Ashes to Stardust | Sihtric Kjartansson

Chapter 10: The Dangers That Lurk

He flinches–almost completely unnoticeably, brows furrowing and a subtle hint of surprise etching into them.

"It was you" I repeat, "your eyes. I dreamt of them almost every night from inside my cellar. You were haunting me, and I would kick and scream and cry again every time you lay me down upon the burnt meadow. Some nights, it would just be your eyes staring into my soul and breaking it apart piece by piece and other nights they would be endless mirrors that reflected myself–my fears. But no matter how the nightmare started, it always ended with your eyes."

I watch his face for a reaction, but there is nothing. No more flinching or surprise, just the cold icy gaze again. I look away after deciding I cannot bare to look at him anymore, and I lean against the rotting railing again to peer down at the stars dancing across the water. I don't know why I answered Sihtric's question or why I continued to explain myself to him at all. Perhaps the stillness of the night, light and cool against my skin, was pulling the truth out of my core and handing it to the very person who deserved it least.

I inhale another long, deep breath and release it gradually out through my mouth, letting its fresh chill tingle within my lungs. Sihtric turns beside me from where he was studying my face and rests his forearms on the edge of the railing, close enough to feel the warmth radiating from him. A calm, full silence enveloping us both.

"What did they do to you at Beornumbyrig?" he asks quietly.

"So many questions tonight, Sihtric."

"Tell me what he did to you." Not a question this time. We are silent again and I study the stars, gazing into the darkness beyond the night sky, weighing up my response and questioning whether the stars should bear witness to my all-so intimate and tragic tale. He was the one that put me in there after all, so if he truly desired to know then he should hear every detail of my horrors.

"He killed me."

I feel his eyes return to me and I pull my gaze from the moonlight glowing over the terrain. Light and shadow pass over his face as he stares at me. Too many words–I have too many words and too much hatred in me to figure out what to say. But still I try.

"He took my soul, and my body, and my heart and he crushed them every single day so that there would be nothing left of me. Ei–he–paraded me and used me and kept me alive just enough so that I could feel every single infliction of pain. He made sure that I could not die just so that he could torture me again the next day." I manage to say, dragging my stare back to the floating stars.

"Every single piece of me was owned as if I was some sort of object for possession. He killed my spirit and my soul, but every single day I fought him to keep my mind, the one thing I knew that he could not possibly take from me. He killed me and he left my heart broken," I sigh "but that prick could not have my mind."

His gaze fixates on me as he listens intently to every word. "You were–are–more than he could've ever anticipated. Ever since I was young I have known that he was..." Sihtric pauses, "I never imagined him to be so cunning and calculated. When I was a boy, he would taunt and terrorise and perhaps that is why Kjartan put his trust in him." He sighs. "But he was spoiled and he always believed that he could take whatever he wanted no matter the cost, that everything belonged to him. He wanted too much and it clouded him and it gave him a weakness, one day, Stjarna that will be his downfall."

"You knew he was cruel." I question, icy sharpness building within me.

"Not like this..." he murmurs. "I knew that he was...entitled. But I did not anticipate his obsession with you to consume him completely. I had thought that maybe he could have cared for you...If I had have known I–"