>>6312672“We are almost there,” Bragia states, her hand rubbing against her chest. “Just behind the next corner.” She points where the rock bends at a steep angle. “Let us share one last drink of wine.”
They all raise a cup and share it together.
She notices it’s your time to wince at the sight of the red liquid.
“I—” that evening when Rubida invited you to share a drink and you explained why you would not.
The Stilladìa waits patiently for you to say something.
Or not.
She will accept it either way.
What a terrible thing to do.
<span class="mu-i">Think with your own head.</span>
“I have stopped drinking wine when our home was bought. I swore I would only ever drink after I had my family once more safe. I would only share it with them. And with my friends, now. And Master, of course. And Carnaval, I suppose. Rosandra, if she wants to… even the Asterite.”
A moment of silence stretches again.
And her?
Well, you are not sure if she would be invited, even now that you know the truth.
Perhaps you could leave a slice of cake for her… out of the door.
Inside a box.
“Not Astoria,” she says instead.
“No,” you agree. “Astoria can choke on it.” Your hand pulsates with pain as you try to instinctively clench it, then shudder at the jolt of pain.
“A snake sooner or later bites its own tail.”
It’s—disquieting—how she can sound like Master at times.
And then right like the embarrassed Knight you thought you knew.
You rub at your chest, where the phantom of the wound you suffered in the Well lingers—where you miss the weight of the cameo.
The comfort of a lie.
“Come on, Argia Candente. Let’s behold the head of the snake.”
The mists raise to show the group passing over the last corner and entering a lofty space, where slabs of geometric patterns slowly grind against each other. They help each other climb the shattered space and finally they reach a wide open hall, where the columns are made of stacked bodies, each glistening like mother of pearl, each tied to the next by the umbilical cord and by that inane grin and by that blind gaze.
Your body is seized by a shudder of <span class="mu-i">refusal</span> as you see the lonely woman laying in the middle of it. She is holding the body of a young girl, splayed like a goat, limbs stretched, and she pulls out her inside organs, licking them over with her stretched sneaky tongue. Where the pulsating length touches flesh, it turns to pearlescent matter, glistening maddeningly in the absence of light.
Your stomach churns.
[cont.]
