Bone and Feather

Bone and Feather -6- {Blood and Warnings}

The air was perfumed with the nauseating scent of blood, freshly spilled from split veins. Dorian had cut one of her wrists and clenched the slashed arm in his fist, blood crawling over his knuckles. He eyed Elijah with a foul look as she screamed, emerging from her trance-like state. But Elijah could vaguely see past the silver teeth of the blade captured in Dorians fingers, decorated with a splash of Cora's blood. It looked familiar. All too frighteningly familiar. 

--

The pain was hot, like liquidated flames and it crawled into her mind, waking her from her wicked insanity. Her eyes snapped open and she lay eyes upon a river of red cascading down her forearm. She screamed, a bone-gnashing scream, the type that ricocheted off trees and stirred fear in even the driest, blackest hearts.

She couldn't help looking at the wound, her eyes were drawn to it like flies to a corpse. It was a jagged slash made by a knife that needed sharpening and the blood, it would not stop coming.  She watched in horror as Dorian silently pressed a glass to the wound, letting the thick, hot liquid curl at the bottom of the vial. Her eyes rolled with pain and her vision wavered like a withering campfire as she watched him fill three more vials with her blood. 

She tore her eyes away, trying to tame the stinging tears that flooded her vision. Through her wildfire pain, her eyes lay upon Elijah, watching with his wide dark eyes. She vaguely noticed that the redheaded man was no longer holding him in an iron grip, for they undoubtably knew he wouldn't be able to escape without detection. But even with this sort of freedom, he was simply standing, alone in the shadow of an oak tree, watching with no pity in his eyes. Though perhaps, she deserved none, for forgiveness is hard to come by in this sort of world.

"I believe that is enough," Dorians voice simmered in her ear and he released his grip on her hacked wrist, capping the final bottle of her blood with a cork. She couldn't move, for it felt like her limbs were made of iron and her head spun from lack of blood. Her throat felt rough from screaming, like it was coated with a heavy layer of sawdust. She lifted her heavy head slowly and caught Dorians deep-set gaze.

"Why?"she coughed. 

He spun one of the scarlet vials between his fingers, "Blood from witches is hard to come by, dear girl. But the blood of one possessed is even more difficult to capture,"

Her vision faded momentarily, blinding her for a breath of a second until the outlines of the leaves began to seep back into her mind. She tried to wrap her mind around it, the thought of being possessed. Through her agony, she tried to sort through any sort of logic, but her wretched mind was opaque with lethargy and blood loss. 

Dorian, catching the brief muddled look in her eyes, came close to her, holding the vial close.

"Your blood is tainted, girl. You, yourself are doomed, but tainted blood can be useful to others. Can make money. Can chase things away."

"That's just superstition,"she mumbled, lids fluttering. It couldn't be true. Her Father told her himself that she was not a witch, or even one possessed and hearing this knocked any sort of comfort, that was left, from her body. 

"Superstition is always rooted in truth. One way or another,"he glanced at Elijah who still lurked in the gray-tinted shadows, arms folded across his chest, watching silently like a stone angel in a graveyard. Dorian then gave Cora one last look, a look which possessed barely a touch of pity, and turned back towards the fire the others were tending to. 

She was left there, alone on the gritty floor of the forest, wallowing in her own pitiful pain as hearty aromas of food teased her senses and made her stomach clench in hunger. She noticed the night had now fully succumbed to the blazing sun, but the harsh, angular shadows of the night had barely relented to the light, for this forest was dark even in the golden daylight. She supposed it could've been because of the thick foliage, but was because Cora wasn't too sure she was ready to acknowledge that this forest was dark for other reasons. Trying to shake the thought from her mind, she tried to stand, but found she could not scrape together enough energy to even sit up, for the world danced circles across her eyes.

Finally, she captured enough energy to cast a cautious glance at the Hunters and finally making sure their backs were turned, she began drag herself across the earth to the moss-covered base of a tree, forearms scraping against pointed stones. She then noticed the blood pouring from her wrists had somehow relented and now only decorated the whitish pallor of her arms in dried ribbons of red. Pain possessed her with a steadfast grip and she found she had to bite her lips to keep from crying out, to keep from giving herself away as she drew herself to the shadows of the trees.

Somehow, she managed to pull herself to her feet, head spinning and limbs trembling. She careened through the cavern of ghastly trees, attempting to keep her mind sharp and her feet quiet. Her heart beat fast with the fear. She wasn't sure if it was the fear of being caught or having nowhere to go. Perhaps it was both and she couldn't decide with was more terrifying. 

When she made a harsh turn through a cluster of trees decorated with branches ending in knife-like points, she found she had walked into something solid. It didn't feel like the hollow hardness of a tree trunk, nor was it like the cool density of stone--it was a wall of flesh and the heat that radiated from it almost burned in the darkness.

She jumped away, forcing herself to swallow a scream that began to boil in her gut. She peered through the veil of blackness, trying to piece together what she had just ran into. But alas, whatever it was, was obscured by a deep, thick shadow cast by the trees. 

"Who's there?" she whispered into the oppressing night, clutching a tree trunk for support.

She only recognized him when he was right in front of her, right when it was too late. 

----

The breath of morning touched their souls as they broke though the crooked trees. The arms of the village lay in wait only a few steps ahead and Elijah couldn't help feeling slightly like he was being dragged to his death once more. He found he was holding his breath as they neared the place that had condemned him only a day or so before. Though this time, his wings were slyly tucked underneath one of the Hunter's jackets. It was a difficult task, to fold his wings so close to his spine, but when they finally managed to make it work, he was quite glad of it. He really had never worn a jacket or tunic, for his wings always prosed as a problem for clothing. During the winter months, he only slung a woolen blanket over his shoulders to protect him from the cold. With the newfound knowledge of collapsing his wings so they clung to his back like an extra pair of shoulder blades, he felt further from a circus freak than he had ever felt in his entire pathetic life. 

The redheaded man walked close behind him with a macabre sort of gaze that kept Elijah walking. Keeping a good distance between himself and the man, he craned his neck, peering forward through the haze of the morning and spotted the back of Cora's head. She had tried to escape the night before and almost did if Dorian hadn't found her and brought her back whimpering like some sort of animal. He couldn't cast away the expression that traced her face as Dorian dragged her back into the clearing. Her skin was ghost white underneath the blood and earth that masked her features that contorted themselves into a grisly, grotesque expression. The emotion emitting from that face was so powerful that Elijah's own body trembled with her terror and pain even from across the campsite.

He noticed that they were now in the belly of the village. Despite the early hour, the square was swollen with village folk that trolled through the bakeries, butcher shops for fresh produce and weaved through the merchant carts that dotted the western side of the square. But despite all the colorful displays that played with his eyes and the scents that made his stomach rumble, his gaze strayed towards the half-charred pile of wood that wallowed in the center of the square. But the most horrific sight was that of a head displayed on a stake decorated with a swipe of auburn hair. 

Then, all Elijah could hear was Cora's screams.