"This is getting exhausting, even for me." Her voice was tired, more irritated than angry. "Tell me what I want to know, and I promise I'll kill you in the next instant."
I didn't lift my head, didn't even twitch, just kept staring at the floor with hollow eyes.
Silence.
How long had it been, ten days, more? I'd lost count. I couldn't speak anymore, and she hadn't even noticed, because one of her toxins, one of the many, must've burned through my windpipe at some point.
Heh.
"Silent again?" she asked. "Oh, I see. You think just because you've adapted to this level of pain, this is all there is?"
I said nothing. There was nothing to say.
She wore that ridiculous black witch's hat with two strands of pink hair framing her face, bangs that would've made her look almost angelic if not for the madness sitting behind her eyes, and if I'd met her under different circumstances I might've thought she was beautiful, but not anymore, not after everything she'd done.
She sighed, annoyed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I should be with Auston right now, but no, you make me come back here every single day, and now look."
She took a step back, her wand rising slow and deliberate. "Final chance, Azalea. I don't want to go to the extreme, I'm not heartless, but if you force my hand..."
Something shifted.
I felt the ether surge through her before she even spoke, my body recognizing it before my brain could react, and still I didn't lift my head.
Just do it. Just make sure I really die this time.
I closed my eyes.
"Fine, FINE! You want it the hard way? Then let me show you what pain at the soul level feels like!"
The ether flared around her.
"Luciphera's Blessing."
My body stiffened, because she was using it, her blessing, and the only thought I had was a quiet and exhausted one.
Fuck. Just kill me already, you bitch, just kill me.
"Fourth Form: Helix Curse."
Her eyes flared a fierce and unnatural blue, and then it hit, and it wasn't pain, or it was, but it went so far past pain that the word didn't apply anymore. A finger charring to ash would've been nothing, needles stabbing from wrist to shoulder would've been nothing, eyes gouged and healed and gouged again would've been nothing compared to this, because there were no flames and no visible wounds, but it felt like something was moving beneath my skin and pulling at everything underneath, layer after layer, looking for something deeper.
"It has different effects depending on the individual," she said, her voice distant and clinical. "Since you're unawakened, this should suffice."
Her voice barely reached me.
My body tried to adapt and couldn't, couldn't catch up, couldn't find a way to adjust to something that kept changing, and it just broke under the effort.
"Tsk, how much longer?!" she snapped, biting her nail in frustration. "How can I waste this much time and still get nothing?! Damn you, you thick-skinned bastard!"
Something else was stirring beneath the pain, buried under all of it, something new, like a slow heat moving through my veins that had nothing to do with her curse.
Was this the end?
No, this was something worse.
My mind began slipping, losing its grip on things I'd always known, and something cracked deep inside me, not in my body but somewhere further in, and I felt it go, felt it break, and understood immediately that something vital was dying, not just pain anymore but loss, real loss, the kind that doesn't heal, because I wasn't just suffering, I was losing what made me Noel, the part that had survived everything up until now.
And then the tears stopped.
The pain stopped mattering.
Everything drained out of me slowly and completely, and the memories that used to sit at the back of every waking moment just went quiet, and I couldn't feel them anymore, couldn't reach them, and I didn't know what was happening or whether this was death, but I'd died before and it hadn't felt like this, because that was the end of a body and this was the end of something else, piece by piece, everything I'd ever been stripped away until there was nothing left to take.
And then my life flashed before my eyes, not joy, not love, just pain and betrayal and loss and every moment where I'd ended up on the wrong side of something I hadn't chosen, and even the people I'd called family were just regret when I looked at them now.
This was the end, the end of Noel, the end of Azalea, just two names that hadn't mattered to anyone, not really, not ever.