Echoes In The Darkness

by BenaeEmani

When The Burgue withdraws from the great war and The Pact conquers Tirnanoc, Vignette, faced with impossible circumstances, must find a way to survive in her new hell. After being told that her lover Philo is dead, Vignette is devastated. She is starting to accept his death when she finds out that he left his legacy within her.

Prologue

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Vignette could not see; surrounded by darkness as she was; all she could hear were her harsh breaths and fluttering wings. Philo was dead, her love, he was gone. The devastation that filled her at that realization was overwhelming.

But before she could even actually grasp where she was, the scenery changed, from the darkness that enveloped her to where she first saw him—watching as Burguish soldiers marched into her home and sanctuary.

He had come with the last wave of Burgish soldiers to fight the war. The snow fell around them as they made their way through the gates of the Tirnanese Highlands, and she had looked on in distaste and distrust from high above them.

Once again, her view shifted, and she back to when they first met. Philo had been trespassing in her library, and she had threatened to kill him if he told anyone about it.

Oh, Philo, how I miss you, Vignette thought as she remembered him. Her heart ached for the half-fae man that she had grown to love. There was something there, whispering along her insides every time she thought of him.

Once more, the landscape changed, and Mima Roosan was telling her that Philo got killed. That he had died in her arms, that Philo was dead. And that they were coming for them, the Pact. And when they got them, the Pact would kill them all.

The scenery shifted again, and Vignette was again shrouded in darkness. She didn't know what was happening, whether this was a nightmare or a fever dream, but she wanted it to stop.

She tried to escape once again but found herself trapped in some hole. She couldn't move her wings. She felt them, they were there, but they weren't responding to her when she heard the voice she would forever remember and loathe.

"Settle little pix whore," the male voice said tauntingly, "wouldn't want you to get all worked up now."

Vignette growled, clawing at the walls of her unknown prison. The man laughed at her, telling her, "You know, pix, you'll never escape this prison before I make you submit.

"I will escape this hell," she said, screaming out her pain, her screams echoing in the darkness.

It was too much. It was sensory overload, and suddenly Vignette was awake, back in her room at the manor as little more than a slave.