Chapter Text
PROLOGUE
There was only darkness.
A cold, vast, empty darkness, with no beginning and no end. It was all around her, she was drowning in it, breathing it in, floating in it, feeling no weight of her body, almost as it has never existed. That black void was everything she knew for years, for centuries and at some point, she has learned to treat it like home, not a prison it truly was.
There was this strange comfort in being there all alone, no worries, no hunger, no death… Just her, her thoughts and this blackness, sometimes almost touchable, feeling like velvet against her skin; cold, yet at the same time so warm…
Sometimes it almost felt like this darkness was alive. Moving around her, humming something, that strange vibrations filling her ears in that never-ending silence. Sometimes she was even sure she noticed something with the corner of her eye, but as soon as she moved her head, every movement being the biggest effort she could ever imagine, there was nothing there, the emptiness around her, silent, still, dead.
There was always only this darkness. And hatred.
Her hatred.
Even though she was stuck here for that long, the anger she felt, the betrayal she experienced, the feeling of her heart being broken, all those feelings were fresh and alive in her heart, almost like it had happened moments, days ago, not centuries… She could have learned to live in that darkness, live with no sounds, no lights, no people, but she couldn’t learn to live with those emotions, she couldn’t move on, no matter how much she tried. Every time she was telling herself it was the high time, that there was no point in holding the grudge anymore, all the memories were coming back, hurting her even more, once again filling her heart with hate and reminding her that she had to remember, she had to hate.
All the memories she had, the pictures in her mind, the only things she could see in this darkness, colors so vivid, emotions so fresh, anger so real… The memories of a family she once had. Memories of a life that once was hers. Memories of her long black hair flapping behind her back, when she was riding on a dark horse, sword in her hand, always towards victory, her father right by her side. Memories of screams of her victims, memories of their voices begging for mercy, begging for life and her figure standing above them, in that very moment being their goddess, their judge, their executioner, their lives in her hands and her hands only. Memories of long feasts, awaiting for them whenever they got back home, victorious again, tables filled with hundreds of plates, the most delicious food she could ever imagine ready to be shared and the long talks in front of a wine goblets, when they were weaving the stories of their battles, stories of yet another enemy defeated. Memories of glory, respect, love, and memories… of her end…
That one day that changed everything, merely an innocent talk, just a meeting between father and his daughter. And the choice he made, the one that was meant to haunt him for the rest of his life and the one that was meant to haunt her… Forever. A choice that was the greatest betrayal she had ever experienced, a choice that changed the last amounts of love she had in her heart into pure rage, a hatred that consumed her, just like the darkness he trapped her in.
And even though those memories were reminding her of everything she has lost, reminding her of how much she was hurt, those memories were also the only things keeping her sane. The only things reminding her who she truly was and the ones giving her constant hope that, sooner or later, she will get free, she will get out of this infinity trap and she will come back, in all her glory, victorious again, bringing nothing but death, revenge and destruction, finally claiming something that was always meant to be hers.
Her closed eyes opened again, yet still seeing nothing except the blackness around, the pictures she had seen moments ago disappearing, going back to the deepest parts of her memory, hidden there, awaiting another time she would need them. Her gaze moved, lazily, her body once again feeling that strange movement of the void around her and a strange shiver going down her spine, almost like a sign of something coming. Something big, something unexpected and something…
And suddenly she saw it. Something that her eyes haven’t seen in centuries. Something so unexpected, that for a moment she was afraid that after all this time she was going crazy and there was nothing more than the creation of her imagination. She blinked several times, calming her nerves, calming her beating heart, convincing herself it was nothing, that it must have been nothing. But as soon as she opened her eyes again she realized that something that was only a small spot, a little point somewhere far away, something that could be mistaken for pictures made up by her imagination, suddenly started to grow, long ripple in the darkness in front of her, almost like a lightning crossing the black sky during a thunderstorm, sudden silver contrasting with black.
Light… Her mind gave her that one single word and though she still couldn’t fully believe it, her heart started to beat faster, that ecstatic feeling of not only seeing something else from the darkness, but the feeling of sensing freedom, finally within the reach of her hand, the feeling that it might have been her way out.
The light was growing bigger and bigger, getting brighter with every passing second and she had to close her eyes, the light blinding her, her pupils unable to stand that amount of brightness, not after centuries of seeing nothing.
It was painful. Something that she missed that much was now causing her the greatest pain she ever experienced. Centuries spent in the darkness made her eyes forget the way the long rays of light were coming into her eyes, dilating the pupils, magically bringing the imagines from her eyes to her brain. She tried to close her eyelids even more, shutting them, but she could still feel it, through her thin, pale skin, that sudden brightness, that warmth not only on her face but also her skin, warming her, reminding her how it was to feel something else against her skin.
She couldn’t tell if it was taking minutes or hours, but she could feel darkness vanishing around her, light warming her body, pulling her back to the world of the living, pulling her back into the world she once knew, the one she once called ‘home’.
And then she finally dared to open her eyes.
And there was no darkness anymore.