Rise of a Queen

Chapter 17

Another beautiful aesthetic! Maybe it's just because I'm obsessed with Corinth, but I'm also obsessed with this ^^ and I feel like it describes her character perfectly! Let me know your thoughts!

Now enjoy!

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Everything is so hot. So unexplainably fevered, so intensely scorching.

    And so unimaginably painful.

    My first awareness was the magma churning around my leg, blistering my skin and charring my bones until only febrile rubble remained. It was that agony that first pulled me from my unconscious state and it was that same agony which kept me from slipping back under the dark waves of sleep. I could feel my body aching and hear my joints cracking. A dull throb with every heartbeat, a scathing sting with every breath, and a ferocious nip persistently spearing at my leg like famished leeches filling gluttonous bellies with my blood.

    The pain was so extreme, voracious in its desire to obliterate me, and it caused my eyes to crease tighter as if that might lessen the affliction currently bombarding my every nerve.

    "Sadie?" A small voice asked just before their light touch landed on my shoulder. They tugged so gently at what remained of my shirt and their voice lost volume, they sounded so sad, "Sadie, can you hear me?"

    My eyes rolled open.

    The room was blurry and though the light was dim, it was too bright for my eyes to receive. I blinked hard to clear my vision from the haze that diffused my surroundings into faded hues and wisps of color, but the longer I blinked the less I saw. Whether it be from the light or my pain, my sight clouded and glistened, coated from excess liquid over my irises.

    "Sadie?" Discreetly tenacious and carefully insistent; how could I refuse?

    My head toppled sideways and my vision sharped, spying who had been addressing me. And from where I lay, my eyebrows drew together in confusion.

    "Corinth ... why are you naked?"

    Her bra clad chest pitted inward with a hefty sigh of relief and she threw herself onto my upper body, wrapping her arms snuggly around my neck as she squealed in my ear, "Thank you sweet baby Jesus, you're finally awake! Don't ever scare me like that again, ever! Do you understand me? I thought you were going to die!"

    My arms dropped weightlessly around her back and landed on bare skin. Still too stuporous to comprehend, I merely let her lay on top of me while I battled the foggy gorge layered over my thoughts, "Yeah, okay, I'm sorry. So, uh ... what's going on? And where is your shirt?"

    She sat up but kept her hands on my shoulders and motioned towards my leg, "I didn't have anything to wrap your leg with and you were losing too much blood. So I had to improvise."

    I sat up on my elbows and looked down over my body.

    There were a lot of cuts. I didn't realize how many until I saw them all scabbing over, drawing fissures over the surface of my body and smudged by my drying blood. My lower half was even worse. Corinth's shirt was swaddled around my leg, catching most of the blood that ran down my thigh in bulbous droplets. The cloth itself was soft but it was tied unbearably tight, applying pressure while also acting as a minor tourniquet. My leg was sore, my toes tingled, and reduced circulation caused my skin to go pale.

    Have I mentioned that it hurt?

    Because it really fucking hurts.

    And the longer I stared, the greater my pain became. So I blinked back the sting at my eyes and focused my attention elsewhere. Which wasn't hard, considering a half naked Corinth was perched beside me.