Dust to Dust | ✓

10 || Selfish Ambition

Zehra was deliberate and rigorous with their eating schedule.

Every day began with a meal—often the scraps leftover from whatever dinner the last night had been—and every day ended with a meal, which was something fresh Zehra had caught. At precisely midday, she would stop to hunt. Though the terrain grew rough, sparse in both vegetation and animal life, she always found something to bring back. More than that, she always returned with two kills: one with the snowy pelt or feathers of the animals she called Pure and one not. She made certain to keep them separate while preparing a meal, but Aiko wasn't sure which one she was being fed. They looked the same once they were skinned, cut up, and cooked. Day in and day out, Zehra's religious, purposeful preparation of meals was beginning to unsettle Aiko.

It was eerie.

Still, she accepted every meal she was given with a pleasant smile and a thank you when she remembered. She ate in silence and kept her gaze locked on anything but Zehra. While she was thankful that her stomach wasn't eating itself, shoving her onto the verge of collapse, she almost missed Felix's forgetful mindset toward food. Or maybe it was just that she yearned for his company and the way her stomach flipped when he gave one of those awkward, half-blank smiles.

Most nights, she dreamed of him. He was someplace far out of reach and he couldn't hear her no matter how loudly she called his name. Most of the time, she screamed for him until her voice gave out, but there was never a response. Shadows concealed his face from view—not that it mattered when she wasn't close enough to see it anyway. When she tried to run to him, her legs remained anchored in place, as unmoving as if they were carved from stone. Yet he drifted freely, floating farther and farther away. The dream stretched on until she was wrenched awake the next morning by Zehra gently shaking her shoulder. As soon as she was upright, a warm meal was thrust into her hand.

"You should eat," Zehra would say. "We'll get moving as soon as you're done."

The repetition began to drown Aiko in a sea of blurred memories and monotonous conversation. She only sank deeper into it with each day that passed, and the closer they got to the cliffs, the more numb she felt. Her flame flickered uneasily, shrinking back from the thorns that choked her. Weak and insignificant, like her when she walked in Zehra's shadow. No matter how close she got to the cliffs—the doorway to Felix's rescue—she was still too far away. The thorns of regret tightened and cut off the air to her lungs.

On the tenth night, Aiko curled up on her makeshift pallet and pulled her blanket up to her chin. She turned her back to Zehra, ignoring her nightly dinner offering. Sharp rocks dug into her side and the cold mountain air had only grown more vicious the more they climbed. The numbness in her chest embraced it, though her flame bristled, spitting a hiss like Mae when Ameris approached him. It wasn't long before her eyes grew heavy, pulled down and drenching her vision in blackness. Sleep came as a gentle embrace this time, cradling her flame as it led her into depths. This time, she let go and sank easily into the dark.

When she opened her eyes, she found herself in a replica of the once-beautiful throne room of the castle of Niveus. Its arched ceiling spread out over her head, glistening gold like thousands of tiny stars. Her black boots sank into the plush red carpet. Portraits and trinkets lined the walls, leading her gaze toward the dais at the back of the room, where the elegant throne sat.

Sprawled atop the throne, legs dangling over one arm while she leaned against the other, was Aiko herself. Or rather, she was identical to Aiko, but she had tamed her wild curls into a long braid that draped over the arm of the throne. Her crimson dress shimmered with threads of gold woven into the fabric. It cinched tight around her waist and bust, the back open in a split that was tied up with a gold ribbon. When she raised her head and turned her gaze toward the entrance, a wicked smile split her wine-red lips.