Aardehn: The Black Veil

I - XIV

Celeste's world went black.

Yet, in her mind she continued to descend.

Tendrils of tight bundled light rose around her falling form. They burrowed and burned into her... but her screams were silenced by them.

Each light had a voice. Each one a song.

The ten become two, sang one.

The toll of the Tokora bell, summons the solemn sentinel, sang another.

On and on the chorus cascaded forth. One writhing riddle after another. Too hard to comprehend. Three times she tried before giving in.

And then... a flash. A thud. A muffled bang... Darkness, then somewhere else.

Celeste walked warily toward her father's one story stonewalled homestead. She swallowed and the sweet taste of strawberries touched her tongue. Her limbs hung long with lethargy. So much training with her father's sword this day. This night. This forever.

She called for him. Her voice was high and young. Hopeful.

A visage of Orrin's oblong form opened the old thatched door. But... his hooded eyes burned when they met hers. The sun sank and the spring sky was banished, suffocated by the frantic buzz of ten thousand black flies.

"No," the fly form of Orrin said. "Another round you wretch!" Its voice twisted like a tyle viper's tongue. "Another practice, you starmade mut! Where is my sword, you shallow, ungrateful slut?" Its mouth curved slowly into a crooked sneer.

"Me?" Celeste managed. Her heart hammered hard in her chest.

"Yes, you!" It spat. "You stand in this body now, betrayer. You, the cyclical savior ready for sacrifice?"

SACRIFICE.

Celeste wretched and the world rotted at that word. Trees turned to tinder. Grass withered colorless and flattened to spirals about her.

She dug her nails in her palms as the fear set in. A barbed hook in her gut. Deep. Deeper she dug into her flesh. The blood dripped from her hands undoing death to any grass it touched below.

She tried to scream a curse, but her mind was mist. Words malformed. She muttered a language long dead to no avail. Madness consuming her.

The fly form of Orrin slid slowly towards her... and Celeste, eyes afire with fear, drove her nails ever deeper.

Through the slab of skin and to her dark skeletal core. Tearing away tissue with a sickening slurps. Until... until... Her black boned hand stood bare, relieved of its false skin.

Celeste stared in horror at what she had wrought. Tainted tears trailed down her cheeks, staining her sweat covered clothes.

The fly form of Orrin went quiet. But its whisper, through death squeezed teeth, came out with a wicked hiss. "All alone. Again and again. We'll smother you like a veil in the night!"

Then black flies bled from Its mouth, a hellish horde, bathing her in a blistering darkness.

She felt it. The truth in its taunts. Between her sobs and the screams, she was alone. Alone, again. The Black Veil choking existence itself. Her bare hands were surely not worthy.

But from behind her came a familiar voice. A soft hand caressed the nape of her neck.

"Would I leave you alone, little dagger? Should I?" 

Celeste awoke gasping for air.