I knew who this was… I just couldn’t tell you their name.
I tried to call out, their name right on the tip of my tongue, but all that was emitted was a raspy squeak. I couldn’t find my voice, and it was so goddamn frustrating that I felt like hitting my head against one of these trees. I needed something to break me from this state. Something to jog my memory.
When the next vicious howl sounded, it was from further away, and I desperately tried to let out some type of noise, needing them to hear me. To not abandon me. To come help me. I knew they were looking for me, and they were going the wrong way! I was so goddamn terrified that they would leave me. That they’d never come back and leave me to slowly bleed out in the snow. Was that possible? Was this going to be my end?
Electricity ran over my skin as I screamed, tears streaming down my face as my father laughed softly. I could barely see out of my swollen eyes from the well-aimed kicks the guards laid, but in the corner, I could see Victor hitting his head against the wall. Why wouldn’t he help me? I let out another scream, not even caring that my father was laughing as he got not only my magic but continued to get a sick, sadistic thrill from the torturous treatment.
“How have you not died yet, sweet girl?” my father mused, his eyes appearing above me. “Is it because your spirit hasn’t broken? That won’t do.”
I didn’t fully understand what he meant until I was knocked out and woke back up in my cage, restrained once again, a soldier watching me from the entrance, looking amused. Almost instantly, my wings bent around me protectively as I looked around at the wires and electric cords that were connected to different pieces of me. I followed them towards a large, gritty machine that the soldier stood next to.
“Your father wants me to break you, but I don’t think it will be that easy, now will it?” he purred. “You are going to scream and cry, pretty little bug, but you and I are going to be together for a long time to come.”
That was when he turned on the electricity, sending thousands of volts through me all at once. I didn’t pass out. I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I found myself completely escaping into a sense of numbness, rage coating my need to one day kill him. Kill my father.
One day.
My muscles groaned as I struggled to stand, the blood-soaked earth underneath me like a crimson stain of death against the winter scene. I would not be distracted. I couldn’t stop the vivid memories, but fuck—I would not let it end me.
My eyes flickered shut as everything swarmed around me dangerously. Blood trickled down the back of my neck, and I briefly wondered why I wasn’t healing. I was bleeding out, and I didn’t understand how that was possible. How any of this was possible. Why had my magic abandoned me? Where had my familiars gone? I knew if I looked, my tattoos would be absent. I’d bet money on it.
Why wasn’t there anyone else looking for me? Who had I expected to come after me, exactly?
I didn’t have anyone, and I knew that.
Feeling determined to stay upright, I swallowed down the bile as I made my way to the first tree nearby. I gripped the freezing, icy bark, not minding the bite of cold, as I heard a snarl from somewhere close. Hope surged through me as I looked around eagerly.
A small sound of defiance broke from my throat at the weird, strangling hold this place seemed to have on me. I refused to give up.
I had survived so goddamn much. Torture. Imprisonment. I wasn’t about to die from a head injury or hypothermia. Absolutely fucking not. The anger that surged through me was hot and melted some of the numbness over me, but unfortunately it also brought the pain that I’d been avoiding.
Almost as if sensing and backing down from my determination, the wind quieted, and the snarl nearby cut off. Everything went absolutely silent. No creatures. No wind. Absolutely nothing. A chill of apprehension rolled over my spine as I felt a dark energy pulse across my skin, attempting to force me to my knees.
I bared my teeth and gripped the tree harder, unable to accept the notion of kneeling for someone I didn’t know. Someone I didn’t respect. I hadn’t knelt for Mario, and I wouldn’t kneel for this invasive power.
Then it was gone. Lifted by a soothing feminine voice infused with power. A weird calm took over my frame, protectively coating me, and my pain was temporarily lifted, causing me to let out a ragged breath of relief.
“Maize, you need to wake up. Now.”
I opened my mouth, not expecting words to come out, but a croaked response slipped from my lips. “Who the fuck are you? Where are you?”
There. Those were goddamn questions.
Instead of seeing anyone, a dark, almost black mist infused with sparkles surrounded my ankles as a firm, small hand pressed against the back of my head. I cried out, feeling fingers brush inside the open wound. I felt like someone had taken an axe to the back of my head, and this creature, this woman, was sticking her hand in it. I swore as her fingers were replaced by the cool energy I recognized as magic, the process of healing moving far quicker than normal. But with it came some of the pain I’d tried to block out, filtering through my system like a wave.
Oh fuck. How was I even up right now?
“They tried to kill you.” she snarled once again, a figure appearing in front of me. I tried to rear back, but I was held in place as I stared in shock at the woman staring me in the eye. Dark eyes flashed underneath a dark hood as she cupped my jaw. “I woke to you knocking on my door. They sent you to me! Me! You let them. You must fight them, Maize. If you are going to win this, you have to fight.”
“Who tried to kill me?” I demanded, tears streaking thickly as the pain intensified, my entire body trembling as I felt bile rise in my throat. I was going to throw up or pass out. One of those.
My body shuddered as two firm arms wrapped around me, a cool hand petting my hair in an almost maternal way, as a sensation pulsed in my chest telling me that I was close to death. For the first time in my life, I was actually in fear of my own mortality. I wanted to live. That much was clear. I had been freed. I wanted to live.
It would be a cruel fucking fate for me to die now.
You’ve been through so much, though… maybe this was how things were supposed to be. Maybe you were never meant to survive the treatment Mario served. Never meant to escape. Give into it.
“Wake up!” the woman demanded, making my eyes snap open as she shook me. “I have important plans for you, Maize. You are needed in this realm, so wake the fuck up.”
A gasp broke through me as a lightning bolt seemed to hit my chest, electrifying me as I felt stars explode in my vision, my body slumping against the tree. I let out a sob, gripping onto the tree as the woman’s magic disappeared, leaving only the pain from my healing injury. The wind picked up, and I struggled to force myself to push forward, moving from one tree to the next.
I didn’t know where I was going, but I couldn’t stay here.
I needed to wake up, whatever the fuck that meant. It was an order I couldn’t ignore.
My steps were shaky, and walking became harder the further I pushed, past tree after tree. After a few moments, I began to notice small, delicate black butterflies appearing in my peripheral. They didn’t seem to exist within the real world, though, because they floated, not affected in the least by the chilled wind. I didn’t realize it at first, but they were almost leading me in my path, appearing more in front of me than next to me as time continued, and I was trusting them, which was probably not the smartest idea. Maybe it was the blood loss…