Page 13 of The Survivors (The Children of the Sun God #4)

Ciara

“Sometimes I'm terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants. The way it stops and starts.”

~ Edgar Allan Poe

Lenore’s cries circle above my head. She croaks, giving me the strength I need.

“Can you kill that damn crow?” Ioannis begs.

“It’s a raven,” I stupidly say.

The witch sneers. “I would if I could. It’s her familiar. A rare gift. To kill it would bring a curse to my whole house and all of those after me.”

I didn’t know that. Maybe she’s lying and has a soft spot for ravens. As I’m confident that I’ll never leave here, I’ll never know the truth.

Ioannis’ dislike for my familiar gives me an idea. I release my voice like a final prayer:

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary ,

“Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—

“While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

“As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

“‘’Tis some visitor,’ I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—

“Only this and nothing more.’”

Ioannis slaps my cheek hard, stinging my cheek. I gasp. His face twists with cruelty. “Shut up, whore.”

The metallic taste of blood fills my mouth, and I grin defiantly. I gather the saliva and blood pooling on my tongue and spit it squarely into his face. The satisfaction is fleeting. It’s worth it, though.

“Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;

“And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

“Eagerly I wished the morrow; —vainly I had sought to borrow

“From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—

“For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

“Nameless here for evermore.”

Ioannis jaw tightens while I quote Poe’s most famous poem. His smirk turning razor-sharp. “Phylis, do your worst. ”

I refuse to stop.

“And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

“Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

“So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating

“‘’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—

“Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—

“This it is and nothing more.’”

His witch steps forward, unfazed by my words. Her movements unnervingly graceful, her dark eyes glinting with malice. “Gladly,” she purrs.

Her cold hands cup my head. Her fingers curl like claws. She presses just enough for me to measure the sharpness of her nails. Icy skin brushes against my temples. My bravado cracks, and a shudder ripples through me.

Her voice drips like honeyed venom. “What is it that terrifies you?”

I steel myself, but her words cut deep, dragging my mind into a spiral I can’t control. It’s like when someone tells you not to think about elephants and that’s all you can do. Every fear, every phobia I’ve ever had flares to life, a cacophony of terror. Drowning in dark water. Suffocating in tight spaces. Plummeting into a bottomless abyss.

And then it settles, crystallizing into the one fear that rises above the rest.

Her lips curl into a wicked smile, and her eyes glimmer with triumph. “I’ve got it.”

I shake my head, panic blooming in my chest. “No…” I whisper, but it’s already too late.

“Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

“‘Sir,’ said I, ‘or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;

“But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

“And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

“That I scarce was sure I heard you’—here I opened wide the door;—

“Darkness there and nothing more.”

The air turns oppressive, as though the space around me conspires to amplify my dread.

From the cracks in the walls, they come. At first, just one—a glossy black widow, its body gleaming like polished obsidian, legs moving with calculated grace. It stops, its crimson hourglass glowing like a sinister beacon.

Then another emerges. And another.

Hundreds. Thousands.

They pour from the darkness like a tide, skittering toward me in a grotesque wave. Their movements are deliberate, taunting, as though they know my fear.

They’re not real, I tell myself.

The chant becomes a lifeline. They’re not real. They’re not real.

But they feel real.

“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

“Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

“But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,

“And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, ‘Lenore?’

“This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—

“Merely this and nothing more.”

My Lenore circles closer. Her croaking beckoning me to continue.

“Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

“Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.

“‘Surely,’ said I, ‘surely that is something at my window lattice;

“Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—

“Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—

“’Tis the wind and nothing more!’”

One spider grazes my foot, then another climbs up my leg. Their legs are impossibly light, but every touch burns like fire.

They’re not real. My voice cracks as one of the spiders begins to crawl up my arm .

“Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

“In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;

“Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;

“But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—

“Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—

“Perched, and sat, and nothing more.”

Make her shut up,” Ioannis demands.

The witch’s laughter rings in my ears, rich and cruel. “Let her speak, darling. Her words say one thing, but her mind says otherwise. It’s her terror that gives them life.”

“Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

“By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,

“‘Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,’ I said, ‘art sure no craven,

“Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—

“Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s “Plutonian shore!’”

“Quoth the Raven ‘Nevermore.’”

The spiders swarm, covering me in their cold, creeping embrace. My body convulses, yet I can’t move—I’m chained, helpless. One spider crawls toward my face. Its glossy body reflecting the dim flicker of the torchlight. I squeeze my eyes shut, but I can feel it. The tiny legs tickle my cheek. The creature pauses, as though savoring my helplessness.

“Ioannis,” I choke out. My voice raw with desperation. “I won’t break.”

He steps closer. “Oh, but you will,” he says with a sadistic glee. “This is only the beginning.”

“I won’t break.” I say more for myself than them. I feel myself getting stronger with each line. Lenore’s cries pushing me to keep going.

“Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

“Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;

“For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being

“Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—

“Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,

“With such name as ‘Nevermore.’”

The witch tilts her head, watching me like a predator savoring its prey. “You’ve been so brave,” she coos mockingly. “But bravery fades in the face of truth. And the truth, my dear, is that fear owns you.”

The spider on my cheek moves closer to my lips. My body shakes uncontrollably. My inner chant is gone now, replaced by guttural gasps.

“But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only

“That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did out pour.

“Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—

“Till I scarcely more than muttered ‘Other friends have flown before—

“On the morrowhewill leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.’

“Then the bird said ‘Nevermore.’”

My words have softened into a whisper that is drowned out by Ioannis’ cold laughter and the suffocation of the swarm.

The darkness deepens. The spiders close in, but I refuse to relent.

“Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

“‘Doubtless,’ said I, ‘what it utters is its only stock and store

“Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster

“Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—

“Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore

“Of ‘Never—nevermore’.’”

“Tell me where she is?” Ioannis interrupts.

“But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,

“Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door ;

“Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking

“Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—

“What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore

“Meant in croaking ‘Nevermore.’”

“It’s not working!” He screams over my words.

The other man hands him a pair of pliers. My body betrays me with a shudder at what he might do with those.

“This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing

“To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;

“This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining

“On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,

“But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,

“Sheshall press, ah, nevermore!”

Ioannis grabs one of my fingers hanging from the shackles holding me in place. “Where is she?” he asks through gritted teeth.

“Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer

“Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

“‘Wretch,’ I cried, ‘thy God hath lent thee— by these angels he hath sent thee

“Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;

“Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!’

“Quoth the Raven ‘Nevermore.’”

The words of the poem flowing from my mouth keep the cries at bay as he pulls the first nail from my finger.

“Where is she?” he begs. I take comfort when his body trembles before he rips another nail.

“‘Prophet!’ said I, ‘thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—

“Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

“Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—

“On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—

“Is there—isthere balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!’

“Quoth the Raven ‘Nevermore.’”

Blood drips from my fingertips, hitting the dirt beneath me. The spiders. They’re gone. With each nail he rips from my cuticle, I grow stronger in my determination to defy him.

“‘Prophet!’ said I, ‘thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!

“By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—

“Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

“It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

“Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.’

“Quoth the Raven ‘Nevermore.’”

Without warning, a sharp searing ache settles in my chest, which feels like I’ve been pierced by a thousand burning knives. The pain is unlike anything I’ve ever known, worse than Ioannis’ cruelty. Worse than any torment he’s inflicted on me. My soul is being ripped apart.

“Persephone,” I whisper. Her name escaping my lips like a desperate prayer, though I already know. Deep down, I feel it.

“Persephone. What about her?” Ioannis’ worry means nothing to me.

Her spirit, the part of her that has been tethered to mine for as long as I can remember, is gone. Since we parted, the charm I made her kept me from feeling her. I couldn’t have known I’d feel like this once the power of the charm shattered with her death. If I’d have known, Ioannis would never have been able to capture me.

A cold emptiness rushes into the void she leaves behind. My knees buckle, and I collapse against the cold, unyielding ground. Chains rattle uselessly around me. I claw at my chest, desperate to reach the wound, as if I can stop the bleeding. But it’s not a wound I can touch. It’s deeper than flesh, more profound than pain .

How can she be gone?

I let out a strangled cry, tearing from my throat like an animal caught in a trap.

Tears blur my vision, hot and unstoppable, streaking down my dirt-streaked face. Every memory of her floods my mind in sharp, vivid detail. Her laughter, bright and contagious, singing in the meadow where we used to play. The way she’d clasp my hand when I was afraid, squeezing just tight enough to let me know I wasn’t alone. The nights we stayed up late, whispering about our dreams, promising that no matter where life took us, we’d always find our way back to each other.

And now she’s gone.

It’s not just grief—it’s rage. A fury so consuming it burns away the edges of my sorrow, leaving only a raw, pulsing need for revenge. Persephone didn’t deserve this. She was the light in my darkness, the voice that kept me sane when everything else fell apart.

Ioannis has taken everything from me. My freedom, my dignity, my hope. But this? This is a cruelty beyond comprehension.

“You’ll never find her,” I rasp.

But even as the words leave my lips, a crushing wave of despair washes over me, snuffing out the spark of rage. I’m powerless. Chained and broken, I’m nothing but a pawn in Ioannis’ twisted game.

The reality of Persephone’s death pushes down on me, heavier than the chains binding my wrists. I feel her absence like a physical force, a void that I can’t escape.

I close my eyes, searching for her one last time, reaching out with my soul as I have so many times before. But the connection is gone.

“Persephone…” I whisper again, my voice barely audible. “I’m so sorry.”

“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—

“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

The pain of losing her is unbearable, making everything Ioannis has done to me feel like a reprieve in comparison. He’s hurt my body. However, this has shattered my soul.

And in this moment, something inside me changes. The grief, the pain, the loss don’t fade. They harden into something sharper, something unbreakable.

“Where is she?” Ioannis asks one last time.

With a smile on my face, I tell him, “In the morgue.”

Laughter bellows from my chest. Before the agony of my broken heart takes me from this earth, I hear, in my mind, my raven sing me to sleep:

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting,stillis sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted—nevermore!