Wednesday Snippet - Star-filled eyes watched her

The writing has been slow-going recently, mostly because I spent a lot of last week running around like a mad thing at the day job preparing for being off work this week. But! I am now off work. And hopefully the next few days will be productive and push me ever-closer to the end of Imperial Demons. Cross your fingers for me. I'm also anticipating first round edits for either LICH QUEEN or ON A DARK TIDE in the near future, since both are currently slated for release in June. Obviously edits will slow down writing, but maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan, I am so excited about both those stories!

Anyway! Let's check in with Lola in the meantime.

Star-filled eyes watched her, unblinking and coldly curiously. They surrounded her, a countless sea of floating eyes dancing with supernovas and swirling galaxies. It was both wondrous and chilling, and she badly wanted to close her eyes again, but that would look weak, wouldn't it?

So she forced herself to stare back, dredging up every scrap of courage and devotion she had. This was for Tristesse. She could make herself endure for Tristesse.

 

We demand so much, the voice said, and Lola sensed now it was addressing her. We need so much. We cannot settle for weakness. We cannot be bound to frailty. Let us taste...let us see...

 

A chorus of voices joined in, a rising babble that penetrated Lola's skull and swamped her brain, overwhelming her completely.

 

Give us a taste...give us a taste...give us a taste...

 

Incredible, unspeakable pain lanced through her, from her fingertips to her toes, juddering down her spine like a lightning strike and setting her skin on fire. The agony cracked her, contorted her, broke her open. She screamed as every cut she'd ever made split as if cut afresh, as her blood poured into the void. The rune on her back burned, sending blue-hot sparks spinning around her and driving 

daggers through every nerve ending.

Invisible hands clawed at her, sending her tumbling head over heels, wrapping her in sorcerous chains. Invisible mouths lapped greedibly at her blood, rocking Lola with hard, hot waves of pure masochistic delight. It hurt, oh holy fucking hell it hurt, but it was good, too, soul-searingly good, because each whip-crack of pain revealed her tormentors' power, and it was fathomless, limitless, and so, so close.

She spun in bloody darkness, burning up and filled with visions. Suns exploding. Empires collapsing in fire and ash. Monstrous serpents entombed in the earth, and great, winged creatures soaring into stormy skies. Rivers of blood flowing across parched plains. Strange, misshapen skeletons half-buried in stone. Giants striding through ancient forests and stars crashing to earth. It didn't make any sense. Were they memories of these ageless beings? Dreams? Prophecies? It didn't matter. They showed Lola possibilities, offered her a glimpse of a power older and stranger and stronger than anything she could achieve alone, and all she had to offer them, they whispered, was a piece of herself.

Was that not generous?

Drunk and dizzy, and maybe even dying, Lola agreed. That was generous. And she wanted it.

 

Take the chain, they whispered, a thread of elation running through them all. Take the chain, and if you are strong, if you are clever, you will be found worthy.