She felt like a stone caught in a shallow at the edge of a rock cliff, battered and bruised and worn away until she was only bits of sand and sediment swallowed deep in the throat of the ocean. She felt changed, unrecognizable, wholly different from the wild-eyed bay yearling that had run with the large cats in the jungle. It was like an entire lifetime had swept past her, like time had stood still for everyone except her. She had been tortured and she had fought at first, but the cracks that had appeared on her skin were identical to the fissures spreading like spider silk across her soul. It was only when she had given up that the torture had ended and the world that could have, should have, must have been a dream disappeared to the deepest parts of her being. The second time she had woken in a dream as real and ruined as the blood searing through her veins she had not hesitated, and it had been so easy to kill, as effortless as the knife that had spun from her fingers to bury itself in someones spine.
The second time had been easier still.
And she had wanted it.
She felt that knowledge, that memory like a hot stone burning gruesome blisters inside her belly. She had been different then, changed, and she could have no more refused the sweet copper stink of blood than she could have asked her lungs not to burn for the air they breathed. But even now, restored to who she had been before, it was impossible to forget that consuming urge to spill blood from the fluttering pulse of a bare, trembling throat. And though she rarely slept anymore, too suspicious of waking in yet another world that twisted and warped and forced her to be the worst parts of herself, she was mortal (just barely) and did sometimes succumb. But the sleep she found was restless and riddled with the darkest bits of her subconsciousness, and often she woke just as her teeth sank into one of her sisters prone, broken throats.
It was night now and the stars that hung in the sky seemed like cold, silver lights where they winked and twinkled and flickered in and out of passing clouds. She watched them for a long moment and could not help but wonder if that was where she would end up someday, cast into the cold and dark of an endless oblivion. Surely it was nothing less than what she deserved. But her eyes fell after a moment and she continued on through the shadows with restless unease etched clearly into the lines of her small indigo face. It only took a moment to reach the Gates border, she had memorized the way as soon as Ilka and Pyxis had decided to call it home. But even as she drew to a halt she could feel something like regret turning her veins to ice.
She had no right to think that a kingdom named after Heaven itself would be a place she could ever call home.
Yes, Magnus had offered, but surely he wouldn’t have if he had any way to know the truth of the secrets she kept buried in the blackest places of her ruined soul.
MALIS
makai x oksana