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I was shaking uncontrollably, and an anguished cry left my lips of its own accord.
“Sprite?” Ruslan was by my side in an instant, filling my nostrils with his cedarwood scent. I opened my eyes to see the panic in his own, and without thought, I reached for him, needing his warmth and comfort.
“What’s wrong?” he asked gently against my hair, smoothing it down my back in soothing strokes.
“I-I-I’m not okay,” I stuttered out through sobs that felt like they would never end.
How could I have thought I had a handle on this?
His arms tightened around me, providing pressure, warmth, and stability to my unmoored state.
Sobbing, hiccuping, gasping, the waves of emotion crashed through me, and I panted out everything I was feeling, needing to free myself from the burden of my thoughts. “I can’t do this. I’m so scared. Why is this happening to me? I don’t want - I don’t want this. I can’t, I can’t… It’s all so much. The choice. The feelings. I don’t want to feel anymore. I’ve hurt so much for so long, why is this my life? Why can’t it be easy? Haven’t I suffered enough?”
Ruslan said nothing, allowing me the space I needed to feel.
But I didn’t want to feel, not when every emotion was like a stab to my soul, more painful than any whipping I’d ever received.
“Please, make it stop… I hurt so badly.” My voice cracked and shuddered as I begged someone, anyone, to hear me anddo somethingabout it. Because I was not okay, and I was powerless to it.
Grief burst from the depths of my pain, so acute that it was as if someone stuck their finger in the raw wounds that had once flayed open my back, and twisted it.
I grieved for the loss of my friends – Kriztof’s jokes, Zekari’s kindness, Kirigin’s silliness.
I grieved for the loss of Cazius, who treated me with nothing but the utmost respect.
I grieved for my mother and her suffering at the hands of King Zalan.
I grieved for Ithuriel, my father who lost his wings for wanting to be with his mate.
I grieved for Ruslan, forced to fight and kill for his place at the Iron Realm.
But most of all, I grieved for myself.
For growing up without love and safety. For doing what I had to do to survive the cave. For my identity and power being stripped from me. For not knowing my name or what I looked like until I left. For believing everything I was told because Kazimir showed me kindness for the first time in my life. For a life filled with one impossible decision after another.
I was not okay.
My empath magic had opened up a rawness in me I hadn’t begun to process, or comprehend, and I knew, deep down, that this pain wouldn’t go away until I felt every last drop of it, and let it go.
Kazimir’s cruel comments had been the key that unlocked the floodgate and left me shattered on the bathroom counter, breaking so violently in Ruslan’s arms I wasn’t sure I could ever piece myself back together. I hated Kazimir for it, just a little.
Would I ever be okay again?
The pain felt infinite, as if the time I sat there had no beginning and no end, and this would be my existence forevermore.
“It hurts… it’s too much. It’s too big, I can’t handle it on my own. I can’t do this, Ruslan, I can’t do this.” My nails dug into his back and I pulled him as close as I possibly could, the sobs wracking my entire body, despite his firm embrace. My cries echoed off the walls around us with the force with which they left my body, barely muffled by Ruslan’s chest.
“I’m so sorry, my sprite,” Ruslan murmured, puncturing my thoughts and grounding me into his arms again. “You don’t deserve this pain, to hurt like you are. I would gladly take all of it on, for you.”
If only it were possible to transfer the wounds on my soul to another; but I would never give them to Ruslan, whose soul was just as scarred as my own.
“Please,” I begged, though I wasn’t sure what for. I only wanted the pain to stop.
“You are safe, here and now, with me, Izidora. I’ve got you,” Ruslan replied, beginning to gently rock us back and forth.
Tears carved paths down my cheeks as he hummed a tune I didn’t know, and my mind latched onto it,anythingto slow the tide of emotion still washing through me. His heart beat strongly against my ear, and I listened to that too, trying to anchor myself amid the storm that raged within.
“You are safe,” Ruslan repeated, then returned to his song, creating deep rumbles in his chest to soothe me.
