Page 117 of Eldritch
Eyes swollen from too many strikes to his face, he stared across the suffocating darkness, and from the corner of his dank cell, he watched an obscure figure with long, blond hair crawl toward him, her movements abnormally abrupt and unsettling. What were once pale green eyes had blackened to something Zevander couldn’t bring himself to look upon.
“You…let them…take me.” The deep raspy tone of Vaelora’s voice carried a malevolent edge that didn’t match the girl’s usually melodic timbre. “You let them take me!”
Desperate to banish her accusing words from his ears, he shook his head, a cold branching sensation crawling over his chest.
Not real.
“Look at me!” Her screams grew louder, a deafening sound that punctured his soul.
He slammed his head against the stones, and jolts of pain shot to his temples like lightning.
Get out of my head. Get out of my head!
The screams faded, but he didn’t dare open his eyes to the emptiness once again. That vacuous solitude was worse than any torture he’d suffered.
The first few days, he’d met each powerful blow, each slice of their blades, with unflinching defiance, but as time wore on, and his mind tormented him with the stages of Vaelora’s suffering,he became hollow. A shell of himself. He no longer had the strength to keep the darkness locked away.
It washed over him like a black squall, and he was ready to let it take him under.
He needed only to whisper for death, as near as he stood to that fragile threshold.
“Angel.” The much softer voice emerged from the silence.
He opened his eyes, and a warmth he didn’t recognize in this place bloomed in his chest, as the sight of her swallowed the pain.
Her.
He took in her long, black hair, cascading over her shoulders like a liquid shadow. Pale, luminous skin, kissed by the moon. Winter-gray eyes that reminded him of home. Bathed in an ethereal light, she smiled back at him, like an apology from the gods. A gift he clutched tightly inside his mind.
“Why do you suffer?” That voice, so unbearably kind and gentle, nearly broke him.
He opened his mouth to answer, his throat too raw and dry from thirst. How was she here, in this hell?
“Are you…real?” he asked, his voice strained and rough. Through swollen eyes, he glanced around, only to find the same damp, stone walls as before—no indication that he’d slipped into Caligorya.
She smiled and reached out a delicate hand to stroke his cheek. “I’m here.”
Zevander nearly collapsed from the warmth, and were his hands not shackled, he’d have held her there, letting it seep to the depth of his bones. “I waited…to see you…again.” Air wheezed in his lungs, like the rattle of coins in a tin cup. “One last time…for you.”
Sorrow flickered in her eyes, and she cradled his scarred and mangled face in her hand. “You cannot give up, Angel. You must fight a little longer.”
“I have…no fight…left.” Shame chewed at him with the confession.
“You do. Beneath your suffering lives a flame that cannot be extinguished. A strength that will not break. This pain is temporary, but what burns within you is everlasting.”
Zevander lowered his head, jaw clenched as he held back tears. “The pain…is all there is.”
“Then, embrace it. Do not let it consume you. Bend, if you must. And fight. Until they’ve taken all but your breath.” A phantom kiss on his forehead brought his attention back to her, and like a fading star, she vanished.
The warmth turned to cold and darkness swallowed the light.
He didn’t even know her name. He only knew her as the lorn.
Nothing more than a dream.
A shadow flickered on the edge of his vision, and Zevander snapped his gaze toward where a Golvyn scampered across the room, hiding itself in the shadows.
“Would you mind…fetching some…water?” Zevander’s voice had grown rougher, more gravelly. He hadn’t noticed the gnawing hunger in his stomach so much as the water that’d been withheld. “Please, Golvyn.”
