Blackfeather Woods dream of a street

@Zafina

things in the forest had changed since astara’s communion with her blood-relatives. she was fiercer than ever in her measures to protect averna, and at night dreamed of cicero and his teeth, improbable as they clamped around the pale alabaster of averna’s throat. 

astara had always thought the forest different — and now she understood why. it was haunted by the spirits that had left it in life — their abominable existences tethered to its blackened heart. and she too, was born of this horrific clade — and now she walked alongside the spirits, instead of simply by them. 

cicero’s shade had disappeared when her mother’s mutterings had ceased that day on the bone dias, but astara still felt his presence rippling in space and time alongside them. the girl understood that something had been lost the day she offered her own blood to the void — and now, the void lived inside of her.