❝ 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐒 𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐌𝐄,
𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄. ❞
Saskia Vrana knows what to do when the Nights of Smoke come: Close the windows and doors. Don't look out into the darkness. Sacrifice and pray. And never dare to leave the co...
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HOW THE SHADOWS FEAST xii. where flowers bloom from blood
the eleventh night
❅ ❅ ❅
NEVER HAD SASKIA SEEN A DEATH AS HORRIBLE AND BEAUTIFUL AT ONCE.
The stag sank to his white knees and lowered his head to the ground, as if tired of constantly wearing the golden crown of antlers. From his heart and mouth sprung a red river that sanguined the snow—and truly, it birthed small equally crimson flowers breaking through the frozen ground.
"By the Bright Mother, what—" Silvan stood there in the moonlight, weapons drawn and eyes widened at this scenery.
Anyan was the first to shake the numbness from himself, approaching the dying stag to commit yet another crime by plucking one of the flowers and shoving the crimson petals between his lips, in the hope it could heal his curse.
Saskia felt her heart tremble. The hot gun slipped from her fingers.
Her own fate caught up to her right then and there, an invisible fist closing around Saskia's chest, slowly and painfully quenching the life in her body. When she gasped for air all that filled her lungs was fire scorching her throat and laying inside her ribs like hot embers.
It was nothing that came unexpected, however, Saskia would not have thought for it to happen that fast.
Too fast, in the end, for her to even get close to her goal. Didn't the prophecy say she would pluck the flower? Well, perhaps owls telling the future on a midwinter midnight could be mistaken or simply not trusted.
The frozen snow scratched her hands, as they frantically searched there for something that would hold her back on this earth. But it was useless. While the endless heavens watched, hell ate her alive.
It burned away any desire to fight, breathe, or even live. To die truly cursed it is, then, suffering pains infernal.
Somewhere, at parts that did not even feel like her body anymore, she sensed hands clutching her ... and holding her back. From this touch a cold spread, appeasing her seething flesh and soul where the invisible flames had caught. Then there was the faintest brush against her lips, breathing winter into her lungs.
With a sensation that might as well have been death, the soul that was so violently ripped from its body rushed back into place.
When Saskia awoke, she was trembling, freezing in Anyan's arms. As it seemed this soulmate, despite being a heartless devil and liar had chosen to save her soul, instead of tearing it to pieces. And more so, it was a god's call to the one who was born in his name.
"Why did you ...?" her voice was barely audible, raspy like icy scratching over stone.
