passed, and somewhere in the middle of my tears, I pulled away from his embrace. My eyes found his, body shaking as the words were barely whispered.
“I-I think I’m falling apart, Ari. Nothing, none of this makes sense,” I hiccuped tearfully, taking shallow breaths between every word. The truth came out faster than I could register what I was saying. “I hear voices, hundreds of them. And-and hallu-hallucinations, oh my God, Ari I’m going insane. I can’t do this, I can’t keep playing warrior. Lucretia was right-”
Her voice played in my head, like a funny little memory you could never erase.
“Or did you think to consider that perhaps I was telling you the truth? Tell me, how have your experiences with the rest of our world faired?”
Bile splashed behind my lips again, and this time I couldn’t swallow it back. I pushed Ari aside, scrambling to my feet barely in time to step to the side and heaved, my stomach compressing itself until it was sure nothing was left. My hands shook as if little earthquakes rumbled through my flesh, vibrant flashes of the castle, of Ursula and how it was my fault, all my fau-
Grief welled in my chest, the heaves harder. In one careless action, I had put us all on a path that could spell our end. I collapsed back onto the ground and covered my ears, feeling empty, save for the voices that continued to whisper little temptations in my head. Desperate to will the voices away, I screamed. “Get out my head, dammit, get out.”
Ari’s hands found me, pulling me back into his arms as I kicked and screamed. I felt like I had been thrown onto a surgery board, head spliced open and poked at for fun. Nothing in my mind felt private, nothing felt like my own. In the same breath, I heard one voice speak to kill Ari, and another to kiss him. My head was a goddamn battlefield, and I was in the middle of it, going clinically insane.
“Shhhh, it’s okay, you’re going to be okay,” Ari said soothingly, repeating it over and over like a withering, futile lullaby. “I don’t know what’s going on, Essallie, but we’re going to fix it.”
Across the way, Kayden’s cold, detached voice broke through the haze obscuring my thoughts. “It’s the blood, the Queen’s blood is forcing her to hallucinate. Get her up, now.” His tone took on a hint of fear, gnawing at his normally calm, collected demeanor. “We have to get her help, before it kills her.”
Heat boiled under my skin as I listened uselessly to their exchange. Hands lifted me up, sweeping me off my feet and cradled against a chest. Cold metal touched my cheek, and I pulled back just enough to make out the wire-wrapped shape of a key hanging around Ari’s neck.
“Help her how?”
“That’s why we’re here, Nephilim. The pool is a transport to the Siren’s cove.”
White fire flashed in my dimming sight, brighter than direct sunlight. “Then stop explaining and start helping. Lead the damn way, I don’t know where to go from here.”
Kayden’s voice dropped to barely a whisper, speaking in a tongue I didn’t understand. A fierce, churning wind picked up off the tiny body of water, gusting around us and whipping droplets of the sand and stilled-water into my mouth and eyes. In seconds, the serene weather had turned malevolent, spirals of sharp winds rushing off the water towards the heavens, twirling above us as we sat in the eye of a devil cyclone. Panic seized my chest as water covered above my knees, thighs, and hips, a tiny scream strangling from my throat just before we became submerged underwater. Keeping our hands locked, Ari wrapped his fingers tighter with mine, squeezing in a final dash of comfort as we swirled underwater.
We gained speed, rotating with the cyclone as it extended far below the surface of the small pool. Ari and I clutched another as we road the twists, keeping my hand wrapped tightly in his. Internally, my mind screamed as me, telling me repeatedly not to let go. I didn’t dare open
“I-I think I’m falling apart, Ari. Nothing, none of this makes sense,” I hiccuped tearfully, taking shallow breaths between every word. The truth came out faster than I could register what I was saying. “I hear voices, hundreds of them. And-and hallu-hallucinations, oh my God, Ari I’m going insane. I can’t do this, I can’t keep playing warrior. Lucretia was right-”
Her voice played in my head, like a funny little memory you could never erase.
“Or did you think to consider that perhaps I was telling you the truth? Tell me, how have your experiences with the rest of our world faired?”
Bile splashed behind my lips again, and this time I couldn’t swallow it back. I pushed Ari aside, scrambling to my feet barely in time to step to the side and heaved, my stomach compressing itself until it was sure nothing was left. My hands shook as if little earthquakes rumbled through my flesh, vibrant flashes of the castle, of Ursula and how it was my fault, all my fau-
Grief welled in my chest, the heaves harder. In one careless action, I had put us all on a path that could spell our end. I collapsed back onto the ground and covered my ears, feeling empty, save for the voices that continued to whisper little temptations in my head. Desperate to will the voices away, I screamed. “Get out my head, dammit, get out.”
Ari’s hands found me, pulling me back into his arms as I kicked and screamed. I felt like I had been thrown onto a surgery board, head spliced open and poked at for fun. Nothing in my mind felt private, nothing felt like my own. In the same breath, I heard one voice speak to kill Ari, and another to kiss him. My head was a goddamn battlefield, and I was in the middle of it, going clinically insane.
“Shhhh, it’s okay, you’re going to be okay,” Ari said soothingly, repeating it over and over like a withering, futile lullaby. “I don’t know what’s going on, Essallie, but we’re going to fix it.”
Across the way, Kayden’s cold, detached voice broke through the haze obscuring my thoughts. “It’s the blood, the Queen’s blood is forcing her to hallucinate. Get her up, now.” His tone took on a hint of fear, gnawing at his normally calm, collected demeanor. “We have to get her help, before it kills her.”
Heat boiled under my skin as I listened uselessly to their exchange. Hands lifted me up, sweeping me off my feet and cradled against a chest. Cold metal touched my cheek, and I pulled back just enough to make out the wire-wrapped shape of a key hanging around Ari’s neck.
“Help her how?”
“That’s why we’re here, Nephilim. The pool is a transport to the Siren’s cove.”
White fire flashed in my dimming sight, brighter than direct sunlight. “Then stop explaining and start helping. Lead the damn way, I don’t know where to go from here.”
Kayden’s voice dropped to barely a whisper, speaking in a tongue I didn’t understand. A fierce, churning wind picked up off the tiny body of water, gusting around us and whipping droplets of the sand and stilled-water into my mouth and eyes. In seconds, the serene weather had turned malevolent, spirals of sharp winds rushing off the water towards the heavens, twirling above us as we sat in the eye of a devil cyclone. Panic seized my chest as water covered above my knees, thighs, and hips, a tiny scream strangling from my throat just before we became submerged underwater. Keeping our hands locked, Ari wrapped his fingers tighter with mine, squeezing in a final dash of comfort as we swirled underwater.
We gained speed, rotating with the cyclone as it extended far below the surface of the small pool. Ari and I clutched another as we road the twists, keeping my hand wrapped tightly in his. Internally, my mind screamed as me, telling me repeatedly not to let go. I didn’t dare open
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