Zach surveyed the vast room. Dense fog and smoke swallowed everything in sight, while flakes of ash drifted down from the decaying ceiling. Visibility was so poor that even nearby shapes dissolved into shadows, making it hard to tell where the floor ended and the darkness began.
A knot of tension settled in his chest, but he kept moving. His focus stayed on one thing alone, finding Clair and getting her out of that place.
As he moved cautiously across the floor, his eyes scanned the surroundings for any sign of her presence. The heat was nothing like the kind of burn he'd felt from an explosion before. Instead of searing him, it prickled against his skin like countless tiny needles stabbing at him, painful, yet somehow leaving no wounds behind.
"Clair? Clair, it's Zach. I'm here!" he called out, his voice echoing in the murky atmosphere.
He still couldn't make sense of where this nightmare was coming from, or what they meant when they said Clair had returned "not herself." She had spoken about a dark power inside her.
Was that it? Was she splitting into something else... her darker half? Because she had gotten furious over that kiss. Yes... that reckless, thoughtless kiss I had agreed to.
The realization curdled within him, anger turning inward. How had he let things between them unravel without even noticing? How had he been so blind?
"Idiot..." he breathed under his breath, the word heavy with regret.
"Clair!" he called again, louder this time, strained, and edged with frustration.
Halfway across, he noticed a dark figure at the center of a platform, surrounded by an eerie blackened expanse. As he moved closer, dread settled over him-slowly, he recognized it as a silhouette of a body. With each step closer, shock and torment surged through him. He could hardly believe his eyes. It was her. He made his way up the platform and slowly descended into the pit of ashes. The heat down there was more punishing, clawing at his skin with increasing intensity, yet he kept pressing himself closer to her.
In that moment, seeing her in such a pitiful state, it felt as if a thousand thorns drove straight through his heart. Shame and anger flooded him as he faced the consequences of his own recklessness laid bare upon her.
Clair sat on her heels, her arms, legs, and wings bound tightly by silver chains engraved with unfamiliar symbols. Bent over in agony, her body bore the weight of unbearable pain. Feathers littered the area, evidence of her once magnificent wings now thin with pointed thorns at their wrist joints while her left arm and leg appeared charred and disfigured, as though peeled and scorched.
Zach's gaze fell upon a dagger clutched in her right hand. His breath caught, and for a moment he couldn't move, only stare, as if the sight itself had pinned him in place. Trembling broke through him as he finally stepped forward.
His heart ached at the suffering etched across her face. With shaking hands, he reached for her, hesitating only a fraction before gently cupping her cheeks and lifting her face toward his. He needed to see her eyes, needed to know she was still there.
They were once the bright twin golden orbs that defined one of her beautiful uniqueness, now they'd transformed. Her left eye tainted with shades of red, while the other was dull and lifeless.
"Clair... it's Zach," he whispered, his voice barely holding together. "Please... say something. Anything. If you're angry with me, then be angry, curse me, yell at me."
YOU ARE READING
Divine & Wicked: The Strayed Memories (Book2)
Fantasy(Fantasy•Romance) COMPLETED Zach awoke a few days after his surgery, his mind foggy and his heart empty, as though his life had been reset. He moved through what he believed was his normal routine, unaware that fragments of a forgotten past were slo...
