The Dark Flower (Azriel x OC)

14. The Embrace of Death (Persephone)

There was rarely anything that drew Persephone out of the safety of her own mind anymore. The voices in her head were her only company, no matter how depressing their words were. At least the pain they brought was mental... emotional. Everything outside of her own mind brought forth the physical sort of pain and Percy's body... well, it was close to giving out. 

She could feel it in every breath that she took, in the rattling of her lungs, and the aching in her bones. But drifting through those tortured voices in her head gave her some reprieve. 

Until one very real cry of pain became just a touch too familiar. 

Percy sucked in a breath and rolled onto her back. It didn't pain her so much anymore. The wounds had closed - a testament to the amount of time she'd been trapped in that little cell. 

She listened... nothing. Perhaps she'd imagined it... perhaps one of the nameless voices had sent it her way. 

"I couldn't heal you completely - they would know someone helped you. The bruises are there, along with a hideous black eye, but... all the swelling's gone."

She must be well and truly mad now if she was imagining Lucien's voice in this hell. She'd heard him once down here in the very beginning, begging the guards for just a moment with her. And once... once she could have sworn that he'd been in the cell with her, pressing a hand to her forehead and drawing away some of her fever. 

"And my nose?" Feyre... that was Feyre. 

But Feyre was supposed to be free... They'd sent her back to her human family with enough jewels and riches to keep Feyre and the next five generations of her family from hunger and starvation. Had she been found? Surely she couldn't have been stupid enough to return on her own, not unless... unless she'd figured it out.

"Fixed - as pert and pretty as before," Lucien answered and his voice seemed so very far away. 

"I thought she'd taken most of your power," Feyre whispered back to him. 

Percy could barely make out Lucien's voice. "She gave me back a fraction - to entice Tamlin to accept her offer. It's the same reason she keeps Persephone alive - even if only just so." Lucien sucked in a wobbling breath. "But he still refuses her... I think harming Persephone had the opposite effect of what Amarantha was hoping."

"How do you mean?" asked Feyre. 

"She... she won't make it through your trials," Lucien answered softly. "She might as well be gone already and Tamlin knows it. Amarantha drags her up to court sometimes... makes a show of hurting her. Persephone doesn't even react anymore. Doesn't even cry. It's like she's not even there." 

If Percy had even an ounce of strength, she would have bolted upright. She hadn't been brought before Amarantha save for twice... Once upon her arrival to Under the Mountain and again after she'd had her first blood... 

But then where did her pain come from? Why did her legs feel as if they'd been snapped? When had she split her lip? She couldn't recall a single moment of it and yet... yet she knew it must have happened.