Chapter 19 – OtyliaThe silver fox. What have I become? What am I becoming?
SLEEP DIDN’T ANSWER MY CALL THAT NIGHT. I dared not shut my eyes out of fear of the power that had possessed me. The ritual was over, yet I sensed a change within my soul. That alone was enough, but after washing my mouth too many times to count, the taste of iron lingered. Blood always left a stain—this would be no different.
Absent of sleep’s embrace, I wandered into the depths of the warm pool in my chambers.
My body floated with neither dress nor pelt. Each brush of the water against my skin anchored me to reality as my mind drifted. The moonlight slipped through the vines and branches above, barely illuminating the room and making the pool seem an eerie black. The darkness was mine. Alone in its embrace, I w
