“I saw you.”
“You saw nothing.”
“What are you-“
“Silvestr. Don’t worry about it.”
“Maxwell was there too.”
“Silvestr.”
“Knix-“
“Stop.”
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The corpse they threw at my feet was already rotting.
Silvestr was a liar.
“It has been decided. We will bind your powers and you will be exiled from the underworld.”
I had no power. There was nothing left for them to take.
I was wrong, they took my freedom.
They took my very air.
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“Illarian.”
Max sat across the room and he watched. I’d rather talk to him than Illarian. At least Max was sentient.
“I can’t-“
“You can. You can.”
Illarian just stares, chest flaring open as if it was still an open wound.
I hate him.
I can’t, but I do. I despise this corpse. This prison.
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I need to keep a clear head, to ignore the fog of my sightless eyes. It doesn’t help Illarian. All it does is hurt us.
But it hurts.
Everything hurts.
Silvestr was right when he told me I’d get what I deserved. He might not have meant it then, but it came true.
I got what I had coming.
Max creeps closer and I just want the stupid rat to vanish.
I want him to die.
I don’t mean that.
I don’t, I don’t.
If Max died I would be all alone.
I couldn’t handle it all by myself. I’d break and die if I was all by myself.
This nightmare would never end if I was on my own.
Illarian would be an inescapable prison and I’d die in his clutches.
Max is the tiny bit of my sanity that I have left.
I can’t wish for his death.
Just like I can’t hate Illarian.
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“You don’t understand! I- I-“
Illarian can’t speak. Not with the runes engraved in his flesh. He’s tucked up against the wall and all that’s between us and failure is me.
They rage.
The demons.
The dragons.
The angels.
Silvestr.
My boy.
The one I saved.
He stands there, tears welled in his eyes but this time there is no fire.
It’s just us. Us against the world. My world.
“They will kill us. I saw it! I can feel it in my bones!”
Silvestr looks broken, absolutely broken. As if the blood on my hands was his.
It wasn’t. It never could be.
“Why?”
It’s all he asks of me. All he ever will.
He finds every single excuse he can, but he still asks. As if he would be happy with any answer I could give him.
He never is.
He never learns.
“There’s always something. Some catalyst. It’s the only thing that could save us!”
“Why?!”
It’s the only word he knows.
“Because we’d die otherwise.”
“You’re killing us now.”
“But not everyone and not forever.”
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At the trial the only thing Silvestr asked was,
“Why?”