~A Wattpad featured and Wattys Longlisted story~
Lana can hardly remember what it's like to be free. After nine years as a captive on board a ship ruled by ruthless bounty hunters, sailing across Maris with no clear direction, she's desperate for so...
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LANA FEELS A huge wave of guilt hit her as she notices the sad expression hardening Ellerin's once friendly expression, the topic clearly a sore subject for the other young woman. Lana feels her mouth open and close as she tries to form an apology of sorts, feeling embarrassed and unsure of what to do in a situation like this. The distinctive sound of footsteps echo right outside the door spare her from quite possibly making things worse, and all three of them look towards the doorway hopefully.
A woman turns the corner, and Lana's immediately struck by the family resemblance between Ellerin and her sister, both of them with the wildy curly hair and dark skin. Then, as her eyes are immediately drawn to the other young woman's neck, Lana can tell that's where the similarities end.
Like blood in snow, the pale white tendrils of what used to be Tamla's dragon mark cut across her skin in an ugly scar, making it hardly identifiable. It's shattered glass across her once pristine skin, marring what was once a mark of pride, branding pain deep within her that Lana can only see from the dark circles haunting the underside of her eyes, and her weary but guarded expression as she regards them from across the room.
Lana doesn't notice that she's staring until Ellerin leans over to her and whispers under her breath. "That scarring happens when the dragon you're bonded to dies. The part of them that we're bound to...it stays trapped within us, trying to be united with the rest of itself in the afterlife."
She immediately looks back towards Tamla, who now walks towards them with her head held high, and feel a wave of empathy for her. To lose someone that close to her is an emotional pain Lana can't even begin to imagine, but to live with the reminder of that loss both physically and mentally? That's a fate no one deserves.
"I'm going to need you to take your tunic off, Skye," Tamla says, turning to a wash basin against the wall and quickly scrubbing her hands, then glances at Ellerin. "Can you go find something clean for him to wear once we're done?"
Ellerin nods and nods towards rushes off obediently, leaving Lana to help Skye awkwardly pull his bloody tunic over his head. He winces at every movement, and as he gently maneuvers his sleeve around his wound, she doesn't miss how he practically draws blood from how hard he's biting his lip. Once his tunic is off, however, he grips its fabric tight, turning his knuckles white, and refuses to look up from a spot on the ground he has fixated on. She can immediately tell from it's not just from pain, and one look upwards elicits a gasp of shock from her and Tamla rushes over.
Tamla and her both freeze in shock as we notice dozens of jagged cut scars all along Skye's torso. Tamla walks around the brick and gasps when she sees his back. Lana quickly follows, and covers her mouth in horror. There are long, thick scars that cover his back and some still red and aggravated.
"Did your father do this?" Tamla asks, her voice full of anger and her eyes dark, and Lana raises her eyebrows. From what she saw of Skye's father earlier, she knows he is...horrible, but never expected this fact to be so well known.
