At first, I wasn't sure why Lanie looked like he was about to burst into flames until his father's hand touched the auzir markings and muttered a few words - and then my focus was torn from the livid young man to a dull, blinding pain that spiked in the back of my head.
"Oh, fuck," I swore, pressing a palm against my forehead as I stumbled back. Something else stirred within me - something other than the cruel source the Circle had forced into me during my teenage years.
Oh no.
After all this time, keeping it asleep.
You're not helping.
I'm not supposed to.
I gritted my teeth, squeezing my eyes shut to block out the outside noises.
Everything was a mixture of red and gray. Bleak chunks of stone and rock stretched high up to the sky, aching to scratch the orange flashes of lightning shooting through smoky clouds-
A man, missing half his face as he laid slumped over an old, rotting stump. His fingers were bloody from keeping his intestines from pouring out of a deep, ugly wound in his lower abdomen. He couldn't see me. His eyes were fixed on the black wisps of something flying high above.
"The High Lords save me," he kept muttering - over and over. I wasn't sure if he was talking about the Nevhian gods the Circle followed or something else-
"Stop," I managed, hating the cold pit rising in the pit of my stomach. A scream, followed by an enraged yell-
The silhouette of a woman sauntered over to me from across the desolate plain of ruin and debris, dragging a longsword in the ash behind her.
I strained, desperately trying to break myself free of the vision. This wasn't real. At least, not anymore. This was in my head, there was something snaking up my spine-
It was gone. The colors, the voices, the fucking screaming . . . It all stopped mid-second. I gasped, slowly opening my eyes to assure myself that I was indeed in the middle of the woods just outside of Canden and not in one of the most terrifying realms ever created. That I wasn't about to stand face-to-face with her.
Orik stood with a startled expression, watching me with his hand still pressed against the doorframe. Lanie didn't take as long to overcome his shock, taking a step forward to grab my arm with very little care.
"You need to leave," he stated. I shoved him away once I got to my feet, still struggling to breathe. Orik regained his composure, stepping between me and his son.
"Hold on, lad," he said. The lad didn't appreciate that answer very much.
"You think she should stay?"
Leaning on the wall, I watched them as my breathing slowed, noting how the accent they originally spoke in was being replaced with a different, somewhat rougher one.
"What the hell was that?" I demanded, hating the way my voice cracked when the man fixed his eyes on me without replying to his son.
"You're not a bounty hunter," he said, but he didn't sound angry. Or scared.
I hesitated. "Listen, I'm about to finish a contract. I have one more, and I'll be free from them. If you kill me beforehand, you'll just-" I stopped myself, not wanting to speak the words out loud. I shouldn't even be telling them any of this, and yet here I was. Grovelling in front of them so that they won't kill me before I've finished the one job I was called to do. Orik made no attempt to stop me, only raising a hand once to keep his son from interrupting. I shook my head, suddenly angry.
أنت تقرأ
On Death's Honor
الخيال (فانتازيا)"When you're in a place that darkness thrives, you learn to fear the light." "Why?" "Because the light will kill you faster." ------ For as long as she could remember, Wren has lived a rather unconventional life. She's hunted down trolls, bled out w...
