The Gathering of the Hunt

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Aesira wasn’t exactly sure where she was. When she was younger, she had been told that there was a place in between worlds—a place where those about to die waited for the Death to claim them.

Perhaps that’s where she was—Enatlin Perdus, the Realm of the Lost. The realm for wanderers, those who were not exactly alive nor dead. She couldn’t help but feel a sense of peace settle her mind. If she died, she did not think that she would mind it. It was divided by a river, it was said, a river that showed the worst memories of the person who looked into it.

She didn’t need the river. Her mind and this realm was enough for her to do it by herself. 
   
She had been promised a painless sleep when she finally died, so why did it feel like her body was being pounded into dust, her bones crumbling, skin giving away against the overwhelming throb of her blood? Her body was burning up inside. 
   
But somewhere, deep inside, there was a spark of stillness, spreading through her soul and removing the flutters of pain, a wave of water washing away the blood after a long battle. She felt her consciousness submit to the feeling, letting it sweep her up and away—away from those damned souls crying out for salvation, away from the light that lingered up ahead, welcoming and soft, a beacon in the eternal darkness, away from the Lost. It was a tether to earth, a strand interwoven with her life calling her home. 
   
The feeling carried her away, giving her wings to rise against the skeletal arms that reached for her. It carried her up, far, far away. 
   
It was when she was free that she realised that she would miss Enatlin Perdus and its whispered promises of death, the peacefulness of the realm. Free from Enatlin Perdus, she was subjected to the rules of the living, and the horrors that haunted the murky depths of her consciousness and projected them into her dreams.

The flashbacks were the worst dreams. Those were the ones that she could not pretend with—ones that were so hauntingly real that she couldn’t escape them, no matter how hard she tried to outrun her past. They ensnared her in dark tendrils and forced her to relive it, again, and again and again. It didn’t matter whether she was awake or asleep. Her mind seemed to take some sort of sadistic enjoyment in feeling the terror that she did. It was dark in her mind, and she couldn’t escape it. She didn’t have enough light to be bothered to dispel it. 
   
The calm feeling so quickly changed into fear when she realised that waking up would mean that she would be trapped in a life that would not be forgiving.
   
But the wave urged her to open her eyes, begging her to wake up and leave the ageless dark that she hovered in. She reluctantly gave into its demands, allowing it to pull her through the sludge and into the light of the living. The urging feeling told her that she was not alone, singing a song of comfort and spoke of carrying her up and away. It reached through the ashes and the smoke of this place in between worlds, and pulled her out. She let it take all of her weight, and allowed it to lead her into the blinding light. 

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Anlai was soaked in blood, and yet he still did not stop. The tracker screamed, pleading with him to stop. But he didn’t. He continued—slashing, cutting, asking. There was a sick delight that became evident to even his victims. 
   
There was a haze that encompassed him when he carried out the Emperor’s task was back, blocking out every part of him that wasn't the twisted side of him that enjoyed the pain that he inflicted just a little bit too much. It made life so much easier when he let himself enjoy it.
   
The man screamed. It was not his first scream—he had been screaming for long hours—but it made him pause. At first, the man had been stubborn, biting his tongue before he could let those pitiful sounds escape his throat. The man had tried to be strong—he was Cardovin after all. They valued strength above everything else. But this scream—it was haunting, so filled with pain that it made the back of  his neck prickle with discomfort.  
   
He hadn’t realised how much blood that he had spilled. The man’s body was a mess of twisted gashes and mangled, crimson stained skin. He dropped the knife back on the tray of various, deadly-sharp instruments that the Emperor had given him. Perfect for inflicting pain, the Emperor had told him. Since you seem to love it so much, you should be given tools that do a good job. Wouldn’t want your prisoners to expire too quickly. 
   
He repressed the shudder that threatened to make an appearance at the reminder that he was never truly in control of his own life. But the one thought that his mind made known was that he wanted more. More blood being spilt. More people needed to hurt. More people needed to be witness to the strength of the Rebellion. More people begging for mercy only so that he could deny them, like had happened to him time and time again. 
   
He squared his shoulders, looking into the pathetically terrified eyes of the man. He had every right to be scared. He was the General of the Imperial Armies, and he answered to none except the Emperor and himself. “What’s your name?” His words were perfectly cool, lilted with the slight accent of the Aisilyrians. No matter how hard he had tried, Anlai had never been able to completely banish the accent from his words—Aesira had done it with ease, a fact that annoyed him to no end. He supposed that it had something to do with the fact that he had been speaking Aisliyirian for longer than he had been speaking Cardovin.