by Jack Whitney
“He is shadow and swamp. A giant of rotting melted flesh, burned and braided like hair on his body. He is twenty feet tall and smells of your worst fears. Do you not remember the Spy the other night? The abyss you felt as it tried to consume you?”
She nodded as a chill ran down her spine.
“The Berdijay is much worse. Spyes merely pour their void into you. They rob you of your core and then when you beg for the void, they consume you as water. The Berdijay… He feeds on fear. He will get in your head. He plays riddles, mind games, he manipulates… He makes you see things, all your worst fears brought to the surface. People can be consumed by their fears, driving them mad. There is no guarantee you will make it out alive.”
“I am not afraid of him,” she affirmed.
“You should be.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
DRAVEN WAS QUIET when she woke the next morning.
They were surrounded by the fog penetrating through the trees, wrapping itself into the forest floor and roots. He’d already started a fire, and was poking it, gaze staring into it as though he were in deep thought.
She watched him a few moments, noticing the unblinking of his eyes, the trance-like state he sat in. The fire danced on his features and settled in the shadows of his face, illuminating his eyes as his hair swept over to one side away from her.
“Reverie,” she said finally. “I’ve not seen it ever rest so well in someone’s features before.”
His gaze didn’t move from the fire, nor did he act even as though he’d even heard her. She was not accustomed to this side of him, and whatever it was, it made her chest feel heavy.
“Is something wrong?” she asked as she sat up.
“How are your ankles this morning?” he asked without looking at her.
She shifted uncomfortably and moved the blanket off her ankles to look at them. The sting of pain did not alarm her that morning, and the whelps were receding into her skin enough that she was sure she could at least stand on her own some. “Your poison seems to be helping,” she replied. “Even if it is disgusting.”
His eyes finally flickered to her, and he prodded the fire a few more times. “Do you think you’d be up for a longer journey today?”
There was something he was not telling her. It made her nervous, so nervous that she wrapped the blanket tighter over her shoulders. “What are you not telling me?” she asked.
The gaze he gave her confused her. He looked her up and down with a caution and hesitation she wasn’t sure how to take.
“I need you to tell me something,” he said deliberately, meeting her gaze. “And I need you to tell me the truth.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she nodded nonetheless. “Okay.”
“Why do you want to meet the Berdijay?”
The question startled her, and she found herself fumbling with the hem of the blanket in her hand.
“You know the stories,” he continued. “You know what he is capable of.”
“Perhaps I wish to—”
Draven held a hand up. “No. No politics. No bullshit,” he said with a shake of his head. “Tell me the truth.”
She swallowed hard and stared at the flames as she gathered her words. “Fear is something I dare not allow on the surface of my core.” She paused and met his eyes. “I’d like to know what its depths are hiding from me.”
He stared at her a moment, and then he began to fidget nervously, his heel tapping on the ground. “You realize what I risk by calling it?” he asked.
She swallowed hard. “I do.”
His eyes flickered back to the fire again, and then he stood. “We’ll need to travel several more hours northeast from my home and into its territory. I will not risk it following us back.”
His boots squashed the fire in an instant.
She wasn’t sure what to expect from him in the hours that they traveled. But they traveled deliberately, and in silence for most of the hours it took them to reach a place where he was comfortable calling it.
Each time she would look over to him, he was staring into the trees, a blank expression of nothingness on his face.
“I did not know you knew how to stay so quiet,” she muttered once she could not stand it any longer.
His hand tightened and then relaxed on the reigns, and he continued to stare straight ahead of them. “There is a lot you do not know about me,” he replied. “For instance, my favorite food is--”
“Women?” she interjected.
His brows raised, and she swore she saw a quirk of a smile rise on his face. “I was going to say potatoes.”
She almost laughed. “I wasn’t aware we were on the favorite foods level of our friendship.”
“Is that what this is?” he asked, looking towards her with a grin. “And here I thought I was leading you to your certain death.”
“Allowing the Noctuans to do your dirty work… All this time you’ve promised my death would be privileged enough to have it done by your own sword.”
“The Berdijay will only rob you of your mind,” he assured her. “My sword will certainly be what ends your life.”
She almost laughed. “I am glad to know the fantasy of my death is what you dream of at night.”
“I’m surprised you were able to sleep without the aid of the tonic or Samar last night,” he bantered. “All that moaning—”
“You know, you keep talking about my moaning as though you cannot get it out of your head,” she mocked, raising her brow at him. “Something you’d like to share?”
Draven chuckled under his breath. “If I decide I should like to hear your moans again, you’ll know it.”
She didn’t recognize the flutter in her stomach as she met his gaze then, the sharp intake of breath she felt herself take as his eyes danced over her figure… She quickly pushed it to the back of her mind and looked out ahead of them.
Circumstance, Aydra, she told herself. Pure circumstance.
A chill grew through the forest before she could utter another word. Draven pulled on the reigns of his horse, and she followed suit.
“What—”
He held his hand up, and she stopped talking. Leaves crunched to their right. Draven squinted into the treeline and then moved slowly off his horse, pulling his sword from its scabbard when he did. Aydra quickly pulled her bow and an arrow.
Draven crouched as he walked around the horses, his feet making no noise on the dirt.
Infi, the raven called down to her. He crawls into the canopy. Left tree.
Aydra squinted into the shadows, searching for any movement. The white of its hands grasping onto the trunk caught her eye. She pulled the arrow through and sent it soaring through the air.
The arrowhead landed with a thud in the creature’s neck, and it fell backwards to the ground.
Draven straightened and stared at the dead Infi now lying in front of him.
“If you can land that shot in the shadows of this forest, do tell what happened that day on the beach,” he said as he turned back towards her.
Her jaw tightened. “You were shouting at me,” she argued.
He kicked the foot of the creature just as the ground began to shake. “Must be nice to have never had to use your weapon under such pressure,” he mumbled.
The horse beneath her began to waver at the ground shaking. She reached down and rubbed its neck, assuring it it would be okay.
“No one shouts at me if they want to continue breathing,” she continued.
The roots began to take the Infi creature back into the dirt, and she had to avert her eyes, wishing she could close her ears at the noise of its bones being ripped from its insides and taken back to Duarb.
“I suppose that means my days are numbered then.”
She shook her head at him as she watched the Infi creature’s bones disappear into the forest floor. Something he’d said days before continued to bug her, and she allowed her curiosity to get the better of her.
“There are no children in your home young
er than thirteen,” she said.
“Fair observation,” he bantered as he pulled himself back onto his horse. “What else have you noticed that you’ll be taking back to your kingdom?”
She wanted to throw something at him.
“I’m not taking back anything,” she argued. “It was a simple statement.”
“And where are you going with such a statement?” he said upon their starting to walk once more.
“I was going to ask if Duarb had given another Infinari child,” she admitted. “You’ve none of the younger children under Balandria’s wing, and…” she paused a moment, considering the words she was about to tell him. “Arbina has not given another since Nyssa and Dorian. She regularly gives children every ten years. I was curious if the same was happening to your kind.”
Draven’s jaw tightened, and he glanced solemnly in her direction. “Duarb has not given another Infinari child since Balandria,” he admitted. “I fear he knows something is coming. What, I do not know. But something has stopped the line of Kings.”
“What do you mean?”
He sighed heavily, his hand running through his hair. “It is written in the Honest Scrolls, that if a Lesser One believes a threat great enough to our land is coming, they will cease breeding of the fated children. They will go into remission and await the right time for another to be brought forth to save the land.” Draven paused for a brief moment, and he looked at her. “The birth of an Infinari child after such a time is the First Sign.”
“First sign of what?” she asked.
“Haerland’s true freedom.”
Aydra frowned. “I’m not sure I follow.”
“Freedom,” he repeated. “As in the whole of the land free. No more curses or chains for my people or the Noctuans. No more Lesser Ones being bound to their trees or realms. No more fighting between the races. An entire united Haerland. The whole of the Echelon. Arbina’s children…. They are the Second and Third Signs. Which is why the birth of an Infinari child is so important. Even if she gives two before he, without the First Sign, they mean nothing to the Scrolls.”
“These stories… they are not written in the Chronicles. We have no record of such.”
“No,” Draven agreed. “The Chronicles only follow the way of the Dreamers and the Promised. They are not the truth.”
“Have you always had such hatred for Dreamers?”
“I could carry no hatred for such a loyal group of people. I can only fault them for believing everything spoken by the Lesser Ones.”
“Lovi Piathos is a Lesser One,” Aydra argued. “Are the Scrolls not his writings?”
“Lovi is merely the keeper of the Scrolls. The Scrolls are memory. Not record.”
“Who’s memory?”
He stared at her a moment. “Haerland’s.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
THEY DIDN’T SPEAK much more in the hours it took to travel far enough away from the Venari home that Draven felt comfortable to call the Berdijay. The sun was about to begin its set, and she could see Draven start to shift nervously on his horse the closer they got to their destination.
The forest opened up to a great stream. Rocks lined the bottom of it, the clear waters radiating over the smooth surface. Draven leapt off the back of his horse and then held his hands out to her.
“The horses stay. We need to travel a half mile up the stream. Get on my back,” he told her.
“Half mile seems excessive,” she argued.
“I will not take the horses into its territory in the darkness,” he said as he turned around for her to latch onto him. “Get on my back or crawl.”
The forest became thicker on either side of the great stream. She could feel Draven’s tense body against hers, squeezing her thighs once in a while as they walked along its bank. The air grew colder, the wind picking up as they stretched the length of the path. Birds no longer chirped above them. She searched into the wilderness for the cores of any creatures around them.
There were none.
The eerie silence rang in her ears.
“What’s the plan?” she asked after a few moments.
His heartbeat quickened beneath the hand she had on his neck. He slowed and then stepped into the water. When they reached the middle, he crouched down, and her feet hit the cool stream. It was the look he had on his face when he turned back to her that made a lump rise in her throat.
“I will ask you only once more,” he said softly. “Are you sure about this?”
The beat in his pulse throbbed beneath the fingers she had on his wrist. His breaths were labored as he looked down at her, eyes darkened, and a look of fear rested in his features that she did not know he possessed.
“I am,” she affirmed.
His weight shifted, and he swallowed hard as the wind gusted around them, causing a chill to pour over her bones.
“You will be on your own,” he told her. “I will go into the trees and call it.” He paused and shifted on his feet again. “You will be consumed into darkness. Its fog is thicker than the ocean water. He will bring your darkest fears to wrap you up and manipulate you—”
“If I am taken, make sure Nyssa gets my crown,” she cut in, her heartbeat starting to pick up. She turned away from him, forcing her feet to move in the water so she could face the end of the stream she knew he would be coming from.
She didn’t feel Draven leave her side as she stared ahead of her, her heartbeat beginning to pick up pace. She dropped to her knees then as a pain shot through her ankle, and the cold water met her skin beneath the dress. The sky was slowly turning a darkened shadow. She reached out again for any other creatures around, but was met with no response.
The sudden sound of the horn bellowing through the still air made her heart pause. It was a bone-tingling tremble that stretched from her muscles to her core. Her stomach turned sour, and she held in the turn, determined to keep herself together as the rotting of her bones marrowed through her.
The water stopped moving and evaporated into the earth.
Wet dirt wrapped between her fingernails. The wind blew her hair off her neck.
The ground shook.
And then the reality of what she’d asked for set in with a sink of her chest.
A dense black fog wrapped around her hands and knees. It tickled her skin, whispering in her ear as the moisture of it hugged her flesh.
The sunset she’d been able to see moment earlier was suffocated out.
Rupture and rapture
The surface breaks
Who dares ask for their escape?
The nauseating curl of his rasp repeated in her head. The void of her core felt of a hole tearing through her insides. She didn’t have to close her eyes to see into the core of this creature.
Rotten. Black. Necrosis. Disease. Pain.
Red eyes appeared out of the darkness.
And Aydra stood to her feet.
This was how she knew she was in the Berdijay’s grasp.
Her ankles felt not of weak and broken, but of strength, as though she could run for miles and miles without tiring. She inhaled deeply, feeling the fog enter her airways and dive into her organs, filling her with ice and fire all at once.
It’s not real, she told herself.
The ground vibrated, his deliberate steps coming towards her, seconds between each. She stood her ground as it began to speak again.
Rupture and rapture
The little red raven sleeps
Tell me dear of your greatest griefs
—She was in the Throne Room.
Her gaze narrowed around her at the throng of people scattered around the room. A hand covered hers on her side, and she looked up to see it was Rhaif’s hand. Her immediate reaction was to flinch away from his grasp, but he clenched his fist around hers.
Men spoke around her. She opened her mouth to retaliate, but it wouldn’t move. Her free hand reached to her lips.
Her sewn together lips.
The rate at which her heart b
eat made her shake. She ripped at the seams, pushing the pain of it tearing her flesh to the back of her mind. But each time she cut the seam, it would grow back.
Her brother stood over her, his hands pushed behind his back. His head tilted mockingly at her, and a quirk of a smile rose on his lips.
“Silence,” he mused.
The blood in her boiled. She lunged out of the chair.
Rhaif’s image disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
The screech of her raven sounded overhead. Belwark hands grabbed her body. She was shoved backwards.
Her body fell into a free fall of black.
—A foot kicked her in the back.
She fell face first into the wet dirt, realizing she was once more in the forest and not in his shadow dimension.
Her hands pushed to the ground, and she rose her chest to see into the abyss in front of her. The smell of decaying flesh filled her nostrils. She flinched at the reek of it, her stomach turning over. The ground vibrated again.
And when she blinked, her eyes opened to the red pupils of the Berdijay kneeling before her.
Antlers rose out of his head, its body reflecting in the shadows and golden fire pulsing through the make of its body as though its nerves were on the surface of its body and the golden glow was its energy surge. Its great flattened head, no more than black swamp-like hair covering everything about it except its eyes, tilted at her.
Rupture and rapture
Your raven calls
Tell me queen
How will you fall?
It knew who she was.
—Its enormous hand wrapped around her body. She let him take her off the ground, lifting her foot after foot as it stood. She pushed herself up in its palm and grasped onto his fingers. A deep purr echoed from its insides. She didn’t blink as she pushed her core outwards into his. She felt his core shake, as though he were allowing her to fill him.
