Page 107 of Souls We Rip

“Do your knees hurt, Elk? Are your bones aching with the weight of years?” My eyebrows raised, and a smirk appeared on my lips, my foot stomping on his stomach.

A shuddering breath left his mouth, but he pushed me with his mind into the Mirror as retaliation, ruining it. Shards of glass covered my skin, the prickling feeling filtering to my bones.

“You deserve to die, little brother! Your sins are beyond counting!”

I took a piece of glass, the blue swirls from my eyes receding, leaving a pure colour behind. “Sins that YOU made me commit!” I threw the shards of glass at him, specks of blood coming alive through his cape.

“I’ll see to it that her love never reaches you, not in life, nor in death!”

“I already have it! Her love is more powerful than any of your whisperers or commands, brother! But you will never understand that, since you killed everyone who felt something pure for you!”

He roared, and the room turned dark, taking me with him.

“Master, wake up!”

My eyes snapped open, but in the darkness that surrounded me, I couldn’t discern a thing. Pain echoed between my temples, creating a haze in my thoughts.

“Master!” someone shouted on my right, making me wince.

“Andrei?” I whispered, my palms searching the ghost. Once I hit something sticky and a howl of pain crossed my ears, I knew I had found him.

“What happened?” he whispered, his form creating a swoosh in the dark space.

Aware that there might be whisperers, I kept my mouth shut.

“Master, please, answer me!” the ghost whined.

“Where is the child?” I asked instead, hoping that my brother did not do anything to him.

“Asleep,” Andrei answered, his voice shaking.

At least he was oblivious to what was happening.

An idea sparked in my head. “Andrei, you can get out of here, can’t you?” I suggested.

“Yes… I just didn’t want to leave Eugen all by himself.”

“Go! And bring her,” I gave my last command to him.

Neither of us knew if I would come out of this alive.

“Andrei, one more thing,” I called, the pain in my head throbbing.

I felt a light breeze on my cheek, a sign that he had not left yet.

“Thank you for serving me over the past year,” I said, a tear falling down my cheek, the fact that I wouldn’t come alive from this, feeling more vivid by the second.

“It was my pleasure, Tiberius,” he whispered, and then he left, Eugen and me alone in the dark, the whisperers crawling closer to us.

Ana

“Who was that man, Ana?”

My mother watched me like a hawk since Tiberius left. I stood up from my old bed, looking at both her and Angelica. As soon as I stepped into the room, bloodied and relieved, they placed my former attire on the bed.

I complied and changed into a cotton ie, its sleeves as puffy as the clouds of summer, zigzag-patterned stitched all the way to my shoulder, and laced on the fota with the same pattern. Angelica insisted on braiding my hair, pulling it into a crown at the top of my head.

It started snowing, fresh flakes laying a new blanket on the ground. I would have to travel home using my power.