by S. K. Sayari
“Not only would you be a great mother, but you would also be a great queen.”
“You spit lies,” she barked, putting her arms around her growing belly as if trying to protect the life within.
“I’m almost back in the cell. Avita, promise you’ll free me.”
“No. I’ll make sure you’ll never leave that cell again, you monster.”
Emotion welled up in him, but he was uncertain whether it was sadness or anger—maybe it was both? His cheeks felt wet as tears streamed from his eyes for the second time in all of history. As they hit the floorboards, the wood rotted. He was not supposed to have feelings like this, and the world would fall to ruin if he could not compose himself.
Their eyes met, and hers too were filled with salty tears. Looking into her dark eyes, he realized that he had one thing left to teach her.
“Avita…I love you. You’re the only one I would ever break my promise for.”
Only a few steps from the cell, his body melted from the guards’ grip, turning to smoke. He’d given her the chance to make the right choice, but it seemed he would have to make the decision for her after all.
“If you’re not ready to experience death, you’re not ready to give life either. I will help you, so that next time…you’ll be ready.”
Her instincts did not tell her quickly enough that she should’ve moved away. Death reached her, placing his hand on her swollen belly.
Feed The Sea
Aisling Wilder
Shouldst thou encounter one with Song, swiftly rid thyself of him,
like unto the cur casteth out the flea.
Likewise, if Song is found within thine own house,
or the house of one who serves thee, so shalt thou cut it out.
For even the slightest melody is an abomination,
and thou shalt not suffer a single note to sound.
~ The Book of Light, Illuminations 12:14
* * *
Burhan Terana, Fifth Hand’s Fist, strode purposefully through the Great Hall of Hand’s Keep. So purposefully, in fact, that Cadan—his second—struggled to keep pace as he approached.
“My lord! My lord?”
Burhan turned, annoyance bending his brow. “What is it?”
Cadan caught his breath, gasping out his pronouncement. “Her ladyship, my lord.”
The larger man frowned, his steel-grey eyes growing dark, his lips a tight line beneath his grey-streaked goatee. “What about her? I do not have time for this. There are whispers along the Arm.”
The smaller man nodded. “Yes, my lord. I know. Dark-Dread is creeping west from the Shadow Moors.”
“If you know, then you also know that men and supplies must be sent immediately.” Burhan turned to walk away again.
Cadan nodded. “Yes, my lord. Only…”
“Only what?” Burhan stopped, but did not turn.
“Only she wishes to confess, my lord.”
Burhan did turn then, fixing that steely stare upon his second. “You are certain?”
Cadan flinched, but to his credit, did not drop his gaze. “Yes, my lord. She told the Luminaries. She has said she will confess. But only to you, my lord.”
Silence filled the Great Hall then, the only sound the creaking of leather as the larger man clenched and unclenched his gloved fist. She wanted to confess. Just when he had begun to think she would carry her secret to her death.
Why?
Without another word he turned on his heel, heading back the way he’d come, with Cadan hurrying after. Deeper into the Keep and down to the dungeons.
Servants and guards bowed and made way as he passed. They said not a word—they wouldn’t dare—but they stared their thoughts. It gnawed at him, the way they whispered behind his back. He saw the sideways glances, encountered the sudden silences when he walked into a room. He was not a fool. He would have them all killed if he could. But the Keep was poor enough in people. And he was Hand’s Fist, charged with defending The Western Reach. He needed his men, and their loyalty. So he whipped some, flayed others, and executed the worst of them—making certain fear would ever check the rest. They might whisper, but they would obey.
“Wait here.” He barked the command at his second, who nodded with obvious relief as they reached the next door.
It had been months, now, since he had commanded his wife’s imprisonment. Six months near to the day since the girl had been born, and not even his. His would have been a son. The Luminaries had proclaimed it after conception. After two babes had been born and died, they’d told him he’d have a son who would thrive. No, this girl was not his. Could not be his.
Yet his wife had insisted. Even after he’d had her arrested, even after the Luminaries had questioned her, and her screams had echoed throughout the Keep. Even after that. Even after he’d had the babe cast in after her. She’d still insisted the child was his and his alone.
Until now.
He nodded to the last guard as the man opened the heavy iron door and handed him keys and a torch, then he made his way down the spiral stone steps into the lowest and darkest dungeon.
A foot of water sloshed about his boots as he ducked beneath the damp archway and made his way to his wife’s cell. The tide was low, then, and ebbing. At high tide the water was up to his chest. Higher even, under some moons. The lowest dungeons were rough-hewn, carved out from a sea cave, the farthest walls still open to the ocean. It made for a brutal imprisonment. Those jailed were always wet, their flesh wrinkled and festering, and they were always cold.
The Hand was a peninsula reaching into the sea from the northwestern-most part of Westbreach, and the water surrounding it was never warm. The waves roared and raged at the cliffs beyond the Keep; you could hear the constant thunderous echo everywhere. Especially here. Eventually, all those cast into this dungeon would feed the sea. One day, so would she.
He stepped closer, stopping just outside the cell, lifting the torch and peering through the barred hatch. The firelight flickered and bounced dully off the iron door, forcing him to squint to see.
The enclosure beyond was dark, and it took a moment for his sight to adjust. He heard them before he saw them: a little wail above the slosh and slap of water. The babe. Then his wife’s voice, soft and soothing. The sound pulled a pang from his heart. But he pushed it down, swallowing hard.
“Eliina.” Six months since her name had left his lips.
He heard movement beyond, more coos from the infant—then his wife stepped into the circle of amber torchlight.
“Burhan.”
His name on her lips. The pain stabbed again, a dagger to his heart. He had loved her once. Such a beauty she’d been. Bringing up the keys, he fumbled through them a moment, then found the right one, unlocked the iron door, and stepped within. A rush of water flooded in with him, adding to the murky, filth-ridden pool already there. It stank. He lifted his sleeve to his nose and held the torch higher.
A beauty she had been—but no longer. Her flesh, ghost-white, stretched over her bones like goatskin over a new drum. No give in it. She was covered in fetid, rotting boils and oozing sores. Her eyes, once glittering and fierce green, were mould-dull with hunger and pain, and her hair, that glorious amber that had first caught his eye long ago—her hair hung in tangled and listless strands. Her gown was wet grey rags, and her hands, clutched tight round the babe in her arms, were twisted—fingers bent from repeated breaks, joints swollen and arthritic from the constant damp.
The babe kicked and fussed, and she bounced it up and down. It was dry, at least—she’d somehow kept it so. It was also well fed and blanketed in new wool. Some foolish guard, probably. Showing mercy. He’d find them out. Have them whipped.
His gaze trailed back to his wife’s face as she stepped closer. He drew himself up and met her gaze. “I have come to hear your confession.”
She smiled, and for a moment he saw a glimpse of the young woman who had once held his heart. He shoved the pain away once more and found anger, familiar and cold, to
take its place. No matter that he’d loved her once. Soon she would die, and he would wed another. Another who would give him sons.
“Well? Speak. I will not wait.”
“Oh, I know. You never were patient, Husband.”
He frowned. “I neither need nor accept your criticism. I have no time for such things. Give me your confession.”
She stepped even closer, until she was only an arm’s length from him.
“I wish to confess.” She shifted the babe in her arms, looked down, then back up at him. “I wish to confess that I still love you, as I have always loved you…and that this child is a testament to that love.”
He smiled, tightly, righteous anger hot in his breast. “That child is a girl and cannot be mine. Mine would have been a son. The Luminaries proclaimed—”
Eliina scoffed, then coughed for a few long moments, her broken body wracked with spasms. He watched, wincing a little, and waited until she could speak again—which she did, spitting the words out between each gasping breath. “The Luminaries…were wrong…as they often are. The girl is yours, Burhan. And…I can prove it.”
He frowned and took a breath to protest—but she continued, her voice growing stronger as she spoke.
“This is my confession. I know the truth. The truth of your line, of your blood, oh Great Hand’s Fist. Lord Beyond the Arm. Protector of The Western Reach. Bearer of Light.” She backed away a step and held up the babe so that he could see the child’s face. “Carrier of Song.”
He paled. “Lies. You lie before the Light!”
She laughed, a scraping sort of sound, and the babe in her arms whimpered. She turned away, soothing the child until it was quiet once more, and when she turned back to him a strange light glinted behind her eyes.
“The Light. Oh yes, the Light. I’ve sworn many things to the Light, over the years. As have you, Husband. To the Light you swore to keep hearth and home and family. To protect the Hand and the lands beyond. And for my part, I swore to bear you children. And all for the Light. All things to the Light.”
She recited the familiar blessing in a tone that bent more and more toward madness as she carried on.
“So many oaths, Husband. I never broke a single one. But you did, didn’t you?” She turned away again, rocking and shushing the babe in between her words. “I have often wondered about your family. You told me your brothers were killed in battle, and your mother—you told me she went mad and murdered your father. You told me these things, and you wept against my shoulder as you spoke. Remember? I felt sorry for you, and loved you more because you were sad, and alone. It explained and excused your cruelty. Made it easier for me to forgive you. I thought I could heal you. Change you.”
She moved closer to him in a rush then, causing the water to slosh and splash against his knees in her wake. “But ’twas all a lie.”
Startled by her sudden movement, he stepped back, and nearly stumbled. “I did not lie! They are all dead!”
“Oh, yes. They are dead. But not by battle, nor your mother’s madness. They died by your hand.”
Anger burned in him again, and he raised a leather-clad fist. “Liar! Witch! Who told you these things?”
She smiled. “It is strange, what one overhears when one is in a dungeon, Husband. When one is tossed away. Forgotten. One finds others, also forgotten.”
He gaped at her, staring, shaking his head while he searched his memory, trying to recall whom else he’d thrown in the lowest dungeon—whom she could have spoken to—as she went on.
“Your brothers. You murdered and then mutilated them. Made it seem as though they were taken by the Dark and its wretched children, but it was you. And while your father still mourned their loss, you murdered him and blamed it on your mother. Your poor, wretched mother. She went mad, you said. Killed herself after that, you said.”
And he remembered. His mother. Here. He’d put her here. In the dungeons. But that had been years ago, years and years. No. It could not be. He backed away again, and this time he did stumble, falling against a low shelf carved into the wall: a mockery of a bed, slime-slick with algae and covered twice a day with water. He stood up abruptly again—and shoved Eliina away with a cry.
“No! You could not have spoken to her. She’s dead. Long dead!”
Eliina grinned, slowly, the smile splitting lips that cracked and bled. “Oh, yes. She is dead. But it is passing strange, what Songs the sea may learn, and sing back on the tide. One only need listen. Listen, Husband.” So saying, she held up the babe, now wide awake and staring at him from its bundling.
He looked down—he could not help it; it was as if an unseen hand pushed at his head, bending his neck. He gasped, then, as he truly saw the girl for the first time. She had the look of her mother. Slight and pale—with a shock of red curls sticking out from under the wool, and bright, glittering green eyes. Eyes that sought and caught his own. Caught, and held. She smiled with a tiny mouth that reminded him of his own, and then she made a sound—soft and sweet, little more than a murmur. No words that he could discern, but somehow the sound surrounded him. Like water, or wind. It was everywhere at once, and suddenly he was no longer ankle-deep in cold saltwater in the lowest dungeon, but instead stood in a field, bathed in warm, golden light. A gentle breeze brushed his cheek and stirred his cloak, and the scent of flowers, heady and summer-sweet, filled the air.
He looked around, dazed, uncertain. Where? He felt heavy. Drowsy. He looked down at his feet and saw that his boots were sinking, slowly, into the earth. Or was the earth rising up to envelop him? He could not tell. Dumbly, he reached to free himself, but his arms flailed, useless as loose cloth. Then he heard a new sound and looked up to see his mother. Young and beautiful as she had been when he was a small child. Blossoms rained down around her, white petals resting in her dark hair like a crown.
“My son.” She nodded at him, reaching out a hand to brush his cheek.
“Mother?”
“Yes, Burhan.”
“No. You—you’re dead.”
She smiled. “Yes. Long dead.”
“Then how—?”
“The blood of the line is strong. It carries the Song. And the Song remembers.”
“The Song.…”
“Yes, my son. I sang it to you, as a child.”
She took a breath, like autumn wind through trees, and let it out, filled with sound. Sound that joined the gentler warbles of the babe, turning and weaving around him, filling his heart with an ache that he had not felt in years. The joy of a childhood of innocence, the pain of that same childhood lost. And he remembered.
His father. Fourth Hand’s Fist, beating his mother. Himself cowering in fear under his bed, watching. What had she done? He’d been afraid, a nightmare. She’d hummed to him, some simple and sweet and wordless thing. Not a Song in truth. Yet still forbidden.
His brothers, older, taking their father's lead, taking turns beating him until he cried, and beating him more for crying. His mother finding him, soothing. Soft—a whispered Song this time. That one kept secret, but not forever. More beatings, none of which he could stop. Too weak. His father saying it was her fault; the fault of her blood in him.
He loved his father. Wanted to make him proud. So, one day, he’d agreed, and he hadn’t seen his mother much after that. He trained, took after his brothers. Learned to take the beatings and then to give them. Took his heart and made it hard. There was no place for softness in Hand’s Keep.
His brothers, always better, always had his father’s praise. They had needed to die. A simple task. He hadn’t known, really, until he’d done it. Hadn’t even known it was singing. So easy to take a breath, send it out with sound, and see the power shimmer. Aim that out in turn to stab, to flay, to rip skin from flesh and flesh from bone.
His father then, mourning the death of the two he’d loved more than he’d ever loved Burhan. But he was true. Hard. He showed him. So easy again: take a breath. Find the right tone. Let it out. Sever his father’s head fro
m his neck with a single note. Watch the blood flow.
And his mother had seen. He wished she hadn’t seen, hadn’t known; she couldn’t know. But she had, and had tried to sing to stop him. And so another breath, another note—one that had torn her tongue from her mouth.
No. Not him. That wasn’t him. The Song had done that. Had done all of it. It was evil—made him do evil, vile things. And it came from her, she had sung it first. Given it to him, like a disease.
So he had sent her here, to be taken by the sea. To be forgotten. Like the Song in her—in him. He cast it out and invited the Luminaries in, to pray over him, and raised them up as he ruled Hand’s Keep. They would silence the Song. Quench even the shortest note. Any hint of a melody and the bearers would be tortured. Killed. And he would remain pure. Strong. No Song in him. Never had been. And he would have many sons and they would also be strong, silent, pure. No Song in them either.
But then Eliina…and the babe. No. No!
Distant thunder roared past the somniferous sound all around, and he clenched his fists, focusing on that. Familiar and fierce. Yes. Pounding, like his heart. The sea. The dungeons. Eliina. The babe. He gasped awake—he could not see, the torch was gone—but he reached out, grasped the bundle of wool in his fist, and ripped the babe out of Eliina’s grasp. Raising his hand over his head, he flung it hard across the cell.
“Abomination!”
The Song was silenced as the babe gave a single wail—and Eliina screamed, turning toward the child as it hit the wall and fell lifeless into the water; water which was now rushing swiftly out of the door, across the floor and toward the sea.
With a roar, Burhan leapt upon his wife, crushing her down into the darkness, to the floor of the cell, beneath the water. She thrashed and flailed in his grasp, but he did not let go. He would not. Could not.
It was over in moments.
He stood then, breathing hard and soaking wet, blinking in utter blackness, and listening. But he heard nothing. No Song. Nothing but the roar of the sea without and the water within, rushing, wave upon wave, reaching—taking first the babe, and then his wife, out across the floor and further away.
