A Deadly Bite

4 || Bleeding Scars

Sleep has become a blade of melting ice, slippery in my feeble grip, oozing between my fingers and spreading in an impossibly wide pool at the bottom of a pit. When I attempt to grasp it too harshly, it shatters, and I'm left with frozen shards that pierce my veins in sharpened bolts.

Aimless terror is wrenched along with them. What I fear exactly must have been carried along with that melting stream, disappearing into bottomless darkness.

My eyes snap open as I roll onto my back for what feels like the thousandth time, staring blankly at the ceiling. The creak of the bed beside me prickles at my senses, Fiesi's endless twitching not aiding my attempt at calm. He must be struggling to sleep as well. Not that I can blame him; he has plenty to be anxious about.

For a brief moment, I debate turning over and closing my eyes again, then discard the notion. I've proved by now that it's hopeless. Stiffly, I push myself upright, braced with both hands against the chipped floorboards. Fiesi did attempt to insist I take the bed in his stead, but I doubt it would have made a great deal of difference. If anything, the soft material beneath me would be more of a hindrance; after years of sleeping in a cell carved of stone, and then camping on frosted earth ever since, the hard floor is far more familiar. He did toss me down a blanket, although as I raise my head I realise that I've kicked it almost to the other end of the room. No wonder the cold clings to my skin so fiercely.

The room is flooded with warm light, cascading from the lamp perched at Fiesi's bedside. I itch to turn it off and cocoon myself in the resulting dark -- false as it might be, with the silvery moonbeams leaking from the uncovered window -- but I don't want to go against his wishes. My need for darkness must be as unusual as everything else about me.

A shiver unfurls, forcing me to curl my arms over my chest. Holding in a breath, I take a step forward, casting a nervous glance at Fiesi. He doesn't move from where he lies, wrapped in blankets. My eyes flick to his cloak, discarded in the far corner of the room.

Before I can convince myself otherwise, I creep over to it, snatch it up, and slip out of the door.

The halls are silent at this late hour, not even a whisper drifting from the lower floor. The only sound is the muffled scrape of metal as I slot the cloak's clasp into place. As I let it fall over my shoulders, I release a sigh, tilting my head back as my step slows. The quiet and the dark. To find both together is rare nowadays, but beautiful to discover nonetheless.

A few wrong turns don't seem so problematic when I'm alone to deal with their repercussions. After pacing back and forth for several easy minutes, I locate the door cocked ajar that leads to the communal washroom, and dart into it.

It's blissfully empty. I wander over to the nearest basin and twist the tap, almost absentminded, letting it fill the stretching quiet with its faint splash and soak through the fingers of my gloves. It's cold, so frigid that it seems to sear the skin beneath, blistering with a thousand icy needles that pierce deeper the longer I hold my hands there. Basic human instinct urges me to yank my hands away and preserve what little warmth is left in them. Another, stronger force pins them in place.

So cold it burns. I sigh despite the wince that hitches it. Pain, but the right kind, close enough to what I long for that I can't help but relish it.

It's still not enough. My hands are frozen to the bone, and yet the satisfaction teeters on the edge of perfection, that inch too far away that twists it all wrong. But I don't turn off the tap. I tilt my wrists into the thin stream, letting the water gush further down the gloves. The waterlogged leather is growing heavy. I don't care. My ribs press up against the basin's edge as wet beads glint silver on my right bind's rim, overflowing from where they pour into the minute gap between it and my glove's trapped cuff.