Page 32 of Vasmora

Live.

The words had lost their vigor in the endless hours since I’d resigned myself to them. Living essentially meant consciously dying.

“You killed him. You did this,” the bird chirped in Loyce’s voice. The general’s idea of humor.

Grinding my teeth, I grabbed one of the chipped stones lying about the floor, and spinning to face the infernal creature’s glowing eyes, I hurled it toward those rafters.

The bird cawed and flapped its wings, the stone bouncing off some hard surface I couldn’t see.

“Die, you hellish beast!”

“I want to die! Kill me! Kill me! I want to die!” the bird shrieked in Zevander’s guttural outcry, proving I’d missed my mark.

Pressing my palms against ears, I screamed. Couldn’t take it anymore. I was losing my senses.

I forced myself to sing, even if singing felt entirely unnatural. Even if it took great effort to push the sound from my throat, because I couldn’t bring myself to utter a single note of hope when my world felt so bleak.

I squeezed my eyes shut while I hummed, summoning thoughts I didn’t truly believe in my heart. That, no matter what Zevander may have suffered, he’d found some small measure of acceptance before his fall. Maybe contentment in knowing the fight was over.

I thought of Rykaia and Aleysia, forcing myself to laugh through tears as I imagined the two of them ever meeting each other. An unlikely event, but at least the visual brought me some distraction.

And Raivox. Perhaps Raivox had lived and was somewhere healing from his injuries. The thoughts gave me comfort, even though they felt more fantasy than real.

But what did it matter? Reality had become exhausting, chipping away at me every second that passed. Every moment that I fought to convince myself that living was better than dying.

Each time a guard arrived with water, or the most miniscule crumbs of food, I accepted them despite my urge to refuse. Committed to keeping my energy up, my mind alert.

In the darkness, I learned footsteps and how to differentiate the guards from those of the captain. A necessary distinction, seeing as one of the guards seemed to enjoy an occasional slap, or kick, as he delivered the food and water.

I’d gathered whatever I could to use as weapons, patting around the floor of my cell in search of anything remotely useful. In the heavy darkness, I found loose stones that I kept hidden in the corners of the cell where the light couldn’t touch, and in spite of the unsettling twinges of pain, I ground my metallic nails against the stone floor to keep them sharpened.

In the moments of quiet and isolation, I thought of him. The dimple in his cheek on the rare occasion he smiled. The way his hair hung precariously over those intense eyes that seemed to soften whenever he caught sight of me. The strength and power in his hands. Hands that I wished I could feel, even just once.

You’ll see him again, my head reminded me.

A delicate, faint scritching, like the persistence of nails on wood, drew my attention to where I’d seen the small door, though my sense of direction had become skewed in the darkness. Through all my exploration, I’d failed to find a weakness in my cell. Neither a flaw nor oversight that might prove to be a means of escape. Not even that mysterious door offered a crack in the wood, a rusty hinge, or loose lock. Maybe it merely served as a cruel beacon of hope, opening to a wall of more gray stone.

But that scratching told me otherwise.

I pushed up to my hands and knees, crawling toward the sound, the scrape of my chains trailing after me. Bug shells and the frail bones of critters crunched and poked at my knees, and I winced when I felt something wet smear across my skin. Patting my palms across the wall’s cold stones, I felt for the aged wooden panels and pressed my ear to the surface. Listening.

Silence.

“Hello?” I rapped softly, not wanting to startle whatever might be on the other side.

No one answered.

Fingers searching for the knob, I felt a sharp prick across my fingertip and recoiled, rattling the metal.

Something hissed on the other side, and I froze.

“Is someone there?”

A violent thwack pounded against my ear, throwing me backward as bits of dust puffed across my face.

I waited, hands fidgeting. “Hello?”

Another cracking thump urged me back an extra step, the chain holding me captive awkwardly slapping against the stony floor.