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Okayyy I’m back and now I’m going to write an uber sentimental scene cuz besides existential crises and blood, those are me favorites! XD

Yila

The castle had just called out her brother. That was not cool.

Yila clutched Niarok’s arm, ready to tear the walls down with sheer strength. His muscles were tense, and she knew he was trying to decide whether silence or protest would be more beneficial.

“And Siya Aydin.”

Aydin? The man who looked exactly like the one who’d killed her father? Aydin was an assassin?

Everything shattered.

Blinding rage split her veins into a spider’s web of lightning.

He was the assassin. He was alive again. And she was going to make him suffer for all the awful things he’d done to her family.

Her heart splintered under the weight of her anger and her hand was on her knife before she could think.

“Don’t you ever call me that again!” Aydin yelled, striding towards the back wall in fury.

Her vision narrowed and snapped until all she could see was the face of the man who’d killed her father.

He was still holding his bow.

She sprang forward, running and throwing her knife in a smooth motion. It flew closer, closer, closer – and swerved around his head.

Confusion, anger, and frustration drove a red fog into Yila’s mind and she collapsed in a heap, fighting the restraints that held her down.

They were trying to kill her.

She could see the poison.

There was the Mist again, his face and body blurred. Anger boiled hotter and hotter and she attempted to break free of the strong leather straps around her body, holding her down, holding her back.

She would have blood.

Heat rose and her heart pounded in her ears.

Slowly, the face came into focus.

Aydin.

The restraints were arms. Her brother’s arms.

She went limp, and Niarok was the only thing holding her up.

She had never felt so drained, but the only thing she could see was the picture of her father lying face down with an arrow through his heart.

Hot tears burned her eyes.

“Can I let you go?” Niarok whispered.

She paused. Could she trust herself?

“Yes,” she whispered back, her voice breaking.

He slowly released her, and she fled down the tunnel away from all the staring eyes.

Hot, angry, broken tears streamed down her face and she ran with desperation.

She’d lost control.

Again.

Hurt and brokenness deeper than anything she’d ever experienced before slammed into her and stabbed her heart out, and she collapsed to the ground in a crumpled heap.

The voices of the others had faded, and she was utterly alone, far away from all the people who would condemn her.

She could hardly care what they thought.

Pictures of all the people she’d killed raced through her mind.

Failure, her heart whispered.

A Shadow wasn’t supposed to feel remorse, or even to remember the people they’d killed.

But she did.

And it broke her.

She wanted to flee from her past, to die and sink beneath the nothingness and darkness.

There was nothing for her here.

She had failed in her only skill, yet because of her only skill she was just a shell.

And she would have been long dead if she hadn’t thought best to stick around for her brother.

Now it didn’t even matter.

They were exposed, and she was clearly incapable of controlling herself.

She’d seen this happen. Every so often, a Shadow would go mad with sudden guilt.

She’d vowed she’d never let that happen to herself.

And yet here she was, and she was breaking. She was going mad.

Forty people dead.

At her hands.

And she remembered every. single. one of them.

How Niarok hadn’t disowned her with his love for people, she didn’t know.

She’d killed half his extended family.

And yet somehow he still tried to hold her together.

It was unfair.

More tears poured from her eyes, and she rolled onto her back, staring up into the endless darkness.

This was absolutely hopeless. Everything about it was. She would never be able to heal from it.

Back home, mad Shadows were killed on site. Yila had always found it slightly cruel that they didn’t try to rehabilitate them instead, but now she understood.

Death would have been a mercy.

“Yila?”

Yila sat up. It was too dark to see, but she sensed her brother’s presence.

“Kill me,” she whispered.

“What?”

“Kill me. I’ve gone mad. I-I can’t hold it together anymore. Please. Kill me.”

Niarok sat down next to her.

“No.”

That one word should have crushed her. It was so final, so ending. He’d just condemned her to a life of misery.

Yet somehow, somehow it didn’t.

“Why?” she whispered, breathless. The tears had stopped.

“Because I love you, and I believe you can heal,” he whispered back.

Then he hugged her.

She didn’t fight, didn’t move, just sat there.

She would have been dead long ago without her brother. It was a given.

She rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. She’d never felt so exhausted, so drained in her life.

The guilt was strong and thick in her throat, but for some reason it wasn’t too much to bear anymore.

Something between her and Niarok had shifted.

She sensed that he truly understood, and that alone made her stronger.

 

Wooooow that got lonnggggg…

I can’t decide whether I loved that or hated it. Thoughts, my friends?