Empire of Bones|| ONC 2024

four| the present

Year 125
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Nerezza

This couldn't be happening.

This couldn't be their first meeting after three years of not even catching a glimpse of him. She turned to where she thought Sëtyr would be but he wasn't there. She turned back to Killian.

He seemed different and yet the same. Her heart still fluttered at the mere sight of him, now mixed with a tinge of longing and sadness.

He had grown taller, his shoulders were broader and his dark curly hair longer with some parts falling into his stormy blue eyes. He had a tattoo that she could see the ending of but couldn't make out what it was. His eyes, once warm and inviting are now cold and indifferent. Expressions that she could read as well as hers were now shut away from her, hidden from her.

His countenance once childish and shy was now confidence-filled.

Nerezza wondered if she would have seen all these changes had they not been separated. She wondered where they would've been now.

He took a step towards her and tilted his head.

"Do we know each other?"

Nez swallowed. His voice, though deeper and more husky, held the same sense of comfort and love that it had always sparked in her.

"Why ever would you ask that question, Cursebreaker?"

She couldn't place the person that asked him the question. She was still staring. Her limbs weren't moving, they weren't moving at all. She kept telling them to move, towards him or away from him, she didn't know. But she couldn't keep standing like this. It would seem suspicious.

Fortunately for her, the Royal Officers helped her out. They dragged her out of the room and into a field known as Barrenlands. Her heart was still heavy with sadness and despair and tears blurred her sight.

With each step she takes, the weight of the realisation that she would never speak and laugh with Killian like before, that she might never be able to just sit near him and count his freckles, pressed down upon her like a suffocating shroud. Her steps falter as she's pushed forward with no mercy.

"Stop that!"

A shadow falls across her path and Nez finds herself face to face, chest to chest with her punisher and best friend. She would laugh at the scenario if it had not been her life.

"Are you alright?" He asked.

"Aren't you going to beat me up soon? What's the use of wondering about that." She replied as she stepped forward and knelt on the barren floor, facing a lean plank.

"I'm sorry." He said.

"Queen's orders" I shrugged.

She closed her eyes as she savoured each whip. She could have iced her entire body to prevent pain but she wanted to feel something worse than the pain running through her veins. With each blow, memories of happy times flash before her eyes- moments shared with the one she loved.

Just as the last whip fell on her skin, she fell unconscious with a stubborn resolve that refused to surrender to the darkness around her surface.

Nez woke up to the sound of bells. A new hour had just begun and she wondered which one it was. Was it the person that she loved? Were they in charge of someone else who was dear to her? Who would it be then? She had only ever cared for Killian so who or what now?

She was bound and helpless, her wrists shackled to the cold stone walls. She couldn't move too much due to her beatings and what it entailed. Move too much and bleed to death. Stay still and bleed to death, albeit less quickly.