━━━ ❝ I pity the fool who wants to be a God. ❞
&
━━━ There is enough fire inside you to put
all of Hell to shame, but you are
pretending to be water, for someone
who is too afrai...
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CHAPTER X. the heart of a storm
The day they would infiltrate the Ice Court, the start of a storm came. A rumbling, deep in Leia's bones, she felt it before it came. Every instinct urged her to hide, like she always had. Find sanctuary, like she once had.
Yet this storm was made for her. No matter how far she could hide, how safe her sanctuary was, it would always find her.
Today, Leia wished from the bottom of her heart—I want to be stronger.
Black. No silver of light shone through the thick hood over her head. Blind in the dark. Unforgiving goosebumps washed over her skin, the most natural reaction to her. Fire was supposed to be her way out of the dark, it always was. An escape path she could forge with her two hands, be her own saviour.
But now, her wrists and neck were shackled to chains. She was useless, back in Hellgate.
Genuinely, Leia couldn't breathe. She hadn't been able to ever since they stepped into this tiny box of hell.
It was a blur after Kaz unlocked the wagon. Panicked breaths rose in puffs, click, went the collar around her neck. A fleeting hesitation crossed the Bastard of the Barrel's face when he fastened her chains in. She knew what he was thinking about: his promise.
"I promised to never let you be chained again," Kaz had said.
Click, and another chain was locked.
Shivers crawled up both their spines when the tightened chains felt all too well like a noose.
Nina, Leia thought of her light, the bursting sear of brightness. Nina was her sun, the only hope that wouldn't grab her by the throat. How Leia yearned for the comfort she brought was excruciating. Or Jesper, her dearest friend. Her fingers flexed to find the rings he had saved, only to be reminded that it was left on the schooner.
Selma's pranks were a lifetime ago, when they were all but kids. So why didn't she grow out of her fear of the dark? The harder Leia fought to breathe, the bigger her struggle. Slowly, the reality of the wagon started to desert her. And the immortalised melody of fear continued to grow.
The monsters had come, they were here. Paranoia birthed from the dark made it far too easy to shape monsters from nothing. Way easy to reimagine the cramped boat the Valentines' used to flee Ravka, a vessel for her ailing heart. Or the black poison exuding from her parents' corpses in that torn-down motel, the day her heart died with them. Her phantom wore many faces, and after today, it wore another—one of black hair and quartz eyes.
Her father had once told her that death would come to all, but never somebody's legacy. It was confusing, when Leia's only responsibility was to watch her father craft wood into furniture. Now, she understood. After Ravka, the Wandering Isle, Hellgate.
