A Deadly Bite

39.1 || Respite

The black passage stretching ahead of Fiesi is suddenly the interior of a cart's wheel, spiralling infinitely in wild, looping circles beneath his sprinting feet. It yanks left and right, ducking up and down, heaving and shoving, pain prodding him in every place that might topple his balance. The possibility of falling flat on his face has an awful temptation to it. At least then the ground might stay in one spot.

Even the wall shrinks away when he grabs for it. He staggers until smooth rock crashes into his outstretched hands and then claws himself along it, cold sweat plastering his shirt to his skin. His feet move sluggishly, too slow, his knees and ankles not bending in the right way.

This is like a dream. It is a dream, one he's lived too many times and now can't seem to escape.

Sarielle isn't following.

Whether that thought trips him or his legs fold of their own accord, he's beyond telling, but the next he knows his chin bounces hard off solid rock and he's watching a cascade of stars perform instead of reality. Blood spills into his mouth and spikes sharply in his senses. His tongue stings. His lungs ache. Air won't come as it should. Spindly pains poke between each rib and lance as far as his fingers, prickly as lightning, ringing in his ears.

Constricting nausea seizes his stomach. Everything still sways. He's drowning in bitter, metallic saltwater, ears throbbing from the imagined screams curled up in his head. Thinking is a chore, as is moving.

He throws himself onto his back, fingers scraping roughly against stone if only to anchor him to the present, and digs his heels in, attempting to scramble backwards. His right leg pulls out straight and then refuses to move. A loop of rope snags his ankle. Black, icy, agonising rope.

It yanks, and his spine grates the ground as he's dragged by it. Hands flat either side of him, he stares upward, begging not to meet Nathan's eyes and yet left with no other choice. They blink at him from so many angles that the genuine pair is somewhat difficult to pick out. Great clouds of malice bloom in them. The fire-made rope winds a trio of loops around Nathan's palm, clutched like an animal's leash.

He puffs out a sigh. "I was not ready for you yet. There is no need to be impatient."

He tugs again, and Fiesi clamps down on a yelp, trying to remember how to breathe. His vision darts in and out with the grace of a wriggling fish, flashing the way wet, silvery scales flash when wagged this way and that, in and out of a stream of light. Light. Sarielle's white feather has slipped his grip. Its flame still casts a veil of light over the scene, though little gratitude seeps through for the lack of darkness. At least darkness hides the monsters lurking within it.

He tosses out a hand and grapples, fingers eventually snagging the feather. Its stem is half-crushed in his slippery grasp. The soft brush of it against his skin, coupled with the jarringly cheerful rays of green it casts, does little to orient him. The flashes have slots, skipping between scenes at a dizzying rate.

His mother's russet hair blown in waves, white feather tucked delicately above her right ear. Green fire, blazing.

Ice glazing his skin. Hard rock against his shoulders. Breathe.

Heat, everywhere.

Breathe.

Green fire, dying.

Move. Do something.

His foot is free. He kicks at the ground until it wedges under his aching soles and then levers upright, throwing himself in a direction, any direction. Anything to keep moving until he stops feeling so small and scared, until his body feels like it belongs to him again, until fire that isn't there retracts its ashen claws from his skin. The screams are deafening. Laughter laces it, detached and broken, split in two. Dizziness blows a gust through him.