Page 58 of Vasmora

“What would you say to me now?” I whispered to myself.

“He would tell you to fight.” The unfamiliar voice startled me, and I turned to see a pale white, ghostly figure staring at me from the shadows, where he sat with his back pressed to the wall, knees up. The milky white of his left eye glowed in the darkness, and from the torch light in the corridor, I could make out ragged gashes around his neck, patches of missing skin where the exposed flesh glistened red and raw, the erosion of cartilage and bone where a nose should’ve been.

Brutality written in every one of his wounds. One of her victims, no doubt.

“You’re dead,” I said flatly.

His brows came together as he stared at his fidgeting fingers. “Does that trouble you?”

“Just takes a moment to adjust to talking with the dead, is all.”

He sighed and rested the back of his head against the wall. “It gets rather lonely roaming these cells unseen.”

“You knew Zevander?” Just vocalizing his name sent an aching ripple through me.

The corner of his lips pulled to a sad smile. “I did. I like to think we were friends once.”

“What is your name?”

“Theron.”

“Theron,” I echoed. “I know that name. Zevander mentioned you. He had … seen you.”

“I’ve never left this place.”

I thought back to the moments in Mortasia, when Zevander had fallen into a sort of trance. His mind had begun to slip without the vivicantem. Perhaps he’d even hallucinated him.

“She killed you, didn’t she?”

He seemed to stare off, lost in thought for a moment, as though the very question sent him back in time. “He was right all along. I told him aligning with her was better. Refusing to fight was safer. It was. But it wasn’t right. I paid the price for my foolishness.”

Zevander had paid, as well. It seemed fate didn’t allow for anyone to slip through the cracks without suffering. “I’m sorry she did this to you.”

A shine of tears wavered in his eyes. “She’ll find a way to hurt you. However long it takes. She’ll search for your weakness. Picking, picking, picking away at it, until you can’t stand any more. Until death is your only salvation.”

I breathed a laugh and turned away from him. “So, that’s what you’ve come to do? Torment me with hopelessness?”

“I’ve come to offer a way out.”

My attention snapped his way again. “How?”

He pointed to the wall adjacent to where I sat, and frowning, I crawled toward it.

“What am I looking for?” I asked, pressing against the wall in search of a passage or door, like the one in my other cell.

“The off-white stone.”

I looked down to where an off-colored stone stuck out from all the rest. With a small bit of hesitation, I tugged on it, and with a rough grinding, it broke free from the wall to expose a narrow opening within. A quick glance over my shoulder, and I reached into the opening, where an object brushed across my fingertips. Lifting it to the light revealed it to be a small red ampoule. “What is this?”

“Death in a bottle. Salvation. If only it’d been within reach for me.” He lowered his head, his brow flickering. “Zevander would tell you to keep fighting. But if you can’t …”

Tears formed in my eyes, and I shook my head. “I can’t die. I’m cursed like Loyce.”

“You can’t be killed. There’s a difference. We always have a choice.”

Footfalls echoed down the corridor.

I tucked the ampoule into the tattered pocket of my dress and replaced the stone. Scrambling back to my spot, I took a deep breath, noticing Theron was no longer there, though prodding my pocket confirmed that the ampoule was real.