“Please help me! It’s all my fault!” She wails as the skull under her heel bites her foot. She feels blood pooling as she scuttles out of reach. “I’m so sorry, Ithel! Please, make it stop!”
“Slow your breathing rate,” Ithel instructs, his tone gentle and soothing. It matters little; Helena screeches as his fingers elongate into tightly coiling snakes that wrap around her arms. Tighter and tighter, they bind, slithering closer to her neck with each passing second.
“Get them off! Get them off now!” Helena flails her arms in a feeble attempt to remove the hallucination. “Oh gods! Ithel! We’ve got to get out of here!”
Ithel’s hand burns as it cracks across her cheek, but the pain manages to stifle her fears long enough to free her mind to listen. “Helena, focus on your breathing. There’s going to be things around you that frighten you, but you’ve got to remember that they are not real. You’ve been drugged. Say that to yourself if it helps you calm down.”
“I’ve been drugged,” she repeats, shuddering as she takes a deep breath. Closing her eyes only brings a momentary comfort. Without Helena’s sight to terrorize her, auditory hallucinations begin. A child’s voice screams in terror while a deep man’s voice whispers of his love and devotion. Both are far more devastating than anything she’s endured so far, for deep down, Helena knows these voices are real memories bubbling up to the surface.
“Alaric may do something like this to you in the tunnel, Helena. You’ve got to be prepared. Keep your breathing in check. Stay calm and climb. Ignore the hallucinations and just keep your feet moving.”
“I can’t do this,” she moans, her hands covering her ears as she attempts to block out the voices in her mind. “I can’t see them again! I can’t face the horrors that happened to them! I can’t relive the moments when I watched them die!”
“You don’t have a choice,” Ithel replies grimly as he pushes her closer to the edge of the building. If you could only see how much I hate this for you, he sighs as he drags her flailing body to the edge of the patio. I wish there was another way or something I could do to spare you this trial. I really do. I wish you knew I take no pleasure in what I’ve done to you; I hate myself for it. But this is the only way I can prepare you for what is coming…. As much as Ithel longs to tell her his true feelings, his voice is harsh as he pushes her over the edge and demands, “Catch yourself before you hit the ground, Helena, then climb back up to me!”
As Helena plummets toward the ground, the drug in her system wreaks havoc on her mind. “I am a vulture,” she screeches, struggling against the wind as she attempts to hold her arms out at her sides as if to soar on the breeze and circle over the city. Despite her Windwalker abilities, she cannot control the gusting winds that whip around her helpless body. Not with the drugs in her system. “I cannot fly!” she cries, clenching her eyes tight as her stomach roils. The hallucination changes, twisting Helena into a small animal, scurrying to find shelter as a dark shadow looms overhead. “I will die! Ithel! Help me!” she bellows, her ears filling with an unseen beast’s gravelly snarls. She imagines blood-stained teeth nipping at her legs as the monster slowly gains ground. Fire rips through her limbs as if long claws have sliced through sinew and muscle, cleaving joints and bones from their meaty flesh. A guttural howl bursts to life from her body as she falls, so lost in her mind’s fears that she cannot see the ground hurtling closer and closer.
You fear the monster, you fear being prey; your only comfort is that you die this day, a grotesque image of Ithel sings as it floats beside her. His eyes are replaced by twin flames, and his mouth gapes wide. Where teeth still stand in those grey gums, they are cracked and bleeding. The monster’s mouth closes to a grim smile, blood oozing down either side of its lips as it delights in her fear. You are beyond worthless, Helena. You’re good for nothing but the gravedigger’s shovel. And even he won’t have much use for you after you splatter yourself against the stones.
“Not real, not real,” she whimpers against the monstrous sight, scratching her hands until they bleed, focusing on the pain to regain some control over her mind and abilities. “I can’t stop, Ithel!”
Then you will join me in death, the voice of the man she’d lived with in Cassè shivers up her spine. And I will torment you for eternity for all the hell you put me through. She sees the faint outline of the man, his eyes shrouded in darkness, and a too wide smile ripping through his ethereal face.
“No! No, please!” Helena fights, fixing her eyes on the stones that are far too close for comfort. Small changes in coloration, glittering veins of quartz and gold are now easy to distinguish. The murmuring cries of horrified observers rise up to meet her as she continues to drop. Feebly her hands shiver as she coaxes her abilities through the fog of hallucination and despair. Yet despite her greatest efforts, nothing slows her fall.
Ithel listens to every painful moment, praying Helena can get control over herself. He’d already made precautions, placing several healer slaves at the base of the palace to attend her if she failed. Yet that safety net doesn’t do anything to ease his conscience. This is an all-time low even for you, Ithel chastises himself as he waits for the inevitable moment when Helena reaches the bottom. “There was no other way to prepare her,” he reminds himself in a broken whisper. But that doesn’t make
