(This chaper contains material of depression, truama, self-harm. Dearest Reader, if you get triggered by things like this, please feel free to skip the chapter ╰(*´︶`*)╯)
Tish got out of the bed, hands glowing with holy magic.
Please please please please please....
She picked up Saya's decapitated head. It was heavier than it looked.
Rāva please please please...!
She scrambled to Saya's body on all her fours, slipping and crawling, then she held the both parts together and poured out her healing magic. The room went white with holy light, golden threads wrapping around Saya's body and head. But they didn't get attached.
No no no no no no no .....
The room became brighter. Hotter. Blood started dripping from Tish's nose, her mouth.
And then she heard an unfamiliar voice.
FOR ALL MIRACLES YOU CAN DO. ALL WOUNDS YOU CAN HEAL. YOU CANNOT BRING BACK THE DEAD.
It was voice of a goddess. Rāva.
But Tish didn't stop ofcourse. Not even when blood started leaking out from the corner of her eyes and ears, not when she felt the room getting dimmer and dimmer as she exhausted herself.
She didn't stop until she had passed out.
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The maids didn't come until next morning. It was then when the scream started.
But Tish never screamed. She just opened her eyes. She was still lying in Saya's blood, looking at the decapitated head, staring at her unblinking. Tish could feel the body was still warm.
But Saya was gone. Forever.
She was mildly aware of people moving her. Someone was saying something but it came out muffled and distorted- as if she was hearing them from the other side of a glass box. She kept staring at someone. After what felt like hours or perhaps minutes?- she realised she was staring at her own reflection.
They cleaned the room. Took the body. A new woman took Saya's place, wearing the same dress as here, same pin on her collar. Just the face was different. Wrong.
She didn't know when or how but she somehow ended up staring at the ceiling. She frowned. She didn't remember lying down. Her dress was changed but she didn't remember changing.
Panicked she sat up, "Saya?" There was another woman, unfamiliar face, guarded eyes, "Lie down, Your Highness. You are running high fever." It wasn't a request. Tish was forcefully pressed back into the mattress. Tish fought back. More hands came tying her down tighter. She screamed and someone put something soft - like a roll of towel in her mouth- muffling her screams. She felt a prick near her neck and before she could understand what was happening, she passed out.
Everyday the maids would come with food. But nobody coerced her to eat. The food would sit by her bedside until it would start smelling wrong and then they replaced it with a fresh batch. Tish couldn't eat. Everytime she thought about eating, she remembered the food Saya had brought her that night, soaking in her blood as they laid on the floor and she felt like throwing up. The very sight of food sent her heart hammering in panic.
Every shadow looked like that murderer prince. Every quiet sound felt like Saya's whispers and the loud sounds made her flinch.
Eventually the maids gave up. They stopped bringing her food. Someone left just a glass of water near her head, like one last act of kindness to a dying woman.
Tish wasn't sure how or why, but one day she found herself on the floor. She felt her head throbbing, there was a stinging sensation near her cheekbone. She had fallen, somehow pulling the glass of water, with her which had ended up breaking and cutting her left cheekbone. She lied on the damp rug. Nobody came rushing. The maids had long given up.
She was alone. Completely utterly alone.
Her cheek stinged from the cut. The only real thing she had felt in days. She took a large shard of glass in her hand, running her finger along the sharp edge.
Saya was dead. It was because of her. It was because she was the only kind thing to her in this wretched place.
Saya, the beautiful, kind, wise woman. Dead. While she was living. Instinctively she squeezed her hand around the shard of glass. It started hurting.
But.....it must have hurt Saya a lot more when the Prince had cut her head, right?
The thought made her curious. She squeezed the shard harder, feeling the blood weeping out from her punctured hand. This much? Had it hurt this much? No, it must have hurt more.
Harder.
She watched her blood dripping on the f
rug. Even as it did, the wound in her hand flared with golden magic, healing the wound fighting a silent stubborn battle with her. It just made her angrier, more desparate.
She held the shard against her wrist and dragged it across her skin. Blood bloomed on her pale skin followed by the family glow of holy magic- aggressively healing the cut. She tried again, harder this time.
"Let's see who wins!" She hissed at herself and stabbed her hand again and again and again....
A hand caught her wrist. It peeled her fingers off the glass shard and it fell on the floor.
Tish lost her mind.
Without even looking she kicked at the person who had dared to take away her only entertainment. Her foot landed on a solid block of muscle.
Amber eyes. Bronze skin. Face of a god that didn't give a damn about life of human beings.
It was the Dragon Prince.
Tish went limp, her heart starting to hammer, her breath short and shallow, her voice too dry to plead.
"Get. Up," said the Prince, "I haven't got all day."
Tish bursted into tears, "Please don't kill me." "Pathetic," sneered the Dragon Prince and hauled her up like one picked up a sack of rice.
This was it. He was going to kill her too.
Tish squeezed her eyes shut. As if reading her thought, the Dragon Prince chuckled, "Please don't kill me," crudely he mimicked Tish's plea, "You are a hostage, remember? You're not allowed to die! Not when I can still use you."
His voice dropped taking almost an intimate tone, "A girl like you is good for only one thing," the words felt utterly obscene as they fell out of his mouth, it sent a shiver down Tish's spine, "You want to find out what that is, Tish?"
Tish didn't want to find out.
But then, it seemed she didn't have much choice anyway.