Chapter 22: But mercy, first and last, shall brightest shine. – III, 134
Contrary to her corpse-like demeanor, Lissie isn’t dying. Well, she hadn’t been.
Truth be told, it’s just freezing down here. Everyone thinks hell burns hot, but it’s quite the opposite.
The deeper she’d sunk, the colder it’d gotten.
Around her, the impenetrable dark had been alive, so to speak, with voices and movement. She’d fallen too fast to make out much of what’d been said, but every whisper had felt like another sliver of ice pushed beneath her skin.
And, through it all, the pain.
Excruciating, all-consuming, inescapable, dizzying, nauseating pain.
It’s as though her heart has been torn, bloody and messily, out of her chest. No matter how hard she’d tried, she hadn’t been able to get a breath in around the pain; doubted she ever will again. She’d pleaded with Matevilya for numbness, death, something – anything to bring an end to all this hurt.
But wherever she is now, she’s certain she’s way beyond even her gods’ reach.