Fate and Destiny (The Fated Series, #2)

Chapter 24 - Hiraeth - Hope

Don't worry your head, rest it. You'll need the strength soon enough.

Then there's that. She keeps mentioning that something is going to happen that I'll need to be ready for, and yet I can't help this feeling that no one's coming. It's been far too long – from what I can tell – and no one has come yet. So why now? Why, after all this time, would they just now come for her? She was perfectly defiant and lively during the first few days, and though she broke not long after without having been touched, there was still someone worth saving then too. There is now, it's just...less of her.

The Eternal has yet to show again, which means she has to be remembering things from her past. If only she'd speak to me. If only she'd answered when I asked her about her family and friends. If only, if only, if only...it's all I'm saying now. Things are making it harder and harder to hold onto hope, and every time I think that some of it filling me up, something else takes it away.

Now I really am tired of all these thoughts in my head.

I stuff the last piece of cheese in my mouth and crawl over to Kallisté's side. The nice thing about having the water wolf around is that she provides comfort to keep me in a deep sleep. I curl up against her ribs, tucking my legs close to my own, and close my eyes to try and force myself asleep.

Everyone always thinks of water as cold or room temperature but settled against her, she somehow warms her body, making it feel like I'm laying before a hearth. I can never tell if it's the warmth I've been missing since being locked up in here, or if it's simply just her, but sleep comes easier and without the nightmares of her screams echoing into a void I can't find a way out of.

*****

I wake to the feeling of something cold nudging my legs. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I find Kallisté staring back at me with soft lavender eyes. I'm not sure how long I've slept, only that I wish I could curl back up and sleep another day. My body sure as Saints wants to fall back into peaceful oblivion. Waking up has become the new challenge in my days, followed shortly by bad things.

The ice on the door cracks and melts and I take that as my cue to stand and prepare to be dragged downstairs to watch yet another session of the girl getting beat. I do try and watch where Kallisté walks to so that I can later try and find that secret entrance she was talking about, but she mutes whatever bioluminescent she carries before taking a step, once again leaving me to blink through the blackness.

There are the sounds of the locks turning and then light floods in, making me blink rapidly again. I pick up my small bag, causing the contents to clink and clank against one another like a bell ringing the time, though I tend to think of it as the reaper's summoning call.

The guard silently leads me down the stairs and into the girl's cell. He follows closely behind only in case I trip and fall or my own legs finally give out. It's happened a few times in the mixed hours of the passing days. My body is weak and it's only just begun its slow start into recovery with a few pieces of food. I know the recovery time alone that it'll take me to get back onto my feet with a full tank of energy, and I so desperately want the several cycles long time to just sleep and eat and be sentenced to bed rest. Imagining it alone has my knees shaking, but I lock them when I walk, refusing to give up first when she's still very much fighting.

She's already hanging from her chains, and I try not to grimace at the blood leaking from her wrists. I've healed them countless times, both skin and bone and with every passing day they're growing weaker. Her body doesn't have the nutrients to keep her bone health up, which makes it easier to snap her like a twig. He could slap her and a few of her ribs would fracture. I used to be able to give her the nutrients and necessities by putting them into her bloodstream, but I ran out of them long ago.