Salem didn't have that problem. She had always been alone. She knew how to exist with that loneliness-it was her constant companion. Everyone lelt, but it didn't. It had been there with her when she'd been surrounded by family and social friends, and it was there when none of them were. When she was younger, she'd hoped that it would go away. But over the years, the hope had been slit open by the sharp blades of abandonment and ignorance, left on the floor alone to bleed slowly and painfully, until it had gasped its last breath when a man had chosen to stay with her. But blood loss made the brain delirious, and that's what her hope had become, delirious right before it died. And it now lay decaying somewhere in a grave inside her.
I am unstable, sometimes melancholy, and have been called on some occasions imperious.
-Mary Shelley, The Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
a man in the shadows dancing with a woman who knew darkness
People called her cold, frigid, unfeeling, and he could see why. To anyone looking from the outside, she had a chill about her, her face perpetually frozen in a stoic mask with very little give, no interest in anything around her, only her eyebrows moving or chin tilting up in a haughty manner that left anyone before her feeling like slime beneath her shoes. The only point of life in her entire body was her eyes. Only those hypnotic, magical eyes. The only visible fire in her ice.
He had thought her icy at the beginning too, just like the rest of them, but over time, prodding and poking at her just to see her react, see if she would react.
Though he had met her while she'd been hovering over a dead body. This was different. That could have been an accident, any innocent passerby stopping out of curiosity. This was darker, so much deeper, so detailed. This showed her darkness and dogged determination in pursuit of uncovering the truth. This showed him a side of her she had never been comfortable showing anyone, and anyone who had seen it had rejected it immediately, calling her odd and ostracizing her from their life.
کب تک چلے بھی تو چل لے گی یہ طغیانی
Oh, Alizeh was tired.
Tired of feeling she had no control over her life, tired of being manipulated by the devil, tired of living in fear, tired of fear itself. The dark truth she seldom revealed even to herself was that sometimes she wanted nothing more than to break, to be weak, to tear off her armor and give in.
How long would she be forced to fight for her life? More importantly, Was her life really worth so much effort?
It troubled her that she had no answer.
She stood on tiptoe, asking with her body that he come closer-which he did, drawing toward her then without seeming to realize what he'd done, not until she nearly grazed the shell of his ear with her lips, when she whispered, for all the world as if they were playful lovers. "Choose your weapon, sire."
Cyrus drew back so suddenly he nearly stumbled, newborn anger flaring to life between them. His chest heaving, his jaw clenched, he looked as if he might implode with fury.
"This is terribly inconvenient for me," she said, drawing her shoulder back, planting her feet firmly beneath her. "But I'll have to kill you now," Alizeh heard Sarra laugh.
Steeling herself, she said softly: "Very well."
Cyrus's gaze sharpened at that, his eyes betraying a flicker of surprise.
Alizeh drew back at once.
The southern king followed, stepping cautiously toward her, watching Alizeh with the wariness of a hunter approaching a rabid wolf.
"You will come willingly?" he asked. "You will marry me without protest?"
They were close enough then that Alizeh could touch him had she wanted to. She could lift a finger to the silky copper lock curling across his forehead, his golden skin gleaming in the reflected light. His blue eyes were luminescent and somehow frigid, and for the briefest moment Alizeh thought she sensed in him what she still carried within herself-
A vast, bottomless grief.
Grief, exhaustion, betrayal- he couldn't decide which was the worst aggressor.
Oh, she had never feared death. No, it was life that scared her, life that scarred her. It was the slow torture of consciousness that had done its utmost to crush her.
"It was only the gesture of a gentlman". She felt a spark of heat near her sternum just as surprise widened her eyes.
"A gentleman? Do you often confuse yourself for such a man?"
"With what ease you insult me," he said, his eyes mocking. "Were you anyone else, I'd have you executed."
"Goodness, more poetry. Are these tender declarations meant to endear you to me?"
He fought a smile at that, running a hand through his hair as he looked up at the stars. "Tell me is it too much to hope for our future that you will not make it a habit of slapping me in the face?"
"Yes."
"I see. Then married life will be exactly as I imagined."
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