[THIS STORY WILL BE TAKEN DOWN ON SEPTEMBER 30, 2024]
He had hunted me, captured me, and locked me in a tower.
Season 3 'Of Crows and Thorns'
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While in RISING, Tabitha discovers something peculiar that may assist Nelle in her plan to escape the...
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The dreamworld was insubstantial, like clouds changing shape as they drifted across the sky. Until the nightmare arose as it always did when I finally succumbed to sleep. The dreamworld dimmed and darkened and a country road materialized and solidified.
My heart palpitated against my ribs as I relived the horror of that night so long ago, the sound of my baby sister's terrified wails tearing apart the desolate night.
Death and fear surrounded the crumpled limousine.
I hurtled across the road strewn with the rubble of steel and glass, the acrid stench of burning rubber assailing my nostrils. Wrath burned a righteous path of bloodshed through my veins, that she dared threaten my family. The knotted hilt of my wyrmbone blade, warm in my grip, sang a violent song of death.
A loud buzzing noise made the sky sound as if it were blanketed with bees. The Horned God formed from shadowy wind, struck out with a whiplashing force.
But I'd been born a storm. As swift as a striking gale. As vengeful and unpredictable as a squall.
I dodged, twisting midair, a spinning whirlwind. The razor-sharp sword in my hand carved through the dark magic right to the buzzing humanoid figure at its center.
A bellow of outrage, of howling pain, as the wyrmblade sank through flesh of an unnatural kind.
But I wasn't facing one Horned God, I was facing three.
Mistress Lyressa advanced, her fingers lengthening and thinning, becoming like long, vicious sewing needles.
In my periphery, I realized my mother had risen. She punched out with both arms toward the Frankenstein monster, and golden filaments of magic wove around her outstretched fingers. But she looked confused, as if struggling to understand herself, the why of it all...
All it took was a split-second distraction—
For the Horned God with the vibrant red hair and moonlit skin to fling a lasso of might around my forearm. She flicked the cord of power like a whip—
And I was hurled backward through the air, far, fast, crashing bodily like a fragile insect against the armored limousine.
My spine snapped. Fiery pain erupted and the world turned black as I screamed in pain.
My mother's petrified shriek joined mine.
It didn't stop either.
The Horned God slammed me against the wall of unforgiving steel, again and again. Until almost every single bone in my body fractured then shattered, my body pummeled until I was a mess of bruised, bloodied flesh.
Released, I fell with one last blood-gurgled gasp, thudding onto the road in a tangle of broken limbs, the mind-splitting agony so excruciating I wavered in and out of consciousness.
