Forbidden |18+

XXXV: Treason

XXXV: Treason

Cold.

Icy shards pierce through my skin, the freezing cold set in as I feel consciousness...I just haven't decided whether or not I want to accept the reality that hides beneath my eyelids.

Slowly though, I brace the world and blink my eyelids open. The darkness that hazes lighter begins to fill my vision and surround me. I can see that I'm on a hard floor of some type, though as I blink my surroundings into view, nothing I see I can recognize. It's all-new, unfamiliar, and haunting. I feel cold, alone, and afraid...

Panic wells within my chest the moment I wake and barely contrast thoughts. It's hard, trying to remember everything, hoping that it was all a dream, a blur in the shadow of the night. It isn't though, far from it in fact.

Bars of silver corner me in a cage off to the side of a small room. My wrists are also locked under circles of silver, the shackles scratching and irritating my skin. I can still feel it though, the deepest within my very bloodstream.

Here I thought that Prince Rune was the only one out to get me...

...yet here I lean against this wall and realize my own brother planned an assassination attempt on my life for the way I marred the family bloodline. Oh no, I'm the worst person in the world! That's such an offense to kill someone over...

The darkness in my humor rises as everything swirls within my mind. It makes me feel pitiful, that I was naive enough to believe that my family...at the very least, wouldn't want me dead...yet...Eli didn't consider the anomaly that I find myself in the position to this day.

Prince Rune is complete chaos.

Eli doesn't understand or see that yet, so I do have leverage on that point. On the other hand, I have no idea the extent Eli has gone to the lengths he has to do this and pull it off. What he spoke of is treason, even worse than anything I will inevitably be pinned with. At the very least, he premeditated all of this, while mine was more of happenstance, and well within the laws.

Just then, the door to the small, unfamiliar room opens, and I wince as light floods the room. The brightness stings my vision as I close my eyelids rapidly, turning away from the hideousness that is light.

Eli chuckles and sighs, his voice causing sickness to swell within my gut, "Well then...did you have a good nap?"

"What happened?" I ask with confusion, still trying to clear my mind as the haziness of my surroundings throws me off guard in his presence.

"Krafa is over...long, long over," Eli speaks and my heart stops in my chest. It feels as though a knife is twisting in my stomach when he adds, "It was quite a scene. When you didn't show, Prince Rune called you out for treason against the Forbidden Laws and violation of the Covenant-Pack Treaty."

Each word just spreads like venom through my veins. It feels unreal, like this moment is just a fleeting moment...as if I can change it somehow. I can't though, no matter how much I believe I can make a difference and alter anything...I can't!

"Prince Rune was so shocked, just as much as everyone else when he saw your blood memories," Eli then shifts his actions to that of a school play. He acts it out with such dramatics, "He wanted to look past and forgive you of your past sins for a noble and beautiful future!"

My heart is beating wildly in my chest, feeling it pound so hard against my ribs...they ache so much.

Eli walks toward me, halting just before the cage I'm trapped in. He crouches and holds the bars with one hand, stating, "You are nothing more than a forgotten traitor...that is your legacy. That is how you will be remembered...until," he chuckles and snatches the front of my throat through the bars.