Page 19 of Bright Blinding Ruin

Just before dusk that day, I come across a small village that my path leads through. Empty, of course. I find myself a nice bed and call it an early night.

And, what would you know, I must’ve thought too much about Invictis today, because when sleep takes me, he’s there.

Chapter Eight

My shitty little apartment is just as I remember. My old, second-hand furniture. My tiny kitchen that always is perpetually dirty even though I don’t ever cook anything besides shit in the microwave. Even the view outside the windows overlooking the street below is the exact same.

What’s different is the asshole sitting on the small sofa across from the old TV hanging on the wall.

“I thought this would be a change of scenery, since our minds so often meet.” Invictis wears a smirk as he turns his head to look at me. His blue eyes are amused, his handsome face nothing but a lie.

He might look like a man. Might talk like one, too, but I can’t forget he isnota man; he’s a weapon, a weapon that’s older than Laconia’s written history. He is everything I should hate, the reason the entire kingdom is a shell of what it used to be.

“Your world is so different. It is too bad this is one of the most vivid memories in your head. I would’ve liked to see more of it,” Invictis muses, his accent so familiar it makes me momentarily forget how much I hate him. So many days spent listening to that voice, so many days I spent wondering what he looked like when he had a body.

Not once did I ever imagine this.

I move to stand beside the couch, glaring at him all the while—though he doesn’t act perturbed by it in the least. “You shouldn’t be here.”

His reply comes easily, “And neither should you. You should be as insane as those empresses were with how closely you were exposed to me, and yet here you are, still sane.” To say he sounds disappointed with the current state of my sanity would be an understatement.

I fold my arms over my chest. “Maybe your edge is wearing off. I hear you’re, like,superold.”

Invictis leans back on the couch, lifting both his arms onto the cushions behind him. The t-shirt he’s wearing hugs his body nicely, and the dark jeans on his legs…

His knees are spread wide; if he was a man, I’d say he’s inviting me to look at his dick, but since he’s not a man, I’m sure he’s just trying to look calm, collected, and stupidly assured of himself. The haughty bastard.

“Time means nothing to a being such as I. To a short-lived people like yourself, I suppose it matters more,” he tells me with a snide smirk. “If you’re trying to insult me, Rey, you should try harder.”

Standing there, staring at him, the hatred I have for him, the hurt and betrayal I feel when I think about what he did, how he tricked me and I fell for it, rises up.

Invictis goes on, “What sort of magical quest are you on now, hmm?” The chuckle he lets out is skeptical. “Do you truly believe you have any hope of defeating me, Rey? I’m surprised you’re even attempting, with how often you said you aren’t a hero—or have you changed your mind on that?” His azure gaze narrows at me. “Are you suddenly a hero now?”

I don’t say a word to him. If I get started, I don’t know that I’ll be able to stop.

“Is this—” Invictis motions around us before he stands. “—where heroes live?” He walks around the couch, stopping only when he stands directly before me, less than a foot away. His tall, six-and-a-half-foot frame towers over me in an attempt to make me feel small. “You said it yourself, time and time again: you are no hero. You’re nobody. You’re nothing special.”

Okay, yeah, I did say all that—multiple times—but it just sounds different when he says it. Demeaning, belittling, cruel. When I say all those things, I…

I guess I’m being demeaning, belittling, and cruel to myself, but it’s the truth. I have no family, no close friends. Even when I was saddled with a foster family, I was alone. I’ve been alone for so long, I honestly believe that I’m nobody, because how could someone who’s not a nobody have the life I did?

The only person that ever cared about me died when I was ten. That day was when I first made the change. I went from a little girl who could’ve been someone to an orphan who could only ever dream to be more than a nobody.

“Well?” Invictis mocks me, flashing me a set of perfect teeth. “Where’s that smart retort I know you have building in your head, Rey? Where is your counter, your denial? Where is the defiance that you so boldly proclaimed before?”

My gaze falls to his chest. It’s easier than looking up at him. All of the emotions inside war for dominance, and I don’t know whether to be more pissed off at what he said or upset at what he is and what he’s done… or depressed that I’ll never be able to go back to my life at this rate.

Let’s be real: I’ll probably die trying to get the aethers together. Laconia will be my grave.

All because of this stupid asshole.

My lips quiver as I try to keep calm. “You.” I growl out the word as my hands clench into fists at my sides. “You’re the reason I’ll never come back here. You’re the reason what little I had is gone.” My head snaps back, and I meet his intense stare again as I say, “You ruined my life.”

“Ruin is my specialty.” It’s as if he can sense that he’s pissing me off, because he adds, “Ruin and madness.”

“I know this might not look like much to something like you, something who has the whole fucking world at his feet, but this wasmylife. I had things I cared about here, and I… I’ll never be able to come back. It’s all your fault!”

The emotions demand a release, and so I do the only thing I can: I push him. I push him as hard as I can, both to get him away from me and to show just how ticked off I am.

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