A Touch Of Darkness

35 || Close Your Eyes

I lose track of how far I run. All I know is that by the time my legs buckle beneath me, the first star has emerged, cautiously peeking from amongst a streak of cloud as if unsure how to proceed.

I have to admit that I share its uncertainty.

Wrapping a hand around the nearest tree branch, I prevent myself from keeling over. My entire body shivers. Even with the flickering armour of my flame, I've pushed it too far. Fire weaves so many times over my limbs that the white fabric beneath is hardly visible. I draw on its strength as I limp to the silhouetted shape of a tree trunk until I'm close enough to collapse against it.

My head pounds as I huddle into the crook of the bark. The trees seem to flash, shifting position with each heavy blink. My eyes burn from the simple effort of picking them from the shadows' folds. I close them, sinking into the relief of darkness behind.

Now they aren't drowned out by my own racing footsteps, the forest's sounds creep back into my awareness. The whisper of wind, the crackle of leaves, the patter of rain. I hadn't even noticed the downpour begin. I retreat further against the tree, glad for the shelter of the bough above.

Beyond all that is silence. I'm alone. I breathe a deep, shaky sigh.

It's so much like last time, and yet eerily different. This time, there is no Fiesi chasing. No Sarielle to run after. Just me, alone in the twilight, nowhere to go, with no idea where either of them could be.

My knees curl into my chest. What should I do?

The cool weight of a raindrop lands on my shoulder. I prise my eyes open and tilt my head in time to watch a hundred more plummet from the darkened sky, battling through the canopy and sliding from the pointed tips of leaves. There's nothing I can do except press my spine into the tree, feeling every splash seep through my tunic and wrap me in a cold layer of damp, and pray the rain doesn't last long. All it does is sink the leaden despair clogging my throat deeper into my chest.

"What should I do?" A held-back sob hangs off my futile whisper, quickly washed away by the rain. There's no-one there to answer. My thoughts stick together like clots of blood, unusable, filling me only with the instinct to shrink away from my own mind.

Too many blood-soaked recollections dwell there. Fiesi's chest cut open. Sarielle's stained blade. My own calf, a spear shaft plunged right through.

Phantom pain lances up my leg at the memory. Turning my gaze downward, I drop my hand to the spot, finding only the rough edge of a tear. Crimson lines it, dried but still enough to make me flinch away.

The blanket of black flame already gathered in my lap spreads, soon hiding the sealed wound from view. It cloaks me entirely by now. I hunker down into it, letting it snap at the rain as it falls and discard the aimless hurt still stirring in my chest, the terror hitching my breath. I'm alone. There's no-one here. Nothing to fear but myself.

I bury my head in the blaze. "What should I do?"

The voice from last night doesn't even have an answer to venture. All it would tell me is to run, and I'm tired of running without purpose.

Run home.

I could laugh aloud. I don't have a home to run to. If Aorila still exists, I would not be welcome there. The closest thing I have to a home is a little box of a cell in the basement of a castle, a castle torn apart and taken by those who only wish to use me.

The pale shape of my hand flickers in and out of sight, swamped by licks of flame like the moon slipping in and out of a smoky cloud. Faintly, an itch is winding over my fingers, a call to summon the snake again. I clench my fist, crushing the longing. It is nothing but false company. I don't need it anymore. I have real friends. I have Sarielle.