(Book One in the Celestial series)
⚔️
She didn't remember much of her former life---except for perhaps the cool scent of the ocean breeze as it filled her nose, or the hard-set lines of her brother's face, maybe even the tune her mother had used to...
Question: Have you guys been able to see the photos I've been putting at the beginning of chapters? If not I'll put them at the end of this chapter.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"When you cannot look on the bright side, I will side with you in the dark."
ESARA STARED UP AT THE HIGH CEILING OF THE ROOM. She wondered what the purpose of it was. Surely it wasn't functional to make the roof so high, it had to have been hell to clean.
She'd come to the conclusion that it was either to show off wealth, or to give the unnecessary impression that they were not inside.
She didn't like it, the breathing room. She'd spent so long sleeping in small, cramped spaces where rocks dug into her skin that this place felt so...empty. Usually, she could not even hear her own breath over the strangled respire of the people around her.
Yet now, Esara's own breathing echoed around her as though she was in some hollowed out void.
She could not seem to shut her eyes, only finding the strength to stare up at the high marble ceilings from where she layed on the floor. Unable to calm her erratic heartbeat no matter how much she tried to steady her breathing or force her thoughts elsewhere.
Overwhelmed was an understatement as to how Esara felt, and it didn't help that Celaena seemed so ecstatic by the prospect of freedom. Though the girl's had yet to have a moment to speak alone, Esara could see it in the blonde's eyes. The eagerness, the excitement.
And to an extent, Esara shared the feeling. Rationally, she knew this was good. This was great. It wasn't as though she was unhappy.
But...she supposed she could categorize herself as fearful.
She had been pushed into a world of change without so much as a warning, and the black-haired woman could not seem to wrap her head around it all. Suddenly, she was sleeping in a room, and not beneath thick rock. Suddenly she was scrubbed clean after being roughly bathed by brutish servants. Suddenly the wounds on her back, although throbbing, weren't at risk of infection.
Esara had not felt so clean in years, and it felt like someone had just stripped her of her unbreakable armor. She felt bare. Exposed. Even more so when she hadn't even recognized the room she'd been pushed into.
Esara had taken one look at the lush, silk bed and felt her hands had begun to shake. She hadn't so much as even laid in it. No, no, it had been far too daunting a task to even consider.
She had not slept in a bed so lavish for even longer than she had been in the Mines. Ten years perhaps? More?
That had been around the time she and her brother had been left to their own devices, providing for themselves. Two young kids on their own couldn't afford something so extravagant as the room Esara lay in now.
