22. Niamh

Time slows to a crawl. My pain fades. Breathing gets easier…

I am still alive, I know that. Mainly because the world is so heavy—a cacophony of noises, smells, and sounds. Slamming doors. Running feet. Voices, so many voices. Shouted, whispered, moaning voices. They sound so close. So far. They sound like the occupants of a million other worlds and realms outside of my own.

They sound free, unlike the murmuring that filled the Citadel. Fearful and hushed and only occasionally giddy.

Mortals are so giddy. They thrive on life and feed off of it.

They don't need a vamryre to show them how to breathe. How to live. How to want to live.

He was gone once, but I can feel him near. His anger is so volatile. His scent is so unique, apart from any other in this entire realm. In the entire world and universe.

Caspian is a creature unto himself, but he lingers near me. Even though he doesn't want to. Even though he doesn't have to.

He lingers within my orbit and for that, I am grateful, so grateful.

I don't know why but I am.

He is near me and for that I am grateful.

However, there is someone else beside him. Someone new and sparkling and clean. She radiates a bubbly warmth and an icy confidence. She won't let anyone stand in her way or dictate to her their rules for life.

She makes her own rules, and they are simple. Keep everything calm. Keep everything clean. Healing is her domain, her purpose for being.

For whatever reason, she is trying to heal me. Trying to because it is harder than she thought. I'm not like the others she's nursed back to health. I am different.

Broken and different. My body doesn't react to her methods like it should. I am too different. Abnormal. Defective.

Frustrated, she sighs. "What is she?"

"A woman," Caspian replies, his tone cold. Cutting. Stone. "Heal her."

"I'm not stupid!" The woman scoffs and a noise trickles out of her that could be a laugh. "Damn you, you idiot. What is her race? She's not vamryre. Not human. Not a mundane. I would assume she is fae but?—"

"Fae," Caspian snaps.

"She can't be," the woman insists. "They can't enter this realm?—"

"Enough," Caspian growls. "Try harder."

"I am trying! Um… There is one last method. You stay there. Even if she screams you don't touch me, or her. Understand?"

Silence. Then a harshly uttered, "If you kill her?—"

"You'll kill me," the woman replies. "Whatever. But if I don't do this she will die and none of your threats will matter one damn bit! Do you understand me? But… What I must do, it could heal her. Maybe."

"It better."

"But…" The woman sucks in a breath, and I feel her hands on my skull. "It's going to hurt."

And it does.

Whatever she does to me it hurts.

It hurts.