Blood & Shadows

One

Empty. A husk. Hollowed out.

Exhaustion seeps into my every fiber as I fight to open my eyes. Never mind that peculiar sensation like a thread being wound round my brain as magic tickles the back of my throat as I taste it on the air.

There's a shape in the room in a dark green robe embroidered with some pattern I can't quite decipher. I don't know what they are but they mutter to themselves glancing at squares of yellowed parchment tacked to the gray wall.

I spill from... a bed? A table? My mind reels attempting to process where I am as I continue to fall. Weightlessness and numbness make my limbs sluggish but somehow I know I'm plummeting, falling to my doom.

I could just let it happen.

No pain.

I wouldn't even feel the impact... but then who would make him suffer?

Thud. Thud. Thud. My head pounds violently as power from somewhere constricts around my brain. Or is it my head? No, it's something else, it's that power pulsing. I writhe against the sensation mid fall trying and testing unseen bonds. Right as a sob breaks from my throat, my power pulses outward. The push of force sends the robed person into the wall, their neck cracking against the shelf. Unseeing eyes stare up at the ceiling as my pain and discomfort dissipates. For an iota of an instant before I smack into the ground hard enough to hurt.

I'll carry bruises for weeks thanks to my hesitation, their ache already invades my body as I stare up at the foreign ceiling above me with its blocks of old weathered gray stone, lit by rusted candelabras and thin rays of light that fight through narrow slits between a ramshackle boarded window.

The table is no ordinary table. It's a high table that the barber surgeons use when they cut into poor screaming wretches. My ribs and back ache as I struggle to stand and take in the room around me. The walls are all dark stone without unadornment and there's a certain degree of damp that makes me think of dungeons and other unsavory places. Not to mention the stink of the place, it's fetid and rotten like a refuse heap. Sickly sweet the stench of decay sits at the back of my tongue refusing to abate.

Only a week ago had I laughed at him for mentioning being locked away in a dungeon. Or had it been a week? Fuck him. He doesn't deserve my thoughts. Whatever spell the dead caster started lingers, and I feel that thread of power squeezing my brain.

Fuck this thing burrowing its way through my gods blighted brain.

I claw at my scalp and clench my jaw through the pain. In my mind's eye I can just see some magical razor wire cutting its damnable way through my brain. As quickly as that sharp stabbing sensation sets on it fades and I half collapse against the table which hits me just below my breasts. I'm not in Saelis's Watch anymore. Panic grips my heart and turns my blood to ice.

Fuck! He'll come for me and I'll go back... Back where?

I slam my fist into the table and the pain that radiates up my arm is welcome to distract from the fear of the half thought I don't have the means to finish.

Don't cry.

Don't you fucking dare shed a tear.

Nostrils flaring, I lift my chin and struggle to stand. My body aches just from the minimal effort and fatigue makes my limbs impossibly heavy. I lean back against the table. At the very least I'm whole, or rather appear to be.

A peculiar cool breeze brushes my back and my kirtle sags about me instead of hugging my form. As I reach back and touch the clean cut edges I can't recall how it happened, or how I came to be here.