“One... Two...”
The first two numbers came easily, the breath a slow exhale as her body relaxed, naked, on the cold stone beneath her. She could feel it against the warmth of her flesh, the way that it chilled her to the core... A chill that reached her soul. It was strange, being able to think that way about herself again. There was something... Haunting about the thought of her soul no longer being around Satrethan's wrist and being back where it began. She couldn't remember the last time that her soul was in its proper place.
Lin's eyes were open, staring upwards to the ceiling. It was a struggle for her to focus upwards. So badly did she want to run to Satrethan... To hug him... Kiss him... Allow him to feel the warmth of her body and soul one last time. But she knew teasing him with something so beautiful to him would not be fair for him. This entire thing wasn't easy for him, the thought of this happening to the woman that he loved. Even though they hadn't spoken about it, Lin knew that there was a chance this wouldn't work. She knew that if she didn't -want- to come back, that she wouldn't. This wasn't the way this kind of thing was normally done. This was... Different. A mortal was never supposed to want this.
“Three... Four”
Her ears twitched, not just from the sound of metal sliding from its sheath beside her. She was thankful that Satrethan had told Lledwyn to do this part... She didn't know if she could handle that being her final sight... She didn't want her last memory of him to be this. As much trouble she caused Lledwyn... As much as she teased him and bickered with him.. She had grown fond of the man. It was a man she could trust, because she knew that he couldn't trust himself. She saw the storm behind his gaze, and over time she had come to look at him as a Brother... Someone she knew if she needed... She could go to him. She was still surprised that he had agreed to this... The unconventional notions of a woman that everyone knew as completely out of her mind. But here they were... Ready... Waiting.
But the calmness in her was waning, and it forced her to close her eyes. She knew that those wards were trembling around her mind. They had waited too long. They were too strong. They wanted her mind. They wanted her soul. She could feel them clawing at her mind, trying to escape the prison that had been placed around them. Each claw... Each dig of their shadowed nails against the wards caused her soul to tremble in fear... A soul that people had fought to keep pure. A soul untouched by the corruption and chaos of her mind. A soul that never tasted the rains of her storm.
“There is no escape... Not in this Life... Not in the next...”
It was the first whisper to seep through the cracks of the wards. That first, aching whisper, clear and unhindered by the other whispers that usually accompanied it. This one was as clear to her as the cold stone beneath her was. It was as real as Lledwyn beside her, kneeling, was. It made her shiver, from the inside out. She couldn't help herself from taking in a deep breath and holding it in her lungs, until she felt them burn and ache. She shut her eyes even tighter, as tightly as they could go, trying to block out the visions that she knew would come with the whisper. They had a habit that she had learned... A habit of making her think she saw things that weren't really there. Like when they made her believe that she killed Satrethan...
“Trust is your weakness... Hope is an illusion... All that you know will fade... You will be alone in the end...”
A feeling was washing over her... A feeling that she hadn't felt in years. Fear. Pure, lasting fear. Perhaps it was from her soul... Or perhaps it was from the trembling of the wards, their cracking becoming an audible crackling in her mind. Whatever it was, it was taking hold of her, and her arms at her sides began to tense, the woman's fingertip beginning to claw at the ground at her sides. The whispers were intensifying with every second and became so deafening, she couldn't even hear the sound of her own deep, barely controlled breaths.
“Keeper of Lies... Mistress of Shadows... Our Little Dove... You can not leave us. You can not forsake us so easily. We are a part of you... Who would you be without us, hm? What will you do when you do not return from the Shadowlands? We will pluck you from the fields of death and bring you to us. You will never be free from our gift. You accepted it, after all.”
Teeth grit as the muscles in her face twitched slightly. “Please... Just kill me...”
“Seven... Eight...”
The wards shattered at her own voice in her mind, the forces exploding outwards and swallowing her mind. It caused her to gasp out, her eyes springing open as she felt the corruption rage through her mind, her blood crawling and boiling in her entire body as the corruption pumped through her veins and clawed for her soul. Her body jerked with the gasp, a loud, frightened scream coming from her lips. But as soon as the scream began... It ended. Just as the twisted chaos reached to her soul, it froze. Everything stood still. She saw the ceiling... And Lledwyn's focused gaze above her. She didn't feel the dagger through her heart.. The Ebon had sank the blade so suddenly and at such a precise time... That by the time her body registered what happened... It was too late. As her life's blood spilled from her chest freely, her body went from its rigid, frightened state to nothing. Every limb fell relaxed to the stone beneath her, and with a final breath, the rogue that had grown to become... Was no more.
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It was a strange feeling.. That of nothingness. The emptiness... The loneliness... A soul was not meant to linger in such a place of darkness. It saw things... Felt things... Things that should not have been. From birth, she'd been touched. Still born, a baby with no life of its own, its being already lost to the Shadowlands before even a breath was taken. It did things to a soul... And to a mind. Saving her as a babe had only damned her in life. She'd heard her first whispers from the Shadowlands before she even knew how to speak a word of her own. She was touched with death, a constant shadow looming around her, whispering to her... Trying to lure her back. And through life... With every day that passed and every whisper heard... With every death.. She lost a little more of herself...
That was why when the ritual to bring her back to life the last time was cast.. She was not herself. Her mind had found something in the blood, and clung to it, making it her own. The Old Ones were comforting to her for many years... Protecting her... Keeping the shadows at bay. They made her who she was... That was why, just before coming to the Scions... She had accepted their gift. They promised to make the corruption slow, and that their gift would give her everything she ever wanted... Little were they prepared for... Everything she truly wanted... She learned was in death.
It was strange at first. She knew that the floor should have been cold beneath her... But all she felt was that there was a floor. She had to move the fingers of her left hand just to be sure. Slowly, she willed her fingers to twitch then slide over the engraved skull stones of the ground that she was on. It was the same floor that she had been laying on before... Of that she was sure of. Her left palm pressed to the ground, feeling it fully, urging the chill to reach her.. But even though there was stone... There was no chill. She could hear them talking around her, the familiar voices of Satrethan and Lledwyn. They were there... With her. The footsteps drew close then, and slowly, she pushed herself up from her prone position on the floor, sitting up.
Left hand rose and her fingertips touched her chest, just above her heart. Slowly, her fingers moved over the blood and her head tilted downwards. Topaz blue orbs opened as she pulled her fingers away from her chest and looked at the blood that coated her fingers. She had to run her thumb over her blood just to make sure that she wasn't dreaming... There was no crawl to her blood... No shadowy tendrils of the corruption that she was so used to. Her head slowly turned as she looked to Lledwyn and Satrethan, who had come to lay armor near her. Her eyes moved between the two of them, and she tried desperately to listen to them try to explain to her how to heal her wound in her chest... But she just couldn't... She tried to urge her blood to form in the wound and clot it... But all she felt was her blood move through her veins, the mixture of shadow and blood magics now at her bidding will.
“It is... So quiet...” Her own voice was foreign to her. That childlike, accented voice she'd used for years no longer a care to her. Hiding that slight hint of formality was no longer a necessity. But she did not linger on the sound of her own voice for long... Because again she was caught by the silence of her own mind. The familiar, hushed whispers from the Shadowlands was there, far in the back of her mind, barely audible... But the normal sound of rushing waterfalls of voices was... Silent. She looked back to Lledwyn and Satrethan and as her eyes finally focused on Satrethan's hand and the fog began to lift from her mind... Her blood began to rush and move, collecting itself in her wound and clotting it, healing it slowly... She had a lot of practice ahead of her... But for now, there was only one thing that crossed her mind...
“So this... This is what it feels like... To finally be free...”
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