A Past Not Soon Forgotten [closed]

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It was coming now, the final moment where she died and Cullen would have his satisfaction after which, whatever happened to him could happen. He had waited so long for this moment, even indulged her useless pretenses of questions and denial…until now. It was time. Everything was set. This was his chance at having his revenge. So then, why couldn’t he do it? What stayed his hand when he was telling it just slit her throat and finish the deed?

It wasn’t anything she said or some save of sudden sympathy; Cullen's heart remained as cold and calm as it had been all these long years. No...it wasn't anything like that....it was the hate, his hate that he could see reflected in her eyes. It burned back through him, scorching the soul he thought he no longer had, leaving him empty with only the hate, burning still.

In his shock, her hands slipped out of his fingers with surprising strength and he did nothing to stop her. She would find no barriers to his mind for they had been shredded to pieces in his anger and pain, both of which could be felt like the white-hot edge of a blade. Through the agony, he fell into her eyes, into her, falling...falling...

His back arched with a hoarse gasp but his eyes could not be pulled away as she forced him to see that day as she saw it.

His body twitched as he saw, the pressure in his head building as though he weren't ready for what he was about to see. It was rushing by quickly, as though time had been sped up…the race through the forest he recognized as those in Jarrin's lands where they had played as children...the blond woman showing them the way, betraying them...he felt Sylena's fury and rage pulse wildly in time with his own so violently, his head swam with dizziness in a haze of red. Cullen struggled now, trying to fight the villagers as they attacked but he could do nothing, this was only a memory. His mind screamed in anguish as he watched Jarrin die in Sylena's arms, and it twisted, trying to pull away from the horror of it but he could not, he was seeing this through her eyes, and he must stay to watch it all. He felt no remorse as she attacked the wretched blond whore. Cullen had known of her but her often inane chatter and mannerisms had prevented him from pursuing the acquaintance.

His mind was still screaming, still struggling to pull away as she finally released him. The very first thing he saw was Sylena's eyes as his vision cleared, a hand still holding his knife to her throat. He struggled to breathe past the awful pressure in his chest. One breath...two... "No..." he gasped and suddenly shoved himself away from her as though he had been burned. His back smacked up against the opposite wall of the entryway hall. "It can't be true..." he whispered, shaking his head. Still, he could not look away from her. "It can't be... It's a trick... one of your tricks... it has to be..." yet there was no lie... he'd felt it same as she had felt it, as though he had been there.  Cullen tore his gaze away, unable to bear looking at her as the guilt settled firmly on his shoulders. All of a sudden, his legs just wouldn't stay straight anymore and they buckled underneath him. He slid to the floor landing heavily on his knees, arms and fingers going limp. The knife made a small clatter as it fell to the floor, forgotten. His gasping breaths were catching in his throat as tears spilled out of his eyes. "Gods...what have I done?"

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She was already letting her body slide down the wall, onto her hands and knees as she waited for the dizzy spell to wash away. It was something she had gotten used to with this part of her "gift", or a curse as how she saw it. Yet, it had been awhile since she dared to use it. It had been awhile since she allowed herself to remember and show someone else such a powerful and hurtful memory.
Suppressing it for so long, only feeling a small ache whenever she did allow it to resurface. But now, having to see it all over again, to feel everything she had felt that one, horrible day, she thought she might break in half all over again.

Breath hissed passed clenched teeth as fingers dug through her hair, into her scalp as though she were going to rip it right from her skull. Pain spider-webbed across her head, pulsing and weaving its way to the back of her mind before it began to slowly diminish. Those eyes- returning to their normal blue- squeezed shut, refusing to let the tears fall even if it was all she wanted to do. She had her time to mourn and Sylena could not, would not let herself to do so once again. But Cullen needed to know, needed to see what had happened...and she could hear him slump against the opposite wall, the sound of steel hitting the wooden floor, and she suddenly whimpered. For that long, agonizing moment, she was hoping to feel the blade scrape across her skin, to rid her of this past she would be unable to forget once again.

Finally, she managed to turn her attention to him, suddenly wild in her pain, dark mane falling loose from the clip that had once held it all in place. She was angry, she was in pain, and for a moment she might have leapt at him; blamed him for making her see that all again. All the while he tried to make himself believe it was all just a parlor trick. If Sylena had made it, she wouldn’t have wasted her time in the first place. She had the ability to dive into another’s mind, tear them piece by piece until they were nothing but a drooling, babbling mess. All at a cost to her own sanity, but it may have been worth destroying this one’s mind.
"There was...nothing we could do..." Her words, meant to have been a comfort, seemed anything but. Her voice was harsh, deeper, as if she had just woken up from a long slumber. It growled softly from her throat in this wavering pain, her frustration and sadness mixing in. An arm snaked about her stomach, attempting to steady herself before she could move and rest back against the wall. For all the hate he had carried for her, she was feeling it tenfold...because she was furious for what he had made her do.

And yet, now he knew. His pain was the same as hers.

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In this moment of weakness, of pain and guilt so acute, Cullen half expected her to leap at him, tear those nails into his flesh, rend him limb from limb. He not only would have let her...he would have helped her if it were at all possible. Sitting there on the floor, all his defenses stripped bare, he was at her mercy. As what she had showed him played over and over in his mind, he shook his head as though he could dislodge memories from with the movement. He could not stop seeing it, could not stop feeling it. It was as though these memories belonged to him, as though he had been there. Was this what it was like for her? All at once, the weight of his assumptions crashed down upon him. There had been no lie in her mind. It had been real. That meant that he was the monster here...not her. "I-" he faltered, forcing back the bile rising in his throat with a hard swallow. He must say something, he had no right to sit there silent in his pain as he had been the one seconds from killing her only moments ago. Lifting his face, he looked across the small space at her, "I misjudged you..." It came as a hoarse, broken whisper from a man who had nothing left. And there was nothing...nothing but the pain and hatred. All pretenses of honor in his quest for vengeance were gone now, he had no right to them. "I have been a fool."

It was too silent now, as though a great storm had passed and left behind it a great wreckage from which there was nothing to salvage. "I have hated you for so long...I have sought your death in every waking moment of my life since that day." he confessed, his voice a hollow murmur. "I can't feel anything anymore." he whispers, almost inaudibly.

"If you wish to attack me, kill me even...I will not stop you. In fact...I would even assist you." a hand moves, fingers lifting the blade by its short handle and holding it out to her. Was it not her right to vengeance upon her attacker? No one would blame a woman for killing an intruder into her home. And after all that had happened, after all he had done... after what he'd become... Cullen was not certain what he deserved anymore other than a quick, merciful death when, even that was more than he would have given her. 

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And suddenly...she wasn't in so much pain. It wasn't the anguish in his eyes, the torment that played across his features...nor was it his apology, as small as she believed it was and that she deserved more. It was none of that. It was the mere fact that he was suffering, that he was finally suffering for the right reason. It actually made her happy to know he was in pain, that same pain she had been forced to live with for the past several years. If she hadn't been so distraught moments before, she might have even smiled...

And yet, the more he spoke, the more her relief slipped away and a frown curved those lips down. "Do not...give me that..." she said slowly, voice hinting to that buried anger. "Don't you give me your guilt. It's pathetic." Sylena carefully began to climb to her feet, stumbling lightly and using the wall as her support. "He's been dead for years...he wouldn't want you crying over him now, over your stupidity. Now get up." It took all she had to keep this remaining strength from slipping away from her. In all honesty, she wanted to break down and cry, to realize that he had been just inches away from spilling her blood...but that just wasn't her. Not anymore. She refused to show her weakness like that.

But the longer the silence lingered on, the more it was letting those visions she had buried deep and far away tried to cloud her mind. Sylena winced, her body shuddering, and vivid eyes dropped to the knife that had scattered to the floor, contemplating for a long moment. A crack in her mask, there came a whimper from her throat, “You made me remember it...all of it…” And now it was she who desperately hated him.

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"My guilt is my own…" he half growled. "I was giving you my life as I would have taken yours." Still, the cold disgust with which she dismissed his pathetic offering seemed to snap him back to himself and clear the fog of regret and humility out of his mind, giving him room to think clearly for the first time in years. He felt as though he had been underwater, seeing everything distorting and hazy. He could breathe and it was all clear. He had been stupid and weak and a damned fool. Jarrin would tell him so just as she now did and he would more than likely smack Cullen around just to get the point across for good measure. She was right not to pity him or to let him wallow in his regret and weakness as he had right after Jarrin died. She was also right to refuse his offer. Sucking in a breath, he pushed himself up from the wall and raked a hand through his wild mane of tangled, white hair, pushing it out of his eyes before coming down to rub across his face, wiping the last of his weakness from those features. "So, what now?" He asks her point-blank. "Did you ever find her?" he didn't need to say who. Sylena had shown to him that, though she had been able to keep the memory from crippling her, it was something she lived with always, just as he did only he had turned it into a source of power and hate while she hid from it. Still, he knew she would want the woman dead just as he had wanted her dead.

It was peculiar, awkward even to have spent so long loathing her very existence to now feeling this strange closeness he could felt with her now, as though he understood more than just her pain but her as well. It was fleeting but he could see it in her eyes when she looked at him. A side effect of the link she had forced between them?

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Finally she began to let her nerves calm down, her breathing lighten back to normal while she straightened her posture. Her head still throbbed in pain, but it was nothing compared to what it was before; it was something she could easily deal with. Something she had gotten so used to.

Sylena had shut her eyes, resting her head back against the cold wall...before they would slowly reopen and she was looking at him oddly from his words. What then? She figured that would be it. Now that he knew the truth, he'd go on his merry way and bother somebody else. However, before she could even respond to this, he mentioned her. That whore with the golden curls and bright, blue eyes. The image of her smiling and laughing at her was pulling at the strings of Syl’s anger once more.
Jaws set tight, she turned her gaze away to wander about the darkened hall aimlessly, trying to come up with some sort of excuse as to why Alysia wasn't dead. But she could think of nothing. And she really had no excuse.
"No. I didn't." More like she never tried...and the very thought suddenly made her feel weaker than she really was. Holding her composure together as best she could, she turned those cold eyes back to Cullen with whatever defiance she had left. And that was close to none. "I never went back home."

Slender brows inched together as she watched him, wondering how there was this sudden feeling of ease, of understanding, as though he hadn't been trying to murder her in cold blood just moments ago, as though he hadn't been fantasizing about it for these past years. It was like it was meant to happen, meant to bring them together to finally resolve this issue...if it could even be labeled as one anymore. She knew not where Alysia was, and wasn't even sure that she cared anymore. She already had this other new task to deal with.

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Cullen could see her visibly change the instant he mentioned the blond one. Alysia. Did he just now remember the name or had it been supplied by her lingering memories? Her admission surprised him and it showed with a twitch of his eyebrows almost as though he were angry at her for giving up so easily when he had spent the last several years in living, breathing. murderous rage, the last few months of which he spent tracking her down. The expression was gone when she lifted her eyes to him, a sliver of defiance still there. "I figured.” A pause, then, “Neither did I. There was nothing to go back to." And he wasn't just talking about the ruined farmlands that fell into neglect and disrepair with no lord to manage the tenants. His fiancé’s face and her voice full of disdain fought for presence in his thoughts but he shoved her into the darkness at the back of his mind with the rest of the things better left forgotten.

He had never had a home, to begin with. Everything he had been, everything he had possessed had been of Jarrin's generosity. He literally had nothing but the worn-out clothes he wore. The money had run out fast after Jarrin had been killed and Cullen had only exacerbated its loss by drinking, gambling, and general carousing. It was a popular theory that he had been trying to kill himself...that is until he was caught blatantly cheating at cards only to hold his arms out wide, and unarmed for the man to run him through. The man was apparently as big a coward as he was terrible at cards because he simply walked out instead of following through on his threats. People feared Cullen after that and stayed away from him. Men with a death-wish were even more dangerous than any other. He seemed as such now as he looked at her, a wild, dangerous man with nothing to lose, "I guess it was easier to run away and pretend it had never happened than to actually deal with any of it, right?" he spoke them calmly but he couldn't help the ever so faint edge of spite in his words. It was… accusatory, bordering on cold. But he couldn't stop himself. There was some wild need to press forward, to wake her up and snap her out of this shell she had wrought around herself. He had felt her memories; how could she have let it go so long?

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And there he was again. Just when she thought he was different, that he had changed...that bitter, spiteful Cullen was back; the very man she had only truly known for a few minutes but was glad when she thought had left.

The frown on her face deepened, the glint of hatred came back, gleaming in those feline eyes as they narrowed on him. And it was then she had wished she had struck him while he was down, beat him senseless with whatever she could find around her. She would have had a better chance. Now, she'd have to risk it. And frankly, she didn't seem to have an ounce of care, knowing those hands could snap her slender neck within seconds if he wanted to.

Sylena rushed forward a few steps, halting in a fury of dark hair and skirts as fingers wanted to stretch out and strangle him, to beat him, claw at his pretty face and feel the blood underneath her nails. Yet she stayed but a few feet before him. "Because it was too painful to go back!" she screamed at him, no longer in that whispered tone to prevent anyone in the house from hearing. He, indeed, struck a chord in her, one that she wouldn't be able to control. All she had wanted to do was go back and wish nothing had ever happened, to see Jarrin there, her family loving and caring for her as they always did. But she couldn't...because they betrayed her and it was something that she had to forget.

"Unlike you, I had family...I had friends...and they all turned their backs on me! I dreamed of seeing her bleed, of hearing her cry...but it would not be enough." Those eyes were mad now, wilder than they had been seconds before, and she glared at him with what might have been a touch of madness if it were not masked by the tears that began to form, still not falling down her cheeks. "They would all...have to die..." she added, finally whispering once again. "And you don't know...what that would do to me..." She would remember it all, live it all over and over again if she could not control her power. It would ultimately destroy her. She would not be strong enough to contain the horror she had done and be able to go on with a smile...as much as she wanted to see them all burn.

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Cullen didn't back away as she advanced; in fact he pushed away from the wall to take a step out to meet her as she screeched at him, heedless of her 'husband' asleep somewhere within that large monstrosity of a house. He sneered at her words with a sort of twisted smugness when she didn't deny his. “You don't even deny it.” but she was already following it up, trying to strike him where he was vulnerable. Sure enough, he felt the heat of anger welling up inside him. “You know nothing.” he said in something of a growl. "Oh, yes, it was all so terribly hard on you...Well guess what princess, he was my family! I had no one else! I was just a bastard who only got by on his Lord's charity! And all my friends abandoned me too after he died. I lost everything. Even my own fiancé! So don't you dare throw what you lost into my face trying to gain sympathy from me, whore!" he spat it into her privileged face now. The word gaining a different meaning.

As he spoke, hissed...growled the words at her, he had leaned closer, bending over her slight form menacingly, dark eyes flashing. He wasn't a broken, sobbing man now, begging for her to take vengeance out on him. She would never get such a chance again. “And, for your information, yes I do know. You want to know why?” He was already crowding over her and he leaned closer still, his voice dropping even lower. “Look at me.” he challenged her in that gravely tone. Had his voice not once been called charming? Even sweet? He couldn’t even remember anymore. This voice now dared her to see what he had become, to really look at him, to see the changes wrought in a man that Cullen doubted even Jarrin would have recognized. “Because I have done it. I have lived with this hate for years.” Looming over her, he dared her to argue. “I have done unspeakable things in the name of vengeance. I have become something unspeakable..." He was whispering now, a cold, dangerous quality to his rough voice. “So...princess…“ this word, how he sneered it at her, he might as well still be calling her ‘whore’. “You will get...no...sympathy...from me." He spoke each word quiet and careful so she might fully understand his meaning...but also so he could hear the sound of footsteps should her maddened harpy cry have woken anyone.

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SYLENA
She flinched, only mildly, when he took that step forward, looming over her and casting her deeper in his shadow. She would not lie and deny that he wasn't intimidating...but she wasn't so easily scared like that anymore. If he wanted to inch even closer, she'd bite his bloody face off.
Sylena nearly laughed at him, at how easily he had lost everybody, especially the future wife. It was quite clear she had just wanted the money, the wealth that Jarrin helped Cullen achieve. It sure wasn't for his charming and loving affection. But, she didn't laugh- she was too frustrated and too angry to turn to that. And when he called her a whore again, it just spiked that rage up more.

She didn't even think, didn't even hesitate after he finished speaking of his murderous ways...all she could think about was making him bleed. It was like this sudden craving she couldn't ignore. She wanted him to cry...wanted him to squirm...maybe she even wanted him to scream...

Quicker than she would have ever thought possible, Syl rose her hand up and swiped her fingers across his throat. Those nails, strangely sharper than normal, left bleeding trails across his pale skin. If only it had been that blade, if only she would have been able to cut him deeper…
"You don't have them constantly playing over and over again in your head, do you?! Against your will! To feel the pain again as though you were still there, the anguish, the fear...the thrill. NO, YOU DON'T!" She'd never expect him to understand how her power worked, so she didn't bother to explain to him any further. He probably wasn't even listening now anyway, nor did she care...because at that moment, she was turning to reach over and pick up one of the decorated, ceramic pots from the small table in the hall.

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He shouldn’t have been surprised, not with her. But when he caught that telltale movement, Cullen had barely enough time to register the fact that she was actually going to strike him an instant before her nails raked across the skin of his throat. The muscles in his jaw and neck flexed with the pain but he didn’t move, not even as small droplets of blood trickled down his neck. It was only after a few seconds that he let out a soft, dry chuckle. Leaning back against the wall almost idly, he gingerly touches a finger to the scratches and eyeing the blood on his fingertips with bemused curiosity more than anything. Though it might seem as though he wasn’t paying attention, Cullen very much was as she continued.

However, when she turned and her searching eyes honed in on a ceramic pot he just knew was meant for his head, Culen moved. Lunging forward, he grabbed her wrist and spun her back around to face him, once again pinning her to the wall with his own body. “Ah ah ah. Watch it. I may have decided not to kill you but that doesn’t mean I like you.” His dark eyes burned like coals down at her but there was a fathomless, haunted expression on his face as he looked down at her. "I won’t be your whipping boy.” After a warning glare, his fingers biting into her wrists, Cullen released her and stepped back, a hand coming up to swipe away the cooling blood on his neck. “Just so you know… I actually do.” He paused, his eyes on the red smear across his fingertips. “See it. Everyday.” It would have sounded almost sad if it weren't spoken through gritted teeth. He steadied himself with a deep breath before continuing, more calmly this time. "Maybe not the way you do, but I remember...and I wish I didn't." It was the closest he had ever come to truly acknowledging her...power without calling her a witch and, for some reason, it was this thought that brought home the realization that, even had he killed her, he would have thought of it just as he had the other atrocities he had committed in his wretched life.

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Inches away from the ceramic vase, she was spun swiftly, only to feel the hard wall at her back once more, pinned there between it and him with those dark, glaring eyes baring down on her. She winced, gritting her own teeth from the brief discomfort before managing to return that gaze. Jaws clenched while she attempted to control her heavy breathing, trying so hard to calm down before someone within the house was alerted to what was going on.
He should not be here. He needed to leave, now that he wasn't going to slice open her throat. Not at the moment, at least.

Sylena wanted badly to scream at him, to growl in his face that he knew nothing of the pain she felt. That he just- plainly and simply- knew nothing. But what she did, one thing she was good at, was reading people if she took the time to do so. He was good at hiding his true emotions behind that contorted mask of anger...but his eyes seemed to hold something more.
Her features softened considerably for a brief moment, allowing him to speak before she would respond in a whisper, lacking the aggravation of before, "Then why do you taunt and blame me?"

Silence could only linger for a couple of seconds before they would hear the thumps of footsteps above them, crossing the hall and towards the stairs. The expression on her face changed instantly...drastically...and she would push all her weight against him in order to free herself in this current moment of, what might be considered, fear. Slender digits took a hold of his wrist and began to rush him down the hall.
The footsteps were moving quicker than she had anticipated, so she stopped suddenly to open the door to her right, a reading foyer, and urged him inside. Lips parted to say something to him but there was no time as she heard her husband round the corner and she was unable to close the door completely, leaving it opened just enough for a gentle stream of light from the candles to leak into the dark room behind it.

Sylena whirled around just as Braden appeared in the hall. "And where have you been?" came his words, low and relatively calm, yet there was that anger and frustration hidden within the tone. He stalked towards her, and though she felt her body shake softly, she managed to stand her ground as if without fear.
"I was out. I told you this."
"I've been searching everywhere for you! If I lose this fight tomorrow, woman, I'll-"
"Do you really wish to finish that sentence?" she interrupted him in that cool voice, one that she was known for.
His hand lashed out, grabbing her roughly by the back of her neck to draw her to his side in frustration. "You will do this, witch, you understand me?!" His hand moved down to take her by the wrist, yanking her harshly back down the hall and towards the staircase.
She'd look behind her, down towards the room she had pushed Cullen into, hoping he'd leave quietly and spare her anymore trouble.

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Up until now, his blind rage had prevented him from fully realizing it before. This time, with her body pinned up against his, the rapid pace of her heart slamming against his chest, Cullen couldn’t have ignored the rush of unexpected heat that shot through him. Her wide eyes had him pinned just as forcibly as his own hands held her fast. It broke through his pain and anger as surely as her power had not moments before and it left him...bare, exposed, as though she could see everything inside him. And she was no longer afraid. The edge of his anger still fading, his face frozen in expression between muted shock and utter confusion, her question hung briefly in the air as he stared down at her.

‘Because there’s no one else left to blame…and I already hate myself enough...’ The reply, all the more bitter because it was the truth, was on the edge of his lips when he was stayed by the sound of approaching footsteps. That’s when he saw it. The fear. Only this wasn’t fear of ghosts of old or the terror of impending death. This wasn’t directed at him. Cullen had no more than a brief glimpse of this before she shoved him away with the same surprising strength that had broken her free from his earlier grasp allowing her to show him that vision and which had, just moments ago, given him the still weeping claw marks across his throat. Yet, instead of calling out for help, she grabbed hold of him and began dragging him down the hall. Whoever was coming was moving fast so they didn’t make it far before she opened a door and shoved him inside. He turned expectantly only to catch barely a glimpse of her face, lips parted as though poised to say something before she closed the door between them, leaving nothing but a slim shaft of light and the sound of a man’s voice, hard and cold with anger, filtering through.

Moving slowly, he approached until he could see through the crack, keeping his breathing even and slow. He watched as the man-made his threats. Cullen held back a scoff. The man was clearly an imbecile with pompous delusions of status standing in his ‘fight’ he could not lose. He was either unaware of the danger in threatening that particular ‘witch’ or he was very, very stupid. Cullen was leaning more towards the latter though it was possible both were true; she was very good at hiding what she was really capable of. Once again, his fingers idly traced over the scratches on his neck. Then the man grabbed her and Cullen felt that heat all over his body again like he was standing too close to a raging fire. As he began to drag her away, she looked over her shoulder and he saw the look in her eyes.
It was only then Cullen realized that his hand was gripping one of his remaining daggers, the other left abandoned in the front hall. With a force of will, Cullen uncurled his fingers from the hilt.

Without thinking, he turned and swept the room quickly before settling on a little hair comb that lay on a small table by a reading chair. He recognized the bauble; he had been with Jarrin when his friend had bought it for Sylena. The white gold filigree wrought into intricate swirling patterns with great, fat pearls nestled into the design. He had pointed it out idly, merely wanting to be out of the market but Jarrin had been very pleased with the find. Though he didn’t even know why he was doing it, Cullen pocketed the comb and in its place dropped a small slip of paper with a dove drawn on it in a hasty hand. It was the sign of ‘The Dancing Dove’, a less than a reputable place that was rumored to be the headquarters of some secret society. One could learn many things in the darker streets of any city if one knew where and how to look.) Moving quickly, he goes to the window and opens in a quick motion before turning back and, with one finger, knocks a small ornament, possibly a vase, off its stand. The resulting crash was loud enough to wake some of the household and most certainly enough to get the attention of that coward masquerading as a man out in the hall but he was already out the window. All that would be found when they came would be an open window, it's fluttering curtains to blame for the broken piece.

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She had panicked. Not so much for Cullen's sake, but for other reasons. The crash of the decorative ornament had alerted some of the servants nearby...but mostly the head of the household.
Braden came to an abrupt halt, whirling around to face the length of the hallway, targeting that certain room instantly. Sylena's heart pounded within her chest once more, breath caught in her throat as she attempted to keep the man at her side...but he brushed her off violently and began to storm towards the reading foyer.
"You hiding something from me, woman? Huh? You go out on your whoring escapades and then had the gall to bring one here?!" He was always so dramatic when he was drunk, something she could easily ignore at most times. However, this time it was different, and she grew nervous as he shoved open the door to that dark room, with her following close behind.

Her damned husband continued to scream out obscenities, parading around the room like some hot shot man in his drunken stupor. Meanwhile, those blue eyes, wide in her unexplained fear, came to find nothing hidden in the shadows of the foyer, only coming to notice the opened window and the pieces of broken ceramic littering the floor.
She could finally breathe again.
"It was the wind, you fool," she spoke, the steadiness of her voice masking the shaking of her body once again. "Now let's figure out how you're going to survive tomorrow," she added, grabbing him by the arm to try and usher him out. For once he seemed to listen to her, rambling on about something as he started to leave the room and head back upstairs.

And that was when she noticed something. An object that was missing, that no one ever dared to touch. That mouth turned down into a heavy frown, brows furrowing in her aggravation- the pearl comb was gone. A gift from Jarrin, she had always held it dear, and now it was gone. And Sylena knew exactly who had taken it.
Rushing over to the table in hopes of being mistaken and finding the trinket there, she found a piece of paper with a messy sketch of, what she believed to be, a dove on it. Her anger began to rise once more. At first, it made little sense to her. An image of a dove, something she felt she knew she should know. And then of course, it hit her. All she had to do was think of that blasted man, his type...the type of people he might find himself conversing with.
The Dancing Dove. But as far as she knew, it did not exist, only in stories told by the bards on the streets, false secrets kept by the gypsies and thieves that lingered in the shadowy alleyways. It could not be real.

Whether it was true or not, Cullen wanted her to find it. And naturally, she would, if only to jab his eyes out with the very item he decided to take from her.