9|| The Voice In Her Head

I found myself standing in a cold, dark space that felt like… nothing. There was no ground under my feet, neither was there a sky above my head.

It wasn’t like I was floating, but more like I was existing in a place that shouldn’t exist at all. I tried hard to strain my eyes through the darkness but it didn’t work. All I could see were white lines of foggy smoke and darkness. I couldn’t feel the air, I couldn’t feel my own body, I felt nothing.

“Hello?” My voice called out and I heard it echo around me over and over again before it stopped abruptly. I turned around in confusion. Was I dead? It didn’t feel like death, in the stories I was told when I was young, dying without a wolf was the same thing as not existing. I would either go to the moon to meet the goddess or the depths of hell to pay for my sins, I’d just become nothing.

My head snapped to the side when I heard it. A cold dark female’s voice. The same one I heard right before I passed out.

“You’ve disturbed me from my slumber.”

I froze looking around trying desperately to find out who was talking and where the voice was coming from. But it didn’t take me too long for me to realize that the voice was coming from inside my own head. I felt this dull ache, raising my hands to head.

“Who’s there?” My voice trembled, as I winced. “Show yourself!”

The next thing I heard was a low amused chuckle. A sound that felt so familiar but so foreign at the same time.

“You want to see me?” Another laughter. “Can you handle it?”

I swallowed hard, balling my hand into a fist. The tone of the person’s voice sounded like they looked down on me. Like I was the lowest of the low and they didn’t expect any less or more from me. I shouldn’t be surprised or bothered, I have lived all my life with people treating me this way but for some reason, this just felt so unfair.

“What do you mean ‘not yet’? Where am I? What’s happening to me?”

The voice sighed, like they don’t even know where to start.

“You don’t even recognize me.”

The voice sounded so angry and unforgiving. “After everything I did for you, you let your petty little pain strip you of your destiny.”

“Pathetic!” the voice hissed. “Your mind is even weaker than your body. It was bad enough that you wasted yourself on that good-for-nothing mate… now you’re mate-less. Empty. What am I supposed to do with you?”

I glared into the darkness, my voice rising with anger.

“Recognize you?! I don’t even know who you are! Who do you think you are to treat me this way? You think I don’t know I’ve lost it all?” My fist slammed against my chest, tears spilling down my face. “My own father sold me as a sex slave, my mate abandoned me for my best friend. I’m trapped in this palace, watching my dignity slip away piece by piece, and I can’t do anything about it. Who are you to judge me when I have nothing left to give?”

The voice answered immediately without missing a beat. “I am you, Dahlia. A part of yourself you’ve forgotten. Wake up, Dahlia. Remember who you truly are.”

My breath got caught in my throat as I stumbled back even though there was nothing there to push me.

I was shaking my head over and over. “You’re wrong. I’m nothing. I’m wolfless. An omega.”

Her voice snarled at me, an evil dangerous snarl. “Is that what they told you?”

“What do you mean?”

She didn’t answer. I only felt a whisper, brushing against my ear like the wind.

“A great war is coming. A great evil we have fought before. Time is running out. Remember me and renew our binding soul or all will be lost.”

I felt a loud wolf in the distance and panics rose through me.

“Wait!” I cried, reaching out desperately into the darkness.

But all that came back was a final scream from the voice. “You are not what you think you are… Wake, Dahlia. Wake up!”

My eyes snapped open as I sucked in a deep cold breath that filled my lungs so much I felt like I was drowning. For a moment, I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, holding the duvet wrapped around in pure shock and confusion.

It took me a long time to realize that it was a dream. All of it. The voice, the smoke, the feeling of emptiness, all of it was a dream.

After that was when the ache slammed into me. My whole body felt like I’d been struck by a car over and over. My throat was so dry it was so painful to swallow , and my eyelids were too heavy to keep open. Even the act of existing felt exhausting.

“Your Highness! You’re awake!”

Poppy’s familiar voice rang out and I felt her hands on me, holding it tight. When I finally forced my eyes to her, I sighed. She looked exhausted, with large dark circles under her eyes. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days, and worse, her lashes were clumped from crying.

“W… water.”

“Oh! I’m sorry!” She fumbled, reaching for the glass on the bedside table. Carefully, she slipped an arm behind me, helping me sit up despite the burning pain in my muscles. When she pressed the cup to my lips, I let out a shaky sigh at the taste, greedily swallowing until my throat no longer felt like sandpaper.

I finally felt like I could breathe.

“What… happened?”

Poppy’s pink lips pressed together in worry, her eyes dropping before she forced herself to meet mine again.

“Your Highness, I was so worried. My heart sank when they carried you out of the chamber. You weren’t breathing. You weren’t even warm. Everyone thought you had died. Even the king.”

I felt so shocked. “What?”

She nodded quickly. “Yes. I heard the king himself came down from the observatory and ordered the royal doctor to attend to you. Everyone was in disbelief because usually the king wouldn’t care.

Her words sank into me. What? The king told them to help me? I couldn’t believe it.

“And then what happened.”

“The doctor said you over-exhausted yourself. That your body needed complete rest. He gave me medicines to boil and feed you and told me not to let anyone disturb you.”

“How long have I been asleep?”

Poppy hesitated, her hands fidgeting in her lap. Then she whispered, “A week, Dahlia. You’ve been asleep for a week.”

My mouth fell open. A week? It felt like I’d only just closed my eyes. Five seconds—that was all it had felt like. I covered my mouth with a trembling hand, unable to understand how my body could have shut down for that long and still feel so tired.

“Head Maid Smite came this morning to force you to wake up,” Poppy went on, her voice breaking in frustration. “I told her what the royal doctor ordered, but she kept insisting you might be faking it and pretending to sleep to delay the next trial. She wouldn’t stop until I mentioned His Majesty’s name. Only then did she back down.”

She looked so wronged that I couldn’t imagine how much she’d suffered when I was asleep. “The real reason she’s so wicked is because she lost a bet. Your Highness, did you know nearly all the castle staff and officials made on whether you would survive the first trial? Smite apparently lost so much money. That’s why she’s furious. I went to her for supplies while you slept, and she told me it didn’t matter because she wasn’t even sure you’d ever wake again.”

I frowned. “What?”

“Your Highness you don’t know how badly they’ve treated us while you were asleep. They’ve been starving us of supplies. We haven’t had coal for days. I have to scrap woods for your room fire place because the house heater had spoilt and on one will come to fix it.

“Did you tell Head Maid Smite about the heater?”

“Yes,” she said bitterly. “And it’s not just that. Smite instructed the kitchen not to send us food unless I begged. I wanted fruits so I could blend them and feed you something nutritious but they only sent us stale bread and watered down soup. The laundry maids refused to wash your clothes. I had to wash all the sheets myself going up and down by the way because they cut off our water supply. I don’t even have enough things to help me clean the house properly. You passed the first Trial and they’re treating us even worse than before.”

My stomach knotted. “Why? What have I done to deserve this? Why is Head Maid Smite being cruel to us, I haven’t offended her.”

“I don’t know Dahlia, but if she keeps this up, we won’t be able to last before the second trial, talk less of the third. You need to eat meat and gain back your strength. What are you going to do?”

It was a very good question. What was I going to do?

The words of the voice in my dream rang in my head.

“Is that what they told you?”

Who told me to be weak and helpless, saying yes to whatever anyone says in order to keep the peace. Who told me to be spineless and watch people walk all over me over and over. Who told me to be afraid, to let people that wouldn’t even care if I died win.

Who told me to be my sister’s punching bag.

Who told me to be my father’s obedient daughter.

Who did?

“Call, Head Maid Smite, tell her Concubine Dahlia wants to speak to her.”