The Heart Of Asariel

18.1 || Destroying

Corinne couldn't bring herself to let go of Micah's hand. She felt as if she was falling, the ground a sea of whirling air beneath her feet, her mind spiralling in circles until she lost all sense of where she was. All she had to halt her descent was his touch. Without it, she would shatter.

The cracks had formed already, cold bites in her skin that seeped confusion.

Confusion and the sweet, electric thrum of magic.

She still recalled the pain. Felt it, even: the burning rod plunged between her ribs, the choking in her lungs, the dullness that settled over her to numb it all and sap her strength until she gave in. And yet it was formed of a ghost's breath, fading to mist. Though stuffed with a thousand jagged thoughts, her head was clear. Her heart beat.

Micah's grip fell limp, and panic shot through all of it. Seizing his shoulder, she shook him, his hand practically crushed beneath hers. "Micah," she urged, sinking lower on her knees. "Micah, come on. Stay with me."

His skin was hot and sticky, coated in sweat. His arm splayed out beside him. It ran with blood from several streams, already forming a patchwork pool of crimson and silver beneath it. He'd mangled it. The gash cut so deep that his knife must have struck bone. She swept the immediate area as if something to bind it with might materialise, terror a rising sea in her chest, drowning her in the dark realisation that she had no idea what to do. That there was nothing she could do.

She was supposed to be dead.

Micah let out a soft, groaning whimper. His eyes flickered half-open. Their silver was clouded, the light in them reduced to glints amongst grey fog. They rose to meet her desperate gaze anyway.

"Sorry," he murmured, the word a fluid slur she barely picked out. His lips curved in far too wide a smile for how shaky it was. He had such a silly, stupid smile. She hated it. Tears filled her eyes.

"You idiot." The shards that formed her voice splintered as she forced them together. "You should have let me go."

Applause pounded the air, and tension snapped into Corinne's muscles. Another pair of hands joined half a second later. The second was disjointed, punctuated by laughter, but the first was slow, deliberate, regular. Even as more joined, an oppressive noise that clogged the room with the itching stench of victory, all she could hear was that steady beat. In a way, it was calming. It gave her a steely kind of focus.

Spying the discarded knife out of the corner of her eye, she snatched it up, her palm coated in the hot, tacky feel of Micah's blood, and pushed carefully to her feet. Even the throbbing in her leg has lessened. Pushing aside all meaning in the action, she wiped the blade over her wounded thigh, wincing as it dragged over sensitive skin.

She turned. Khalida's lips quirked. Parting her hands, she lifted one, and the applause stopped.

Their stares met, and silence reigned.

Even the click of her heel as she moved forward seemed to blend with the quiet, as if she held control over it. Her voice was soft, a silky breeze. "Thank you both for that excellent show. We all enjoyed it tremendously."

Corinne narrowed her eyes. She'd stalked the silence plenty of times before. It was her ally, not her servant. She said nothing.

"Did you not enjoy it?" Khalida lowered her head. "That's a shame. Your performance was exemplary. Did you really think I'd let you die so easily?"

Yes. The instinctive answer was sandpaper in her throat. She swallowed, ignoring the lump that hindered the action, the salty remnants of tears that tingled on her lips. Of course Khalida would kill her. She'd been raised as a tool, a weapon. When a weapon no longer served its owner, it was destroyed.