Sinners' Kingdom #1: The Book of Lust (Complete)

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A ringing, carving, crushing headache threatened to split my skull, but I stood frozen in place, statue-still, as the beautiful man glided through the water towards me. Long, flowing hair, soft and bright like pale starlight tinged sun-gold, fluttered behind him on the timely breeze that swirled past like a living thing nuzzling him in passing.

The soft, downy feathers behind his ears winked in the slow wind, too, drawing my eyes like light itself. My lungs stopped. I couldn't breathe. Black shapes swayed and ghosted around my peripheral vision, darting in like shadows trying to smother my sight, but his gentle radiance pushed them back as he drew closer and closer. Until finally, he was all that was left, standing before me, tall and slender and gentle, crystal blue eyes so breathtakingly beautiful I could hardly think.

That was probably for the better. Otherwise, I would have been rolling on the ground in agony, holding my head in my hands and screaming for peace.

The pain radiating from my skull had no source, simultaneously coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once. I'd never felt anything like this before, crushing pressure so overwhelming I couldn't tell if my head was going to explode or implode, caving in like a crushed aluminum can. Even the headache earlier when I awoke from that un-rememberable, fog-covered dream had been nothing compared to this. Yet... as all-consuming as it was, I could feel the other side of it waiting for me, a wall of snow that I only had to leap through to see what lay beyond it. That empty face in my most faded memories, the void that had always gone unfilled, but secretly, so that I never even knew it was there—

"Who are you?" I whispered. "What are you doing here? Am I dreaming again?"

"No. This isn't a dream. You're really here, after all this time."

Even his voice was beautiful, just as gentle as the rest of him but strong in its serenity, like the wide stream coursing in front of me with burbling splashes against the rocks peeking out of the current.

"How long has it been," he asked with a soft smile, looking down to meet my upturned gaze, but it wasn't a question I could answer. Thankfully, he didn't wait for me to give him one. "You're all grown up now. But so am I, I guess."

He still had yet to answer my questions, except the last one. But whether he confirmed this was a dream or not, it wasn't like I could believe it. I was too cautious to fall for tricks like these, if that was what this was. Dreams could feel more genuine than reality in the hands of a skilled weaver, and I'd learned my lesson many times over about dealing with dreams all these weeks of being stalked by a demon through them. I had to be careful... I had to resist. Even though every cell in my body thrummed with the urge to trust this man standing in front of me for no reason at all, the only decision I could make — was to retreat.

"Where are you going?"

I slowly shook my head, keeping my eyes on him with every measured step I took backwards. "I don't know where this is or what's happened to me, but I have my sight back. That means something's wrong. Things don't magically fix themselves without a reason. I'm not dumb enough to fall for whatever this is."

It must have been pulled from my memories, or maybe they were being altered all along from the moment they rose back up to the surface. There was no other explanation I could think of. It didn't even make sense that I'd dreamed of the hazy past at all out of nowhere, no context, no reason, a 'random' revisit of the few lost years gapping my memories and holding no other importance besides that. And all of this right after being subjected to the sirens' mind-crumbling cries that could drive humans crazy? It was too coincidental. I would have to be an idiot to sprint in blindly.

"But... there's nowhere to go. At least that I've found." He had yet to move, standing exactly where I'd left him when I backed away, and he stared at me with a delicately furrowed brow. "I don't even know how you found me, or how I've taken this shape again. I lost my physical form when they took me, and I've been... hibernating, maybe, ever since. I only know that it's been a long, long time since I've been free. But now I am. With you! How did you find me here? And where are we?"