Trigger warnings: blood, death, child trauma

-chapter 6-

Plummet

Crack.

The sound hit Evie with a force that deadened every nerve in her. The pressure in her lungs and throat took long moments to peak in her ears, and she recognized it as a scream. Her eyes refused to process what they were seeing, what was right before her, even as she felt herself running forward.

Her brother's small body lay face down; blood was gushing from a wound she couldn't see, pouring onto the ground under him. It puddled into the fresh gardening soil, encircling him with black mud. It was black, all of it; a thick darkness surrounding him and swallowing him up. She knelt at his side and felt it seeping into her slippers, staining the bare skin of her legs. Her knee brushed something, and she blankly glanced down to see an apple, shining black and blue in the moonlight, shattered and sprayed with blood where it had hit the dirt with him.

Heat and sparks were coursing through her body, bright spots stinging her vision. Her ears rang hard, a chantry bell knocking in her skull, stomach leaping into her throat. Like riding a horse too fast downhill, a rapid thrumming took root inside her, frenzied and kinetic.Terror and pain blurred together into a drum beat, shaking her bones, but behind that was something else; the unshakeable knowledge that there was something she was supposed to do right now. Her vision swam. Max's dark blood continued to pool around them, more every second. The vibration in her head was growing stronger, pushing out in waves. But that thing was continuing to tug at her, unraveling a bit of her fear as it slipped into her fingers.

Her hands moved with a will of their own, like muscle memory. She rolled him over, his body limp and lifeless in her small grip. She tried to wipe some of the blood out of his eyes but more kept coming from somewhere past his hairline, his messy black hair matted down with it. The Templars were rattling down the stairs, she knew she only had a few moments before she was pulled away, but they seemed to be hesitating. Not knowing why, she placed her hands on each side of his chest, fingers splayed out wide. She closed her eyes tight and felt for the something, and it was there. She pulled on it, yanking it forward into the front of her mind.

A silent explosion. All at once, she felt a snap at the base of her skull. There was a pulse, and a wave of invisible energy unlocked itself from her mind, rushing down her arms and out through the tips of her fingers, straight into Max. Visibly, nothing had happened, but she felt it.

The world hung silent for a moment, and she wondered if the Templars had felt it too. None of them made a single move. As the moment hovered, her heart began to sink. She'd thought she could help him, but he lay motionless, not breathing. Then, he jolted. Evelyn screamed, sharp and surprised, but hopeful, throwing her bloody hands over her mouth. He began to convulse, his body spasming with great shudders. Evie's brief hope turned to sour horror, holding her hands over her mouth and shaking her head in a silent plea of no.

Max threw his head back, chest arcing towards the sky as his eyes flew open. They were milky white, clouded, empty. He was gone, but his body was moving. Her tears ran down her face in rivers, blinding her as she tried to scramble back from him, too late. His cold hand snapped up from the ground and clamped hard around her throat. She clawed at his grip, but her hands were slick with his blood. His other hand closed around her neck and the edges of her vision started to go dark. The slack, dead face of her big brother stared back at her.

"Shit," A gruff, masculine voice, directly behind her. Shock ran through her bones as she remembered the Templars. They would help her, they had to help her. "She's a damn mage!"

Suddenly they were surrounded. Encircled by a ring of men in glaring armor, her own frightened features staring back at her dozens of times in their mirror-like shin plates. She was covered in blood, looking like a wild thing, her dead brother's hands wrapped tightly around her neck. Then, the first wave of sickness poured over her.

She was losing consciousness, gasping for breath, when Max's body went slack again. His hands loosened themselves from her and she began gulping down breaths of stinging air as fast as she could. She opened her mouth to thank her saviors, when the nausea crashed down around her even stronger. Her stomach heaved, and she tasted bile in the back of her throat.

"That's it, little mageling." Sneered one of the Templars as he watched her struggle to maintain consciousness. "Don't fight it."

She felt massive plated arms hooking under her own, and let her head hang limp against her chest. Her last memory was seeing Max on the ground beneath her, smeared with blood, eyes open and milky white.

When Evie woke up, it was dark. She had no bearings, no idea where she was, and for a moment, no memory of what had happened. Max's face came back first. The cold way his hands had tightened around her. A shiver ran through her body, and she wrapped her arms around her own chest for comfort. She was in some kind of a bed, but it definitely wasn't her own. The mattress was thin and hard, and the blanket that covered her scratched her skin. She sat up, allowing her eyes to adjust to the low light so she could look around.

She was in a large room, all made of stone like the castle halls she was used to, but this was not Ostwick castle. The room itself was full of bunk beds, one of which she was in. Squinting around, she could see sleeping forms in most of the other beds near her. Moonlight lit the space dimly from thin windows positioned along the curved wall. Slowly, so as not to cause the cot to creak and wake anyone nearby, she crept to the edge of her bed and dangled her short legs off the side.

Looking down at herself, she registered for the first time that her legs were clean of blood, and the nightdress she was wearing was unfamiliar. It was far too big for her, her boney shoulders visible through the neck hole. She rubbed her face with her hands and felt that it was clean as well. Someone must have bathed and dressed her as she slept. She repressed a surge of revulsion at the thought, gently lowering herself from the bed. Her toes met the cold stone floor silently and she glanced around her immediate surroundings.

There were trunks near many of the beds, though not all of them, some serving as makeshift night stands. One such trunk was between her and whoever was sleeping soundly across from her, braced against the next bed and holding a glass of water and an unlit oil lamp. At least, wherever she was, it didn't seem like a prison. Quietly, torturously slowly, she tiptoed her way across the huge room, making for the windows. The stone was cold against her toes, and she remembered that her slippers were soaked with blood.

Finally, she reached the wall. Creeping between two bunk beds, breath held to avoid making any noise, she pressed her face to the tall, thin hole in the stone. Squinting into the moonlight, Evelyn's breath caught in her throat. She was high up. So very high up that her head spun, making her woozy, and she was grateful for the cool stone against her cheek. Below the window stretched the endless expanse of a tower, peaks of mountains laid out underneath her, and far on the horizon stood the unmistakable silhouette of her home, the castle of Ostwick. There was only one place she could be- she had seen this tower every day from the dining hall windows.

The walls seemed to close in around her, strangling her the same way Max's lifeless fingers had. The reality of her situation seemed to finally settle into her, and she found she couldn't breathe. Max was gone. He would never again flash his half-smile, or sneak her dinner when Mother was angry with her. And what about her parents? Would she ever even see them again? Her breath was coming in sobs now, heaving, choking things that left her gasping even harder.

The bunk next to her stirred, and all of a sudden she remembered the need to be quiet. She clamped her hands over her mouth, trying to quiet herself, but couldn't quite manage it. The panic rolling through her was uncontrollable. The feeling of being trapped, forever, was overwhelming her completely. Her tiny shoulders shook violently with barely restrained sobs.

The sleeping form she had disturbed slowly sat up, rubbing their eyes. She couldn't make out their face through the darkness, but it was a young girl's voice that spoke to her, though perhaps not as young as Evie.

"Are... are you alright?" The girl spoke softly, tentatively. Instantly Evelyn felt the rush of relief, this was not another dangerous, angry man.

"No," She managed to choke out. "No I'm really not."

"You poor thing," The voice crooned. The girl scooted forward into a soft beam of light from the window, and Evelyn could see her large blue eyes sparkling at her. "My name is Emmaline, you can stay with me tonight. Come here."

Evie really wasn't in a position to turn away kindness from a stranger. She nodded gratefully, wiping her eyes, and crawled onto the cot with Emmaline- who appeared in the dim light to be no older than 13 or so. There Evie slept, fitfully, seeing Max every time she closed her eyes. His face waxen, eyes glassy and white, staring endlessly up at the sky.

Notes:

Oh my god, y'all, I'm just glad to be able to write again. I got covid really bad, starting on my birthday of all things, and couldn't keep any food down for 11 days. Consider this my comeback! Dareth shiral.