Journey of a Girl

Ajo: Chapter Fifteen

A series of cloudy visions followed.

Lilith's hands around Ajo's throat.

Lilith's whip across Ajo's back.

Many of these memories were more like ideas and feelings, and Ajo had tried hard to forget them by burying this era of torment deep in his mind.

But there were a few scenes that remained vivid spectacles of horror.

Ajo was on the ground, curled into a ball and wailing as Lilith took a strap to his skin.

"Pathetic!" Lilith roared over his quivering body.

There were chains around his wrists, and though they did not connect to any discernible grounding place, it was clear that Ajo remained incapable of fleeing or defending himself, either physically or with magic.

"The great hero of the woods," Lilith snarked and struck again. "Tales of your bravery used to echo through the world. Now, those tales have been forgotten. You're the pathetic boy that no one could love—not even his bride!"

He had been stripped of his princely clothing and wore tattered pants and a shirt, barely distinguishable from rags. The shirt was covered in dirt and blood, and it matched Ajo's skin, which hadn't seen a bath in any memorable amount of time.

The next lick of the strap split a gash on his shoulder.

"You deserve to suffer," Lilith said. "Because you are not a man or a king. You are a beast and nothing more."

When Ajo opened his mouth to cry, Lilith took the sound and squeezed the air from his lungs. Ajo choked in complete silence for as long as his tormentor found it entertaining.

Lilith's rage came and went as she pleased. If Ajo desired to know why she tortured him, Lilith offered a vague reason just once:

"You will suffer to be reborn."

***

There was a quiet moment, a rare thing under Lilith's care, when Ajo found himself alone in a room that had nothing but a pair of empty shackles anchored to the wall. He was fresh from Lilith's attention and covered in bruises and reopened wounds. When he moved, it was with a slight limp.

The second the door closed behind him Ajo fell to the floor, a broken thing, and began to weep. He was thankful, though silently so, that Lilith had allowed him the use of his voice, so that he could hear his cries. She must have believed the sound would humiliate him, but it was a comfort. A reminder that he was alive.

When he calmed, he pulled himself into sitting and flicked his wrist towards the wall, conjuring a vision of Galeia. As much as he wanted to hate her, he found he couldn't maintain his anger at all times. The vision smiled, giving him a momentary respite from the agony of his life, and making him forget, if for a second, where he was and what had become of him.

This was his last succor in the world, more precious to him than anything else.

"Do you think mother is looking for me?" His voice was hoarse and could not reach above a whisper.

The vision moved to him, and though he knew he could not touch her, Ajo threw his arms around her waist and sobbed into the cold air of her body. The vision mimicked running her fingers through his hair as his tears fell through her and onto the floor.

The door swung open and the vision disappeared—but not quickly enough.

Lilith dragged him out of the house by his ear. Clean air brushed against his face, and it seemed a lifetime had passed since Ajo last felt its kiss.