Sabit’s left foot was cold. Amidst the broiling heat of the chamber and the suffocating red smoke that had displaced ever breath of air, Sabit’s left foot felt cool and dry. Her body flushed in the heat and her chest ached from the acrid burn of sobbing smoke for hours, and her throat burned raw–having screamed lifetime’s worth of screams in a single afternoon.
Sabit could feel the cool stone floor beneath her toes, and something cold and metallic atop it. She flexed her foot and delighted to feel sharp pin pricks of silver on the tender inner sides of her toes–each tiny pinch driving the cool, calm sensation of sanity higher up her ankle, her calf, her thigh. Squeezing her toes like a fist, Sabit felt the tiny seven pointed stars draw blood as she jolted from the nightmare of the past. Yes, she had failed Ishum and and Irkalla and all the rest. Even poor, devoted Allamu …
But that was the past. To wallow in her losses was to to fail them again.
That was something Sabit would not allow.
Forcing her watering eyes open, Sabit could barely see anything in the blood-red haze of smoke. Kicking forward with her long legs, she swung in her chains, despite the pain of her shoulders. Even her strongest kicks fell short of where her spear smoldered in the brazier, its dull glow of embers visible only as a lighter smear in the haze.
Sabit’s shoulders still ached with the effort of thrashing against her bonds with all her might. The chains would not be broken by force. Her mighty hands were trapped. Her feet were free, but could not reach the the source of her suffering.
What could they reach?
Preparing herself for the sharp pain in her shoulders Sabit kicked forward with both legs, as high as she could. Throwing her head back, she forced her legs higher, over her head, until she hung upside down from her chains. Her feet touched stone and Sabit steadied herself against the arch, the disorientation of being inverted far less than that of the smoke’s torturous touch.
Bracing her right foot against the stone ceiling, Sabit stretched her left foot to the side until it felt as though it hovered directly above her left hand. Looking up to check the alignment, Sabit could see nothing but a featureless red haze, her limbs and body swallowed up by the blood-colored miasma of the past.
Sabit knew her body. How it moved. How it felt. With a swallow down her raw throat, she unclenched her toes. She felt the silver necklace drop away. She splayed her fingers wide.
Sabit alone. A failure. A murderer.
Sabit’s left hand was cold. Her fingers gripped a chain of cold silver, the seven-pointed stars sharp between her fingers.
— — —
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Wayfarings of Sabit: Agony is copyright (c) 2018 by Michael S. Miller. All rights reserved. New chapters post every Thursday (and the occasional Monday). You can support this and other stories on Patreon: https://patreon.com/michaelsmiller Find more sword and sorcery fiction at http://ipressgames.com/fiction/.