AllFreeNovel
Share Us
After a moment, he places a bowl of food in front of me, filled with some of the rare plants from the desert and some dried meat. I do my best to eat slowly both to prevent myself from getting sick as well as to preserve what little dignity I have left. Peliel watches me the entire time, and I feel quite similar to a prey animal.
While nourishing, the food isn’t exactly hydrating. I try to quiet the cough that’s coming up with my fist and dare to turn my gaze toward Peliel. “Could – I don’t suppose you have any water?”
A stupid question, really. We’re in the middle of the desert, and the air is as dry as ever. Even if it had rained recently, all the water would have since evaporated, leaving nothing more than its memory.
Peliel glances at me, a tenseness to his bottom lip that makes me nervous but is quickly abated when he moves to the other side of the room.
The fear returns when he picks up a stone and walks back, then holds said stone over my head.
“Open your mouth,” he commands. “Now.”
I do as he says, too scared to do otherwise.
Peliel clenches his fist around the rock like it is not made out of solid stone, cold and unmoving. Is he going to hit me with it? Should I have fought back against him?
I wouldn’t even have had the opportunity to disobey before he attacked, surely. I am still weak and in a vulnerable position, sitting with my mouth open like I’m –
A drop of water hits my tongue. I close it in mild shock, and the next drop falls on closed lips.
“Do you not know how to listen?” Peliel asks in irritation. I meet his eyes, and he shakes his head with a grunt. “Open it again before I waste all this effort on nothing.”
I open my mouth again, head reeling from what just occurred. I keep my eyes fixated on the stone above me as well as his fist. It closes around the stone and squishes it like it is a mere lump of clay. Like it is not a solid piece of earth.
It conforms to his hand, and I see rivulets of water stream down the sides and hit my tongue and face.
He’s treating this rock as if it were a meresponge.
The sight is almost alien, like my mind can’t comprehend this physical impossibility before it. The water is almost sweet and fresh, and I gulp down the streams that begin to flow from the stone.
It’scold,too. A miracle.
Peliel truly is a creature of wonder and power. Even the strongest feelings of horror cannot contain the wonder that stirs within me.
Once I finish taking a drink, Peliel tosses the now misshapen rock across the room and takes a seat next to me, nodding toward my food.
“Keep eating.”
I pick up a piece of dry meat and pull it towards me, but pause before it touches my lips.
“Could you,” I begin to ask, closing my hands into nervous fists. “Could you tell me why I’m here?”
“You’re serving your master,” he says. His voice is smooth like silk. “You have a higher purpose to fulfill now.”
Higher purpose? Master? I wrack my brain for anything that could give me insight and come up frightfully short.
“Who’s this master I’m serving?” I ask instead.
Peliel grins, a wide toothy smile that stretches from ear to ear, like the ones that predators give their prey once they’ve been cornered. It’s cold and cruel and makes my blood freeze inside my body.
“Me, of course.” His voice is so deep it rumbles, and I almost feel my body shaking with it. "I’ve taken you in, I’ve made your life’s purpose a much greater one."
I sputter, truly shocked at this turn of events.
“I don’t serve anyone!” I protest.
Peliel shrugs, like my complaints don’t mean anything to him, sliding off of his skin like the small bits of water that ran down his arm earlier.
“You serve me. You belong to me,” he gestures to the room. “I’ve done all these things for you and I expect your loyalty in return.”
