Prelude (Underworld Lucian Fanfiction)

6 - Chapter VI: The Visionary

Three days later.

Wind rushed against her palm. Before her, a ship sweeping across the harbour, sails fleeing the pier. She had to flee with them. She had to get out. Darkness would turn into daylight. Hrafn, aid her...blood on her hands, pain burning in her side. Where was the historian? She had to sleep. She had to get away from...fire.

Fire coating her back and melting her skin. One moment she lay in water, the next, she burned. Searching her lungs for breath, her neck craning against some unseen force, her teeth fighting for purchase. She could not possess it. She could not flee it. An iron hand forcing her to look up, wrenching her neck even further...screaming and looking up into the sun. Not the sun...nor the moon.

The eyes of the storm.

Grey eyes.

Feverish, she woke, her skin sweating in the darkness. Pain along her back. Soreness. She knew of wind. Fleeing something. Fleeing a nightmare which had already fled, for the last of her dream had faded...leaving her weak. Turning her head slowly, she felt a wet cloth fall from her eyes, the darkness unveiling itself as a pool of depth. A room of sorts. Softness beneath her head, her body tucked into the sweltering embrace of a bed. She rested her head back, studying the space around her. The bed she lay in, flanked by the small table on her right. Above, the ceiling covered in faces, an old fresco sweeping across the tilted surface made of stone. Shadows from the past watching her. As if she should know their faces. What was this place? Her memories were...so fleeting.

She could not remember.

And why was it so hot? Like water that had burned before it could flee with the tide. Too much heat. She had to move. Feeble, her arm crept from beneath the bed-covers, the slab of heat representing only a rough blanket. Her skin felt so odd. As she shifted, she stretched her fingers out, the movement feeling...sinewy. Forcing herself to sit up gradually, she inched towards the edge of the bed, slow...frail, her hand reaching high to creep along her bare scalp. No hair. No clothes. Why had they shaved her head? It felt as if heat would shrivel her to dust if she did not move. Reaching the edge of the bed, she gathered the blanket around her shoulders and made an attempt to stand...

...only to fall, the blanket snagging on the table edge, drawing it over with a...

Crash!

Her eyes darted to the door and she froze, the stone floor hot against her skin. Hot, even though her hands were shivering. Her body knew the floor was freezing, but her mind insisted she was burning. Someone must have heard. Dimly, she knew what she was...she knew she had to flee. An outcast from both sides of the...war. There was a war going on, and she caught in the middle.

There...

...the sound of footsteps approaching. Footsteps coming fast from the left, the echo of a hallway, boots clamping on stone. Only a glimmer of light reached beneath the door. The figure behind had halted, listening from outside. So loud next to her ears, she could hear the sound of her own breathing muffled by the blanket...why did they not open the door?

They knew she was awake.

Like a bird trapped in a fox-den, she cowered on the floor, listening as the stranger finally turned, the steps distantly retreating to the left again, taking the light with them. Still she waited, unwilling to move until all was silent. Whoever it was knew she was inside here, but there was a chance she could escape...how? Her body was weak as a newborn. She needed strength...she needed to flee. Fight. Drink...

...the smell hit her.

Blood.

Pressing her hands to the floor, she raised herself to her knees and sat up, still gripping the blanket around her. It was like...water descending over a cliff, the hunger fell upon her so quickly. A hole where her stomach ought to be. She had to find the blood, drifting from beneath the door, tantalising her with its presence. The stranger must have known. On her knees, she crawled at a snail's pace, stopping in front of the door and cautiously reaching for the handle. The iron might squeak and they would know she was out, but it did not matter. They already knew...and she had to find the blood.