War of Shadows

Breaking

Chapter 18

Something is brewing. I still feel it in my gut as I wake and pad to the window to pull the curtains shut, cloaking my room in a dimmed yellow light from the morning sun. A strange fuzzy feeling dances on my finger tips, like a surge of energy just waiting underneath my skin, hungry to have an outlet to be released.

Rolling my shoulders back, I flick the sensation off of my hands and trudge groggily to the bathroom and strip out of my clothing from last night, tossing the linens in the corner of the room. I twist the golden knob, thanking the gods that this place has running water, and hop underneath the rainfall from the ceiling of the shower after it gets as hot as seemingly possible. The steam from the shower causes a cloud of fog to accumulate in the room as I run the soaps through my hair and across my skin. Only my wrists have scarring, which has already begun to calm down into thinner, more subtle white marks on my deep olive skin. Will they always be there, taunting me with the painful memories they hold?

I shut off water and step out, wrapping myself in a thick towel and wipe the dew of the fog off of the large circular mirror in front of the stone-topped sink. A stranger stares back. Her gaze shifts when mine shifts, her hand raises when mine does. Dark shadows flower under her sunken moss-colored eyes, once bright and sharp are now dull and withdrawn. My black hair hangs off my head in limp, wet locks, and my once sunkissed olive skin is dull and dry.

I want me back.

I’ll never be the same, I know that. I want to be stronger than her, so nobody will be able to hurt me like that again. The nightmares won’t stop. Waking up in the dead of night to wet sheets and a damp pillow are too normalized, but I don’t know how to make it stop.

I Hear Eren’s snap echoing through that throne room before being wrestled to the cold floor, screaming for Eli to just help me- Although he never did, he never will.

I see Kertain’s leering, yellowed sneer when he slipped into my room wreaking of ale and vomit. Sometimes, I dream of what would have happened if I had stayed conscious that night. It makes me grateful that I wasn’t awake for it. I’m painfully aware that I wouldn’t have been able to fight him off had I stayed awake anyway and trying to convince myself that I could have done something about it has only led me down a far darker path to think. It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t deserve any of it. I couldn’t have prevented it, but I can prevent it from happening again.

The bond will break today. Today, I will lose my mate. Willingly. I should be upset; I should be yelling, crying and threatening to burn the world down with it but all I feel is a simmering….anger? I don’t know, I can’t quite describe it but it’s there, right below the surface. Waiting.

I’m so tired.