7 - Inside The Void

Tethys’s POV

The void was deliciously quiet.

It was not the silence of peace but the silence of suffocation, where even thought echoed back empty.

I breathed it in the sweet stench of death, savoring the way it pressed against me.

Her soul trembled in the corner of the void, a pale shape flickering like a candle about to go out. Bengü.

The mighty witch doctor.

She had bargained so hard, smiled so sharp, thought she could leash and subdue me with her little tricks.

Now she crouched in the dark, her face gray, her eyes wide with the dawning horror that she was not the mistress here. She was mine.

I laughed, letting the sound curl through the black air like iron chains rattling. “Ah, sweet Bengü. You look so small without your potions, without your charms. Just a little shiver in my palm. It doesn’t suit you.”

Her voice cracked, brittle as glass. “You cannot keep me here. I am not finished. I still have work to do. I still—”

“You still thought you had time,” I purred. I paced in the void, my new form gleaming, the stolen flesh wrapping itself around me like a fine coat.

I looked down at the hands, so slender, veined, now pulsing with my power.

I flexed her arms and grinned. “Time is mine, witch. Yours ran out the moment you called my name.”

Her pale mouth twisted. “You needed me. You would still be bound without me. I bargained, I freed you. I can take it back.”

Her defiance tasted sweet.

I leaned close, my eyes glowing with a heat that seared. “Oh, I do not deny you freed me. You were clever enough to unlatch the door. But tell me, when a caged beast is loosed, does it thank the hand that opened the gate? Or does it devour it first?”

She flinched.

Good.

“You think you’ve won,” she whispered, though her voice shook. “But I know the rites. I know my way back. There are paths even demons cannot tread.”

I chuckled. “Paths? Do you see paths here? Look around you.” I spread my arms wide. The void rippled, stretching endlessly, swallowing even her hope. “This is no road, Bengü. This is your prison. And I am your warden.”

Her soul flared faintly, as though anger might keep it alive. “I will claw my way out. You underestimate me.”

“Oh, darling, I never underestimate you. I enjoy you.” I tilted my head, studying her. “I love how stubborn you are, how you wriggle even when the trap’s teeth have already pierced your leg. It makes your despair… richer.”

I reached out, brushing a clawed finger across her incorporeal cheek. She recoiled, but she couldn’t escape. “Besides,” I added, lowering my voice to a hiss, “don’t you see? You are part of me now. Your heart, your hate, your little ambitions — all swallowed. All fuel. You will live forever, Bengü, but only as my scream when I need music.”

Her breath hitched. “You’ll slip. They’ll see you’re not me. The girl — Manolya, she’ll know! She saw through me once! She will see through you too!”

“Ah, yes. The girl.” I licked my lips asthough savoring her name. “Pretty little lamb with a lion’s spark. Do you think she frightens me? She is already tangled in the web I have spun. She will break. And when she does, her pain will be a sweeter feast than yours. It intrigues me, that such a small girl could out maneuver even you”

“No,” Bengü hissed, lunging at me though her soul-form had no weight. Her hands passed through me like smoke. She screamed, a sound swallowed instantly by the void. “You cannot use her. She is mine!”

I laughed, loud and booming. “Oh, witch. She was never yours. She was always bait, always the thread in a larger weave. You merely played your little part, thinking yourself conductor of the symphony. But I am the composer.”

I let my voice thrum deeper, shaking the void’s walls. “And now I wear your body, your face. And I will cut their throats with your hands. And they will never know until it is too late.”

Her voice fell to a whisper. “I will find a way. Souls can escape. I will not rot here.”

I crouched before her, grinning wide enough to split the face I wore. “Hope, hope, hope. That’s what keeps you flickering. And I love it. Because the longer you hope, the longer I get to break you. And I have all the time in the world. You can never escape”

I stood tall, admiring my stolen form once more. The body was strong and supple. A perfect vessel. I flexed the fingers, rolled the shoulders, and laughed again. “This is only the beginning — all of it is mine to twist. They will not see Bengü’s death as a release. They will see her return as a curse.”

Her soul screamed again, but no sound carried. Only her own silence answered her.

“Don’t worry,” I said sweetly, turning my back on her. “I’ll visit often. I like your company. You’ll be my audience, my mirror, my little captive muse.”

Her voice, faint and breaking, followed me: “Tethys… I swear, I’ll take back what’s mine.”

I paused, savoring the venom in her tone. “Swear all you like. Oaths mean nothing in the void.”

I walked away, though in truth there was no walking here, only drifting through endless dark.

But I imagined the ground beneath me, imagined the cloak of power swirling.

Already I felt the human world tugging, calling.

My grin became wider.

This body would walk among them. This voice would twist their reality. And the witch doctor? She would rot inside me, watching, powerless, as I tore apart the world she once sought to command.

And oh, how she would hate every second of it.