fear

I missed Hope.

While I lived in my gilded cage, it was even more lonely than the Garden.

At least there I’d had Hope.

Though at least now I no longer feared death,

The assassins the duc’s wife sent were nothing.

Only a calificar could touch me.

I traded one cage for another.

One jailor for another.

Though now I was gowned in silks and velvets.

I dripped jewels.

And rather than the calificars wishing to kill me, it was the duc’s wife.

I slid the tips of my fingers across his bare wrist.

His eyes widened as I drew the magic within him to me. The magic that was in all beings.

And absorbed it.

Then returned it to him.

He was now mine.

He offered me his gloved hand.

I knew what he planned to do to me in his carriage.

I took it anyway.

A man in a gilt carriage with a contingent of guards found me.

He stared at my ripped dress. My disheveled hair.

He offered kind words, but I could hear the song beneath them.

I knew him for what he was.

Little better than my jailors. Worse in some ways.

But he didn’t know what I was.

In the dark of night, I fled.

I had never been alone on the roads. And many thought I was an easy target.

They learned otherwise.

But there were so many bodies.

Too many.

They would be able to find me.