Dust to Dust | ✓

5.1 || Promise Me

Aiko couldn't remember the last time she had been so wrapped up in shame that the air became too thick to breathe. It was choking, each breath scraped the back of her throat and pierced her lungs. Swallowing it was a chore, like a bit of sour food that she was trying to force down despite that every part of her body was trying to recoil from it. Her stomach roiled and bile rose up in her throat, almost as bitter and vile as the air she was forced to breathe. Wrapping her arms around herself, she dropped back to the ground with her knees tucked against her chest. Dull pain throbbed in her bones from the impact, but it was numb beneath the constant whirling of her mind. Despite the cold that settled over the camp in the fire's absence, her skin was burning.

Stay here, he commanded, his voice firm and his glare a pair of wickedly sharp emerald blades. Think about this. "Think about what you've done," is what he didn't say, but she knew it was thinly veiled behind what he did say. It echoed with familiarity—it mimicked the way Ameris and the royal court used to scold her when she was an ignorant child who didn't know any better.

Indignation rose up within her, fanning her flame until the cold of the autumn forest was nothing against her skin. Cheeks flushed and lips set in a firm frown, she glared at the ground, picturing his back and broad shoulders burning beneath her stare. "How dare he tell me what to do! I am the Bright Soul, the Queen of Niveus. He has no power over me. He has no power over us."

Us, her mind echoed, a soft yet persistent murmur that pulled her apart at the seams. Her body tensed, shoulders stiff and back hunched. Confusion blurred her thoughts for just a moment. Us? She pressed her forehead to her knees, squeezing her eyes shut as she sucked in a breath. What am I saying? She's gone. She died with the Core.

Yet for some reason, the heat, the aching desire in her chest, the desperation to pull Felix close and touch him, to hold him, to command him... it felt like Cinere's influence. It surged through her from someplace foreign, gripping her with talons that dug into her skin and poured forth crimson blood, staining the forest floor. A helpless whine slid from her lips, her vision blurring with tears as her throat tightened. She buried her face deeper in her knees. "This is your fault, do you hear?" she cried to the wind, hoping Cinere would hear from whatever corner of her mind she hid herself away in. "You did this. You upset him—you were being selfish! You're never gone; I can't be rid of you and—and look what you did!"

But Cinere is dead, her mind echoed once more, the voice curling with the hint of a smile—though it had no face with which to smile. The talons tightened, biting into the flesh of her mind. It burned with the influence of the Core, like the fire that coursed through her when it was demanding her return to the palace. She died with the Core, the whisper repeated. You are free.

Nails dug into her scalp—she couldn't remember lifting her hands. Air scraped her throat—she couldn't remember taking a breath. A sob wrenched from her lips, shoulders shaking and tears streaming down her cheeks—she couldn't remember crying.

With a cry, Aiko swiped at the air to strike the disembodied voice, to cut off its arguing and let her drown in silence. "It's her fault!" she screamed, swinging around as her hand dropped to the ground again. She struck nothing; there was nothing there but the wind that rocked the branches of the trees around her.

Cold slithered down her spine, dragging a pointed finger across her shoulders. Something drifted through the corner of her vision, a dark figure wrapped in red. Breath snagging, she whipped around, searching the forest for the figure, but there was nothing. Only the shadows that stretched long claws toward her, much like those that lurked in the palace late at night. Aiko fumbled for her staff, curling her fingers around it, digging her nails into the dirt. "She did this! She ruins everything!"