22. Breya

TWENTY-TWO

brEYA

B reya awakened with a start. Her head pounded with a monstrous ache, her eyes sensitive to a tiny stream of light from a distant candle. She moved slightly but felt something clink as she tried to sit up. She remembered everything that had happened all at once.

"Ah, good, you are awake."

She screamed and shook against the table she was shackled to. She jostled around in abject terror, calling out for Thorne for help, for anyone.

Nyfain crept out of the black with his fingers twiddling together like some kid ready to take his first carnival ride. His eyes continued to make Breya think of an empty moon, and he seemed to lurch toward her as if his neck were slowly disappearing. Those grotesque teeth kept making an appearance, gawking at her with a perilous, unblinking visage.

"What are you doing?" Breya screamed.

It was a rhetorical question because Breya knew precisely what he was doing. When he'd grabbed her back at the castle, he wasn't trying to kill her. Well, not directly.

He was committing what the witch community called an unpardonable sin, siphoning energy from another of their kind in order to obtain their abilities.

It all came from that wretched, prohibited Book of the Dead . Though she had learned about it, as did all witches and sorcerers at various academies, it was always cautionary.

Then, lying there in some dank, damp, putrid dungeon, she wished that she had committed more of it to memory.

"I am so glad you ask, dear one," Nyfain said, reaching for her with one of his gaunt fingers. "You are the feast in which I dine, the fuel I need to grow into a god. Hear me now, good child. You are the morning star of my becoming."

He spoke wistfully, a man captivated by the potential future he saw in Breya's misty eyes. The witch recognized some of the words the moron was quoting and tried desperately to turn her face from his vile touch.

"That book will only mean chaos, Nyfain!" she pleaded with him, craning her neck away from him. "You think it will gain you power, but it won't. Didn't you learn nothing from sorcery training?"

He let out a laugh that sounded dry and wooden. There wasn't anything she could say that would make him turn a corner on his plan. A sorcerer like him was easily taken by the promises of a glittery, fabled future.

She could feel some of her strength return as his long finger stroked along her cheek. She could see the colors of his past, a lame boy with a hump on his back who used witchcraft as a shield against a looming, uncomfortable truth. It was the repellent color of mixed rubbish, a nefarious soul stained the sullen black of infection.

His condition was irreversible. She knew that as well as she knew the scent of her mother's perfume or the way dusk washed over the village garden. Thorne then rose in her mind, the way his big arms enveloped her small frame, protecting her from the elements and the cruelness of reality.

It filled her with a fight to survive. Her life, her heart, was all brimming with light and love. She clenched her fists together as Nyfain continued to ignore her, then shot a menacing glare back at him.

His cunning smile disappeared. She narrowed her eyes at him and lifted her head off the table, her heart ready to punch through her chest at any moment.

"Go for it then, you sick bastard. Give it a fucking try ."

Nyfain at first looked bewildered but then returned to his rat-like countenance, his spindly fingers tapping with creepy excitement against the surface of the table.

"I am going to drink you dry," he said.

The sorcerer leaned forward toward her, his lips laboriously parting.

He began to mutter incantations, the mute gray rolling to expose the ivory whites of his eyes. Nyfain's body twitched feverishly. The shallow eye sockets deepened as Breya braced herself, all of the muscles in her body tensing.

Breya then did something that she never thought she'd have to do.

She used her healing powers in reverse, conjuring her power to siphon the energy from her captor in the same way he was trying to siphon energy from her. Despite his despicable nature, it physically pained Breya to do such a thing. Her body was a temple of healing work, not a vessel of suffering.

But there was no other choice. If she wanted to see her sister, her mother, her father, or Thorne ever again, it was the only weapon in her arsenal left to employ.

And the fact that Nyfain was a naive fool made it easier to apply.

His fingers clasped around the table once his body began to interpret that his plan had been foiled. Breya felt the muscles in her neck harden, the veins of her balled fists protruding with lustrous powder blue. She was ingesting not only all of his energy but his entire life force. Her head became heavy as iron as she squeezed her eyes shut, no longer able to watch what little luster that remained within the villainous bone-white eyes evaporate into moonless, sadistic slumber.

Breya cried out as the black smoke of unholiness filled her lungs. A life with Thorne flashed before her eyes. What had happened and what was yet to come should she survive. It was beautiful and she was terrified she'd never experience it. She was worried that she was going to faint when the miserable act abruptly ended, the crescendo signaled by a harsh crash to the slabbed floor.

The witch opened her eyes cautiously, feeling lightheaded from the sudden lifting of the void from her skull, and saw Nyfain. He was staring up into the dark, dreaming his final, lethal dream.

It was an unseemly sight that Breya turned away from and focused on the bindings around her wrist. Her stomach churned, and she thought for a moment that she might faint after all, or vomit. She had never taken a life like that, or at all. The idea made her saintly soul sick, so she rushed with the cuffs around her wrists, then her ankles, her survival instinct kicking in tenfold.

Breya was careful to keep herself steady as she climbed off the table, intentionally avoiding the sight of Nyfain's upturned, lifeless glare. She carried herself through the black, following the single beam of light along the slabs of damp stone, until she came upon a big steel door.

She pushed it open gingerly and was surprised to find that it hadn't been locked. In her daze and exhaustion, Breya stepped out of the room and was met by a severe blinding white light, as well as Nyfain's awaiting guards.

"She's trying to escape!"

Breya was squinting and stumbling down the hallway, holding her hands out in front of her to keep from colliding with a wall. She heard the guards chasing her down and considered risking it all by sprinting.

It was far better than the opposing option, which felt like an awful branding on her soul. She could try to kill the guards, but one extinguished soul was already enough. It made her feel horrible, every muscle in her body crying with despair.

But in the end, Breya didn't have to do anything more.

She heard the lions racing toward her before she was able to see them. The light of day was strong, and her eyesight was frail. Their big bodies hammered against the ground and passed her. Breya felt in front of her for a wall, and when she found one, she slid to the floor.

The lions were engaged in battle with the guards. She heard cries of agony and roars of victory. The witch curled up into the fetal position and buried her face into the crook of her arm praying to some unseen force that she would get to see her family again.

And Thorne. She dearly needed to see him again too.

She rocked back and forth and sang herself a lullaby, one that she hadn't heard from her mother's lips since she was a child. It came up like a loving ghost, soothing her fears and terrified heart.

" The sun is here, the sun is ours, the sun is yours. Even when it is a cloudy day, the sun is there, the sun is yours, the sun is ours."

Tears streaked the witch's cheeks. She shoved her fingers into her ears to block the sounds of the ongoing battle and continued to rock and sing to herself. The tune did the trick and lulled her into a palliative state where every meadow was a glimmering green, and death was far beyond reach.

"Breya? Breya?"

Someone was shaking her shoulders. Her eyes were stuck closed, and she refused to let death take her. The phantom didn't know her. She was scared; she was desperate.

"Breya, it's all right."

Whoever was touching her had a voice like an angel. She opened her eyes and then began to weep in frenzied anguish.

"Thorne, Thorne, please hold me!"

Her hero did.