Legions of Bone: Dragon Rider Book 3

Chapter 4: Little Hope

Thought I'd post two chapters this week, I hope it makes you guys happy. : )

Norah

 For three days Celest attended to her wounds; stopping the atrophy of muscles and nerves and healing the cuts and bruises on Norah's skin. They weren't on purpose, those cuts. The hallucinations were too real, the spiders scrambling up her legs, plunging into her mouth, and eyes and ears felt real. Sometimes Norah could wipe them off, grab them, feel their guts between her fingers. Other times she scratched and clawed but nothing worked and when Etin left, her nails were chipped, her skin raw and aching with angry lines.

"My work won't last." It's something Celest says every time she heals the wounds, reminding everyone not to get their hopes up. "I can already feel my work degrading like paper."

Cody hovered behind Celest, one arm folded. He didn't look like Riveta, only the black hair was something they shared. But where her eyes were brown, his were hazel and solemn. Where she smiled and laughed, he was calm and reserved. But unlike Kaiden who was always quiet, Cody's reserve lifted around family.

An ache gnaws into her. Like the maggots Etin makes her see, chewing through her flesh only to leave behind something heavy and painful. It was a kind of tired that embedded into her soul and never left. It dragged fingers through her mind until everything rippled and blurred. A tired that made it hard to breathe and hard to be.

Three days with Etin in her mind have been the hardest she'd ever known. And after the first night where visions of spiders sinking their sharp fangs into her, forced into her mouth and chest, Riveta had made a rule. Either she, Cody, or Celest needed to be in the house. And Norah wasn't to be left alone.

Never alone. It wasn't the darkness that whispered in her head, but her own voice. Always watched.

You have no freedom, Etin taunted. When he said that, Norah replied with lists of what she could do alone. But he always countered, crossing out her list item by item.

Slave, he'd said. They will put a collar around your throat.

"It's a good thing today's my last night shift," Riveta said, and Norah's eyes snapped to her.

"You're quitting?" she asked.

Riveta's smile was soft. "No, just switching to mornings."

Where her nights would be free to be with Norah.

Never alone. Always watched.

Norah smiled a bit, nodded, and tried to be happy. Tried.

"I can feel him," Celest said, her power humming through Norah. It didn't feel like cool aloe as it had when Norah's skin had been burned and blistered, but like fingers, cold and hot, massaging away the aches in her muscles and bones. "Is he with you now?" she continued.

Norah shook her head, the world dragging behind her with the movement. "He said he had godly things to do. It's been a few hours now."

He never came back after a few minutes, always waited. Let her steep in fear and the unknown.

Sometimes he'd come back for a few minutes or an hour, never longer than that. He said she wasn't worth it, but she knew he was lying. She had the other half of his soul. On the good days, he would insult her, point out the cage and invisible chains. On the bad, he'd tear her apart or make her relive Clarika's and Rima's death.

You never told me your sister perished, he had mused.

She's not some spoiled fruit, you stupid god, Norah spat back.