A Deadly Bite

22 || Death Of You

My dreams are more gentle this time, though their fluid nature is even more apparent. Detached scraps of soft, fluttering heat caress my cheek and graze my fingertips. Brilliant sunshine makes me squint. Colours blur and merge, endlessly vibrant, blue and green and violet. It's somewhat jarring to rise from the stream to a vision of only darkness.

Scrubbing at my eyes, I push myself up, heels dug into the dirt. The last fragments of the dream break away, and I realise not all is dark. Faint light seeps through the net of trees. My gaze sweeps the dimly lit clearing, but it is empty, the only movement the slow dance of bare branches in the wind.

Discontent clings to my skin like sweat. Edita must not have returned yet. The loneliness is a solid feeling, a weight on my chest, a lump in my throat.

Drizzle patters the ground a short distance away. Much to my relief, I've remained mostly sheltered by the trees; my clothes are dryer than they've been for the past two days, though still damp to the touch. I retreat against the nearest tree's trunk just to be sure. Rain doesn't even have the justifying beauty of snow.

I scan the area again. The same emptiness leers back at me, and I swallow. Perhaps I should've followed Edita last night despite what she said. Though every part of me begs to disbelieve it, there's a small voice that whispers of a hidden intent she may hold, a desire to drag me out here and wrap me in her whims before abandoning me to die alone. Anxiety grips my stomach.

"She'll be back," I tell myself in a murmur, running a thumb over my borrowed silver shirt. It's not like I have any choice other than to wait. I'm lost on my own.

A dull twinge races up my arm, snaring my thoughts. I clap a hand over it. The serrated edge of a memory drags over me, bringing with it the sight of a man painted in stiff rage and an axe sinking into my flesh, and I curl my fingers around the edge of my sleeve with a wince. My heart is wrapped in thorns.

Sure enough, drawing back the sleeve reveals the thick, winding ribbon of a scar, tinged a sickly grey. The wound never scarred before. I can't take my eyes from it, sure the sour taste of death is pooled on my tongue.

"They will only keep appearing."

Shock ripples through me, though it doesn't take long to settle into the smooth waters of relief. Edita stands a few paces in front of me, skin a dusty white in the early light, hair lit in a chestnut shade. Droplets of rain settle over it like dew. Her black eyes are solemn. "Your scars," she adds. "There will be more."

My mouth is dry. I swallow. "Will they all be old wounds?"

"I assume so." She shrugs, strolling over to me. Her boots are coated in fresh mud. "It feels... right for it to be that way. Every wound your black flame ever healed, each bled outward, worked through backward in time until the last."

She speaks it like some kind of prophecy, a foretelling of doom, and there certainly seems to be an accuracy to that. I let my sleeve fall back into place, half afraid to breathe in the thickness in the air.

Backward in time. Curiosity coaxes my gaze to my leg.

"That will not happen, though."

The steady, enticing flow of a promise threads Edita's words together. I set my jaw and nod in reply. Keeping hold of my hope is a far wiser choice than dwelling on these blackened reminders of the past. Still, as I climb to my feet, resting a hand on the tree for support, I'm sure the echo of pain lances a spear through my thigh.

I do my best to shake off the sensation, yet the memory of Fiesi's grin, his mask of enjoyment, must invoke some element of wariness into me. My hand jerks away from Edita's attempt to grab it. "Where did you go last night?"