Private Tales Where Even the Stones Scream

“Yes.” she snapped, the sound sharper than she had intended and her brow knit tightly.

“Thank you for reminding me,” she added bitterly, as if he’d scraped a fresh wound open.

“I didn’t want to kill them…” she muttered, as though saying it aloud might wash some of the blood from her hands. Surely that had to matter. Intent had to matter. Didn’t it?

Her gaze flicked away, jaw working. “I don’t make a habit of murdering people,” she said, quieter but no less tense. “Not before this place. Not before him... I don’t want to become like them.”

Keres flinched at the first heavy slam against the door, her breath catching. She was on her feet before she even realised she’d moved, backing away, palms seeking something solid until her shoulder blades collided with the cold stone wall. The draft from the narrow window played through strands of her hair, but did nothing to cool her rising panic.

The door exploded inward. Agravayne’s massive form filled the frame, and Keres startled visibly, her spine pressing harder into the wall as though she might push straight through it. Her gaze flicked from one to the other as they stepped into her room. The way they made the space shrink around her made her chest tighten.

Ravenna says you have to go.

Her stomach dropped. Her fingers twitched at her sides, curling, uncurling, useless.

“I—” She swallowed hard. Her lips felt numb. “I don’t belong to Ravenna…”

Her voice was quieter than she wanted, but steady enough to hide the tremor in it. Her fingers curled into fists, nails biting into her palms. and she lifted her chin just slightly, because shrinking wouldn’t keep her alive.

“Don’t you think you should discuss it with him first,” she arched a dark brow, “before you lay a hand on his property?”

She hated the word property, she hated saying it, hated how easily it came, hated that she was right. But it was all she had. The only shield that might mean anything here. He had bought her, had spent his time and coin on her, needed her for something. Surely he wouldn't allow this?

Her dark eyes moved across the three of them, weighing, searching for any flicker of hesitation amongst the intent. Her pulse thuded against her ribs like a trapped bird. She could feel her magic like a coiled thing in her ribs, but she knew with icy clarity that even if she reached for a soul, even if she found the strength to rip one free, shed never make it through the other two. These three were not immobilised by stockades.

There would be no fighting her way out of this.

She couldn’t argue. He wasn’t here. And yet she wanted nothing more than for him to stride through that doorway right now.

But she was alone, always, and perhaps she was a fool for thinking he'd actually 'care'.

Her breath quickened as the brute stepped into her space, the shadow of him swallowing her whole. She made a small, involuntary sound as the wine flowed over her, cold and sticky, trailing down her face, her throat, her chest. The scent of sweet, rotting fruit filled her nose.

Was this really her life? An endless cycle of rejection, humiliation, and the slow decay of whatever self worth she had left?

Why was she still running? Fighting?
Because she was infuriatingly and stupidly stubborn, and it would take more than wine to break her. She licked the bitter droplets from her lips and raised her dark gaze to meet his. Then she moved.

Her knee shot upward toward his crotch, fast and vicious and with every ounce of strength she had left, all instinct and desperation. Any attempt to distract him for the brief moment she took to go for the blade at his hip.

The sound Agravayne made as he folded in on himself was deeply, viciously satisfying.

Keres kept the sword up despite the tremor in her arm, the point wavering as she tracked each of them with it, her grip tightening until her knuckles ached.

The voices surged the moment fear slipped its hooks into her. Dead tongues clamoured and shrieked inside her skull, overlapping, pleading, screaming an endless chorus of suffering that made it hard to think. A gift, they called it. She’d learned better. It was a curse. A useless, miserable thing.

Then the spiders came. Her eyes flicked downward as the first wave poured from the cracks in the stone. Too many.

“Spiders,” she breathed out in disbelief. “Really?” She didn’t scream, she wasn't the kind of girl to get squeamish about critters, but when they hit her feet, her ankles, began climbing, skittering over her bare skin, her jaw clenched hard. She stamped at the floor and batted at them, trying to dislodge them as they crawled higher. It was horrible, not fear, not revulsion, but the sheer wrongness of being covered, smothered by movement.

“Get off,” she snarled, kicking again, breaths quickening.

She lashed out blindly with the sword, steel flashing in a wide, desperate arc toward the nearest shape, any of them. The blade met resistance with a wet sound, and she didn’t stop to see who it was. She slashed again, teeth bared, back hitting the stone as spiders continued to swarm.

Her breath came fast and ragged. If she was going to die, she wasn’t doing it quietly. Without hesitation, she dragged the blade across her own palm, blood welling quickly. The pain flared brightly, cutting through the noise, through the panic, and she began to murmur quickly to herself amidst the frantic slapping at spiders.