Whisper [Fourth Wing]

Chapter Ten

IT WAS PEELING AND BLEEDING AND WEEPING like a child who's lost their favorite toy. My skin was bright red and burnt in places too far for me to see. It was raw. Touched in a way that it was never made for.

Now my outsides were as ugly as the inside.

Two hours after that torture; after the screaming and the weeping and the begging for someone, anyone to simply stop the pain. Begging "father, please have mercy on me." Praying to gods I've never believed existed to end my misery.

Two hours and my back is still as fresh as it had been sitting in that courtyard.

My steps are slow, hesitant and aching, as I make my way over to my mirror. This was the hardest part. The burning was excruciating. There was no denying that. But this?

Seeing the mess that they had left me with was what broke me. Over and over again, watching my flesh heal and scar and break from that once untouched beautiful skin to a mangled mess of scars.

This.

This was the hell.

"My heart?" Cridhe whispers, a small slither of golden light tugging down the shields around my mind.

Cridhe was...he was the light. Where the shadows could not reach, that was where Cridhe sat. He was the one space in my mind that shone bright and untouched by everything wrong and cruel. His light was the only hope I had left.

"Yes, Cridhe?" I send his way, stopping in front of the mirror.

My hair is matted, charred at the ends. I would have to cut it again. Shorter and shorter each time. Soon, there would be none to cut. Soon it would just, stop growing. The last part of my mother I had with me would be gone.

It is my eyes that looked the worst though. Swollen. Red. Bloodshot. They're still full of tears even with the passing time. So many tears that they now sting from the salty water. So many tears that my cheeks are drenched, drowned. My skin as soft and damp as if I had been swimming in a lake.

Everything that made me Kyna is gone. My bright hair and the soft blue of my eyes. The flush of my cheeks and that bright, confident smile. All gone.

"Are you okay?" Cridhe's back again. And with him, some semblance of warmth comes. Heat. A fluttering that settles the pounding of my heart.

Okay. What did that mean? It had been a long time since I knew what okay was. Since any soul in these walls did. When did okay stop being happy and light and start being broken but surviving? When did we all fall into this endless cycle of pain and death?

When did our lives become theirs?

I was never okay. Even when I was surrounded by the people I loved. Even if everything was working out and everyone else was happy and okay...

I never knew that peace. There was always a wave, a dam in front of all that joy keeping me from it. Maybe it was others emotions. The death around the corner. Maybe it was me.

Maybe...

Maybe I just didn't know what okay was. Maybe I'd never been okay. Just...fine.

"I'm fine." The exact same lie I'd told myself all these years. My mantra.

When my father hurt me. I was fine. When my cousin tried to kill me. I was fine. As I slit his throat. I was fine. When Honey was murdered right in front of my eyes. I. Was. Fine.

I was not broken. I did not struggle or need help. I fixed myself. I pieced every shattered part back together. It was me who stuck them together with threads ready to snap. I did that.