𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐑 𝐓𝐎 𝐈𝐕𝐎𝐑𝐘

Chapter-8

There were a series of shouts. 

And someone—someone was shouting at her. 

Darkness fumed out of ridges of Arlane's consciousness. So dark, it was nearly unimaginable for her to see anything except the ricocheting of shouts and snarls. An invisible force tugged her wrist before she weaved through her surroundings. 

Her mind went hazy, and her vision darted in and out as she stepped into a foreign place. There was silence this time. Utter stillness pounded at the nerves bubbling inside Arlane. She was escorted somewhere else again. The temperature difference between the places told as much as so. Despite her best efforts, she was unable to process anything. The experience felt like crossing bridges in an unexplored world. Then it stuck. 

The last thing Arlane remembered was standing at the banks begging Yeelen to bless her matrimonial ceremony with Hejaz. She felt the grip on her hand, soft and firm flipping through Hejaz's memories like pages of an old rusty book.

Maybe it was Yeelen's magic, perhaps she herself was taking Arlane to wherever she needed to be. Her surroundings were getting colder and colder, leading her deeper and deeper into her to-be Zeten's mind. As if the Goddess herself was probing and prodding in Hejaz's mind to find out his deepest and gravest regret. 

Another step, another flip.

The temperature around her dropped suddenly. Despite this being a mere figment of imagination, it was so cold Arlane shivered. Murmurs in a symphony reverberated around her. Her eyes were yet to adjust through the layers and layers of darkness but her lips were moving on their own accord.

"You have to let him go." A masculine voice said somewhere towards her right. The closeness and unfamiliarity of the same startled Arlane and she took a step back only to discover that her legs stood frozen.

"I can't," Spoke another voice in a low whisper.  

Arlane looked around, trying to find the source of that voice. Something about it was acquainted with her. But nothing except blurry lines of different colors merged in front of her eyes.

"Think about Arlane for Sun's sake!" Someone shoved her shoulder and this time, she did take a step backward but Arlane didn't command that. What in the Lord's name was happening?

"I am. I swear I am. I just don't know how to make it right!"

Before she could comprehend anything, she again felt someone hauling her. In contrast to other scenes, the temperature was scorching this time.

A cry of agony echoed through the walls, and a sharp whip crackled in the distance. 

It was as if the Goddess, for once wanted Arlane to see when she finally opened her eyes. The moment she saw the scene unfolding in front of her, she realized what an error she had made. 

She was in some sort of cave. Porous black rocks leaked droplets through their edges and Arlane looked down at the water lapping her lower ankles. But it wasn't her soft silk dress that flowed at the rims but dark breaches and metallic armour covered her knees.

"Where are the others?" Her mouth moved but a masculine voice emerged from her throat. She knew that voice by her heart. Knew where she exactly was. After all, she'd spent twilights yearning for the same voice whispering sweet nothings in her ears. 

However, those words, contrary to other times, were harsh and burning with disgust. 

"I don't know," coaked a heavy voice. 

Arlane's focus whipped on a man held by chains in the dark corner of the cave. His hands were bleeding profusely and his legs were shattered in bits considering the angle it was titled in. A sharp throb emerged in her heart, her heart, not Hejaz's. His was cold as ice. The man was slouched on the ground, and heavy iron chains barely held to his muscled frame. He looked old. Older than her father. Somewhere around his fifties. Black and blue bruises covered on his neck—a stark evidence of how a collar was once coiled tightly around his throat.

"Again," Hejaz commanded and Genke, the third in command to Hejaz, one of Arlane's closest friends whipped the man across his broken legs. 

Arlane was no rookie. She'd seen the patients—friends, and foes being led to their sick rooms in gruesome and marred state. She'd helped fellow doctors gauze the type of infections festering under their skins. She'd formulated remedies day in and out for their earliest recovery. 

The thought of her future husband imposing such ruthless punishment on someone older than her father tugged at her heartstrings. She wanted to rush over there and help the old man stand. She wished to heal his legs, push his long blonde locks back, and tend to him as she would've done to anyone injured.

"Stop delaying the inevitable. Tell me their location and I shall set you free," Hejaz walked near him and spat in distaste. He actually spat. 

She could not find the man she loved, the man who never raised his voice at her in the Commander of North. It had to be a lie. Hejaz was respectful and shy, she knew him. Knew better than anyone. Despite Arlane's excuses, every fiber of her being knew the truth.

The older man let out a bitter chuckle and for the first time he looked up. Though his pained brown eyes were trained on Hejaz, Arlane felt she was going to be crushed under the impact of despair his eyes shown.

"Free?" The man scoffed and looked down at his bloodied feet lapping somewhere in the water, "You shall set me free? There is no need. My daughter might be dead already. Kill me if you wish, lad."

Genke whipped again but this time no voice left the crackled blue lips of the man. Arlane tried to close her eyes. To hope these were not the identical people she treated as her own. Same faces who smiled at her. Hugged and joked with her. But she couldn't. Yeelen sure forced her to see who she was going to marry. 

The old man was tethering between fine lines of life and death and Arlane...her fury at the man she was willing to wed had never been so intense. 

Hejaz gripped the stranger's chin with so much force, Arlane was writhing inside to ease his grip but her efforts were in vain. Just like her pleas to stop him. Hejaz's voice was more of a growl than a statement when he next spoke, "Where are they?"

"I don't know. I don't know! I don't fucking know what are you talking about!" The man shouted and screamed with all his might, repeating the same words over and over and over again. His voice downed the hum of rage coiling under Arlane's veins. He was squirming like a dying fish on land, and there was nothing Arlane could do. The man's voice got softer after each reiteration like his throat had been clawed from the inside, and he too had surrendered his life.

His last breaths weren't counted as the doctors did in their tribe to respect the dead. No, the older man wasn't given a speck of light when he was released from heavy metal chains and his limp body was thrown across the corner like a distorted toy but his voice stuck inside her head in a never-ending loop. 

He didn't know. 

He didn't know. 

To protect and serve their tribe was an honor, Arlane's father used to say, no matter the blood smudging their hands. There was no reason for Hejaz to regret this memory if he acknowledged the man to be condemnable. Which meant—no, no, no.

It meant the one they tortured without mercy was guiltless. 

And she was about to swear an eternity with him.

_____

A/N

This was the last chapter of 2022. Omg I'm so thrilled about the upcoming chapters I can eat ten donuts.

Not. I'm trying not to eat ten donuts.

Anyways, I'll upload a chapter on 1st too.

The clock is ticking, better get your resolutions straight.

What are your 2023 resolutions though? Mine is to grind my ass off, and no, I'm not choosing stripping as a profession. Yet. Lmao byee!