I stare up at the smokey and ash filled sky; her words are playing in my head on repeat.
“What are you afraid of?” she had asked.
I grit my teeth as her face appears before me. “What are you doing on the ground?” I avert my eyes from her. “Come on, why are you being so serious? It was just a game.” The memory flashes in front of my eyes before I can stop it.
My little sister is sitting on the roof of the train.
The dare.
The disappointment in my mother’s eyes when I came home.
The blood that never came off of my clothes that day.
“Go away Delilah. I’m not in the mood for one of your games.” I sit up and brush the grass from my pants. The wind blows through her hair and for a moment I can see the girl I used to know. A young girl with sunlight in her hair and dirt on her knees. She used to be kinder and more forgiving. That was before. Now all I see is the worn leather jacket and the cruel mask she wears. No one knew what had happened to Delilah Green, and no one cared enough to find out.
“Are you sure about that Arth? Last time I checked you loved my games, especially the ones that involved a little risk.” She whispered behind my ear. Before I could turn around, she was back in front of me. Delilah wasn’t wrong. I loved the rush that came with the games. Adrenaline pounding through my blood and the feeling that maybe,
just maybe, you wouldn’t be able to walk away from this game.
“I told you to go away, Delilah. I won’t ask you nicely again.” I could feel the anger building in my chest. It begged for an escape, but never again. Not after her. I couldn’t.
“Not even for one of these?” Delilah held up a small brass key. My breath caught in my throat. Everyone knew what those keys were. Not the keys to the city, but the keys to the underground. The keys to unlocking life and death. Very few were entrusted with them, and fewer lived to say that they had held one. It would be a bit too dramatic to say that wars had been fought over these keys, but more than enough lives had been taken to even hold one of them. I still remember the first time I held one of those keys: the rush of power it filled me with, and the emptiness I felt inside when it was taken. Nothing could fill the hole that it left inside me. Except maybe…
“What do I have to do?” I asked.
A grin spread on Delilah’s face.
“Oh, nothing really, except steal the Starkeeper’s crown.”
“That’s all?”
“Mhm. And of course, bring it back to me in one piece without
any one of the other players taking it from you.”
Classic Delilah. Get yourself involved in what appears to be an easy plan and be ensnared in the twists and turns of the spider’s web. Everyone thinks that they are the spider, controlling the narrative, but no one is born the spider. Spiders are made from the weak little flies.
