The Drowned Princess E-Book

Russell Nohelty

• Herausgeber: Wannabe Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

The universe inches closer to doom.

The Dream Realm teeters on the brink of collapse. The only hope for Queen Aine’s kingdom rests with Ariel and the mermaid princess’s ability to navigate the depths of the dark ocean. If the fairy queen cannot claim Rapunzel’s power before mighty enemies descend upon her, then all hope is lost.

Across the universe, Red rots in a celestial jail waiting for divine judgement. Chelle and Rose plot to rescue her, but their ragtag group of heroes stand little chance against the strength of the gods. Still, they won’t abandon their friend to Zeus’s whims, even if the odds are heavily stacked against them. 

On the Dark Planet, Nimue must use all her cunning and wiles to escape the clutches of the King in Yellow before he slits her throat for his own amusement. Stripped bare and powerless, she has never been so exposed and desperate for a miracle.

Who will live, who will die, and who will go mad? Find out inside the pages of The Drowned Princess.

Leseprobe

The Drowned Princess

THE OBSIDIAN SPINDLE SAGA

BOOK TEN

RUSSELL NOHELTY

Contents

Special Thanks

1. Rose

2. Red

3. Ariel

4. Chelle

5. Nimue

6. Ariel

7. Chelle

8. Red

9. Nimue

10. Rose

11. Red

12. Rose

13. Ariel

14. Chelle

15. Nimue

16. Ariel

17. Rose

18. Nimue

19. Chelle

20. Red

21. Nimue

22. Rose

23. Ariel

24. Red

25. Chelle

26. Ariel

27. Chelle

28. Nimue

29. Rose

30. Red

31. Rose

32. Ariel

33. Chelle

34. Nimue

35. Red

36. Chelle

37. Red

38. Ariel

39. Nimue

40. Rose

41. Ariel

42. Chelle

43. Red

44. Rose

45. Chelle

46. Nimue

47. Rose

48. Red

49. Nimue

50. Ariel

51. Red

52. Nimue

53. Rose

54. Ariel

Epilogue

Author’s Note

The Golden Locket Preview

Nimue

Ariel

Rose

Also By Russell Nohelty

About the Author

Special Thanks

Talinda Willard, HyliaKumatora, Chris Roeszler, Amy Teegan, Chip Orlikowski, RHR, Victoria Nohelty, Alexander Joyner, Pierino Gattei, Caspar Williams, Gerald P. McDaniel, Walter Weiss, Sunny Side Up, Kenny Endlich, Amber Reeves, Joshua Bowers, Elias Rosner, Noah Carruba, John "AcesofDeath7" Mullens, Jamie Minnich, Rowan Stone, Taiga Char, BAOCHAU TRAN, Jeff Lewis, Dave Baxter, Chad Bowden, David Irgang, James Kralik, Emerson Kasak, Matthew Johnson, Paul Rose Jr., Shannon, Dr. Charles Elbert Norton III, Edward Nycz Jr., Jessica Meuth, Caledonia, GMarkC, Chris Cheek, Bianca Tatjana Višić Ritorto, John Otway Jr, Brett Bennett, Jason 'XenoPhage' Frisvold, Scott Chisholm, Amanda Sarah, Alexandra Corrsin, Giles Fox, Rick Parker, H, Rob Steinberger, Alec Loases, David Stephenson, Anthony James Frandsen, JohnDoe, Joshua Easter, MadCatter (Cat Fleming), Kevin Potter, Bill Lisse, Michael Szewczyk, Robert Woods Tienken, Ronald L Weston, Karen Haughn, Shem Bingman, Susan Wilson, Brigitte Ziegler, Matt Soucy, Alyssa, Michelle Pelo, Richard A Shirley, PerryC, Elizabeth Kiefer, Tim, Nicolas Mandujano III, Karen Roads, Rhel ná DecVandé, Zeb Berryman, Al Gonzalez, S. D., Jörn Flath, Rick Radzville, Aaron Loren, Justise Briones(That/Them), Genevieve Slunka, Michael DeCarlo, Kitty Crab, Jeanne L. Warner, Vi Ta, Bridget D Laurent, Jaime Bialer, Wendy Martinez, Nicholas Harezga, Mira Hunter, Cara Reasner, Lori Case, Melevorn, Rebecca Hill, Jane R., Talia Denham, Jordan Harju, Jesse Coe, Greg Levick, and Andrew Messiah.

The Drowned Princess

Book 10 of the Obsidian Spindle Saga

By:

Russell Nohelty

Edited by:

Leah Lederman

Proofread by:

Katrina Roets

Cover by:

JV Arts

Formatting by:

Cat Banks

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental. The Drowned Princess. First edition. July 2021. Copyright © 2020 Russell Nohelty. Written by Russell Nohelty.

Chapter1

Rose

I slept like a baby, which was to say I tossed and turned, waking in fits and starts, cranky and desperate to be held. We had been living in Hepit’s bar for the better part of two weeks, and while I was happy to have Chelle back, I really wanted our bed, not the lumpy, hard thing that Rama had given us.

I slid out of the covers and set my feet on the cold wooden floor. The sun never shone on the Celestial Realm. iNyanga told me it was because the stars circled it, and not the other way around. The center of the universe had its beauty, sure, but I missed the warmth of a star shining on my face. There wasn’t even a moon to brighten the sky, so the whole planet was the type of chilly that bristled the bones, though it stopped short of freezing.

I stepped over to the window that looked out on the anachronistic realm, with huge skyscrapers built next to ancient pagodas and thatched roof homes. The gods had lived through every time period a hundred times over on thousands of worlds, and they brought their favorite eras to their homes and those places they frequented. The bar that acted as both our salvation and our prison would have been perfectly at home in a Shakespearean play, with the banners of earls’ houses hanging off the wooden balconies.

We hadn’t left the pub since I helped Rama and his friends save Chelle and Nox from the Crystal Keep. Perhaps it was too harsh to call this pub a prison, at least compared to the Keep, but I still felt like the gods trying to endear themselves to us were more jailers than friends.

Chelle wanted to leave and take our chances back on Earth, but I was reluctant. Although we’d managed to save her in the daring escape, we left Gabrielle behind in the Crystal Keep. I didn’t trust Rama and the others to rescue her without us, even though they swore to us it was as important to them as saving Nox’s soul and reuniting it with the husk of her body that remained.

It was unsettling to run into Nox these days, with that vacant expression of hers. She was, more than any god I had ever known, full of confidence and will. Now, without her soul, she was more like a computer on power-save mode, staring blankly into the middle distance, and returning any question with monotone, uninspired responses.

Still, it was better having her on our side than as a puppet for Zeus and the Board that was hunting us. I didn’t buy everything Rama said, but that much I believed. We had humiliated them by absconding with their prizes, and they would stop at nothing to track us down.

Patient as I was, I had grown tired of sitting on my hands. Every day we asked the Circle of Truth—the gods that resisted the Board’s influence, which included Rama, Hepit, iNyanga, Aditi, and others who were only spoken about in vague whispers—whether they had finished their plotting. We were always told that it would be a couple more days. I was starting to get the distinct impression they were as lost as we were and so I didn’t love the thought of relying on them for our next move.

“Are you okay?” Chelle moaned as she turned over in bed. “Why are you staring out a window at half past gods know when?”

“I think it’s morning,” I said. “My body says it’s morning, at least.”

She held out her arms. “Well, my body says it’s the middle of the night, so come back to bed.”

I wasn’t tired, not even a little bit, but I learned over the last few years to cherish every moment with Chelle because I didn’t know how many more I would have before we were pulled apart again. She didn’t like that kind of talk, but I knew it was only a matter of time.

I crawled back into bed and Chelle wrapped her arms around me. “That’s better, isn’t it?”

“It’s very nice,” I said, laying my arm around her shoulder and allowing her to nuzzle into my neck. “I love you.”

She adjusted her head, and Albie snuggled on my chest along with his snake brothers and sisters that lived on Chelle’s head. I pet each one of them in kind, and it made me miss my dog Cheyenne terribly. I had left her on Earth with Jamil, our wood nymph friend, thinking I would be back soon enough. I suppose I also understood that I might never be back at all. With Chelle in my arms again, I wanted nothing more than for our dog to snuggle up with the rest of the family.

“I love you, too,” Chelle said with a yawn. “I know you’re antsy about saving Red, but this is the most time we have spent together in, like, ever. No jobs, no school, no walking the dog, even. Am I a bad person that I kind of enjoy it?”

“No,” I replied with a small smile. “There are plenty of reasons you’re a bad person, but that’s not one of them.”

“Smart ass.” She yawned again. “Your heart is beating really fast right now.”

“It always does that when I’m around you,” I said, kissing the top of her head.

“Corny,” she mumbled. “I love it.”

“I love it, too, but I have to admit, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“Maybe it won’t.”

“We’re on the run from the gods. The other shoe will absolutely drop.”

As if on cue, an explosion rocked the building and the floorboards groaned. We launched ourselves off the bed before the wood snapped and our bed crashed into a table on the floor below.

“Well, that could have been worse,” I said, looking over the chasm at Chelle.

“I think it’s about to,” she replied. “The quiet was nice while it lasted.”

Chapter2

Red

Turned out jail was just as bad in the Celestial Realm as anywhere else I had been imprisoned. Once the cells were locked down, they paraded me through the cells, bloodied and bruised, as a symbol of what happened when you defied the Board. It didn’t have quite the reaction they expected, though, as my every step was met with hollers and cheers that made me smile even though the pain.

After that, I was thrown in solitary confinement, with little more than rotten scraps to eat and stale water to drink. I hadn’t seen the outside of the cell since they threw me in. Being confined to a prison cell without anyone to talk to wasn’t much of a punishment, as I was used to being on my own for days, months at a time. In some ways, it was a blessing.

Besides, I wasn’t really alone. I still had my connection with Rama that we’d used to communicate to each other. I had been beaten within inches of my life, prodded and probed, but none of that severed the connection. For the first few days I stayed frosty, given that his plan had sent me to jail. But it also rescued Chelle and kept Rose safe—barely—and I was more than happy to trade my freedom for theirs.

“I’m thinking of a number,” Rama said.

“Is it seven?” I asked.

He liked playing games with me, at least when he wasn’t busy trying to make a plan to save me from my fate. He must have felt sorry for me. I could have done two weeks of solitude standing on my head, but it was nice to have company, even if it was with a god I only half-trusted.

“Higher or lower?”

“Lower,” he grumbled.

“So you had literally every other number to deal with, up to and including infinity, and you chose one of the seven numbers that were lower?”

“Six numbers.”

“Zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, is seven numbers.”

“Zero isn’t a number.”

“What?” I chuckled. “Then what is it?”

“It’s the lack of a number. It’s an anti-number.”

“What about negative numbers?” I asked. “They’re a thing, and zero is right there between one and negative one.”

“I don’t give much credence to negativity, dear. You should know that by now.”

“Is ten a number?” I asked.

“Yes, of course.”

“How, when it has zero in it? Or a hundred, or a thousand? Your argument makes no sense.”

“Okay,” Rama said. “Show me zero of something.”

I leaned back on the crystal wall. “I can’t show you, because I’m in a cell and you’re not.”

He sighed. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It was just a turn of phrase, a bad one, mind you, but I meant no offense by it.”

I slid down to the floor. “How are you coming with my escape plan?”

“Not—not well, I’m afraid.”

Rama stammered, something he never did, which showed how dire the situation really was. I had kept myself in high spirits, knowing that if Rama could break Chelle and Nox out of the Crystal Keep, he could do the same for me. That hope had faded with the words he’d just spoken.

“I have faith in you,” I said, even though it wasn’t true.

“You shouldn’t,” he replied. “Nox and Chelle were a special case. They were brought to trial before the Board, giving us a window to act. You are under lock and key, with guards watching every minute of every day. Until they move you out of solitary and ease up their watch of you, we are at an impasse.”

“Then I have to figure out a way out of this by myself.”

“You’re not alone, here. We just have to wait for a little while. Just sit tight. We will get you out of there.”

I was tired of sitting tight and waiting. Luckily, escaping prisons and making the best of a bad situation were well within my skill set. I wasn’t much use in the real world, where people lived in holly-hobby homes and had menial jobs, but in whatever reality I lived in, my special skills had saved my bacon more than I cared to admit.

I groaned. “Is your number three?”

There was no answer. I repeated myself a few times, then called his name. In two weeks of talking with Rama, he had never gone radio silent on me.

“Hello?” I said. “Rama? Is everything all right?”

“Holy—” he said, then I heard an explosion erupt close enough that it stung my ears even miles away. “We’re under attack!”

Attack? My first thought turned to Zeus and the Board having found him, which meant they found Rose and Chelle, too, since he was providing protection to them…and I wasn’t there. I was stuck in a stupid cell, helpless.

“Are my friends, all right?” I shouted, getting to my feet and pacing the cell, desperate to get out. “Rama! Answer me!”

It was no use.

I slammed myself against the door, but it was made of solid crystal, which meant my banging did nothing but hurt. I landed with a thud on the floor. No, no, no, no, no. I had risked everything for Rose and was willing to give my life for her, but now I was useless, stuck in a cell while my friends were under attack.

For the first time since being brought to solitary, I felt tortured by the silence, and my own ineptitude. I hated it.

Chapter3

Ariel

“What do you mean the box was empty?” Queen Aine said from her throne in the Emerald Castle. I’d been dreading this conversation since the moment I found the box hidden under the chapel in the first Church of the Six. It was supposed to contain Rapunzel’s eye.

“Exactly what I said, ma’am.” I breathed in deeply and puffed out my chest. “The box was resting on a pedestal in the center of the room, but it was empty.”

I had searched for the left eye of Rapunzel throughout all of Oz and tracked it to the small forest shrine using clues that my mother’s spirit had given me. Or perhaps it was not her spirit, but a construction made by Nox to guide me on my way. It had been hard to know which was the truth, but the moment I opened the box, the visions ceased, which told me that I had found the place Nox believed the left eye resided. Except it had been stolen from its resting place.

Queen Aine waved me closer. “Bring the box here. Maybe you are doing it wrong.”

I gripped the gilded box tighter. “I know how to open a box.”

“Obviously not,” she growled at me. “Otherwise, we would have the eye.”

I walked up the slick, emerald stairs to her throne and set the box down. Since Queen Aine was a fairy, it was nearly as big as she was, and could have kept her entombed if I simply pushed her inside.

Aine leaned into the box and felt around. “Sometimes there’s a secret lever that⁠—”

“I tried that,” I said, even though as a queen she could dust me into oblivion in an instant for cutting her off. “It didn’t work.”

“Well, you have fat fingers. Mine are much smaller and maybe they—crap. There’s no secret switch.” She slid into the box and leaned her head on the wooden wall. “This is not good.”

“I think that’s an understatement.”

The two Fates, Clotho and Lachesis, said that without the eye, the Dream Realm would fall into chaos. This theft of the eye filled my stomach with a dread so heavy I thought it might drag me to the ground.

“This is no time to despair.” Queen Aine fluttered upwards. I didn’t know if her words were meant for me or herself, but by the time she rose to my eye level, her face was stern and confident. “I need to see the room.”

“It’s about two days’ ride from here, but I’m sure with your carriages we can make it sooner.”

She scoffed. “I don’t ride in carriages. Come closer and lean your forehead to me.” I did as she asked, and she placed her tiny hands on my scalp. “Good. Now close your eyes and imagine where you found this box. Make it as real as you can in your mind.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and remembered the snakes etched into the grooved walls and the cobblestone floor of the old basement. I turned the corner and rebuilt the pedestal where I found the box. After a minute or so, I had a good picture of it in my mind.

“Good, good,” she said. “I see it, too.”

My feet felt like they fell out from under me, and then I was plunging into a grand abyss. An instant later, I landed again on the ground, my legs shaky enough that I knelt down, stabilizing myself with my hands. We were in the basement of the church.

“There is dark magic here.” Queen Aine floated ahead of me through the corridors, toward the pedestal. “I thought I smelled it on the box, but it was faint. Here, its musk is strong. The last time I felt magic this strong was…the Battle for the Heart of Urgu. Epiales’s forces reeked of it; Agrona most of all.”

“How could she have found this place? Nobody but Nox and myself knew, and it was locked so deep in my brain that I had no idea I even knew about it.”

Queen Aine ran her hands along all the walls until she reached a dark gray stone. “Nox is careful, that much is true, but secrets have a way of getting out no matter how guarded you are. They can be unearthed for the right price and with enough time. Or with the right magic.”

“So you think Agrona found the eye, then?”

“I don’t know, but there was one thing the gods had while they were imprisoned in Urgu, and that’s time. I wouldn’t put past one of them to have found Nox’s secret.”

“But…Agrona died in the battle, did she not?”

Queen Aine bowed her head. “Yes. That is why we must talk to the Fates. I have the inklings of a plan, but it is foggy, and I need them to help clarify it.”

Chapter4

Chelle

Well, that was unexpected. Luckily, we were able to roll off the bed before it crashed through the floor, even if we ended up on opposite sides of the gaping hole in our room.

“Are you okay?” I called over to Rose. She had debris and dust in her normally blonde hair from the explosion.

“I’m fine. What just happened?”

The room shook again as if we were being bombed, and I fell to one knee. A beam in the ceiling crashed through the plaster and I rolled out of the way.

“I don’t know, but it can’t be good.” I stepped carefully over to the dresser and grabbed a pair of jeans and a black shirt, while Rose slung a yellow dress over her shoulders. Yes, this was an emergency, but it wasn’t our first emergency. We would be damned if people were going to see us in our skivvies. It was one of the many things I learned in the past couple of years: always take time to put on your clothes before rushing into the unknown because you never knew when you would get a chance to change again.

Once I was clothed, I carefully slid around the edges of the room towards Rose. Another explosion rocked the building just as she was taking a big, uneasy step, and so she tilted backward toward the hole. I lunged for her and pulled her toward me to safety.

“Careful there. That’s a big hole.”

She smiled. “Thanks. I didn’t know that. What would I do without you?”

I kissed her, hard and fast, wrapping my arms around the small of her back before another explosion, and then the door slid open.

“Really?” Rama shouted at us. “This place is coming down and you’re kissing?”

“You have to take time for the important things,” I replied. “And what is as important as love?”

“How about staying alive?” Rama wasn’t a frantic person, so it made me nervous to see him so agitated. “Let’s go.”

I pulled away from Rose and dragged her through the door. I refused to let go of her, no matter what. I had been through enough crazy situations where we’d been separated, and I wasn’t interested in going through another one. Bad things happened when she left my side, to both of us. I barely wanted her to brush her teeth without me these days.

“What’s happening?” she asked as we careened down the shaky hallway.

The bar below us was covered with broken plaster and dust and had cracked in two when a large section of the wall fell on it. Half the tables had been knocked over or destroyed and strewn about the room. iNyanga and Hepit laid on the ground, unconscious, covered in white plaster dust.

There was another explosion and Rama held us back. A huge section of the ceiling crashed into the floor, creating a massive crater.

“They found us,” Rama said. “We have kept this place a secret for hundreds of years, but somehow, they found us.”

“Probably that mouthy door knocker, Patrisiol,” Rose said. She was referring to the brass gorgon door knocker that guarded the front door. “She never shuts up.”

“Patrisiol has been loyal to us since the beginning. The only new factors in recent memory are you two, and Nox.”

“Well, I’m on their most wanted list,” I said. “So, I definitely didn’t tip them off.”

“And I risked my life saving Chelle,” Rose added. “I’m not about to send her back to jail, no matter how much I dislike you.”

Rama frowned. “You don’t like me? I’m hurt.”

Rose thought Rama was a cocky showoff who was delaying her from her plan to save Red and get out of the Celestial Realm. I didn’t think he was quite so malicious in his intent, though his arrogance certainly rubbed me the wrong way.

“Would you keep moving?” I growled. “This isn’t a time for bruised ego. Massage it later.”

Rama leapt across the hole in the floor, and we followed. We made it down the stairs just as three figures appeared in the sky through the gaping hole they had blown into the building. I recognized the woman at the front of the group, with her short, blonde hair and a scar down her face.

“Athena.”

“Where are they?” the goddess boomed.

Aditi, one of the conspirators, rushed from behind the bar, covered in plaster. She stood before Athena, stoic, her hands clenched in fists of rage. “You’re not getting them, Athena. Go away, before you get hurt.”

Athena chuckled. “We have discovered your hideout and will raze it to the ground if you don’t give us what we want.”

Aditi clapped her hands together and a stream of red exploded from them, knocking one of the soldiers with Athena out of the air.

“Come on,” Rama said.

“Are you crazy?” Rose replied. “We have to help her.”

For an instant, Rama looked past us and to Aditi, then, with a nod, he turned away. “She made her choice. She’s willing to give her life to save the cause, and right now, that cause is the two of you and Nox.”

“Where is Nox?” I asked as we continued toward the front door, which had been blown from its hinges and scattered into a dozen pieces.

“iNyanga has her.”

“In case you haven’t noticed,” Rose said. “iNyanga is lying unconscious on the barroom floor.”

“We don’t have time for this. We have to—” Rama grabbed the piece of the door that held Patrisiol and leapt outside. “Oh no.”

When I caught up with him, I saw what had him so scared. Ten airships, every bit as imposing as the ship that had captured me, hovered over the alley. A dozen soldiers stood in formation before us, while a few others loaded Nox into one of the ships.

“Not good,” Rose said. “Very not good.”

“Place me on that door,” Patrisiol growled, nodding to a steel door next to us. Rama did so, and then knocked on it. “Come in,” she said.

The door swung open, and we dashed through while the soldiers sprinted toward us at full speed.

“That’s a handy trick,” I said. The walls exploded around us.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” Patrisiol answered with a grin. “Over there.”

Rama placed her in a closet and knocked again. This time we leapt inside a brightly lit room, barely missing another explosion.

“Close it!” Rama screamed.

We were standing in a meadow, and a door had been cut into a tree. Rose unlatched my hand from hers and dove to slam the door. The soldiers were only one good lunge from getting through.

“We’re safe for a moment,” Rama said, panting.

Rose slid down the tree, her eyes wide and wild. “What was that?”

“A fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the strength the Board has at their disposal, and what we can expect from now on. They have turned their sights on us.” He stood again and took Patrisiol into his hands. “Can you find us a safe house while we regroup?”

“Absolutely,” she replied. “Just give me a minute to orient myself.”

“Oh thank goodness.” I plopped down on the mossy ground. “I could use a minute to collect myself.”

Rose crawled over and curled herself into my arms. “Me too.”

At least I still had her, and I wasn’t about to let her go. Not if I had anything to say about it. Not even if the whole of the Board’s power came down on me.

Chapter5

Nimue

Everything hurt. Every movement. Every breath. Every gust of wind that came through the windows crashed across my exposed muscles and sinews, searing into me. Hastur, the King in Yellow, had shorn the skin from my body. Nothing mattered anymore except getting relief from the agony that was my existence.

Had it been an hour, a week, a century that I had been imprisoned in Hastur’s dungeon under his immense castle? I regretted my life in a way I never had before. I couldn’t bear to look at my flayed body. The loss of it had been a boon to the traitorous Cassandra, who was given my skin for pretending to be my guide in my quest to kill the King in Yellow; she betrayed me at the perfect moment.

I reached out to Rapunzel, trying to use magic to connect with her across the chasm of time and space, begging for relief, but she had no answer for me. I failed in my mission to kill Hastur, like so many had before me, and so she had forsaken me. For the first time, I had no plan, and no hope. There was only pain.

The lock to the dungeon opened, and I scrambled to the front of my cell. Every so often, one of the King in Yellow’s guards, the princesses who protected him like none other, brought me a loaf of moldy bread and one glass of scalding water. I had never been laid so low to consume such filth, and I refused it the first time, and the second, but by the third I was so ravenous that I chewed the bread and swallowed the water without any qualms.

This time, the princess who came to feed me was the traitor herself, Cassandra, wearing my beautiful, glowing skin, complete with the cracked hole at the center of its chest where a universe of stars swirled and danced. Baba had remade my skin into something terrible to behold; it made me powerful and infinite and beautiful all at once. Seeing it on Cassandra’s body made me want to wretch.

“Where is the food?” I asked through gritted teeth.

She knelt down, with none of the regal energy that I brought to my old skin. It hung loose under her arms and chin.

“I have a surprise for you,” she whispered.

“No thanks,” I said. “Last time you had a surprise, it led me to this.”

She reached into her dress and pulled out an oblong black pill. She held it up. “This will nullify the pain for a spell. My gift to you.”

Cassandra might have been lying—maybe the pill would kill me—but I didn’t care. I welcomed death. I snatched the pill and downed it without water, the corners of it scratching against my shredded throat.