EXCERPT:
I should have felt something.
Sadness. Regret. Despair.
Anything but nothing.
Our slow descent back into the bowels of the building produced no distinct emotion. The longer we walked through the twisted halls, the more cemented my mental paralysis became. I would not feel for my friend.
Cobi was a zyz, and I, as Solshek had noted, was different. Cobi and I could never understand each other again as we once had. He was as he was always intended to be; dead to me.
"Here is its home," said Father.
He paused in front of a weathered stone door with a tiny square of bars stretching across the top and allowed me a moment to gather myself. Before he opened it, he said his piece.
"Remember to forget whatever it once was to you. It has a very slim hold on life now as it is. The saas is yours. Consume it and move on. You are above any zyz now," Father told me. "Remember who Twilight is."
"Yes," I agreed. "I will remember."
Father nodded, then unsecured each lock, one by one. When the stone door swung open, a slow second passed with each inch it crept forward. I thought about how I would feel when it revealed the body lying inside.
Nothing.
It was almost wearisome how long it was taking. Was that my mind turning a door into eternity, or was it actually that stubborn and cumbersome?
But then, as it happens with all moments, the moment was gone. I found myself gazing upon the figure of the boy I had almost grown to cherish months ago when we were just a bit younger and much better, much more well in our bodies and minds…
When I entered the cell, I fought back the revulsion I felt at the thought of demolishing him, of gutting his insides and shredding him to unrecognizable ribbons of flesh and battered bone so no one would remember the boy the Sharavak Aaquaena had once called friend. The old Twilight grappled with the new again, but the new me was winning.
No zyz is worth its heartbeat, Shadow Twilight snarled. An irreversible action can occur in one moment, meaning the difference between eternal contentment and existential regret. You will not regret destroying this thing as it deserves, but you will regret trading Aaksa's favor for fancying lesser creatures.
But why does he deserve such a thing? The girl in me argued. What crime has he committed by living?
A much darker voice in my head growled, A crime against the sacredness of Aadyalbaine. Kill the zyz. This is your true testament of faith, your final chance.
But– Girl Twilight started to protest.
The voice hissed again, But nothing. The game has changed, Twilight. Committing raefsa on this zyz will determine what and who you are. Twilight Urik, Aafyrira, Myrk Maiden, and Aaquaena of the Sharavaks, or Twilight Mavericc, meritless zyz girl, Queen of Nothing?
Queen of Nothing. Daughter Darkness. Queen of Nothing...
Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Myrk-Maiden-Daughter-Darkness-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B098MXQHTK/
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