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“Eden!”
Phantom shapes appeared all around the room, filling the darkness. Stone walls crowded me. A chill fogged my breath in the air as I walked through a slim cavern. A constant drip, drip, drip echoed through the space as my feet splashed through darkened puddles. The darkness continued up forever, nothing but uneven walls in dark stone that went on and on. I shimmied through the space.
The scent of witchcraft was heavy in the air, so like demonic magic. It had its own scent. It polluted my nostrils with each breath. It made my lungs feel heavy and I instinctively allowed my magic to seep out to combat whatever effects it might have on me.
Was this Maledictia or Vindicita?
Imani had struck the statue and since my thoughts of trapping her were fuzzy and incomplete, there was no way of knowing whether or not she could be freed by force alone. It wasn’t every day I encased someone in brimstone, forcing them to live in a stone prison. Frozen for eternity. Or until now.
I shook my head at the ridiculous thought.
Imani struck it with a mortal statue. With an amount of force that was laughable in comparison to my strength. Unless she powered it with her foolishness. Or whatever magic they claimed was behind their little relics and lyrics.
Prayers. Eden had said that was what they were.
Would it be enough?
I had to admit I knew nothing of the theology of this place. Perhaps their diety would help here. Were they the intervening kind? Our ruler rarely intervened. Maybe if we did something that would put our world at risk, but otherwise, we were allowed to play or sin as we saw fit.
Maybe it depended on frequency? Imani had been calling to them since I arrived. Willing them to use their power to expel me from this silly world and go back to where I came from. As though they weren’t the ones that bound me here to begin with. With their silly drunken meddling. I was thankful for it now, but her behaviour still vexed me.
A huffed breath left me as I had to turn completely to fit through a tight space.
I’d have to ask Eden about it all when I found her because I was going to find her.
“Eden!”
The space opened and revealed dark and damp steps. Glowing orange stones embedded in the walls barely lit the space in an eerie light. I descended the steps quickly, apprehensive to see just what awaited ahead.
Whimpering called to me.
I hurried my step, anxious to understand just what pulled me from Eden’s home to this place. Once I found that out maybe I could figure out where the rest of the mortals disappeared to.
Eden would want me to figure it out before any harm came to them.
My chest pulled with a different kind of distress at the thought of her pain knowing her loved ones were lost in a place unknown.
The steps ended at a brick wall. They lit from between the cracks and I knew it was a hidden doorway. Vindictia was behind this wall. As was Eden. Without hesitation, I leapt at the bricks and felt a waterfall of magic move over me. It dampened my flesh with sticky frost. My teeth chattered as my head danced and swam, every muscle in my body heavy. Frozen and useless. My knees buckled under me and my palm slapped against the stone floor before I could steady myself.
“There you are.” The voice was one I came to know against my will. “And here I thought you were going to miss this.”
I froze as I looked across the room. Everything was a dull orange in the circular room. The floor was large stone slabs in weird shapes that lit from the spaces between. There was a hole in the centre, like the mouth of a well, and there in the dark space above, knelt Eden. Her arms were stretched out and threads the same hue as the lights and stones wound around her arms and wrists, holding her suspended. The threads were so thin they pressed into her flesh, drawing blood. The same thin threads stretched over the opening mimicking a spider’s web. It sliced into her knees and finally, the sound that echoed through this place since I arrived made sense.
Drip, drip, drip.
Her blood dripped down into the well below.
She looked dazed. Her eyes were pools of unseeing brown. Thick tears sat behind the dam of her lashes as she forced her gaze up to look at me.
Could a heart break when it wasn’t even in my chest? With that single look, it felt like she aimed a hammer at me and ever so gently began tapping away. She didn’t want to fully destroy me, she just wanted to watch the slow path of my destruction.
My throat tightened as emotions strangled me. I didn’t know whose they were. If they were hers or mine. I hoped they were mine because I couldn’t handle the thought that these were Eden’s. I could barely survive them.
If this was what it was like seeing her in pain, I didn’t know what I would do if anything happened to her. If I was forced to feel the agony of something more visceral. My anxiety shot up, filling my chest with electricity that wouldn’t let me settle. It was unnerving. Foreign in a body that hadn’t felt anything like it before marriage. Before Eden.
Vindictia stood behind her with her bare feet firmly planted on the stones. One of her hands was tangled in Eden’s hair, pulling her head back, while the other held a sharpened glowing stone to her throat. Her hair was a mess of tangles and the space around her eyes was so black it made the white haunting. Her lips were the same shade of darkness as they curled up to reveal sharpened teeth.
“Oh, that stench.” Vindictia inhaled the air, a malicious smile on her face. “That rot still clings to you. Subtle. But just enough to make you someone I have a chance against if it were to come to brute strength. Such a silly thought. That an immortal being could be weakened by their mortal afflictions. That her rot could become yours… however briefly, amplified by my magic.” She inhaled again. “Wonderful.”
