Page 46 of Threads Of Madly Whispers

“You make the voices in my head mad with covetousness.” He sounds offended and I feel aroused. I almost lean further into his touch before he takes his seat. The coldness that remains in his wake makes me abhor and crave for his warmth at once. A constant battle waged between the organ beating in my chest and the one caged in my head.

“I pity your struggle.” I curl the piece of hair that untangled from my ponytail around my pinky.

He lifts a wine bottle and pours the colorless liquid into my glass before placing it back down.

“Add a morsel of sympathy to your tone, and I might take your word for it.”

And as if my own hands are incapable, he picks up his knife and slices through my steak so effortlessly, coating each piece in rich béarnaise sauce. With a tenderness uncharacteristic of him, he lifts the fork to my lips, offering it to me. The flavors bloom across my tongue, deep and indulgent, unfolding like a secret meant only for me.

“But not when you do not feel. Wouldn’t that be pointless.” My eyes blink a couple of times.

That was a “poke at the beast” moment, because Sebastian does feel. His one byzantine character with the most labyrinthine emotions and serpentine thoughts. He can easily be a misunderstood soul, and what a tragic that is, because under all his harsh words and uncaring demeanour, is a man worth loving. Anastasia’s journals andletters have been somewhat a secret door to who their son truly is.

“As it is to lie.” He stares at me, yet his mind is miles away, wondering in a past he sees so well, like a freshly sculpted stone.

“And what have I told false off”

“I have spoken little, yet you know me as intimately as the dark veins threading through my arms. You were woven into my past, you stand in my present, and you will be in my future. I may be a riddle to many, but not to you, not when my mother’s journal carries the ink of my story, not when your gaze follows me as mine follows you.”

Sebastian feels like a long-lost lover, like indeed a past I knew before I came into this world. A kindred spirit l was left to wonder in search of in more than this life alone. The warmth and apathy l feel when his near is daringly familiar and old. I was caught in a buskin and along the break of clouds l found my way to him. But I’m torn, tarnished with a clown’s mind. He was never supposed to be the plot twist l see coming.

I cannot put into words what I feel and neither can he. It’s such a daunting verity for your soul to seek another like an old friend while your mind throws caution to the wind. How can my spirit lead when it can accept that Sebastian is not a good man. The blood bathing his hands and bleeding in his heart could paint me red and turn me into his own madness. The brute nestled in his soul won’t go away simply because I’m there with it, but it just might crumble me to pieces.

He feels, but can he love the way I want to be loved? His reins of obsession won’t let me be, I can run but the chains encased on my wrists will always thrust me back to him. My heart sees past the blood he walks into my roomcovered in, every night or the sanity he stalked me with. But my mind ponders at the reality of it and while I grasp the greyness of the matter, wrong doesn’t make it right. And neither do those cameras still hidden in my room.

“Tell me a story,” I whisper as he spears another piece and lifts it to my lips. There is something deeply intimate in the way he shares his fork, the same silver gliding between us.

“Many moons ago, there was a woman whose life was stolen by the venom of an ophidian. Her husband, shattered beyond words, sought desperately to mend his broken heart. So, he descended into the underworld, where he knelt before the shadows and pleaded for the return of his beloved.”

I reach for the glass of wine, but he takes it first, lifting it to my lips with deliberate ease. The gesture, gentle as a lamb, is a silent vow—a quiet claim of surrender he takes without ever offering his own.

“Hades agreed, but with a single condition, Orpheus must lead his wife out without ever turning to look at her. Yet, as temptation often weaves its way into fate, he stole a glance. Eurydice was lost to him once more, swallowed by the depths, never to return. Grief-stricken, Orpheus called for his own end in song, his sorrow echoing through the land until the wild beasts answered, tearing him apart and granting his final wish.”

“Do you think we’re destined for tragedy, forever waiting to fall?”

“Our story is not set in stone, Wild Rose. You and I are the writers of our end.”

But how can we not when we have so many dusted secrets and trails built before us. When our lives are buried in so much agony.

“Then allow me to know the parts you keep in the dark, to touch where the light hasn’t kissed and to hold the pieces you keep to your chest, then maybe, just maybe we won’t be so tragic a tale to tell.”

He stares at me a little longer before pulling the chain around his neck and giving it to me.

“My silence is never to keep you in the dark, but when you haven’t known of the immorality that I have, I’ll never stop trying to save what innocence you have left, but run Wild Rose, take a gander at the purgatory and for that I shall push you to the edge just to see how much you’ll scream for my help.”

“Will you catch me?”

“Always.”

Chapter 27

Wild Rose

Cradle of the Fallen

With each breath I take, I feel my soul touch the fabric of primordial wisdom, like fingers brushing against the oldest, most ethereal of scrolls. Unfathomable, yet so familiar. A never-ending ascent to the pinnacle of understanding, where the top is always just out of reach, but the effort itself feels like a kind of victory. I climb, and I stumble, again and again, only to rise stronger, for it is in the rise from the fall that life reveals its true meaning.Life, such a paradox wrapped in delicate, honeyed bliss, like the nectar hidden deep within a clover bloom, but sharp as the sting of a wasp, a bitter reminder that nothing pure comes without cost.

I have learned that life is not meant to be understood, but lived. Like honeysuckle, it offers its intoxicating sweetness, yet as we reach for it, it leaves its mark—a stinger that pierces deep, a quiet reminder that joy and sorrow are forever entwined. Darkness, ever envious of the light, seeks to consume, to swallow all that dares to shine, leavingbehind an emptiness that hungers for more. Yet, it is within this struggle that we find the strength to rise. For one must break to mend.

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