Page 171 of Insolence
Gripped by bone-deep fatigue, something intuitive said my demun’sstrengthwas gone—a violation of nature. Of Eisha herself. A betrayal I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
It went on so long my awareness came and went. My identity came and went. My consciousness came… and went…
It was a blessing when Deirdre’s name finally faded from my mind, followed by my own. Still, she didn’t relent. I blacked out at a certain point, only to come to again, aware of nothing but the never-ending anguish. The yearning to die. The stink of rotten rose petals flooding my dulled senses.
There’s no telling how much time passed before Elodie finally fully dissolved from my mind. El I held onto as long as possible, until Icouldn’tanymore. At least the bond still burned brightly between us, but the love of my life was a beautiful stranger when the last wisps trickled away.
I was crying earnest tears at that point, uncertain about what was devastating me so.
When the agony finally came to an end, it was like being caught in the eye of a hurricane: blissful peace after such violent destruction. Deirdre leaned back in her seat, a sigh escaping her. Dark shadows hung beneath her eyes. For all I knew, days had passed.
I sagged boneless against the rock-hard slab at my back, a shell of a woman devoid of context. Just before a final, deathlike unconsciousness claimed me, the prioress stood. Nothing more than my anonymous, sadistic torturer by then, she cast a scornful look at me before reaching to twist a ring off my finger I wasn’t aware I had on.
Present Day
Somehow, I can hear Elodie’s sobs through the closed door far better than I ought to.
I can heareverything: the trill of finches far outside the dome’s reach and the rush and sigh of breezes low in the valley. Although the bonfires have dwindled to smoldering embers on the cobblestones, their crackles and hisses are radio static blaring in my ears.
Woodsmoke scuds across the courtyard. Its stench reaches me in acrid tendrils that sting my sinuses long before I notice it creeping around the base of the Observatory trail.
If my sense of smell and hearing are sharper now, then my eyesight is a rapier’s blade.
The world filters into my brain in an overload of information. I can’t tear my attention from the billions of stars winking in the inky sky—stars in quantities I haven’t perceived for far too long.
They pale in comparison to the magic threaded through the dome encasing the temple complex.
The arcane barrier stands in stark focus, rising high overhead and curving around the entire temple. The syphoned life-force it’s composed of glitters and shimmers like crushed mica.
It’s all too much of a shock, too big to comprehend alongside the memories mercilessly funneled back into my head. I don’t remember everything of my life, only what I saw in a brief moment that stretched on for what seemed an eternity.
What I did see came in jumbled fits and starts:
Myself cresting the path up the mountain. Being ushered into the Gallery of the Goddess to anxiously await the Second High Priestess.
Our first meeting in Nehel, followed by finding Asher’s Specialty Print Shop in Aronya Dar. The whirlwind of nights I sat for El, flirting shamelessly and counting down the days before an impending marriage that felt more like a lifelong prison term. Each meeting, each hour we spent together, pulled me deeper and more inextricably in love with him.
The night I seduced El Asher before either of us knew what I am.
Being ushered into the Divination room with Elodie.
The night our soul-tie was forged burns so brightly in my mind it blinds me. It floods me with a desirous,diresort of love that illuminates every fiber in me. It wars with the betrayal stabbing like red-hot needles under my skin.
The night I killed Illiam is… so complicated. I don’t remember it or him directly. I know how I felt relaying what happened to Elodie, but I don’t feel that way anymore. I hardly knowhowto feel.
The remembered anger still courses through me like a fever, and yet I’mhorrifiedat my callousness in confessing what I did. Saying I’d do it again and knowing, in that moment, how viciously I meant it—
Once I start down the steep trail from the Observatory, my foot goes out from under me. I slide, loose gravel bouncing toward the courtyard in the dark. I stagger to keep my balance, my thoughts swirling like a tempest.
There’s something else, too. Irememberwhat happened in the flower greenhouse that day!Gods, I cringe at the barest thought of it.She called red and I kept going. I-I wastouchingmyself!
A sob tumbles out of me. It’s all too much to comprehend at once, and I think of venturing to the rooftop terrace again. Hell, at this hour, nobody’s up and about to stop me.
“Fuck!” I cry into the lonely night.
Three hours ago I didn’t know what the word Succubus meant. Now, it somehow feels like I’ve undergone the agony of the ritual again. Over the course of one evening, I’ve lost who I thought I was, completely and totally against my will.
All I’ve wanted this whole time is to find answers about myself.Now that I have them, I wish I could go back in time—wish I’d never pursued Elodie like I did. And now we’re both stuck here because of me.
