Chapter 209: Unseen Chains
I tossed and turned, slipping through dreams like a fish through water. Some were quick and easy, mere glimpses of past experiences, while others depicted horrible battlefields and slaughters. The fiery halls of the Divine Throne stalked me through the cracks, where I could only flee from the shadowy faces of those dead by my hands. The old, familiar ghosts were there, the priests who attacked me in the Divine Throne and the men of the Last Light Company, but a host of new faces joined them. It took me nearly the entire night to recognize them as the innocent citizens of High Valley.
As their claw-like hands closed around me, I jolted away, soaked in a cold sweat. I lay curled up on a soft, feathery bed, curled in a ball with my tail twisting anxiously about me. A thick woolen blanket tightly bound my shaking body, wet with tears I had shed in my sleep.
They were all dead. It wasn’t my first time realizing it, but the thought had hovered at the edge of thought, never truly making itself known. Perhaps I’d been avoiding it, or simply unable to process it at the time. But now, with a day between us, the dead of High Valley tormented my thoughts.
The mysterious demonkin had killed them all. Not only the monstrous Lord Byron, but his citizens as well. The entire region for dozens of miles in all directions burned with the power of her star. Who knew how many died from the shockwave alone? And what about the following winter? Hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland were nothing more than scorched earth now. Would they still be able to stock up enough when the fields lay fallow and covered with snow?
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to push away the ghostly condemnation. If the staff hadn’t summoned her, then...then...
I would be dead.
There was no question of it. Lord Byron made his intentions clear, beginning with killing those I loved and deciding to rape me until my mind broke. It would have been the same as my previous life, where I was nothing but a tool whose entire purpose was to be taken advantage of, where I had to go to the darkest depths of misery to pay for scraps and a place to sleep. I had already escaped that once, by the only means available to me. If I were to fall into that again, there was no doubt I’d make the same choice.
My heart was filled with darkness, but I couldn’t allow myself to give up. Not anymore. Aurle had given herself for me and died with the hope that I might live. Even when it became clear what would happen, she refused to break and always had a smile for me. I awoke many times in the night to the sound of her whimpers or gentle sobs, and often joined her, for the punishment inflicted by Byron and his taskmasters was too great, often keeping us from even sleeping.
After a few shaky breaths, I managed to calm down and unwrap myself from the blanket. After trying to sit up a few times, I gave up and collapsed onto the bed, trying to soothe the burning pain in my leg. The wolf’s teeth had bitten deep into my flesh, tearing through muscles and tendons to the bone. The wound had been dressed in soft, white linen bandages, which seemed fresh, as though they’d been changed several times.