hurt me in my dreams. She dragged me down into the dark, into a void I would have never escaped had you not shown me the way out.”
My head fell to my knees, and I wept quietly. In that instant, I didn’t care who saw me in the hall or what Azriel thought of my weakness. I was broken, so terribly shattered from the violation of her power running wild in my thoughts. It was as if I was still her property, like my mind was her territory to visit at whim, a reminder I’d never truly escape her reach.
He wrapped his arms around my folded frame, and I instantly felt safer. There was something about his presence that drowned out the fear and made the darkness shrouding my soul flee from his touch. The trembling in my bones settled, feeling wholly protected as he embraced me.
“It’s all right, I’m here, and I won’t let her have you.”
I nodded in his shoulder. “I don’t think I can close my eyes. I’m too scared she’ll be waiting for me in my dreams.” I unfolded my legs to sit closer to him, needing to feel the life beneath his skin. “Az, I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again.”
“Yes, you will,” he whispered in my ear. The bedroom door shut abruptly, though no one had touched it, and the deadbolt slid smoothly across the anchor. His arms untangled from mine, and he laid me back across the damp sheets before sitting against the headboard next to my pillow.
“Sleep, darling. She cannot touch you now.”
I looked into his eyes of stardust and moonlight and believed every word. With the strokes of his fingers combing through my damp hair, I let the darkness creep from the corners of my vision and embrace me once more.
But for the first time, I did not face it alone.
8
I awokehours later and rolled to my back, recalling the events of the horrid night as I rubbed my eyes free of tiredness. Something shifted next to me, and my whole body went stiff as I remembered who shared my bed.
Azriel was still asleep. He remained seated against the wooden headboard on top of the covers, his lips slightly open as his chest rose and fell with every breath. His hair was a tangled mess around his bronzed complexion, undoubtedly still not as messy as my own. I slowly slid out of the sheets, moving carefully so I wouldn’t wake him.
The mirror in the bathroom was not kind to me as I walked past it wearing nothing but a man’s shirt. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw my bedhead and quickly found the brush to tame the ferocity of my unruly mane, wincing at the tangles breaking against the wooden bristles. I then washed my face and my skin with a small towel, removing the salt left by my sweat and the musty stench of dampness, folding the hand towel over the enameled basin before reassessing my reflection. It wasn’t much, but I felt human again—smelled human again—and a little more like myself in the process.
