Wailing Woman

Prologue

Somebody desperately needs her help, but if Freyja is to do what's needed, she'll have to give up everything she is and ever has been; she'll have to shed her fragile skin and become the force she promised her mother to never reveal.

She'll have to become the Banshee of legends.

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The violent pounding of my head became apparent as my eyelids fluttered.

What happened? Where am I?

I groaned in quietly as my head continued to throb, the pain intensifying with the minuscule movement.

I sucked in a quick breath, fighting nausea that stirred in my stomach as I caught a waft of the air around me. A wicked rank coated everything around me, worse than the time my apartment became infested with black mold. I blinked back tears as an uneven cobblestone floor came into focus.

After a few moments, the fog that laid over my mind slipped away, and I gagged as my senses caught that rotten scent again. I took a short, quick breath through my mouth, examining the walls of dirt and...blood around me.

That's what the scent I'd caught was, blood. Thick, festering blood and flesh. I swallowed, praying to the gods that they would give me strength.

But upon the wall in front of me, I could make out darker lines and jagged edges of what looked like bars.

Like on a cell?

I made to stand up and try and figure out where I was, only to be stopped by thick, cold bands of ice circling my limbs. I jolted back against the solid chair, my eyes catching the glinting chains of metal that wound down around what felt like a splintered, wooden chair and into the filthy cobbled floor beneath me.

My heart rate picked up as I realized that I was chained to the ground.

I was trapped. I was pinned down, and I couldn't move.

My entire chest convulsed forward, ripping and pulling against the biting iron, tiny whimpers ringing out from my throat.

My whole body began to seize, terror like no other racing through my mind as I fought to remember how I got here.

I grunted as my shoulder sang with agony, popping and tearing at the strain.

Just as the rusted metal began to give, slowly unhinging from the stone it was screwed into, it came to a firm halt. There were a hundred years worth of dust and dirt keeping it stuck tight.

My heart rate tripled in pace as I tried once more to snap the cuffs, letting out a silent scream at the fire that lashed across my wrists.

Blood. I was bleeding. The jagged, uncut steel had easily sliced through my fragile skin and into the muscle of my arm.

My breath quickened, panic flaring as I realized that whoever had put me here was bound to see the blood on my wrists. There was no doubt in my mind that they would be unnaturally suspicious when they saw my unscathed hands, the fresh pink skin that lay underneath the caked blood.

My heartbeat sped up as I fought the urge to scream out in frustration, knowing that wouldn't help me at all.

Cover the evidence. It was my mother's voice, some distant memory of her floating in through my subconscious. 

I felt tears build up in my eyes, but I refused to cry. Not right now. I gently, carefully bent my body down, holding my breath as I began to lick the fresh blood off my wrists. This time, I couldn't fight back, and I choked. My stomach convulsed, and I dry heaved, unable to handle the taste of my own blood.

I felt a few, solitary tears build up and roll over the sides of my cheeks as I leaned over, erasing all evidence of my somewhat unnatural healing.

I managed to choke back the bile that threatened to leave my stomach this time.

I leaned back, part of my control snapping as I finally let go, silent tears pouring down my face. I had done everything right. I had done everything the way my mother taught me. Yet, here I was.

I remember walking down the sidewalk in the dark, headed back to my half-decent apartment after a quick run to the store for some ramen noodles and fresh greens.

That's when the memory hit me, right before the world had fallen out from under my feet, a sharp pinch had radiated through my neck.

So one thing was for sure, I had not come here willingly.

I jolted, my heart falling as the horrendous sound of metal denting metal sounded, several voices floating through the air and to my ears.

I quickly shut myself up, not allowing any more tears to escape my eyes. Now was not the time for weakness.

I noticed that the closer those faceless voices came, the more apparent the chaos in my head became. Just the latest manifestation of my abilities. It had been happening more and more frequently ever since my twenty-first birthday, some part of it having triggered whatever cursed abilities I had locked away in my head.

The closer those tinkling voices slithered, the more confusing my thoughts became, the more wildly intersected the wires in my head became.

But, I fought back, imagining myself building up a wall in my mind, brick by brick by brick.