What a naive little fool.
Death would be a mercy, compared to this.
But Efnysien does not know mercy.
He comes tome eventually, as promised.
Three months, he said?
It feels like three lifetimes.
“Oh, dear,” he calls down to me, voice taunting. “I must say,you’re not looking so well.” He sniffs audibly. “You’re not smelling much better. You must endeavor to take better care of yourself moving forward.”
“Please,” I croak, clawing at the iron walls, singeing the skin off my fingertips. “Please, let me out.”
“So hasty to fly, aren’t you? No, little bird. I think another few months down here is exactly what you need.”
“No! No, wait! Please, don’t—”
The hatch slams shut with finality, plunging my world into darkness.
After that firstvisit, he comes irregularly, his appearances as unpredictable as the water deliveries. Sometimes Melité is there with him, her vicious laugh striking at my heart like a viper’s fangs. Mostly, though, he is alone.
He speaks to me at length during these interludes.
“How many months has it been now, little bird? Eight already? Time does fly when you’re enjoying yourself, does it not?”
Eight months?
It cannot be eight months.
Not that long.
Surely not…
But my grip on time grows as thin as the flesh that covers my bones. The cuffs cloud everything into incomprehension.
“Does it botheryou that they never attempted a rescue?” he asks the visit after that. “Never even tried, your valiant kings. They simply moved on with their lives, leaving you here to rot.”
No.
No, that is not true.
They care for me.
They would never leave me.
They…
I think very hard, trying to pull their names into my mind, and choke out a sob when I cannot quite manage it. My memories are growing threadbare. Gossamer as cobwebs. The longer I spend down here, the more I feel myself unraveling. It is like that time I was lost in the portals.
Oblivion, someone called it.
I can see his face when I press my fingers to my temples and reach deep inside. Blue eyes, dark hair. A smile that could stop my heart in its tracks. I rock back and forth, trying to hold it. Trying to hold him. But he, like the rest, slips away.
The next visitis worse.
“I heard the juiciest news from the north. It seems one of your kings had a rather explosive incident at his court. Catastrophic, if the rumors are accurate. I wonder what set him off…”