Through Flame and Blade

Ch. 4 Demon in the Night

*Chiara

Since the battle, since she'd been brought to the underworld, days blurred. Time was meaningless, except that it continued on and on. There were hours that she was awake and being tortured, and there were hours that she was left in the dark. Sometimes she slept. There was a cup of water that was filled from time to time, but it was brackish and left her thirstier than before when she drank it. Soon, she trained herself to ignore it existed.

Dreams were a new form of torture for her. She'd never had vivid dreams before. At least, it seemed like the life she'd known before was soft and filled with deep, reviving sleep. Was it possible?

That life before was also a sort of torture. She wanted to fight her former self—slap her for being stupid and naïve. For allowing herself to be captured alive and brought to hell.

Nights were broken and long. When she slept, it was never much. And when she dreamed, it was almost always of the battle. Her first and last.

Daviid was always there. In life, he had been killed so quickly, she hadn't had time to register the fact that he had been slain by demons. He fell and then she turned to face the horde. She was ready to join him in the lasting sleep. There was no regeneration after death. An angel could recover from almost any wound, so long as the heart was still beating.

But in her dreams, he turned to her, still alive. "Coward. You disgust me."

"I thought they would fight me. I didn't know—I didn't mean to survive."

"And yet every single one of us perished on that field, except you. You hid behind the others while they died. You deserve your pain."

"No," she said, trying to convince him. "I fought them. I fought with you."

"I saved you and you barely looked my way when I fell."

"Daviid, Captain, please I didn't—"

A sword piercing his chest stopped her words. She was holding the sword. She cried out. And jerked herself awake.

The stone floor bit into her bones, and the cold cramped her muscles. She tried to curl into a ball for warmth. Her fingers had regrown since being cut off. She touched her belly. Everything was back in place. Only her wings refused to mend. The pain of being broken never faded, and she could barely move them. The feathers were matted and grey. But at least they were warm. She reached back to pull one over her the best she could without setting off the lancing pain.

"Nightmare?" the demon from the other side of the room asked. He had a name, but she willed herself not to even think it. He didn't deserve a name. Images of him flashed through her mind. Parts and pieces only, though, as if imagining him in his entirety was too much. Too dangerous. Tousled, dark brown hair with unruly curls on his forehead. Golden-brown eyes. His jaw clenched, neck muscles corded as he struggled to not scream. The rough, unshaven scruff that covered his cheeks. His chest heaving. Arms straining against the cuffs.

Arms strong enough to hide in from the world.

She ached in silence, inside and out.

They played a strange game, competing to show who was stronger. Each pretended to be only mildly annoyed by torture and lack of sleep. They talked in the darkness as if they wouldn't kill each other on the battlefield.

She couldn't let him know the truth—her lies protected her when nothing else did.

He protected her.

Chiara had to keep up her shields, though, no matter what.

"Your smell woke me up. Try to breathe in the other direction, won't you?" she said. On top of the torture was the humiliation of his witnessing it. She was weak, and he saw it all.