Page 62 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

Sadly, it didn’t take long for me to realize it wasn’t a ruse at all.

I’d let my eyes fall shut again, trying to think back to cool winds and brisk mornings in Odessa’s mountains, when a ripple of unease worked its way through my spine, like the precursor to a too-many-pints-of-ale dizziness that would make me sick.

When I opened my eyes to stave off the impending spins, I found my father sitting in the empty seat beside me.

My entire body tensed.

This wasn’t real, I told myself quickly. Just my mind and whatever was in that water playing a cruel trick on me.

But, good fucking goddess, he looked real. Like he had stepped right out of a lifetime of fond memories I’d tried not to think of in recent months. His hair—short and neat, sandy brown. His eyes—bright blue with the first traces of wrinkles framing them. And, goddess help me, his smile.

An ache in my chest built abruptly. He’s not real, I told myself again.

But my father spoke. “I’m so sorry, Ennie,” he said, and nothing could stop the whimper that left me at hearing his voice and the nickname only he ever called me. “You know I never wanted to leave you, right?”

I must’ve made another awful noise, because Gallan called out my name in concern, and the apparition of my father vanished.

“What?” I croaked.

Gallan shook his head.

It took some time before I saw my father again.

Another member of my group had taken so ill, they were escorted out, but the rest of us kept pushing through. I resorted to taking one other sip of my water to stave off a bout of nausea. Aside from the unrelenting heat, the hardest part was not knowing how much time had passed. At first, I counted how often Gallan would add another ladle of water to the steaming coals, but I lost track after an hour.

All I could hope was that sunrise would come soon.

I thought a change in position might help the time pass a little more easily, because the stone seat was doing my back no favors. I lowered myself onto the floor, propping my head up on my folded, sopping wet towel. Within seconds, my father was beside me again, but he was no longer the healthy man from my most precious memories.

No, he looked as he did when I arrived late to his deathbed.

Skin sallow. Lips blue. Open, unseeing eyes.

“No. No. No.” My voice was hoarse, and the stone bit into my shoulders as I shrank back against it.

He opened his mouth and elicited a dull, agonized moan.

I squeezed my eyes shut, desperate to rid myself of his image, but it was infinitely worse the next time I braved a glance. My father was even closer, crouched in front of me, in a horrific state of decay, his funeral-painted flesh half-rotted and hanging off his bones. I clasped my hand over my mouth, trying to stifle my ragged gasp, and tossed my head back, fixing all my attention on the domed stone ceiling.

It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.

“Ennie, look at me,” the delusion of my father called out in a wet rasp. “Sweetheart, please. Don’t you want to see me again? Isn’t that what you cried about, night after night? Just one more chance to talk to me again?”

“No,” I whispered, pressing my palms to my eyes and digging them in until my eyes ached. “Not like this.”

Despite my protests, the cruel figment of my mind kept goading me, calling out in that wretched gargle of a tone. Over and over and fucking over. It would briefly abate every time Gallan did his rounds, forcing me to drink more of that terrible water with a look of unmatched concern, only to come rushing back the moment he stepped away. Even when the heat finally got to my stomach, and I found myself with my head in an already sullied bucket, heaving up every ounce of water I’d drunk, my father was there, calling out to me.

“Ennie, please,” he’d call out. “Look at me. Look at what I’ve become. Why weren’t you there? Why didn’t you come for me? I gave you everything!”

It went on endlessly.

Drinking tainted water. Berated by my dead father. Hanging my head in a bucket.

Over and over and over.

I only knew I cried because of the way my eyes ached—the wet saltiness of tears was indistinguishable from the sweat beading down my face. At some point, I curled up on my side, finding the stone to be half a degree cooler than the air.

We lost another two in my room, and the building commotion coming from some of the other rooms had me desperate to believe the end of our initiation neared. They had been eerily silent all damn night—not that I should’ve been surprised, seeing as most were tenured Elixia members.