Page 11

Breathe .

I couldn’t breathe.

My soul was screaming, baying, howling from within, and couldn’t claw its way out.

A gasp. A sob. Choking on air in an abominable form that didn’t fit right. Skin stretched over strange bones, flesh dying even as my spirit lived on, and a power stolen—never to return.

Red—like blood, like ichor—so red. Everywhere.

No matter how hard I tried to run, my feet were trapped on the ground.

My vision was obscured in a shroud of red, of crimson.

It was a dream. I knew it was a dream. Yet I couldn’t get out.

I was lost in a sea of dark storm clouds, a violent tide of a consuming tempest crashing all around me.

Each cyclone that rose reflected memories of ages past. And in that dreamy hellscape I chased a phantom, the ghost of who I was.

Visions danced in the superstorm—sylphs with silvery forms shimmering in the thunderous squall bursting all around me.

And a red light followed me. Stalking me. Hunting me.

Sludge rose over my feet and suctioned around my ankles.

A scream from foreign vocal cords ripped up my throat as I sank into the freezing pitch-black void beneath me.

Ripped away from the clouds, the sky. I clawed at my chest, my throat, scratching at myself as if my efforts might give me air or freedom. Closer and closer.

I was losing control.

Rising higher and higher, blackness climbing up my legs as I sank and sank.

And sank and sank. A current rose, a watery grave of darkness with glittering flecks of distant sylphs who had drowned before me rushing forward.

Flying, struggling, through a turbulent tide.

Sleek and graceful even in eternal demise.

Moon-kissed with the light of eternal universes in their eyes, we were meant to be creatures of the cosmos.

Ephemeral stars racing across a midnight sky.

A mighty storm cloud crashed over them, dooming my kin to the hungry stomach of a barraging beast controlled by a wicked man.

Standing within the assaulting downpour, a red mage towered, surging higher like an ominous, rising sun.

An omen of my fate. I would die and vanish like the others.

We would vanish together, sinking into the depths of a cruel possession.

And there, with my head submerged, I heard it calling.

In what remained of my soul, the Crimson Mage spoke to me through the haze of my nightmare, vowing, “ I will never let you go .”

I couldn’t breathe.

Fleeting echoes of cackling laughter jolted me from the clutches of nightmares.

A wave of platinum blue hair cascaded around my face as I bolted upright.

The grip on my chest loosened, and I gasped in a much-needed breath.

Oxygen flooded my lungs and veins, lifting me from the oppressively heavy dreams draped over my limbs.

Heart pounding and chest seizing, I tore myself from the bed. In my rush, the sheet trapped my leg, and I slammed onto the floor. Foolish, clumsy mortal body. I gritted my teeth, pants breaching my lips as I shoved upright on shaky arms.

Another peal of laughter caught my attention.

Flickering light and gentle splashes resonated in the adjacent bathing room.

Chasing curiosity and fleeing the residual mire of my nightmare, I followed the sound.

Three smaller Inferni imps were cartwheeling and flipping around the tub.

One twisted the handles to adjust the water temperature as a fifth imp struggled to reach around their companion and flick their dripping wet hands in the pouring water.

A startled giggle burst out.

Everyone froze. Five sets of glowing yellow eyes darted to me. A collective gasp breathed through the room.

Rapid motion whipped from corner to corner as the imps exploded into a frenzy.

They chattered and laughed, spinning and trilling.

In their fervor, they morphed between formless shadows and tangible shapes.

I couldn’t help watching them giggle and chitter, reminded of squirrels and monkeys in behavior even if their appearance differed into something strange and incorporeal.

“Miss is awake!”

“Our lady is here!”

“Time for your bath, my lady!”

An overlapping chorus filled the space, their breath and excitement distorting the wispy steam from the bath. Insensible and strange, a smile split my dour expression, swayed by their contagious energy. Two of them reached up to grab my hands, and a third bounced behind me, pushing at my legs.

“A new day, a new day is here!” The imp guiding me on the right, slightly rotund and taller than the others, took the lead.

“We must get the lady bathed. Clean and fresh for the master. So juicy sweet!” Their voices were almost singing, lilting on every word.

It was delightful in a way I wasn’t used to.

“Another bath?” Sylphs, as creatures of the air, didn’t need to partake in the ritual. Though I supposed current circumstances would see me conforming to the abnormal.

“Yes, yes, we must wash and tend to our lady!” A second imp squatted on the rim of the tub, thin tail sweeping along the side. It gestured at the water with hands bearing extra knuckles to extend their long, narrow fingers further.

“A lady?” I paused. Two imps bounced around my legs, tugging at the hem of my nightgown. “I am no lady.”

“You are. We is knowing these things,” said the fifth imp, dramatically nodding his head as if he were an expert on such topics. “And as such, we tend to the lady.”

“Our lady! Our lady!” the others continued singing. Such a curiously inspiring distraction. I smiled and caved to their request. I removed the nightgown and crossed the room to the tub. They tittered and hopped, their apparent joy stirring a thrill through me.

One leg over the lip of the tub, my foot dropped into the luxuriously warm water. A stark contrast to the frigid sea of my dreams, and a welcome reprieve from the chill pervading my bones.

Halfway in the water, I froze. There was something sticky dried on my inner thigh.

I swiped at it, puzzled over the pale substance smeared into my skin.

I couldn’t place its origins, and the floral soap of the bath masked its scent.

I must have gotten something on myself at dinner or during the incident last night.

I couldn’t be sure. Thinking nothing more of it, I sank into the water.

Perhaps there was some advantage to frequently bathing. My muscles released their tension, my joints eased, and the heat from the water suffused a soothing tranquility within me.

A sob wrenched from my chest. The tears on my cheeks mingled with the bathwater. How novel, how mortal, to experience grief even in a moment of bliss.

I was losing my mind.

Exhaling shallow and shaky breaths, the shades of my past, my identity, split from my grasp. I wasn’t made for this—all these human feelings. They were new and ungovernable, threatening to pull me down.

“She is glowing.” An imp’s voice broke through the dense misery settled around me. Their fingers stroked through my hair, rinsing out soap and brushing out the knots. Another added their hands, taking strands in their fingers and cooing.

“Glowing. Our lady is bright.”

“She is bright.”

“A shiny lady.”

Swallowing down another pitiful sniffle, I opened my eyes. A few restrained tears escaped, dripping into the glowing water.

Glowing?

A reflection of light suffused the bath.

Shimmering silver light radiated from my limbs, my skin, and my hair.

A gasp leapt from my tongue as I jolted.

The water rippled, obscuring my image, until something familiar stared back.

There, in the water, a sylph watched me from the depths.

A weight pressed on my chest and clogged the base of my throat.

She was there—in there—but my identity was gone. Everything that once made me, me no longer existed. The spirit of my being split from my body and thrust into a grotesque, warped obscenity. A cursed atrocity now destined to die, to wither, to rot. An abhorrent disgrace.

I slashed through the water, disfiguring the illusion on the surface.

Shoulders rising, chest heaving, a hush clung like a thick layer of snow to the room.

Seconds passed in brittle silence as the luminous glow faded.

Only candlelight and glowing yellow eyes remained as my heart and breaths evened out.

“I think I’m done with the bath,” I said, void of emotion. The imps didn’t argue.

A copper-red sun drifted carelessly across the sky. For hours, I sat on the lip of the paned window, watching the colors shift from rust-orange to burnt-red. Cold glass chilled my forehead, but the far-reaching light warmed as the day passed in a senseless blur.

Confident knocks on the bedroom door sent a rod through my spine.

I straightened up, heart fluttering anew as the aged wood groaned in complaint as the door swung open.

His presence unfurled like a heavy exhale of shadow through the room, seeping into every nook and crevice.

He occupied the threshold, sucking up all the air simply by existing.

The effect caused a liquid heat to ripple along my spine and pool in the depth of my core.

It was unsettling and alarming.

Mavros cleared his throat.

My gaze remained on the land spreading below the castle.

Moments passed, and a languid tension curled around me. A conniving whisper urging me to turn, to look at him. I refused.

“You are a strange creature in this world,” he said.

I hummed noncommittally.

“And that must mean that my world is equally strange to you.” The softening in his usually growling tone captured me. His eyes widened when I looked at him, and he straightened his shoulders. The tip of his tail twitched.

“Yes, it is.”