BEXLEY BRIAR
The blood that drips down her cheek, so slow and monstrous, seems to have a pulse of its own. Bexley feels what might be her loudest heartbeat ever throbbing just underneath the pain that sizzles electric-shock across her face. Chest heaving, blood rushing in her ears, skin crawling with sweat and dust and just-suppressed pain, Bexley’s head drops to her chest, and with herculean effort she steels herself: winds up those aching muscles, rolls her shoulders, and takes her first steps forward.
Light at the end of the tunnel. Literally - through the haze of tears and settling dust the outside world hangs like a yellow discus in the cave’s entrance. Exhausted and trembling, Bexley presses her weight against Seraphina’s steady shoulder. She says nothing. Does not remark upon the subtle warmth in the Sovereign’s mismatched eyes, nor on the strange reverence in her voice when she speaks. It’s horrible - all of it. To be weak, to be crippled, to be dependent on someone when she hasn’t been in years, feeling the awkward crunch of bone shifting under her weight, of blood pooling where it shouldn’t, of sweat sticking her curls to her neck. In her head she curses everything that she knows, and in her heart she can feel those curses, that hatred, calcifying into scar tissue.
Each step aches. Every movement sends a new kind of pain to waking underneath her skin. Teeth clenched and jaw pulsing with effort, Bexley pushes forward again, weight leaned against Seraphina’s, blowing up clouds of incandescent dust, and that is how they exit the cave - stunned to bruising, thirsting for blood.
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