Beneath Shadows and Secrets

♔ 𝕿𝔢𝔫 ♔

♔ 𝔑𝔦𝔯𝔞 ♔

Energy finds me as though I have not been deprived of it this whole time. The slap of my heavy feet on the hard floors does not pain me. The way my heart batters my chest does not distress me. My breathing is so controlled, matching the pace at which I drive my arms beside me, barrelling through the corridors. I am seizing this opportunity with every fibre of my being, with a control that I had thought I had lost.

I'm not sure where I am. My sense of direction is skewered, having spent so long locked away. Each path looks the same, but I do not stop to consider my bearings. Each corner I take, I do not slow, even when my body hurtles into walls or furniture. The adrenaline within me is peaked to a point where nothing is a hindrance. Nothing hurts, and my body takes no beatings. My mind is hard wired to escape, by whatever means necessary.

Even the power within me seems to have settled to allow me the focus. No longer does it yearn for release. It hums, almost thoughtfully, prepared to be used, but content with waiting. It will save me, should I need it. However, in this moment, I wish to rely on nothing but my own two legs. The power is too unpredictable, and I have no desire in this moment to become an accomplice in its wrath. It can wait, with this new patience, until I am free. Until I know how to bend it to my will. I survived without it – now, I am nothing more than Daenira, the human girl who fights for her life.

I hear noise from the direction I wish to run, and my heart stops for a moment. I veer left, down the only available corridor, and I almost laugh at the irony of it all. I was a huntress, once for food, and then for Fae, and now I feel like nothing more than prey. Pushing myself to the absolute limit for survival.

A tangled mess of hair streams behind me, my dress too, catches around my thighs. It doesn't stop me, nothing stops me, and nothing will. Not until I escape this place. Abutilon, Vrodora. Zaire.

He promised me that I would go home, and home is not here. I will cut off my ears, and bury my power forever, if it means returning to where I truly belong.

The first staircase is where recognition finds me. I hurry down then, fingers skimming the banister to keep myself steady, though I stumble over the last two as I take off in a sprint once more. This corridor is the one which my room waited. The eggshell walls and four poster bed. Where Sloan taught me the fundamentals of magic, where she nursed me to health from the toxins of the Umbra Demon bite. I pass by the door without a second glance, turning right, where the row of doors remain closed for privacy.

This corridor, where Zaire first hunted me, when he wished to see my skill. The very direction Cenred or Ezekiel would walk me after a morning of strenuous training.

The path I take is second nature.

Right again, until I am rushing past a door, with the heads of Cerburus protruding from it. The office where Zaire made so many empty promises. Where he displayed me like a prize to be won, where he took me against his desk. Where he stood beside me, as though we were bound to be equals.

I do not pause to see if the guard of his door watches my escape. I will be out of the main doors so soon, I can almost taste freedom.

The next staircase is larger, wider, and it pans to the ground floor, where a few Seelie Fae trudge through their duty. They see me running, stunting their tasks, and two even have to dodge me, for I make no plan to deviate from my path. The kitchen, and my old cell is lives on my left. The dining room to my right. The stretched foyer, and the doors to the grounds, before me.

"Nira!" His bellow echoes the entire Court House. Zaire has followed from his office, there is no doubt about that. I spare only the quickest of glances over my shoulder, to look at where he stands, rigid with fury. He is not the sight of someone I might have loved. He is a monster, and at this moment, he looks nothing short of feral.