ISKERA
I wake up on the floor, my face pressed against the cold wood. The blood has dried, gluing my hair to the floorboards.
I inhale slowly, trying to orient myself. Gauging from the gentle wind coming from the window, I know it's midnight already.
So… a few hours from now, my own people will drag me to the altar. They'll sacrifice me to appease their goddess.
So long Iskera, I muse, biting my lower lip.
I push myself up next, my ribs screaming in protest. Then I'm aware of a strange, cold fire humming in my marrow. It's the shadow.
It's not just watching now; it's pulsing, an invisible heartbeat beneath my own.
Live, it whispers. Don't die in a cage.
I'm too tired to worry about it, about my mental health, so I let it chant.
I drag myself to the small bathroom attached to the attic. I don't look in the mirror—not yet. I scrub the dried blood from my skin with freezing water.
Every movement is a battle, but the shadow seems to hold my bones together, pushing back the exhaustion.
I don't pretend to understand this. I don't pretend to care. What is the need when I die today?
Still… I think it is right in one thing. I will not live my last hours bemoaning my fate.
I go to my single drawer. Most of my clothes are rags, but at the bottom is an old velvet gown I haven't worn in years. One of Seren's leftovers.
I pull it on. It's too short, the hem hitting mid-thigh, the sleeves tight across my shoulders. It makes me look slutty. I don't care for that either.
I find a tube of black lipstick Seren had gifted me on my fifteenth birthday. I apply it with trembling fingers. Then I darken my eyes with soot until I look like a gothic nightmare.
For the first time, I don't look like a victim. I look like a threat.
"I'm going to die anyway," I whisper to my reflection. "I might as well look like the curse they say I am."
I walk to the window. It's a long drop. Three stories of stone and rose briers. If I jump, I'll break my legs, probably die too, save the elders the trip.
Jump, the shadow urges. Trust the fall.
"No," I murmur, backing away. "I'm not suicidal. I'm just... I just want to breathe."
I ruffled my rough hair. Is the shadow a product of my depression? Like suicidal people do have?
I shake my head and turn toward the door, but it's bolted from the outside.
What to do? There is no other way. I return to the ledge, staring down at the moonlit grass.
I hesitate, my heart hammering—and then, I feel it. A physical shove against my shoulder blades.
I scream as I tumble into the night air, flailing, the wind whipping my hair across my face. I sense death is rising up to meet me.
But then, abruptly, the air thickens.
The shadows from the eaves of the house stretch out, wrapping around my limbs like silken ribbons. My movement slows, the frantic flailing turning into a controlled glide.
I don't fight it… too numb with shock to even try. I let the darkness steer me till I hit the ground on both feet.
I stand there for a moment, stunned, a wild chuckle bubbling up in my throat. What just happened?
No answer. It only swam in my head, in my blood.
All the same… I'm out. For the first time in eighteen years, the Alpha's walls haven't stopped me. The freeness of it is intoxicating, a drug more potent than anything.
So, I don't question the shadow in my mind, nor do I judge it.
I welcome it instead as I move through the almost dark compound, toward the side shed where Seren keeps her sleek, chrome motorcycle—a gift for her sixteenth birthday that she barely knows how to ride.
I push it slowly, my bare feet silent on the gravel, until I'm past the main gates and onto the paved road that leads toward the city. I kick the engine over, allowing the shadow to lead me. For I haven't ridden a cycle in my life.
I smile when it roars to life. Maybe the shadow is a good thing…
"One last night," I hiss, twisting the throttle.
I don't head for the woods. I head for the neon lights of the city, for the clubs where the music is loud enough to drown out fate. If I'm going to die tomorrow, I'm going to get drunk on the world first.
The wind bites at my exposed legs, but for the first time in my life, I don't feel cold. No. I actually feel like a brewing storm.
—-
The air inside The Void is a physical weight, thick with the scent of expensive gin, sweat, and the electric ozone of supernatural power.
The hard bass isn't music alone; it's a reckless heartbeat, thudding against my ribs, syncing with the dark pulse of the shadow beneath my skin.
Again, the shadow seems to choose right. I love what I am seeing.
The lights cut through the haze, turning dancing bodies into a frantic, disjointed blur. I move through the crowd like a ghost finally given flesh.
Men look at me—really look at me—their eyes lingering on my black-stained lips and the defiant length of my legs in this too-short gown.
But that's okay. I don't want a mate. I want to be ruined.
As I dance on barefeet, my eyes seem to search on their own accord, for that one person who will ruin me. Or rather… the shadow was searching.
Yet, for every male that approach me, eyes darting between my lips, eyes, and barefeet, it keeps… I'm not sure… rejecting them?
I don't know how I read its thoughts, but I do, and none of them smiling and wanting to touch me were it.
The shadow finally finds a worthy person at the edge of the VIP lounge, leaning against a pillar of black marble. He looks like a fallen god carved from obsidian. His eyes are a piercing, unnatural silver that seems to see right through my gothic mask.
You sly cat. I muse, checking him out, feeling my insides starting to melt for the second time in two days.
I halt in my shameless preview, when I realise I'm starting to take the shadow as mine, as an other.
Just go on, little vessel. He is already watching you.