Page 175 of Serpent In White

Mother, please forgive me. Guide me on this path.

The sound of my boots clomping on the cement travels, erasing the silence from a moment ago. And once I get to the last cell, I peer in between the bars.

I’m not sure what I expected to see. The girl digging into the ground, attempting to burrow her way out. Or her lying on the floor, miserable and on the verge of death. Maybe sobbing, openly weeping for freedom.

What I don’t expect, however, is what’s happening, which is her doing a headstand.

I’m not even exaggerating. She’s on her head.

Propped against the wall, for assisted balance I’m guessing. But I find myself tilting my own head to observe her face. Her eyes are closed, and when she opens them, she simply blinks at me.

Head Priest…She thinks.

I’m momentarily floored at her calling me that. Her thoughts don’t even sound sarcastic.

“What are you doing?” I ask, unable to hide the amusement in my tone.

She gracefully pushes herself off the wall, flipping onto her hands and knees. Then she scoots over to the bars, sitting on the floor while she gazes up at me.

“I was doing yoga, and then it somehow turned into… that.” She shakes her head subtly. “What are you doing here?”

Letting out a long sigh, I take a seat on the ground by her side, with only the steel bars separating us. “I came to speak with you. Because you’re my guest, and I know next to nothing about you.”

“Yea, well… you never tried,” she mumbles, not sounding as accusatory as I’m sure she was going for.

“Neither did you.” I fold my hands in my lap.

Point well made, she thinks.

“Rhiannon.” I turn to face her better. She does the same. “I’m sure you’ve picked up on this by now, but Empyrean is more than just a high that opens your mind’s eye to all sorts of things you may have never considered. Its power lies in the breaking down of walls. The light it sheds on our fellow humans.”

She blinks over wide eyes, glistening in the low light of only a couple lanterns. “Because of the telekinesis?”

“Yes, but it’s more than just that, too,” I explain. “Being completely exposed is something many of us find… difficult. I know I’m one of them. For a long time, the only person I’ve ever been vulnerable to, by choice, was my brother. And then Abdiel… And now you.”

I watch her swallow, her nerves making themselves visible.

“How did you feel when you found out we were listening to your thoughts? It was unnerving, wasn’t it?” I lift my brow in question.

She nods. “Yea. To say the least.”

“But once you get past that part, it’s freeing. For example, right now, all my secrets are bared to you. It’s a power unlike anything else. It’sgodlike, Rhiannon. What you have in your mind right now…”

“Isempyrean,” she finishes my thought, and a small smirk graces my lips as I nod.

“Exactly.”

We sit in silence for a moment, listening to one another, thinking about the power exchange, the control we both possess together.

Her eyes lift to mine, riddled with unease. “You were vulnerable to someone before… and not by choice. Weren’t you?”

My gut crawls up into my chest, and I have to clench my jaw to stop the desire to curl into a ball and hide. But I do, stop it.

I force myself to sit up taller, and confess, “I was raped by my foster father when I was fifteen.”

Rhiannon’s eyes go round. The empathy in her mind seems to wrap around me, like arms.

“That’s why Drake killed him…” she whispers. I can do nothing more than nod.