Sinister Secrets Book. 3

❅ Chapter 22 - Sebastian ❅

The days were long when all you had to do was count the drops of moisture that echoed in your cell.

    I shouldn't say cell - no. The monks that took care of me would have none of it. They'd be offended even. I was a guest, as they stated. Here to get better and to heal.

    Bullshit. The fact that my room was locked from the outside and bars were on the only window that looked into the hall, I was in a cell. Jailed. A prisoner. And the sad part about it was I knew I belonged here. That, and the cell was still a step up from when I first arrived.

    Chained to the floor, my ankles and wrists had been worn raw, my back flat against the cool stone floor of the temple. I had nearly gone mad laying there for days as the monks forced their thick brews down my throat, reciting ancient spells of healing as they danced and prayed around me.

    Yes, this was much better.

    I sat with my back around the carved marble of the wall, letting the coolness seep into my heated skin. My back end hurt from sitting so long on my cot, but my feet were blistered from pacing so it was hard to stand. I turned, facing the wall where my back had been against and looked at the large gouges I had etched there.

    I wasn't sure how long I had been here because when I first arrived, I wasn't me. I was a monster caked in the blood of so many innocents, snarling and hissing and spitting. Days had no meaning to me. But as the monks worked their magic on me, I started to come around. The red lense I had seen the world through soon lifted, and I was suddenly left with the crippling guilt of what I had done. But after the fog had been lifted and I was once again a fraction of what I was before, I began counting. Counting the days I'd been stuck down here. Counting the days until I would once again feel the heat of the sun againsts my face, or the cool careers of the moon as she made her way across the horizon.

    Still, even now, I could feel that second heart thudding beneath the thin flesh of my chest, could taste the sweet nectar of malice it bled on the back of my tongue. It was enough to make me sick.

    I was "healed" by the monks standards, but was still too dangerous to be let out into the world of the living. I hadn't seen many faces, and I really missed my brother. So I was still here, locked away below hundreds, thousands of pounds of soil. Thrown away and forgotten.

    A whine of a door on hinges announced his arrival, his footsteps light as he descended down the stairs that led into the labyrinth of halls that contained my cell.

    Akan.

    He had been coming down here every day since I had arrived, checking my progress, scanning me over with his ever judgmental crimson eyes. His voice, along with with a monk's, traveled down to me. It was the one good thing about my altered body - I no longer had bland, human sense. No, everything was enhanced. Taste, smell, sight. Even touch.

    "He is not ready," the monk hissed, his voice low in fear I'd overhear him. He could whisper the words and I could still hear him.

    Akan seemed to know this, for he spoke loud and clear to the monk. "I do not care what you or any of the monks in your monastery think. The boy is to come with me."

    I listened as the monk grumbled words in a langue I didn't know, but Akan only snickered, amused by the monks displeasure as they continued to descend the steps. Their feet crunched over the small, loose stones, and in a moments time they were standing in front of my door. I could hear their heart thudding behind their ribs - hear the blood rushing through -

    Keys jingles, the rumble of a lock snapping open, and the groan of my door opening brought me back.

    And there he was. Not once had Akan demanded my cell to be opened, so as curious as I was, his presence was enough to make me wish to be a fly, a rat. Anything small that could slink through the bars and travel far, far away.