‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙
There was a steady movement, like what I imagined the bobbing of a ship would feel like. A gentle swaying. Something warm and hard was pressed against my side, thawing that frost that was building inside my chest. In fact, the ice felt like it was everywhere. It didn't feel good, it didn't feel reassuring like my power. It felt intruding, foreign. I didn't like it.
"Eira you need to keep your powers in check. You're freezing me," a deep voice said. I didn't recognize the voice from where I was floating in deep nothingness. It sounded familiar, and sidled along my cold edges, weaving between the walls I had built since Tellie's death. A voice wasn't supposed to do that.
"I'm going to help you, but you need to trust me," the voice spoke again, though this time it was closer, and cut through the fog in my head. Sable. I could feel his warm hands on my face, then on my shoulder and my side. He flipped me over so that I was on my stomach. My back was still on fire, though every other part of me was cold.
"I can't," I whispered. My throat felt like it was closing up, in fact, I could barely breathe. Every inhale made my back twitch with pain, and the air scraping against my throat was agony in itself.
"Eira, your lips are turning blue. You're freezing from the inside out." I felt something flutter over my mouth. I groaned as agony flared down my back, pulling my mind away from the fact that Sable had touched my lips.
"Healing. I have fae healing," I muttered. Every word was harder to get out. I could feel the darkness creeping in on my vision again, more insistent than the last time. I wished that whatever had willed me to sleep before would come back and whisk me away once again.
"It's not enough," he said. It sounded like he was getting frustrated, his words were sharp, lined with something bordering between worry and anger.
"Let me help you." Another wave of pain washed over me and I let out a moan, burying my head into something soft. I had never felt this sort of pain before. It felt never-ending, the sort of pain that made a person go mad. Ice flared out of my hands and I heard it woosh before colliding with the ground and shattering. Sable let out a grunt and I wondered if it hit him too. Oops.
"Please," he said. I cracked my eyes open to see the world was tilting and swirling around me. I swallowed against the nausea in my throat. I couldn't see my surroundings, all I could see was a face hovering above me, black brows drawn in, a line forming between them.
"You'll..." I closed my eyes against the pain. More heat. More cold. My body felt like it was battling itself. With every wave of heat, a wave of ice went up to battle it. I could feel my body temperature rising, though my powers were trying to fight against that too. "You'll hurt me. You always hurt me." Sable sighed sharply.
"I know, I know I do," he said. I felt his breath skitter across my face and I was too fearful to open my eyes to see just how close he was. "So let me do this for you. I felt an ice-cold tear slip from the corner of my eye.
"Okay."
Almost immediately, I felt something whoosh over my backside, and the world around me dimmed, as if the colors were getting bleached from the world. And then...something was touching my back. It didn't hurt, in fact, it almost felt...euphoric. A sigh escaped my lips and I was pretty sure I heard Sable chuckle, though I was floating too high to be sure.
Strange things were happening on the skin of my back. It felt like all the pain was dripping away from the wound, and then it felt as though the split skin was being put back together again. It should've hurt, I should've been screaming, but instead I was floating on some sort of cloudy bliss.
"Eira, you need to stay awake," Sable said. I felt his hand brush away the hair at the nape of my neck and I shuddered.
"Too hard," I muttered. He said something else but my hearing was waning in and out. I didn't know what happened next, only that there was the rushing of water and a steady warmth and then...blackness.
A few things happened when I was in that void of darkness. There had been so much ice, I had been so cold, and then...fire. Warmth was everywhere, filling me down to the marrow of my bones. There had been something soft touching my cheek and the back of my neck. The touches were always gentle, never cruel. I had felt oddly safe in that void...
I awoke to the feeling of something stirring behind me. A moan escaped my lips as my sore muscles recoiled from the movement. My head was pounding, and my mouth was incredibly dry, it felt like I had swallowed down a mouthful of sand. That thing behind me stirred again and I felt myself freeze. Shit.
I pinched my eyes together, trying to focus on my surroundings. The thing behind me was warm and solid. Soft heat was pressed against my entire backside, along with something entangled with my legs. No, not something...legs. Legs were entwined with mine. Double shit. There was something akin to a solid band of iron wrapped around my middle, keeping me held down to the source of warmth. An arm, it was an arm. Triple shit.
I opened my eyes slowly to see that I was in an unfamiliar room. It looked to be a large bathroom, with black floors, black walls, and black marble flooring. Even the tub I was sitting in was black. Wait...tub? Warm water was swirling around my very...bare body. Gods above...
I whipped around to be met with a facefull of gray eyes and dark hair, dripping with water. Sable. A very shirtless Sable.
"You're freezing the water."
"For good reason!" I screeched. I pushed away from him, making water slosh over the lip of the tub. Well, it was less like a tub and more like a pool. I faced him fully, only to see his lips turn into a grimace as he turned his head to the side. I fought down the urge to slap a hand over my chest.
"Well feel free to look, you already saw them when you whipped me." He turned his face back to me. Surprisingly, his eyes weren't full of barely-contained anger. He actually looked...relaxed. His shadows weren't coiled like they were readying to strike, they kept swishing and swaying, bobbing to their own rhythm.
"Eira-"
"We're both very naked right now, Sable Deidre." I said. He chuckled wryly, twisting his fingers in the water, causing ripples to shift over to me. The water was crystal clear, if I wanted to see what Sable Deidre hid, I could've. Though I didn't, obviously. The thought made me stir uncomfortably.
"You're very observant." I felt my cheeks glow blue. I glowered at him. I didn't know how he was so relaxed right now. "Relax. You were freezing from the inside out and body heat was the fastest way to warm you." I felt like a coiled wire. I could still feel the whip sailing across my back, slicing through my skin. I could still feel the swallowed sobs on my tongue and the screams burning my throat.
"I was whipped," I muttered, sucking in a deep breath. "You whipped me."
"The king commanded me to whip you. I hardly had a choice." He was staring at me now, his fingers still swirled in the water, long and lithe, peppered with bruises and cuts. His arms were outstretched on the edges of the tub, his legs were stretched so that if I extended my own leg, I'd be able to touch him. Gods damn him and his long-ass legs.
"Well you surely didn't put up much of a fight," I said.
"What was I supposed to do? Start a scene in front of the king and his drinking buddies?" He scoffed, scratching at his jaw with his thumb. I hadn't noticed before, but he wore a silver chain around his neck, it had what looked like a bird's wing on it. "I can assure you that that would've gotten us nowhere. In fact, I'd probably be cuffed to the pole right beside you." He stood suddenly and I clapped my hand over my eyes.
"A little warning next time, please!" I gasped, trying not to focus on the way the bathwater was sloshing as he moved. I heard water drip onto the floor and him pad across the tile. I lowered my hand a little to see him grabbing a towel and wrapping it around his waist. He leaned against the counter when he finished, facing me.
"Uncomfortable?" he mocked. I glared at him icily, ignoring the strange twisting inside my stomach and the way my eyes kept wanting to dip down to stare at his exposed chest. I'd have to be a fool or blind, to ignore the sheer mass that Sable was. He was absolutely jacked, muscles were everywhere on that man.
"You did something to me," I said, forcing my wandering mind to get back on track. "Last night you..." I trailed off when I realized my back felt completely fine. No terrible agony, no blood, no screaming. I felt perfect. I stood suddenly, my heart hammering against my collarbone. Sable kept his eyes on mine, the man was a surprising gentleman.
I grabbed a towel, twin to his own, and practically ran over to the mirror. I whipped around, glancing over my shoulder to see my back was not gushing blood nor split and gory. It was completely fine, but it was not unchanged.
My once clean, untouched skin, was now covered in swirling black tattoos. They stopped right above my ass and curved up to just barely curl over my shoulders. They were dark as night, swirling like...like Sable's shadows. A vague memory of him asking if he could heal me bubbled up in my mind. And then that...euphoria I felt. He used his shadows to heal me?
"I should make good on my promise to freeze your balls off," I muttered, staring at the tattoos. They weren't ugly by any standard. In fact, I found them beautiful. They shifted and swirled in a mesmerizing way, it could've been art if it was put on a canvas.
"Is that how you show your gratitude to people who save your life?" he asked, his voice dark.
"What did you do to me?" I gasped, turning to face him. My forehead smacked into his collarbone and I stumbled back, cheeks cold. I hadn't realized he had stepped that close to me before.
"Saved you from death," he said, crossing his arms, glaring down at me.
"Sable-"
"I healed you," he said. "My powers have always been able to heal. The peaceful side of the darkness." I swallowed at that. I hadn't thought any part of his power could've been peaceful. "But my healing always leaves its mark. I apologize for the...markings, but if I didn't heal you you, they probably would've gotten infected and your condition would've worsened."
"And before you...you put me to sleep?" I asked.
"Yes," he said. "It's like a sleeping ether. I've been able to do it for a long time."
"And why didn't you do it earlier?" I asked. His brows furrowed. "I mean, why did make endure it for so long before knocking me out?"
"Did you really think the king would've believed it if you passed out at ten? He's not an idiot Eira, he wanted to see you suffer. I knocked you out at the earliest possibility. If what I did makes me the monster in your story so be it. But at least you're not flayed open and bleeding out."
"Why did you do it?" I asked. "Why heal me?" I started to feel a little awkward at that point. We were both only in towels, and I was pretty sure he had seen every inch of my body at that point.
"I shouldn't have," he said, his voice a rumble. I felt a chill spider-crawl its way down my spine and I swallowed hard. "I still hate you. I still think that the king is an idiot for allowing you to stay and train under me when we both know I have better things to do."
"So why?" I asked, my voice shaking. My eyes were dry yet I felt my body tensing, as if I wanted to cry. "Why save me? I'd rather be dead than be here." Suddenly, I was flying backwards and into the wall. My back slammed into the marble and Sable was upon me in a flash. He was pressed so close to me that our bodies were aligned. I felt everything that was under that towel.
"I saved you because I saw myself in you," he growled. "You were whipped just like me. The others weren't whipped. But you and I...we scare him. You're powerful, I've seen what you can do. You have potential, I'd be an idiot not to see that."
"Sable, I don't understand-" His hand was suddenly on my hip, pushing me further into the wall. A tiny gasp escaped my lips. We were so close now that his nose was brushing mine. His smell of leather and embers was all around me. Enveloping me. I could even smell mint from his parted lips, hovering just inches from mine.
"So don't try anything else. No more escapes, no more...anything. You're under his rule now, so be smart. Don't make me have to kill you." He turned away and walked towards the counter. He kept his eyes pinned to the sink as he turned on the faucet, to the hottest setting, and started to wash his hands.
I stayed at the wall, watching his skin turn red under the water. I had had enough. I walked towards the door, my skin crawling as if too was desperate to leave. I had just put my hand on the doorknob when I stopped.
"I hate you too," I whispered. The water of the faucet turned off suddenly. "I want you to know that."
"I do," he said gently.
"Good." I started to turn the doorknob when I felt something warm wrap around my arm. I looked down to see a tendril of dark shadow wrapped around my arm. It made me stop short. This time, it didn't feel cold, didn't feel like the edge of a knife, like a million cold, cruel, things all at once. It actually felt slightly warm, like a hand. Soft and strong.
"Get packed," he said. I turned now, facing him. He was looking at me now, his hip pressed into the counter. "We're going to the spring palace in Aurora. It's time you've met my cadre."