Muse 9 (ONC 2020)

Chapter 9

It felt like an eternity as I was held there, the shadows gripping my head. I couldn't see anything but complete darkness, which seemed to be moving through my eyes, piercing into the back of my mind, and completely filling my senses.

There was nothing but obsidian darkness.

Sable Huntris.

My name was intoned gravely, by a choir of whispers that blended together into one. It thundered in my ears, loudly, although my name was only whispered.

Sable Huntris.

Copier of memories.

What brings you down to the Library?

I opened my mouth to answer and choked on darkness.

How did you expect to survive the Drain? You're not even a hunter, although it's in your blood and upbringing.

What can you do? Sable Huntris, what will you do when the darkness comes calling for you?

Suspended above the moat's gaping maw, only the toes of my boots and the grasp of the shadows keeping me grounded, I had no answer. My voice was stolen. I could only formulate half-logical answers in my dark-befuddled brain.

Like it came calling for them?

Then the voices changed. The words died out as the underlying sounds became a stream of soft, intrusive noise. I felt the grip on my mind shifting as they strove to reach something else inside my head. And then suddenly, I could see again.

Dazed, I looked up and around at my surroundings, surprised to find I was no longer about to plunge to my doom. Instead, I was in a tunnel, one I recognized from the Grid.

What?

I pivoted in confusion, trying to make sense of the sudden change. This tunnel was the very one I had used to access the Drain via the gutterfalls.

This doesn't make any sense.

Movement flashed in the corner of my eye and I glanced up to see a woman walking up beside me. Stopping next to me, she held out her hand and offered me a half grin. "Ready there, Sable?"

Light brown, almost reddish, hair cut short, but brown eyes like mine. Luktor told me once I looked like her, in one of the rare moments of peace between us. I never believed him, but now, I did.

I idolized my mother when I was a child. She was a hunter, a killing machine. She bargained with merchants in the marketplace of our village of Argon in a way that was both fierce and subtle. Her words were always reassuring and slightly arrogant, like she knew how cool she was to young Sable.

And here she stood, right beside me.

I couldn't respond, my throat was so choked. This time, it was emotion and not the shadows' darkness that constricted my throat and stole my voice. Megana Huntris was dead. The Drain had killed her. It had killed both of my parents and had always had a claim over Eurykhan.

"What's wrong, Sable?" she asked, furrowing her brow. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

I swallowed and tried for an answer. My voice was so hoarse I could barely speak. "Because you're dead?"

My mother threw her head back and laughed. "Oh, Sable! I'm not dead, but you're about to be."

I blinked and suddenly I was back in the chamber, hovering over the abyss. The darkness instantly receded, along with the shadows' needles from my scalp, and then I was falling forward, tumbling into the moat.