by Cora May
These must have been the four Anam that she commanded, she decided. Although fear still gripped her, she decided that she was there for a reason. She had wanted to know what her ability was. Besides that, these Anam were desperate to talk to her, it seemed. They had something to say, and she felt the need to hear it. Therefore, she would talk to them and try to understand her Blessing in a way that only she had the opportunity to.
Her legs shook as she breathed in and prepared herself. She still felt drained, like her power had exhausted every last bit of fuel inside her. Her heart was racing fast enough that she thought a few beats were being missed. But she took a breath anyway and squared herself in front of the portal. The Anam were still watching her. They remained positioned at the portal, unmoving blocks of shadow. They must be waiting for her questions. She took another breath and rattled off the first question that came to her mind.
“Why did you give me this Blessing?” she asked. Her voice sounded too high, even in her own ears. She cursed herself at the sound of her own fear.
But the Anam remained unmoved by the portal. None of them had even shifted a bit at the sound of her voice. She waited, trying to give them a moment to process the question, but still no one answered her.
“Okay,” she hedged. “How about this one: Who gave me this Blessing?”
Perhaps they couldn’t answer the first question because they were not the ones who had given it to her at all. Perhaps there was a different Anam she needed to talk to.
But again, there was no movement from the shadows.
“Hello!” she yelled. “I’m talking to you. You’re supposed to be under my command. Can you even hear me?”
But a thought suddenly struck her. What if they couldn’t actually hear her? What if they spoke a different language? The Anam were the dead of the entire world—not just her own country. What if these ones spoke some long-dead language she had never even heard of before?
She knew that wasn’t the case, though. She knew she would be able to understand them.
She needed to walk inside the portal. She felt compelled to do it. That’s how she would be able to fully communicate with them.
But as she was taking the steps forward, as she was feeling the pull, she heard her name being shouted from behind her in the echoing walls of the bathroom.
“Chanta!”
It sounded so far away. She already felt as though she had stepped through the portal, though she hadn’t. It was only her stone that gave her that impression. She didn’t turn, though, at the sound of her name. She continued to reach forward. One arm raised up, playing with the ends of the flaming tongues of light that emanated from the portal.
“Chanta!” the scream came again, even more shrill. It sounded like it was right behind her.
She barely felt the arms that wrapped around her gut and spun her around. She did feel, though, the shower curtain as it was pulled down and tangled around her.
She also felt the cold air as her arm was pulled from the portal.
She turned back to the portal, just in time to watch as Brin fell through it.
The portal swallowed her up and closed before Chanta even got her wits about her.
The air in the bathroom went utterly still and cold. Chanta could do nothing for several minutes but stare, wide-mouthed, at the bright blue and white tiles of the shower wall where the portal that she had created was just moments ago.
She slowly began to realize that she was still tangled in the shower curtain on the floor. She had fallen pretty hard, and her rear end actually did hurt. She would be bruised, but… She would be safe?
She quickly realized where that portal would have taken her—where Brin now was. It was a sacrifice she had made, accidental or not, to go to that Realm in place of Chanta. And it was now Chanta’s fault that she was there.
Fear took over the confidence that she had felt coming into the bathroom.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: BRINZIEL
W hen she landed on the other side of the portal, she expected Chanta to fall right behind her. The struggle had been a quick one, a strange one, and she couldn’t quite tell where her roommate had landed. She had hoped she had saved her, but she couldn’t be too sure.
So she ducked behind the nearest structure in order to get a good look around while she waited to see if Chanta would appear. It was a rocklike structure—one that was hot, despite the fact that there was no sun in this place. She was tired of the heat already. She had been here for mere minutes, and it was already draining her.
She peeked around the structure. She could see the portal above her, still swirling around in circles. She was glad that no one seemed to notice it. It was too far up into the open space of the Realm she supposed, for them to truly take notice.
It was also too high for her to get back through it. She swallowed hard. What were she and Chanta supposed to do if they got stuck in here? If Chanta was only able to build a portal by commanding the Anam to do it for her, could it work in their own Realm? Would they bend to her will here, or would her Obsidian be rendered useless?
But the portal began to shrink. The light was dimming around it, and the energy seemed to be fuzzing out.
And Chanta was not falling through it.
Brin’s eyes widened in fear.
The portal disappeared before her roommate ever appeared.
She had to brace herself. She had to remind herself that this was what she wanted. She had pulled the girl out of the way for a reason—not hoping that they would both fall through, but to save her. She had hoped that neither of them would fall through. It was an accident that she had come this far. It was probably the better outcome, though. If someone had to go through, it was better that it had been her and not Chanta. Chanta was just coming into the school, just learning about things that Brin had become all too familiar with.
No, this was Brin’s fate now. She would have to buck up and take charge.
She was resourceful, she had to remind herself. She would get back home, she had to convince herself. She was not afraid, she had to soothe herself. She was well equipped to handle this situation, she had to lie to herself.
She took several deep breaths from behind the heated rock structure. She could sit there all day, lying to herself and hiding. The fact of the matter was, she wanted to. But who would save her, then? The only person that knew she was there didn’t know where she was at all.
Brin waited as long as she could. She kept hoping that Chanta would show up, long after the portal had closed. She would open a new one, she kept telling herself. Of course she would. Any decent person would. Yet, there she sat alone.
She peeked around the structure again.
This is what death looks like, she thought.
There was a certain hustle and bustle of the Anam, who looked nothing like what she had imagined them to look like. They had a human-like structure, which was somehow comforting—perhaps in that she knew her body wouldn’t be too awkward to use in death—just far taller and longer. They had hooved feet that, up to their ankles, were covered in a thick, coarse-looking fur that ranged in colors from dark brown to burnt red to white and everything in-between. Their fingernails were long, almost as if purposely made for a weapon, and they looked thick enough to hold in a fight. They were all yellowed, though, as if somehow diseased or dying. The latter, Brin supposed, was probably more likely, seeing as this was death, after all.
The scariest thing, however, was what sat upon the heads of each of the Anam, like a crown and a weapon at the same time. Each of them had a pair of giant horns like a goat. Some of them had long, twisting horns, while others had a straight pair that reached high in the sky. Some of them had a perfectly symmetrical pair, while others still had two horns that looked so different it was as if they belonged to two completely different Anam. Sometimes, the twisted ones made two or three full loops, tightly coiled around the head of the Anam, and other times, there was only a slight curve in the horns. But one thing was constant in all of
the horns; they looked threatening, and Brin was sure she didn’t want to be on the business end of any of them.
She was also sure this wasn’t the right Realm. How could the Reaper be living among a people like this? She was positive the Anam Solas would not look like that—there was no reason those Anam would have to look so threatening or have so many different types of weapons built into their own bodies. And even if they did—perhaps as an adaptation to the Anam Hunters—surely those weapons wouldn’t look so animalistic and raw and diseased. These could not be the Anam Solas. Which meant, of course, that they were the Anam Dorcha. And if that was who these creatures were, then she was in the Realm of Darkness.
She made the mistake of wondering what happened when someone died in the Province of Death.
She shook her head clear of that thought, though. She stood up—still crouching behind the rocklike structure, keeping as hidden as possible—and looked for the most logical place to go next. She didn’t think much of this place was logical, though. Everything around her was rock, some of it flaming, some of it ashen, all of it looking very burnt. Except below her, she noticed. She was clearly walking on a comforting hard ground, but she couldn’t really see her feet. From the ground was rising a thick, black smoke, almost as if it was ash itself, settling in the first few inches of the ground, covering her ankles completely. The smoke never rose to the air or sank further into the ground but stayed like a cloud cover hovering just above the ground.
Brin peeked out from behind the rock once more and looked at the hooved feet of the Anam. She hadn’t considered it before, but she now realized that she could add those hooves to the list of built-in weapons that the Anam had. The hooves had been big enough that Brin hadn’t even noticed the thick ash cloud on the ground before, but now that she had really seen it, she realized that the Anam, too, were walking through it. It only appeared as though they were walking on it, as if it were hard ground, because their hooves were so massive. They sank, however, a couple of inches down with each step the Anam took, just as Brin was sinking, too. She realized she hadn’t seen the bottom of the hooves at all.
She closed her eyes and tried to shake off the feeling of dread and fear she felt. She tried to allow herself to believe that they were no more than animals. She shook her head and stood up straight, preparing herself to leave.
Only to open her eyes to stare directly into the face of a grinning Anam woman.
“Well, well, well,” she said through her smirk. “What have we here? An exotic?”
The Anam woman was tall and full. Full, Brin thought with disgust, in the breast, butt, and thigh areas mainly. The woman wore a fur skirt that could nearly pass for a leather skirt with how tight it was and what it showed off. Her chest was barely covered by a matching fur cloth, the top of which seemed barely able to contain her full breasts. Her stomach was left bare to reveal a flat, human-looking belly with three piercings down the center of her rib cage. Brin wondered how they stayed, or if they were not piercings at all, but a part of this woman’s dead body. She had the typical horns and hooves of the other Anam, which looked just as threatening on her body as they did on the body of the male Anam she had just been watching.
The most striking thing about this woman, though, was her scent. She smelled like burning cologne. The scent immediately stung Brin’s nostrils, like alcohol had been poured directly into them. She withheld the urge to close her nose with her fingers.
“I’m not,” she said in a shaking, barely audible whisper. She filled her lungs and tried again. “I’m not a Hunter,” she told her in a semi-clearer voice. “I’m not here for trouble.”
The woman laughed at her.
“We do not fear the Anam Hunters in this Realm,” she said, her arms crossed over her chest. “What would make you think that? No, they are weak, but they fight for us anyway. If you are against them, you are against me. Is that the way it is?”
“I—um—no,” Brin stuttered. “I’m not against anyone. I just want everyone to be happy in their own Realm. I wouldn’t cross you.”
“Oh, of course you wouldn’t,” she said. “Because now you are bound to me.”
Brin blanked at the words.
“You see, if I were to release you, to leave you to the others, you would be left to die in the Province of Death. That is a death most permanent, and not one you would like to face, am I wrong?”
Brin didn’t answer the smirking Anam. She wasn’t quite sure what was happening.
“I thought not,” the woman answered for her. “Now, you see, I found you, and in this Realm, that means you are mine. Count yourself lucky, because I will allow you to work for me and perhaps pay off your debt.”
“What debt?” Brin demanded. Her heart had begun to thump in her chest.
“Everyone has a debt in this Realm, Sugar,” the woman laughed as she reached out to grab Brin’s arm.
Brin suddenly felt paralyzed. She had no control over her body, and her mind couldn’t convince her legs to run. She had nowhere to go, anyway, and no one to save her. She couldn’t even open her mouth to scream as the cold, bony hand of the Anam pressed around her wrist.
Suddenly, she was yanked away. Her paralysis ended only so that she could keep up with the woman who was running through the ashen mists at an alarming speed. It felt to Brin as if she wasn’t running at all, but flying, and Brin’s small human legs were just too close to the ground. Around her, the Realm seemed to disappear into streaks of light. There was nothing to focus on, no way to know where she was going or to keep track of the sort of path so that she could find her way back.
Not that it mattered. The portal was long gone anyway. Going home was just a distant thought now.
So she ran with the Anam woman, her feet barely touching the ground as she went. Her wrist was burning with the tightness of the grip of the woman, but she was grateful for the distraction. It was something to focus on, anyway, since she couldn’t focus on where they were going or what was around them.
They seemed to be running for a lengthy time, but in reality, it was only a few minutes—it only felt longer to Brin because of the anxiety she felt over the situation. But the woman came to a complete stop after a short sprint through the Realm of the Dark, forcing Brin to collide straight into her back—which Brin discovered to be as bony as her hand and had the same, awful smell of burning cologne.
“We are here,” she told Brin in a matter-of-fact, cold voice.
“Where?” Brin asked in a much quieter voice.
She looked at the place in front of them. To her, it looked like a basic cave. The walls burned, with tongues of flame whipping from various directions. She could see shadows inside, and she knew they were probably just more Anam. When she looked around, she saw other caves lined up, some connected and some standing separate. Various Anam were coming in and out of the caves and walking through the paths between them. Sometimes they came out of a cave with something new and shiny looking, and other times they came out just looking angry. It reminded her of a shopping center, and she wondered what kind of society these creatures must have set up for themselves.
And then the Anam woman was pushing her into the cave in front of her.
The inside of the cave was very dimly lit. There were small flames that seemed to be the only source of light, like candles on a romantic date. There were more Anam women, too. Some of them as young as Brin, some even younger. None of them looked happy to be where they were, and some of them were even in chains. Brin wondered what made that necessary—how could you be a slave to someone who was also a slave in a Realm where everyone is a slave to misery?
Each of the women and girls were dressed in clothing similar to that of the woman in front of her, except for the girls on the chains. They were allowed no clothing at all, it seemed, and Brin had to look away, ashamed for them. Though, she understood from the looks in their eyes that they had plenty of shame as it was—she didn’t need to feel it for them.
The Anam woman led her t
o the back of the cave, where there was a dark turn off. She took her back there, and behind the walls of the tunnel, there was another room. She was shoved into that room.
This time, the room she went into was far more well-lit. It looked like an office space, with a desk and tools and shelves—the only thing missing was a window with a good view. Of course, there was no good view in this Realm anyway. The woman went and sat behind the desk and fiddled with some papers for a moment before turning her attention to Brin.
“In this society,” she told her, “you must work off your debts. You will be one of my girls until you have completed your service. I will provide a room for you, and anything else you may require, but do not think those are without charge. They will be added to your debts, and you will continue to work until it is all paid off. Don’t worry—it shouldn’t last too long, and then you can consider your debts in this Realm paid off, and you will be free to go.”
Brin’s eyes shot open as she suddenly realized what was going on—this was a brothel of sorts, and she was being forced to join its ranks. She was being forced into a punishment that she had not earned in a Realm that she never had any business being in to begin with. Her heart was pounding so hard, she felt like it wasn’t even in her chest anymore.
And she turned to run.
And ran straight into a brick wall.
No, not a brick wall. Another Anam that she hadn’t seen before. He must have been trained to do this, sneaking up on all the new girls this woman took into her office, keeping them from running. His arms were crossed over his chest and made no movement to hold her back, but it didn’t matter anyway because his entire body took up the whole space of the exit.
Brin turned back to the Anam woman.
