sickness swept over her like dark waves against pale shores. almalexia dreamt of her islands. in her waking hours she was silent. she turned gaunt even as her body began to contort to accommodate new residents.
solitude became akin to drowning. only the presence of her captor quieted the endless surge of agitation. disintegration; the only word for what the prophet experienced in the silence of this den. day by day, she fell to pieces.
but she would not bow to him.
A hint of scent was all that Moss needed.
While it meant leaving her post as guardian behind, she chanced it. A wide patrol grew wider still, until she traipsed South like a heavy soldier. She could still smell the Kvarsheim man in the area as well- which provoked suspicion, but he was not her target.
She knew she could be venturing headlong into a trap- perhaps the two had some sort of arrangement and were simply waiting for her to take the bait- but the satisfaction of putting the witch to the stake was too tempting to shuck.
The scent of Germanicus led to an earthy den, thick with the scent of the odd-eyed spell-caster. Moss did not hesitate- the woman was already in her own grave, as far as Moss was concerned. The thought of burying her alive appealed to the giant guardian, but she suspected the woman capable of some form of resuscitation-
She entered the den, blocking the entrance from view and shutting out the light with her frame. Pupils dilating, she snarled into the darkness.
if you are not quiet, the wolves you wronged will find you.
ah, but she had been quiet; so deathly quiet, as all things are when left to rot in some dark corner. yet they came for her. a woman this time, a pale avenging demon. she blocked the light, and as they were both thrown into shadow the prophet understood that it was her own death which stared unflinchingly from the den entrance.
if the spirits stirred, almalexia could not hear it from the muffled muted dark of this imposed silence.
words poured from her. remembered words; the last she had ever heard uttered by her beloved wispmother.
iksā va moriot lēda nyke mephala,
she uttered it as a prayer, knowing not what it meant. what almalexia sought now was connection in her final moments: to the woman who had been mother before all else, as almalexia had thought she herself would be.
va moriot kesīr naejot tourment nyke syt ñuha past.
a growling tone to her words. rage, for the lives she would not bring into this world, and for the future already in the process of becoming lost to her.
Just as soon as her eyes adjusted to the dark, and she caught the mismatched glint of ocean and sunshine, words reached her ears. They were jumbled and wrong, spoken with a voice both thick and dry.
Her pupils narrowed; she saw only the eyes staring back at her as darkness crowded around, sending a pulse of tightness into her chest.
”Witch!” She barked into the darkness, and shook her head. She snarled, when something that felt like a hot knife slipping between her ribs. When the words came again, the intensity rose- and she felt the pain sear through her chest, spreading into her jaw.
”WITCH!” She bellowed, as she stumbled back out of the den, cracking the back of her head off the entrance and causing a few rocks to tumble down.
The tightness in her chest felt suffocating. She ambled drunkenly away from the den’s mouth as she struggled for breath, not knowing it was a pulse that her body lacked. Within a matter of steps, she faltered and fell to the ground, tumbling hard down a knoll.
She slammed against a stone, hard enough to break her ribs- simultaneously knocking her unconscious and restarting her failed heart at the same time.
all at once the spirits answered her prayer.
in whispers, in shrieks, in the sanguine song of abrupt agony and rage.
her assailant fell.
the prophet did not linger to question her change of fortune. limping heavily, she ran. adrenaline fueled her now, a heady mix of fear and her own burning fury. her islands, her islands!
she would not be kept from them.
not even by death itself.