Amietta followed Corabelle silently as she completed tasks around the palace like an obedient lapdog.

  She was a sweet girl. She hadn’t asked for another meal in the weeks since what happened at the docks, even though Corabelle knew she would be hungry. She hadn’t acted quickly enough to get the full power from that life.

  Though Corabelle did occasionally catch her with the light smell of blood about her. Not her own, nor enough to be a human kill. She suspected she was catching mice in her fleetingly rare moments alone.

  But Corabelle didn’t ask.

  Perhaps all fresh Faedemons were this docile before they were broken. She knew she herself was a unique exception, her memories giving her cause to hold human life in far higher regard than that of her peers.

  Though she knew full well, even those without memories weren’t heartless.

  Corabelle clenched her teeth to keep her expression emotionless in front of Amietta as her mind betrayed her.

  These days, she did everything she could to keep Zaramir from her thoughts. Whatever circumstances had occurred for him to relinquish her to the Fae, she didn’t blame him for. It was more than probable that he was killed, slowly.

  She took a slow breath as a lump formed in her throat.

  She’d kept the idea from her mind so long, but she couldn’t deny it as the image of their last day together filled her mind.

  They’d killed him that day. It was easier than trying to fight or dominate him as she was dragged from the castle, ripped away as their home was decimated around her, by elder Faedemons she’d never met.

  Though he was revived shortly after to control her ‘rebellions’.

  He never saw him, only heard his voice, stiff and strained.

  She could have, and probably should have, continued to fight in any moment her mind was hers, but she hadn’t.

  Every time she rebelled, his mind was taken. His words held pain.

  So she kept him from her thoughts all she could. Obeyed quietly and did everything in her power not to provoke the Fae.

  Tears burned her eyes as she covertly swiped them away before Amietta could see.

  She didn’t want to think about what him giving her up could really mean.

  “Mistress?” Amietta’s quiet voice echoed surprisingly loudly as they entered the library. “Is something the matter?”

  “Just a bit of dust,” She dried her fingertips in the fools of her dress. “This room rarely has visitors.”

  Amietta nodded, “It smells strange,” She added softly

  “Old paper. I always loved this smell,” The words escaped her before she could catch herself. “We’re here to go through the books for maps,” she added quickly. “In the documents we transcribed, the temple we found isn’t known to any of our Masters’ high ranked Faedemons and it’s far too old to be known by the younger. So we’re to check if perhaps the royalty here had any information on it and with any luck a map.”

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  “Why do the masters care about a temple?” She questioned innocently.

  Amietta always had so many questions.

  Corabelle knew she should teach her to hold her tongue. This would become trouble for her sooner or later, but she couldn’t bring herself to. She had been like that, and still was, even if she’d gotten far better at concealing it.

  “They don’t care about the temple,” She answered. “They care about the catacombs. This was a God of the Afterlife, worshiped by both countries. The catacombs would be extensive, reaching far beyond the protections at the border. With luck, the humans wouldn’t remember its existence either.”

  “So we would be able to get in without fighting?”

  Corabelle shook her head, “It’d be easier to reach a point of tactical advantage, but there will always be a fight,” She said as she pulled a thick leather bound from the nearest shelf to skim its contents. “Regardless, we almost certainly wouldn’t be going anywhere. You wouldn’t for certain. You haven’t the training nor the Runebinds to handle a proper battle.”

  The book in her hands proved to be useless as she leafed through its pages. It was little more than an overexaggerated history of the time of her childhood.

  Gods. Her childhood was history worthy of a book this grand.

  A horrific sense of antiquity washed over her as she slid the book back into its place.

  “When will I get Runebinds?” Amietta questioned, pulling a book of her own from the shelf.

  “When you need them,” Corabelle replied, turning her attention to another shelf.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Perhaps ‘alive’ was an exaggeration of the state Zaramir had been left in.

  Certainly not dead from any medical standpoint, but not properly alive.

  His heart beat. His lungs were filled with air. The occasional jolt of electricity rippled across his synapses encouraging what one could almost equate to dreams. Though there was no proper structure to anything his mind dared to form.

  The occasional image flashed across his eyelids, perhaps of a memory. Something worn thin like the pages of a well loved book; hard to decipher, but treasured all the same.

  Though these supposed ‘dreams’ were not limited to perceived visual stimuli. Perhaps he’d seem to think he was surrounded by a familiar scent or the ghost of touch brushed his skin. On difficult days, it was the echo of old anguish.

  Though these fleeting moments were as close to "alive" as he’d been in months, years, decades? The concept of time was never something he ever seemed to truly grasp, but even less so when there was no light to aid in the indication of its passing, or the sensation of hunger or exhaustion to remind him it even existed.

  But, this wasn’t true sleep either. Sleep was a dull forced sensation to get through time without the expenditure of energy. Energy was certainly expended here, though not willingly and it hardly seemed to matter as it was replenished before his body demanded rest.

  Of course, he wasn’t even properly aware of this. Anything he felt was solely an instinct. Any higher function muted to near imperceptibility.

  Early on in this, there had been moments of proper lucidity. He still held some control over his own mind. He could still feel the pain of the intrusion. His body and will still had the strength to fight it.

  Now, strangely, it was almost as though his mind was properly free. His brain was silent, no voices burned through it, not even his own. Old wounds bore no pain. Exhausting nor hunger never reared their heads.

  Perhaps this was what death truly was to a Faedemon. Simple peace.

  That was until one of the few sensations he was nearly convinced could be a hallucination reminded him of the truth. A dull chill crept down his spinal column as the vague sensation of pressure encroached on his brain. He felt as though he had a slug residing in his skull, slipping lazily across the bone to find a new place to bask.

  In those moments, if only for a second, his body was capable of movement, of proper sensation. A deep-seated instinct causing his muscles to jerk of their own accord, he could feel viscosity around him as though he were submerged in tepid liquid.

  Something unyielding pressed against his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, digging into the flesh and cartilage.

  His left shoulder screamed out in pain for a mere moment before the fleeting sensations ended, and his body and mind were returned to the stagnant.

  No. He wasn’t given the gift of death. Instead they'd found a new form of hell for him to reside.