THE USURPERS| 2021

CHAPTER 10: HERESY

X.
CHAPTER 10
Heresy
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TW: discussion of suicide/suicidal thoughts and physical abuse
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"It's freezing." Maelle put her fingertip in the bath I had asked her to draw for me. As soon as I left the main hall I had rushed back to my rooms, feeling like my skin was burning. Like fire was being stoked under it.

"I'd rather it cold." I practically tore off my corset, laying to the side as she gave me a concerned look.

"Should I call for the physician?" I knew I probably didn't look right. When my emotions were high my entire body became flushed and I felt indescribably fatalistic. Each breath I took on my way to my room, I was convinced would be my last.

"I'll be fine once I bathe." I said dismissively, motioning towards the open bathroom door. Maelle gave me one last worried look before slowly walking out, leaving the door cracked open behind her.

Practically tearing off the rest of my clothes, I jumped into the cold bath. The water was frigid but immediately soothed my hot skin. During times like this at the temple, I remembered having to dip my arms to my shoulders in a bucket of cold water. But that was when my breakouts of emotion were mild. On worse days, I'd be shut away in confinement with no cold thing to relieve the searing pain of my skin. I'd try to press against the cool stone of the floor for relief; but still had to roll around in agony as my body tried to calm itself down. I never knew why the beast inside of me did this. On random occasions, when my emotions were running high, I'd feel this burning sensation that felt like it was coming from inside of my chest and spreading underneath my skin. Usually, this only happened when I was upset—but other times it would spawn from bouts of anger.

As I sank chin-deep into the tub, memories of the last time I'd felt this way came rushing back. The night I tried to take my life.

It had been a harmless act. After prayer, I'd seen a few of the younger priestesses go out with their baskets to pick herbs in the forest. I was sometimes allowed out of the temple to walk the grounds, so I didn't see the harm in trailing them as they went into the forest. Besides, I had been shut away for most of the year. Spring time was beautiful in Elysia.

I snuck away from kitchen-duty to follow them into the forest. The priestesses had disappeared into the clearing but after a few moments of walking along the main path I'd realized I didn't care to find them. The quiet of the empty forest calmed the raging thing inside of me. For the first time in years as I walked along that path, I felt at peace.

That peace was quickly disturbed by a white orb that flickered past me. At first I thought it was a piece of dandelion fluff, but then it appeared again in the distance. A ball of white light, getting smaller and smaller as it moved further ahead on the path. It looked like it was beckoning me to follow it.

Instantly I had a feeling of dread as my feet moved forward not out of my volition. It was like I was possessed. As I got closer to it I could feel my power brush along my spine, the monster inside me talking.

You are divine. You are divine. It repeated those words until I felt a very human hand grab my shoulder. Thalia's enraged face met my own as she smacked me. I kicked and screamed as she hauled me back to the temple, cursing at me as I was thrown to the floor. In the kitchen, for everyone to see, she and two other older mistresses stripped me of my clothes and held my arms apart. Thalia retired with a metal blade that had been stoked on a flame.

"Another mark, for another act of insolence." She said, bending down to add another strike of charred skin to my stomach.

As I looked down now sitting in the bath, the scar was still healing. It ran down from between my breasts to my navel, a red line that was accompanied by a dozen smaller and larger ones that she'd given me over the years. Rods, whips and knives— Thalia would always stoke her weapons in flame to burn me. I always thought she was a pyromaniac, since she took so much joy in seeing my skin burn with flame.