Between the Void
an excerpt

Five of Shylia'a's fingers tapped the cover of her box, nestled on her lap, and she frowned again. The long fingers danced in staccato, a strange rhythm of unnatural origins, as Shylia'a thought. Next to her, Seren was half-asleep. From the shadows of the Palace, came the echoes of screams, tortured and broken. The half-goddess looked up at the ceiling, smirked, and shimmied off her throne. Seren didn't even flinch as Shylia'a sashayed past her and out of the Hall of Mirrors, down twisted passageways and up staircases that went down.

It was horrendously Escherian, going around in circles but then heading down into the depths, strange stairs and walking on the roof. It was enough to make a strong man go mad, mad with grief and fear. The colors fleshed into each other, flashing and changing and dripping down the walls and seeping into the floor. Sometimes the floor was transparent glass, and the floor below was visible in its entirety -- and sometimes all that was visible was a dark pit, full of nightmares and dreams.

Shylia'a wore the Palace like her dresses, loose and comfortable, blending in. When she next opened a door, she found Nikolai Schendevez wailing like a mortally wounded lion over the dead body of his wife. She was lying at strange, broken angles, blood streaming from the cuts on her face and the gash on her neck, the same liquid thickening on her thighs spread akimbo. His hands hovered over her face, his voice cracking and rising periodically.

"Pathetic," she whispered.

He roared. She stepped forward, looking down at her mutilated face and tucking the box tighter under her arm. Her hair fell forward as she bent down and breathed over his face with a laugh.

"Are you crying over your poor, dead wife, Nikolai? Have you lost her forever? I told you what would happen if you didn't confess, Nikolai. I told you!"

"I will never give in to you. Just like she didn't," he hissed into her face before spitting into it.

She froze before humming in contemplation and wiping her face with the back of her hand. She straightened and chuckled.

"You're a rebel man, Nikolai. You believe in the life after death and souls getting together.

But what would happen if the soul never reached the Void?"

"No," he whispered. "No, you can't have that much disrespect for the dead."

"I can have all the disrespect I want, Nikolai," she said sweetly before opened the lid of her box -- just a crack for the light spill through -- and whispered in the ancient Imperial language.

"No! You can't DO this!"

The words were like a song, crooning and sensuous, dragging the dead woman's soul out of her body, bit by bit.

"NO! Joan!"

Shylia'a threw her head back to laugh, jewelry tinkling and hair spiraling out into all directions. The soul completely separated itself from the body and began to scream -- long and silent -- twisting and spasming in the air. Nikolai sobbed and tried to grab it, but his hands only went through it as if it wasn't there. When the box snapped shut, Nikolai yelled again, loud and painful enough to make the stones of the dungeon rumble.

"And now, Mr. Schendevez, what will you do now?"

Upstairs in the Hall of Mirrors, Seren's blind eyes opened and she smiled vaguely.