Nura excused herself almost immediately after we left Zeryth’s office, slinking off without so much as a
goodbye. Zeryth gave me a cloth to press against the wound on my forearm, and as we walked down the hall, I watched red blossom through the white fabric. Neither of us spoke.
I was led into a small, sparse, windowless room, white walls upon white floors. Despite the lack of windows, it was brightly lit — how, I wasn’t sure — and only two pieces of furniture sat at its center: two plain beds. On one lay a tall, thin man, perhaps in his fifties, wearing loose grey robes that blended with the bedsheets. He did not move at all.
The other was empty.
It became harder and harder to choke my fear back down my throat. Especially when I followed Zeryth to the center of the room and noticed that the man on the bed had restraints circling his limbs. His eyes stared at the ceiling, glazed over.
Zeryth motioned towards the empty bed. “Lie down.” I told myself that I was not afraid and did as he asked.
I turned my head. The man’s face fell towards me, sightless eyes staring at me without blinking. He was completely limp, one arm dangling over the edge of his bed, his mouth hanging slack and parted.
Zeryth leaned over me. The ceiling was so starkly bright that it silhouetted him. “I’m going to be honest with you, Tisaanah. This is going to hurt like hell. But I promise that you’re not going to die, even if it feels like it.”
Well, that was comforting.
I nodded, even as I flicked my eyes towards the man lying next to me and wondered if whatever he was qualified as “not dead.”
Zeryth stood between the two beds and took the man’s limp forearm, pushing up its sleeve and revealing scars on top of scars on top of scars. Then he reached to his belt and produced the dagger. It was still damp with the remnants of both our blood. He did not hesitate as he opened another slice along the unconscious man’s arm, leaving a streak of red.
I watched the man’s cloudy eyes twitch, only just, just enough that it might have been an actual reaction, and my stomach vaulted.
Then Zeryth reached for me.
He removed the cloth that I still held pressed against my arm, laying it neatly beside me on the bed.
“Sorry about this,” he said, and I winced as he widened the gash in my forearm.
His eyes flicked to me, and for a moment, we just looked at each other. “Are you afraid?” he asked.
“No,” I lied.
He let out a small laugh, as if it were that obvious that I was not telling the truth. Then he rolled his head, releasing a shudder of cracks in his neck. “Ascended, I’m not warmed up for this. On three. Ready?”
I wasn’t, but I nodded. “One. Two.”
And I know — I know — that he didn’t say three before the world went white, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe.
Pain raked through the insides of my veins, my muscles, my eyeballs, as if creatures with razor-wire fingers were
dragging themselves through me. I managed to lift my head just enough to look at my arm, perched in Zeryth’s fingers. I wondered if I was hallucinating when I saw the vicious tendrils of red and black spiraling from my seeping flesh, rising into the air like hair floating underwater. Melding with the crimson silver from the man’s own limp arm.
The bright whiteness — the nothingness — of this room assaulted me, choked me. I felt as if my organs were being peeled apart and reassembled inside out.
I didn’t realize that I was screaming until I noticed that I couldn’t hear anything and that my throat was raw.
I had only one thought: that Zeryth had to have lied to me.
Because this could not be anything but death.
My head lolled. My vision blurred. My screams faded as my throat lost its grip on my voice, even as it still grabbed it with a toothless bite.
And the last thing I heard before I slid into blinding darkness was a voice whispering, with manic repetition, Home, home, home, home.
Home.
