Page 160 of Upon Buried Embers
My stomach sinks, I don’t want him to be angry at me again like last time. How do I fix this—
“Oomph,” I bump into someone, crashing into a cart, banging my head. I rub it as someone grabs me by the collar, shoving me back into it, hard.
I cry out, pain rattling through my back.
“Look who it is,” sneers Darcia, and fear freezes me. I haven’t been alone with her since the snowstorm, making sure I am always with Tofa or Calian, even Rohan himself no matter his duties has stayed with me.
“Little slave girl,” her voice slurs, so she must have been enjoying the mead. “You should have fucking died when you left, do I need to remind you again what will happen if you stay?”
She grabs hold on my wrist with her free hand and I cry out, remembering how I snapped it the first time.
“L-leave me alone.” I try to find my voice but she laughs, the hand on the collar shoving me again and again into the cart, so hard that a bucket falls to the floor, grain spilling out of it.
“This is all you will ever be,” she says, sneering at the collar. “A slave, just like you are supposed to be. Poor little elf girl,my Master hurt me, waa waa.” I try to peel her hands off of me, but she’s far stronger, and she laughs cruelly, her fingernails digging into my neck around the collar. “I will kill you.”
“Darcia?” someone says, but my vision swims, ears ringing as she continues to slam me against the cart so hard I think she’s torn my back.
“No one wants you here, so you can die. Why can’t you just die?”Slam.“Die.”Slam.“Die.”
“Darcia, come on before someone sees.”
She shoves me and I fall to the ground, gasping for breath. She leans down and grabs my hair so roughly I hiss at the sting.
“I will kill you, elf,” she whispers menacingly. “Mark my words, when you’re next alone, I will fucking kill you.”
Her blurry figure stumbles off toward someone, and I get to my feet, needing to get back to the tent, to the safety it offers. To Rohan, telling me everything’s okay.
But as I walk, tears streaming down my face, the collar around my neck feels restrictive, like it’s choking me.
I don’t want to die.
I did, but I don’t anymore.
She’s going to kill you anyway.
The whisper floats through my mind so suddenly that I place a hand to my chest.
No, no, no.
Pointless.
That is what I wanted, but now?
Weak.
I’ve had no purpose but to be beaten and berated.
To let it happen, to not fight back.
To do as I’m told and keep my mouth shut.
I reach up to the collar at my throat, pulling at it, screaming in frustration.
I want it off.
I want it off, I want it off, I want it off.
Vision blurring, I claw at my neck, the feeling of suffocation taking over me, tears dripping down my face, lungs burning with the need for air.
