ARSONIST'S LULLABY ¹ | shadow & bone [ON HOLD]

SEVEN

( 𝗔𝗥𝗦𝗢𝗡𝗜𝗦𝗧'𝗦
𝗟𝗨𝗟𝗟𝗔𝗕𝗬 )

KATERINA WAS DREAMING AGAIN. She knew it because the skies seemed too dull and the wind felt too cold. She couldn't feel the faint light that fell on her arms. It was just there. Falling in silent beams. She couldn't feel any sparks in the air, couldn't call to the fire simmering in her lifeblood. Turning her head around herself she realized where she was. The sandskiff. The Sandskiff which was named the Ultralight, except it was not light at all. Dark shadows spread across the surfaces. Not sitting still, but swimming. Throngs of darkness spinning in unseen shapes . She couldn't see the wooden boards of the floor or the sail above her. If she dropped her arms to her side, they disappeared as well.

She was back inside the Shadow Fold.

"Katerina!"

She whipped her head towards the sound. But there was nothing. Only empty space and  darkness. A strange wind rushed by her.

"Katerina, help me!"

Katerina scrambled around the skiff, searching for the source of the calls. Grabbing for something that was not there. The voice called out in tandem. So many of them. Katerina, Katerina, Katerina.

No, these weren't just any voices. There was just one. Natacha. Screaming at her. Slicing out her soul in jabs with a butcher's knife. A burning sensation carved in her back, screaming out Katerina fell on her knees. Her spine felt cold. Like tendrils of wind brushing against it.

"No..." She whispered out, and it echoed against her. Her words bouncing back at her in ribbons and—

Katerina's eyes tore open and met with the ceiling of her room. It room was dark, the curtains completely eclipsing the large windows. Her body was thrumming in a cold sweat, the little hairs at the base of her head clinging onto her slick neck.

An unseen hand reached out from within her, feeling the air for any vestige of sharp bursts of sparks. Then the invisible hand brushed against a glittering molecule. A single morsel in some corner of the castle, still burning from last night and she grabbed it, curling it around and giving a hard pull.

Her hand —which she had carefully placed outside the thick blanket that covered most of her— burst into a bright white flame. Katerina startled back, her head hitting the hard wood of the headboard in a loud thud. The flame dancing around her fingers extinguished as if a bucket of cold water was thrown at it.

She called for the flames again, and this time, her usual orange sparks greeted her again. Flickering in timid flashes as if to say: Hello again, dearest friend.

She sat up and waved her hand slowly, letting the flames die down into a dull red; then completely gone.

That had never happened before. Her fires had always ranged from dull reds to bright yellows. But never white.