Rise of a Queen

Chapter 27

I am not sure any of us were truly living in the moments after the Council's departure. We breathed, and we existed. But could that be constituted as living? We felt the warm air still laced with sweet aromas of burning honeysuckle, we saw flutters of ash drifting aimlessly through night air as the fire began to wane, we heard the crackle of devoured livelihood.

    The stain of grass, the stench of death, a body laying on its stomach with contents of its head scattered all around.

    That was the extent of our existence, only what our senses delivered to our brains in attempts to comprehend what we witnessed and what we now have to come to terms with.

    We survived ... well, some of us survived.

    Dustin held me for a very long time. He waited while I coughed and shivered and gagged. When all of that silenced into shallow breaths, he pulled me closer. He said nothing.

    But immediately after the Count left, Dustin had been hysterical.

    "Throw it up." He had demanded. He guided my face towards the grass, one hand braced on the back of my neck with the other held tightly around my arm, impatient for me to oblige.

    "I tried." I had told him, weakly.

    "Throw it up!" He said louder.

    I watched my fingers curl through grass, digging deep into the dirt below, though it did little to ease the pain that sprouted from my body with no particular origin. It hurt everywhere. My arms, my legs, my throat, my chest, my stomach. Everything felt as though I were burning instead of the demolished house behind us. And the longer I sat there, the worse that pain became.

    "I can't." I had told him and swallowed so hard to clear the taste of blood from my mouth. I was nauseous and I waited for my stomach to empty, but the sensation never came. My body had betrayed me and it held that heavy liquid in my stomach like a stone. Even after I had shoved my fingers down my throat to entice my natural gag reflex, still no relief came. I sank lower against the ground, "I tried but I can't."

    After that, Dustin entered the state he is currently in.

    He sat on his knees beside me, one hand on my back with a touch feather soft and his other resting atop his leg. He stared at me while I searched for composure, he waited while my breaths staggered and eventually evened. No words were spoken between us, and that hurt nearly as much as the Count's assault.

    Then Dustin was on his feet, moving without light in his eyes, like a record on repeat and performing motions without realizing. First he collected Corinth from where she was left sobbing in the grass. He plucked her from the ground and carried her some distance away. Then he returned for me and brought me to Corinth's side.

    We were out of sight from where Bernard had been killed; close enough to see the fire and the dull glow that chased away only enough darkness to protect us from total isolation, but far enough away that the dark figures moving against the light of those flames were without identity as they began regretful chores.

    Beside me, unsteady words were rambled and shaking breaths slipped from tainted lips still dressed in the blood of her uncle.

    "We killed him ... we killed him, we killed him." Tears streamed down Corinth's face, running rivers through the blood splattered over her face and causing the bright scarlet droplets to smear. Her body trembled, barren branches in a brutal wind, and her hands wrapped so tightly around herself that she nearly suffocated from self harm which resulted in her words sounding breathless, powerless, "Forgive us, Lord please forgive us ... we killed him, oh god ... we killed him."