A Court of Wind and Song

9: The Dream

Azriel

I'm back in the darkness again, as all consuming and heavy as it always had been. Leeching into my soul and staining it black, leaving me with nothing left. Nothing but hallucinations of beams of golden light and the vacant humming of my shadows.

And I was not sure if I was within my body anymore, unsure if I had a form or if I had simply fused with the darkness. The absence of all things, the careful unmaking of a soul, the empty pit at the bottom of a cavernous mountain.

And then a match was struck.

My body recoiled on instinct, shrinking away from the glowing orange light, hiding from the laughter, from the feel of oil being smeared along my hands.

My hands, which had never looked like this in my life.

Grown adult hands, large and broad, a warriors hands. And yet, the skin was smooth. Unscarred, clear of the rough edges I had been so accustomed to seeing. It had always been simple fact of my life that it was what my hands appeared as, carefully healed after years of training and growth.

I supposed I had never considered what my hands would look like without the scars. I had wished for it, more times than I could count, but it had never been a reality.

But it was too late to look at them, because the matches had been dropped. There was a flash, an all consuming swallowing of my flesh by the hot whips of the fire.

And then I burned.

I knew this feeling, recognized the screams that left my mouth, was all too familiar with the way it shot through my entire body as my skin was charred. Beyond comparison, a slow melting of my very flesh, a consuming, relentless blaze.

Thoughts poured out of my head, words escaping me. There was just me and this pain, me and these flames.

But then they were gone.

They were gone and I was still screaming, staring down at my hands in the way they had always looked. Not charred or marred with sizzling flesh, but healed and scarred over.

For the fire had come to claim her instead.

And it was real, the image I saw, the pain that came alongside it. It was a memory.

Bound in chains, bruised and bloody, she was screaming. Heart-wrenching, soul- shattering screams that echoed all through the darkness, as if her pain was swallowing it all whole.

And my mate-

My mate.

My mate.

It was worse than seeing my own hands lit with flames, worse than feeling the pain for myself. Because I was watching Leur sob, watching the thing I cared about most shatter as her hands were consumed in flames, watching the pain twist across her beautiful face and hearing the screams of anguish.

I need to get to her, help her, save her.

My mate, my mate.

Please, not my mate.

Anyone, anything but her.

Her suffering did not end, a relentless force that was slowly ripping her apart. As if the fire would just stay, never consuming, only burning with pain. As if it was meant to be drawn out, meant to last as long as possible before nothing remained of those delicate fingers.

Beautiful, delicate fingers curving across piano keys. Scarred now because of me, marking her with the filth that lingered in my soul.

My fault.