sounded like my name was being echoed through a tunnel, I started to come around. It took my mind a few blurry seconds to start piecing together what had happened.
Or should I say…
What I had done.
I knew that if I focused hard enough it would all play back and come to me with perfect clarity, but for the moment it was Nero's voice that I focused on.
This forced me to open my eyes and staring back at me was a beach of golden sands. I strained my ears trying to listen out for the ocean lapping its gentle waves upon the shore close by, but there was nothing but the calling of my name. I heard myself groan as I started to move my body, feeling the ache when pushing myself from the ground, which was when I realised, I wasn't on a beach at all. I was simply surrounded by golden sands the Eye had given me.
My name was now becoming a desperate call as I could hear the tremble in her voice. As it was obvious, she most likely thought I was dead. But then, one glance around me proved that it was everyone else who had been robbed of life and as for my role…
I had been the thief.
I closed my eyes at the sight of so much death at my hands and muttered an incredulous,
“Fuck.”
This was because the entire space of the bailey had been turned into a mass grave site, where the bodies and remains of Harpies lay littered among the ground like a bomb had gone off in the centre. The different state of the bodies that I could now see would be a way of tapping into the memory of how they got to be that way. Memories, admittedly, I didn't yet have the bravery to access. However, a pile of bodies that formed a mound told me exactly what I would find inside...the Harpy Queen.
This was one particular memory I pushed for, seeing it play out with the start of her desperate cries calling for her minions to help her. It was a desperate plea that was answered when her offspring sacrificed themselves to save her as they had shielded her from the wave of my power. My Crimson painted soul that had sucked each one dry of their very essence and the pools of blood that I had extracted from them, now lay around them like an abandoned island in the middle of an ocean of their own blood. And what would I find at its core but none other than their mother, one who cared more about her life above all others.
“FAE!” Having Nero screaming my name paused my steps when going towards the hidden Queen, making me now run back to the well instead. I looked over the side to find her a small shadow swinging in the centre of the stone.
“Nero! Are you okay?” I asked, making her release a relieved breath before saying,
“Holy shit, am I okay...? No, no I'm not okay…nothing is okay! In fact, I'm not sure I will ever be okay again and that I'm not dead!” she exclaimed dramatically.
“It's okay, I can confirm you're not dead,” I told her with a grin.
“Well, that’s good then but next question…how are you not dead…actually scrap that, I’m swapping it for, why the Hell am I still down here and why are we having this conversation with you up there?”
“I promise I will get you out of there soon,” I told her making her shout back,
“As in…as soon as the time it takes you to crank the wheel and pull me up?” she questioned, and I looked back at the mound of dead Harpies and told her,
“No, that is, as soon as the time it takes me to kill a Harpy Queen.”
“Oh fuck…Okay, yeah you go and do that and I will just be here hanging…Literally!” she muttered this last part making me grin.
“Thanks,” I said giving her a salute she could barely see from above her.
“Good luck and remember to break her legs!” This I heard echoing up after I had started to walk back towards the pile of corpses. A sight that looked more like skeletal remains that were hundreds of years old not minutes. It also looked as if most of them had even turned to stone, with only the skin between the long-boned fingers of their wings that remained. It looked like dried, withered skin or paper-thin leather that had been left