The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and..

Chapter 8
There was no light, no color, and I floated in there for a
while, untethered, hollow and cold. I didn’t think. I didn’t
feel. I just existed in the nothingness…
Until I saw a speck of silvery light that seemed a world
away from me. The illumination throbbed, and with each
beat, it expanded. Wispy tendrils seeped out from the
edges, stretching across the void. Slowly, I drifted toward it.
Sound came back without warning. A voice so deep and
powerful that it found me in the nothing, caught hold of me
so I was no longer slipping toward the silvery light. The
voice held me captive.
“Drink. Keep drinking,” it ordered. “That’s it. Keep
swallowing. Drink, Princess, drink for me…”
The words repeated themselves over and over for what
felt like an eternity before they faded away, and I was once
again in the stillness. There was no silvery light now.
Nothing but a warm and empty darkness with the sweet,
comforting scent of…lilacs.
I stayed there until flashes of muted color surrounded
me. Reds. Silvers. Golds. They swirled together, and I
slipped through them, falling back through the nights,
through the years, until I was small and helpless, standing
before my father.
I could see him clearly, his hair a coppery red in the
lamplight. His square jaw covered in several days-worth of a
beard. Straight nose. Eyes the color of pine.
“What a pretty, little flower. What a pretty poppy.” Papa
leaned in, kissing the crown of my head. “I love you more