Ashes of the Elite

My head throbs like someone's trying to cleave it open from the inside. I groan, dragging in a breath that tastes like herbs and steel and antiseptic. My body feels like it was trampled on by a battalion of armed cavalry. It takes me a moment to realize I'm not dead.

I blink against the soft light overhead, my thoughts slow and scattered. Where...?

The room smells too clean and sterile. Am I in the infirmary?

Then it hits me.

The fight.

Cain.

The voices.

Gods—those fucking voices.

They twisted everything. Took every doubt and pain I had, every fractured thought, and fed it into a storm until I couldn't tell what was real anymore. I remember Cain's face, the confusion, the fear—not of me, but for me—and still I tried to kill him. I nearly did. I would have if—

I clench my fist under the thin sheets, jaw tight. Pathetic. I'm supposed to be stronger than this. I'm supposed to be in control. I'm the bearer of three marks, not some thrashing fool drunk on power and pain. And yet the moment my emotions flared, I lost everything. Slaughtered men who didn't stand a chance. Let the voices turn my own hands into weapons against the only person who's ever looked out for me.

I seethe in silence. The shame is unbearable. I can still hear the screams, feel the heat of blood on my skin. That wasn't battle—that was a massacre. A goddamn frenzy. All because I cant control my own damn powers.