"It is not death that haunts us. It is the memory of survival."
— Ella the Silvertongued Princess
Dove.
My vision swam, black at the edges.I pressed my forehead to the cold stone, forcing breath into my lungs.
He couldn't find me.He wouldn't.
I repeated it like a prayer.
But I could still hear him — just on the other side of the wall.His heavy fists hammering at the stone.
"Turtle Dove, oh my beautiful little turtle dove!" — THUMP.
"I'm sorry I pushed you, darling!" — THUMP.
"Come out and play!" — THUMP. THUMP.
The stone shuddered with each blow but blessedly did not crack.
I clenched my teeth, willing myself smaller, quieter, invisible.
His sweet coaxing rotted into snarled threats.
"If you don't come out, Dove..." — THUMP."I'll tell the madame what you did." — THUMP."I'll pay extra to punish you. You won't be able to walk for weeks." — THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
The horror bloomed fresh inside me.
Was that what had killed Raven?
Endorsed punishment fees?Sanctioned cruelty hidden under ledgers and coins?
The bile in my throat rose.I swallowed it back, barely.
Then came the worst.
His voice dropped low — almost tender.
"I know you're in there, Dove. I see the blood you left." His boots scraped against the stone as he shifted closer.
"And when I buy you... I'll bring my brothers too. We'll take you all at once — every hole. Again. And again. Until you can't even cry anymore. Until you're nothing but a vessel for seed and shame. You'll beg us to kill you. And we'll say no."
A sob cracked loose from my throat before I could stop it.
I curled tighter into myself, trying to vanish into the stone.
My stomach heaved and I retched silently onto the floor, trembling violently.
I felt the blood on the back of my head, sticky and cold where I'd slammed it against the stairs.My bound hands shook uncontrollably.
Don't move. Don't breathe. Don't let him hear you.
Another crash against the wall — and then silence.
Blessed, aching silence.
I didn't dare move.
Minutes. Hours. I couldn't tell.
Finally, when my limbs stopped seizing, I pressed my palm against the cool stone and dragged myself upright.
The world tilted.The faintest shimmer of blue light flickered at the edges of the dark, calling to me.
I had no choice.I had nowhere else to go.
I stumbled forward — step after halting step — deeper into the darkness.
The sounds of the Aviary faded behind me: laughter, music, the slap of flesh against flesh.A background hum of madness.
Down here, there was only the sound of my own breathing, shallow and terrified.
I limped onward, leaning against my mop to steady my steps.
The dust lay thick on the floor, undisturbed for decades.Safe. Forgotten.
And still the faint blue shimmer led me onward, a trail of ghostly breadcrumbs.
My leg screamed with each step. My head throbbed in rhythm. But I moved.
Anything was better than going back.
Anything.
At last, the passage widened into a low cavern, carved into the bones of the island.
At its centre: a platform of polished stone.
And atop it — a flame.
Small. Blue.Burning without smoke or heat.
The hairs on my arms prickled.Something about the flame pulled at me — ancient, expectant.
I turned to flee.
"Child of the light," a voice whispered at my ear.
I whirled, heart hammering so loudly I was sure it would shake the walls.
"It's been so long," the voice sighed."So long since anyone came to me in the dark."
Something brushed my arm — a feather-light caress of cold fingers.
I froze.
"Breathe, child," the voice chided, as if scolding a stubborn pet.
I forced a shuddering inhale.
"I-I can't see you," I stammered. "Who are you? What are you?"
The air shifted. A sound like fingertips tapping against bone.
"Ah," the voice said, almost gleeful."We can fix that."
The world lurched around me.
Gone was the damp stone.Instead, I stood on warm white sand, a bright sea stretching out before me, the sun hot on my shoulders.
I gasped, stumbling backward, falling into the soft grit.
A musical laugh rippled across the air.
"You've never seen a simple illusion spell, little dove?" the voice teased, light and lilting.
I fisted my hands in the sand — real, warm, impossibly real — and turned.
There, sitting cross-legged beside me, was a girl.
No — not a girl.Something older. Sharper.
Her hair fell in a waterfall of shimmering red, threaded with hints of violet and gold.Her skin was pale, almost translucent, and her eyes — gods, her eyes — were molten gold.
"Ma-Mat'ar," I whispered, the word catching clumsily on my tongue.
She smiled — but there was no warmth in it.
"I don't bother with the foolish names of fallen kings," she said, voice heavy with ancient disdain.
She turned back to the endless, shimmering sea without another word.
I studied her cautiously.
"What's your name?" I asked finally. "Did the madame trap you here?"
Her golden eyes flicked toward me.
"I had a name, once," she said."But I left it behind long ago. Like bones in the desert."
There was a strange sadness in her voice — a hollow echo.
I reached out instinctively — to comfort, to connect — but my hand passed through her like mist.
She laughed, the sound sharp and brittle.
"I'm already gone, little dove."
Gone.
A ghost.
But not empty.Not powerless.
"How are you still here?" I whispered.
She shrugged, a gesture strangely human.
"Sometimes the soul refuses to forget. Sometimes it stays, clinging to a place, a promise, a wound that never heals."
She tapped a finger thoughtfully against her lips.
"I like the name Cleo," she said at last, almost as an afterthought.
I swallowed against the lump rising in my throat.
"Cleo," I repeated softly.
She smiled — small, sad — and looked back toward the false sea.
"Maybe you can help me, little dove," she said."Maybe we can help each other."
Before I could answer, the illusion shattered.
The sand, the sea, the warmth — all gone.
I sat alone again in the cold, damp dark.Only the blue flame remained, flickering weakly.
The loss hit me harder than the fall.
Tears burned hot down my cheeks as the night's terror crashed over me again.
I curled into a ball beside the flame, rocking myself gently as the sobs tore free.
The Aviary.The monster upstairs.Raven, gone.Phoenix, broken. Broken by my family, by circumstance.
And now Cleo — a ghost caught in a prison even death couldn't free her from.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
I had to survive.I had to get out.
For Raven.For Cleo.For me.
I wept until the spasms wracked my body and finally — blessedly — sleep took me.
But even in sleep, I could still hear Cleo's voice, soft and sorrowful, echoing inside my bones.
"Not all cages have locks."