Kura walks into the prisons, waving airily at the guards. Ode made sure they'd recognize her, the spiky-haired, gray-eyed girl with the piercings. The death goddess was oddly protective of her mortal subjects lately. Probably guilt-ridden from having so many witches and mortal palace guards die in the Matriarch's ambush, slaughtered out of pure malice.
The building's in Rahasian style, one of the uglier ones, color of rust and clay. Squarish, with simplistic arched doors, a squatter style. The infamous Pit, however, is housed in a space devoid of light. The worst of the prisons, where inhabitants often go mad by the constant dripping of water down the slick walls. Rats skitter about in the darkness. An iron grate casts shadows against the bottom of the circular enclosure, seemingly hundreds of feet deep. Kura peers over the side.
Sees the figure at the bottom of it, feeding bits of untouched garlicky naan to the rats. Brown eyes and skin, dark braids pulled tight. Half her face welded with metal, a breast lit with the inner fire of a forge. The Godkiller, fashioned by an unwilling Alchemist.
Soleil...
Turned into this, a mechanical monster. Half-metal. Half-woman.
But maybe she always was a monster, blinded by her need for revenge.
"He lives?"
Kura knows what Soleil means by this. It's the first thing on her mind whenever Kura visits. Kura should've stopped giving Sol the pleasure of asking the question. It's quite possibly the only thing on her mind these days.
"Yes, Kane still struggles on."
Sol fiddles with the naan in her hands, tearing another doughy bit for the rats, claws skidding on her metal body. "Pity."
Kura pulls the grate back, tucking her eye amulet securely beneath her vest. She lowers a knotted rope, the ties serving as foot and handholds, then secures it to a nearby hook.
And then, as she has for the past three days, Kura descends.
When Kura's feet thud at the bottom, Sol looks up. She stands, manacles still around her ankles and wrists. Kura takes in a breath as Sol opens her arms, futilely stopped by the chains.
Did she mean to hug me or strangle me?
"My father will come back for me. He'll tell the Matriarch, and it'll all be right again." Sol stares at Kura, eyes not seeing much. Eyes thinking on something else. Plotting.
"Cato doesn't know you exist." Kura doesn't have time to coddle Sol. Her patience ran out when the light in Sol's eyes did, so broken by all this isolation in the Pit. Ode intended for the Pit to have Sol confess, to reflect on her crimes.
Instead, her resolve only strengthened, craving revenge all the more.
"If Kane didn't lock him away..."
"Don't you get it?" Kura's voice bounces off the damp, curved walls. Her throat feels raw from screaming, but still she goes on. "The past three days, all you've talked about is Kane. Your father. Revenge. What about me?" Kura pauses, realizing how whiny it sounds, and amends. "What about us?"
Sol looks at Kura then, really looks at her, and moves to caress her face.
Kura scuttles back into the darkness, nimble, free whereas Sol isn't. "Don't touch me."
"Yes, it's best I don't." Sol mutters, staring at her hands, the axe in her arm. "Every time I close my eyes, I think of the scouts' bodies. How easily I killed them. Just flesh. How easy, following orders for the Matriarch." Sol grins, a stray hair shadowing her eyes, that damning grin that got her every girl in Lune. They'd fear her now. Kura did. "Revenge. A simple story. Father betrayed by uncle. Me betraying uncle in turn. What does it mean?"
Soleil slams her axe into the walls. The blade skids off in the Pit. Kura looks and sees how her wrist bends awkwardly, broken. Heals again.
Sol breaks it again.
It heals.
Broken.
Heals.
The sight sickens Kura.
"I'm just a weapon now, just an extension of my axe. If I touched you, you'd dissolve away." Kura sees them then, the tears that fall down half Sol's face, marring the streaks of dirt that clump over what's left of her flesh. "Dissolve. Dissolve. Like bodies broken in the desert. Just another nightmare."
Sol raises her hand again, to break it...
...but Kura lashes out just in time to stop the pattern from repeating itself.
"Ode wanted me to monitor your progress, find when you're suitable to be reintroduced into society. I won't bullshit you. You're still far from it, Soleil." Sol looks up, hope glimmering when she hears her name on Kura's lips. "But let's cut a deal."
It feels comfortable, familiar, falling back into her con-artist's sales-pitch drawl. "I'll help you find Cato if you agree to save Rahasia and stop trying to murder Kane."
Soleil turns around then, leaning down to kiss Kura, twining her fingers through her short hair like she used to, pausing only to mumble between breaths. "Deal. Deal. Deal, you crazy, wonderful girl. You've got yourself a deal."
It sure as hell wasn't perfect.
But it was a start.
***
Pirates,
Seems Kura and Sol have finally, truly reunited.
D'aww.
Also thanks for dealing with the late update schedule. I'm all safe from traveling, fam.
-Sophia
DU LIEST GERADE
A Pirate for the Dead Goddess (Legends of Rahasia Book 2)
Fantasy"Farzaneh..." I pull her to me, flinching when my sleeve rolls back, her eyes drawn to the markings. On my bare skin's a map revealing a different tattoo, one for every person I killed. I hate looking at the running tally of tattoos on my body. It r...
