Beneath Shadows and Secrets

♔ 𝕰𝔩𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔫 ♔

"I do not know what your home looks like." I snap, moving to pull away. Her hold does not lessen, and she pins me with a fierce stare. Her composure is in no way as aghast as mine, but I can see it in her face, she is as desperate to get away from this place as I am.

"You don't need to know. You only need to want it." There lies the problem. I know where her home is; the Night Court, within resides Lord Calix. He, who I have no trust for, not after our short few exchanges, and the knowledge of others dislike that poisons this Realm. There is no promise that my arrival there will be met with warm welcome, and every chance that I could be escaping one prison to find myself in another. "You're testing my patience, little huntress, darling." Libitina drawls, fangs flashing through a lethal grimace.

I meet her with a hiss of my own. "I do not trust that there is the asylum I seek."

"Perhaps not. However, I doubt you will find much help anywhere else, and I owe you a favour. I am many things, and a demon of my word is one of them." She tells me. I move to argue, but a thud of noise off in the distance stalls me. Zaire has driven his power into the ground of Abutilon, with frustration it seems, and lashings of the earth rain from the sky, falling upon the tree that has been uprooted and tipped.

"You must have made him quite mad." Libitina taunts, but I see the way her features tighten with anxiousness. She wants to go. Now. As do I.

I beg that the nausea settle for me to focus, that the ache of power in my chest stay dormant for a short while longer. Over and over in my head, I repeat the name of the place I wish to travel to. I tell myself that I wish to go there, that I need to Scere now. Nothing happens, if the dull thud of my head is to be discounted. I still feel Libitina's hands gripping my forearms and refuse to be met with the sensation of tingling, prickling pain.

"Whenever you're ready." The demon goads, and I fist my hands to hold from punching her. I think it over and over, the voice of my consciousness whiney with plea, a desperation that trembles my whole body. Nothing comes, and I feel the bubbling of a frustrated groan rise to my throat. My head pounds under the strain, forcing my body to commit to something I am not even sure it can do. Forcing it to submit to new power that it is unprepared for, that is too wild and untrained for it to manage.

I'm failing, and it will be my downfall. Libitina's too. My mouth parts, dry and filled with a horrid taste, a mix between blood and bile. I prepare to tell her I cannot do this, that there must be another way, but as my eyes flick open, a voice calls my name, laced with recognition.

"Daenira!" Zaire shouts, and before my name completely parts from his tongue, my body buckles with that fleeting agony once more, my senses extinguished until there is nothing but pain, and then nothing but the weight of exhaustion.

Libitina drops her hold of me, panting herself, and I crumble to the floor. My eyes close, the light around me only worsening the pain in my head. My back still throbs with residual pain, and my stomach clenches around nothing, as though prepared to vomit once more. I do not even know for certain if we have made it to safety, away from Zaire's clutches. Yet, there is a difference here that inclines me to hope. The air smells different. Less heavy with the scent of foliage, but more moist and earthy. The ground is harder, unlike the grass I knelt on before, but gritty dirt. I cannot bare to collect myself to see if such is true.

Still breathless, Libitina speaks. "Could have taken us a little further, but I suppose this will do." I pant, pushing myself to my hands and knees.

"Where are we?" I ask her.

"Right on the boarder of the Night Court."

♔

Scering drained me. The events of the past hour too. My body is heavy with exhaustion, so much so, that Libitina had to alleviate my weight, wrapping an arm under my own so she could all but drag me.