(Continues from Crushed for the first time)

Tevara

Take this night of woe, bury it deep below wrapped it in this cold, snowy sheet. This night we return bodies to the dust we all spawned from, back to the black lab where our Creator dwells. 

Tears burned my eyes, but the dirge played on, thrumming in my soul, striking dark, discordant chords and plucking my grief with icy hands. Through the slanting snow, I watched Kaydara fall, and her anguished cry shattered my world.

“It’s not supposed to happen like this,” said the time-spinning witch. At least I think she can mess with time and space. There was that whole out of body interlude where I ended up sandwiched into the skin of a ghost guy.

The memory lit a match and applied it to my anger, firing it up. She was dying, but she was still a bitch for slinging me into another world and a guy’s body without my permission.

Splinters fell revealing a darkness without end and a hungry maw requiring souls for sustenance, one never sated. I screamed, flailed a bit but kept one hand pressed over the ropey things trying to exit my abdomen. They might be my intestines, but they needed to stay inside my body.

“You’re not supposed to be here. I sent you away,” Kaydara said between coughs.

“Well, I’m back bitch, and we’re still dying.” And just admitting it made the inbound darkness less scary. My face screwed up in confusion. Could an Ironwood maven die? “You can die, right?”

Kaydara nodded. “But you can’t. We had this talk remember? It was an epic bit of conversation about heroes and stuff. You’d better immortalize me with it. Carve it on my tombstone or something.” She coughed.

“Keep your corset on, I remember. But life’s a bitch, and I’m back where I belong.” A quick glance at the groaning, bleeding, dying men around me made me regret my last words. “Well, I’m back in this world anyway no thanks to you.” I shot Kaydara a glare and the paling Ironwood witch blinked a few times, confused.

“How did you return? You should have stayed where I stashed you.”

“Yeah well there was this rip in reality’s fabric, and I saw my friends dying.” I heaved a shrug. “So I pulled my sword and ran into the fray only to find myself reliving my slaying and capture.” My gaze dropped to the blood and body fluids leaking out of my midsection. The winter morning and freezing temps had numbed the pain and dulled my anger.

“You have to go back.” Kaydara held up a hand and shot me with her witch light before I could dodge.

Fire burrowed into my wounded belly, and I screamed. Darkness swirled with the snow, and I fell into both. I hoped Death would stay away from the Ironwood bitch so I could end her when I woke up. And I would wake up. Then I’d kill the bitch. She’d earned it.

Find the earlier parts of this series here.

If you missed a part, worry not. This will be available from Amazon in 2017.
The adventure continues tomorrow.

For the November Notes Writing Challenge hosted by  Sarah Doughty of Heartstring Eulogies and Rosema of A Reading Writer.