Choosing to say out of the Alliance, the Cinders are isolated in their own conflicts, and when Helia Cinder reaches to the void for answers, she inadvertently draws a creature out. Expecting to be eaten alive, she is instead left with a man with no...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Shadows had been his only companion for so long that he couldn't remember anything else. Time wasn't fixed within the void and somewhere in the eons he'd lost himself, or perhaps the void had eaten away at him. In the realm of the dead, souls came and went, but none saw him, and he'd stopped trying to communicate so long ago that it felt like hundreds of years. Now, he just floated, fragmented, incomplete. Part of him was missing. That singular thought flickered each and every time the void tried to get hold, a word, one he could never forget.
Ghost. The name of his missing piece.
The name sounded so ethereal that he wondered a time or ten if he hadn't made it up. How his mind spiraled in the dimension of death, wondering if Ghost was just a creation of his mind to keep him sane, or at least as sane as he was. What if there was no missing piece? If he was alone. If this was all there was.
A flash of color woke him, glinting in his vision and solidifying into a kaleidoscope of crimson, sunset, and gold. Tendrils of the void tried to strangle the flames as they reached into the land of death, and he fought them back, reaching out to touch the mirage of hope. Skin brushed against his fingers and the world opened before him, rippling as sensation returned. Warmth caressed his hands in the form of pale skin much lighter than his own, and bright lights pelted him from above. A ceiling blocked the never ending sky and walls surrounded him on every side, enclosing but distant enough.
The shadows receded and he could see the world around him, be it a room filled with shelves, books, and scrolls. It was as large as a library, but his focus could only barely flick around for a second before it returned to the warmth under his hands. The most pleasant smell entered his nostrils, and he breathed it in like it was his life, sinking closer to vanilla and spice dabbed on a soft throat that woke his mind.
The sounds he heard last.
Chattering humans beyond the walls, flipping pages in other library rooms, rain pelting the roof above, wind rustling trees and scratching their branches on the building. Magic hummed around him, clashing and standing in protection further out, mixed with commanding voices and groans of pain. The last he noticed was a quickened panting from below, a sped up heartbeat, and the restless fidgeting of fingers. Perhaps he should have focused on that first, the gasping breath and subtle whine so gentle humans couldn't perceive it. It was only then that he realized he was horizontal. Orientation was nonexistent in the void, as was life, and he was now lying on top of a human, a mage.
Crimson curls splayed out on the floor tiles around the face of a woman with eyes like living fire. Amber at their base, golden brown singed the edges, and the sunset rolled closest to the dark center. They were so mesmerizing that he moved closer until he could feel the warmth of her breath on his face. Laying his forehead on hers, he took a slow, deep inhale to breathe her in, to take everything in, and mostly to orient himself.
All that separated them was a thin sheet of black fabric that ran his body like an additional layer of skin, curving to his form and keeping him from making any noise when he moved. Why such silence was necessity, he couldn't quite recall, but the thin sheet made every crease of her mage attire and ruffle of the outer skirt that much more defined against him.
