by A. J. Vrana
No, fate was a sheer will, exerted on her by forgotten gods with familiar faces. They were neither heartless nor cruel; they loved fiercely, dedicating their every moment to a singular cause—one Miya still didn’t understand. But they used people as throw-away chess pieces, cogs to be manipulated towards this unspoken end.
Brimming with hurt she could no longer stifle, Miya opened her mouth to scream but was silenced by a man’s sudden wail. The sound pierced the air between her and the white wolf.
Ama rushed by like a furious wind. Bled dry of all she’d clung to, Miya followed wearily. The childhood memory of the white wolf grabbed her by the throat and twisted. Nothing was ever as it seemed.
22
Mason
Mason flattened his palm against the mark, wishing in vain that the pressure would somehow suppress his rising panic.
“Go away.” He closed his eyes and focused his remaining willpower. “Please, just go away.”
Do you not seek truth, Master?
“I don’t want to be one with you!” Mason bellowed to the walls.
There is no other path, said the Servant. Truth demands surrender.
“I don’t understand what you want!”
It is not what I want, but what you want that drives me. I am but a humble servant.
Mason detected no deception in the words. This entity meant what it said—that it only sought to give Mason what he wanted: the truth.
Yet with every passing day, the reality of their attachment grew heavier; this thing was consuming him.
Mason pressed his back to the grainy brick wall and wiped the sweat from his brow. “Fine. I don’t want the truth. I don’t care. I’ll do what Miya asked. I’ll be satisfied with what she told me. I don’t need more. If she’s happy, nothing else matters—not even her parents.”
The lingering pain in Mason’s arm faded to a dull ache, and the Servant’s voice quieted.
But the respite was short-lived. The silence wasn’t a submission, but a calm evaluation preceding judgment—a final verdict.
Every lie you speak in an attempt to fool me is a lie with which you poison yourself.
Mason felt the cold, weighty hand of shock strike him across the face. His “servant” was patronizing him.
It preached on with religious fervor, You are not satisfied with subjective experiences and relative truths. You are a man of absolutes, an inquisitor in search of the universal. Particulars…are meaningless. If there is no objective measure, no greater law, then there is nothing but chaos.
“The Dreamwalker transcends every law I thought was absolute,” Mason countered. “Yet she’s real; she’s meaningful. She saved me from hellfire that night in the woods. Why can’t that be enough?” Was he asking himself or the Servant?
She is your scourge, the voice of the Servant rumbled, a puzzle with a missing piece. She must be put in order and made sense of. Isn’t that why you are here?
“No.” Mason shook his head, ignoring the maddening itch under his palm. “I came here to find Miya. For her family—to confirm that she’s alive, that she’s okay.”
The Servant tutted, More poison for your soul. The family’s suspicions have been confirmed, yet you still yearn for something more. Be honest, Master. The girl’s happiness means nothing to you. What you really want to know is—
“Why…” Mason whispered. He could feel the Servant probing his brain, tugging on the threads he couldn’t stitch into a simple pattern. Why was she here? What’d happened to her? Why did his insides feel like withering every time he imagined himself doing the right thing—respecting Miya’s wishes and returning to Raymond with the only truth that mattered: Miya’s truth.
But was her truth what Mason needed?
A hand curled around Mason’s throat. Nails dug into his neck, squeezing the air from his lungs. “No one gives a damn about what you need,” came a woman’s raspy snarl.
Mason’s eyes flitted across shadow-kissed walls, then fell on the creature seizing him. She was a monstrosity. Tangled seaweed hair slithered like snakes over her near-skeletal frame. Her flesh was grey and sickly, slopping from her bones like sludge. Her eyes were craters, void save for a ravaging hunger that screamed from the abyss. He’d seen her before—from his vision in the map.
“You’ve caught quite the bug.” A mocking smile tugged at her lips, thin and ashen with death. “No matter. I have use of your parasite, little man.”
She grasped Mason’s forearm and lifted the mark to her dark, tunnelling eyes.
“What are you doing?” Mason croaked, but the question was met with bony fingers bruising his neck.
Her thumb grazed over the mark. It burned as though she’d rubbed salt into a fresh wound. “Come out, you coward!”
Mason didn’t know who she was referring to, but he tried to shrink back against the wall.
I do not answer to you, the Servant’s voice echoed, suddenly strained.
The rotting woman’s grin widened, her cheeks like caverns. “I wish to know of the girl.” Sharp, crooked nails drilled into the brand on Mason’s arm. “Tell me, and I’ll leave you in peace to suck the sanity from this blubbering infant.”
Mason’s breaths came fast and shallow, his arm searing in agony like nothing he’d ever known. He would’ve cut the limb off just to be free of it all: the woman holding him, the Servant haunting him, and the pain jutting against his heart.
When he thought he couldn’t bear it any longer, the creature’s head snapped back with a sharp gasp. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open, her face frozen in a silent scream until finally, her grip on him eased.
Mason dove towards the pavement, scurrying into the farthest corner of the grime-covered alley.
“Of course,” came the woman’s ecstatic breath. “The girl is compassionate.” Her neck bent to an impossible angle as her gaze fell on Mason. He no longer saw a corpse of moulting flesh and brittle bone, but a young woman with plump, flawless skin—still pale but glowing like pearls under crystal-clear water. Her large reptilian eyes shone like emeralds, her hair flowing like a river down her back. Her movements were spellbinding, each step graceful and measured. The very sight of her was sweeter than a siren’s song.
“Thank you.” She smiled graciously as she crouched in front of him, her chilly, porcelain fingertips grazing his cheek. “You’ve been a tremendous help.”
She rose to her feet and sashayed into the gleaming light of the open street, then vanished like she’d been nothing more than an unpleasant fever dream.
The soles of Mason’s shoes scraped against the stone as he tried to push himself up. “W-what the hell was that? What did she mean?’”
The Dreamwalker is compassionate, came the Servant’s answer. I showed her how to use it.
Mason’s stomach knotted like a ball of rubber bands, each one fighting to break free from the others. “Why would you do that? That monster—it’s clearly after her!”
I did it to save your life.
“How did she even find me?”
Your uncertainty is too loud. It attracts predators.
Frustrated heat rose to Mason’s face. “Couldn’t you fight her off? Are you really that powerless?”
Only as powerless as you, Master. My strength matches that of my host.
Mason swore under his breath and kicked a loose pebble across the way. “Host…host. So, I’m just food then? A sack of meat for you to leech off of?” His voice cracked, giving way to laughter that threatened to erupt into tears.
It was a fair exchange.
Mason ran his fingers through his hair, gripping and tugging at the unruly curls. “You exchanged one life for another!”
Perhaps. But that is not all that was exchanged.
“Stop with the riddles!” Mason paced the narrow corridor. “Say what you mean!”
The buzz of traffic and the chatter of pedestrians on the main road fell away. There is not a thing in this world that can touch me without consequence. All those who seek tr
uth seek me, and all those who accept my truth surrender some of their own.
Mason stilled. “So, you know about her?”
Shall I show you, Master?
Mason squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed down the bile. What a fool he was; he’d been had by this parasite, and now Miya was in danger because of him. “Let me guess. You tell me everything about that woman, and I become one with you?”
Your assessment is correct.
Rolling up his sleeve, Mason closed his fingers around the back of his forearm and peered down at the mark—now nearly complete. If he agreed to the Servant’s terms, would he be lucid enough to help Miya with the knowledge gained from this unholy transaction?
I will not impede your cause, Master. I am always, unequivocally, your humble servant and ally.
Did it really have no concept of the damage it was causing? Then again, could it really be blamed for acting on its nature? Mason was a human with agency. He had free will while spirits were slaves to the impulses governed by their traumas. He’d chosen wrong…again.
Still, he had to do something. Miya was in danger, and he couldn’t ignore that; he had to rectify his mistakes. Dealing with the Servant was the only toolkit he had at his disposal.
“Fine,” Mason said at last. “Show me the truth.”
The moment the words departed his lips, the mark on his arm lit up like someone had taken a blade of fire to his skin. The horizontal line that’d struck through the first crescent moon resumed its crawl, inching through its twin. Mason’s consciousness slipped, and a tidal wave of images battered his senses.
He saw the woman’s—Rusalka’s—arms slip around Kai’s neck as she whispered vile temptations in his ear. He watched as she seduced Vincent, twisting him up until he did the unthinkable. Before him, a man from Cypress Swamp, and before that one, another, and another, and another. Her body was animated only by the tragedy she sowed, yet life bled out of her, oozing from her pores. It wasn’t hers to begin with. She’d stolen her vitality: a chemical mix sloshing around an ill-fitting container. It was like she’d been punched full of tiny holes that wouldn’t seal. No matter how often she refilled the vessel, topped it up for good measure, that strange concoction called life resolved to leak out, to drain slowly, quietly, until the final drops could only pool in the tiny crevices near the bottom of her rotten soul.
Mason’s skull felt like it was cracking open, the volume of information unbearable. His heart broke as he endured every moment of Rusalka’s machinations, witnessing her repeat the cursed cycle of infection, corruption, and violence. The memories dragged on in reverse until she was no longer a demon, but a corpse floating in a creek—a woman who’d suffered the ultimate betrayal. That betrayal, it seemed, was Rusalka’s beginning.
Mason fell to his knees and heaved for breath, his lungs screaming like he was trapped underwater. He tried to push his head up, neck straining, but something held him down from behind, forcing him under.
Rusalka’s final moments assaulted him. Mason fell to his side and began to convulse, his eyes pinned open as the memory interlaced with every neural pathway. If vicariously experiencing her death didn’t kill his body, he was certain it would kill his soul.
Mason bit down to keep his teeth from slicing into his tongue, then dug into his pocket and clutched the dream stone, pleading for it all to stop. As the stone warmed against his palm, the shaking gradually subsided, leaving him with a residual tremor.
Disoriented, Mason fought to get a hold of his surroundings. “You’re in Orme’s Rest,” he gasped. “Orme’s Rest. This isn’t the forest, the creek, the water. Green, not black. Elms, not willows. Swamps. Monsters,” he prattled on, gravel digging into his palms as he pushed himself up only to collapse again.
He was losing grip—or had he already let go? Every word was woven with the Servant’s voice. When Mason closed his mouth, the entity’s whispers invaded him, imbuing every minutia with hidden meanings and unspoken histories.
The world was a conspiracy.
How did people exist in their bubbles? How did they fail to see the connections?
Mason was alighted with rapturous horror. He could feel the ripples in the very fabric of time and space, the consequences of every action, every reaction. His mind was fracturing with the sheer insurmountability of the Servant’s perfect knowledge.
Mason had been right all along. Black Hollow. Cypress Swamp. Orme’s Rest.
They were all connected.
Miya. The Dreamwalker. A god born of violence. A god fated to return to violence.
He needed to show her the truth.
23
KAI
Kai hadn’t moved from the muck, Rusalka’s poisonous kiss still bitter on his lips. He’d watched her flee, emaciated legs buckling as they barely carried her weight. He didn’t have the heart to give chase—not after what she’d said to him.
“She’s long gone,” Kai remarked.
She is. Velizar seemed unconcerned by the loss.
Kai felt his brother like a second heart, pulsating next to his own. His presence swirled through every cell.
Tasting iron in his mouth, Kai spat out a dollop of blood. Rusalka’s tongue had been acid on his own. “You’re still full of shit, brother.” Kai nearly gagged on the word. “Guess that hasn’t changed.”
Something wasn’t right. Driving a blade through Rusalka’s heart had been as effective as misting bug-spray on a nest of homicidal wasps, yet she was tripping over sloughing globs of her own putrid meat to put distance between her and Kai.
Perhaps it wasn’t Kai she was so eager to get away from.
“That mouldy washcloth was shitting her skirts the second you put your hands on me.” Kai ran his tongue over the inside of his mouth, feeling out the damage. “Why?”
A trifling concern, Velizar’s voice reverberated from within and without.
The bastard was being evasive. Kai recalled his conversation with Rusalka at The Spade, the way she too had dodged him when he’d prodded her about the name Abaddon.
These two knew each other. The nervous heat rising in the back of Kai’s skull warned him that Rusalka and Abaddon’s connection was anything but trifling. Now sharing a consciousness with his nemesis, Kai felt Velizar trying to suppress his knowledge of Rusalka. Memories of her, just barely within Kai’s reach, were abruptly yanked away, and Velizar’s sharp familiarity with her dampened in Kai’s awareness. There was only one thing Velizar couldn’t camouflage: the fear Kai had seen in Rusalka’s eyes as she slunk into the shadows. What Velizar inspired in her was quite intimate.
Hearing a rustle from behind, Kai glanced over his shoulder to find Gavran standing slack-jawed between the trees. The voice of the boy and the old man echoed in unison.
“You...lunatic!”
Wring his neck.
Kai considered it, then breathed away the spuming rage. When the storm in him subsided, he turned to Gavran. “Fuck you. You brought me here hoping we’d tear each other to shreds.”
Gavran sneered. “You wanted to eradicate the shadow. Now you are one with him! The shadow she nearly died freeing you from!”
“I needed it back…for now.”
“It consumes you, mangy dog!” Gavran gestured to Kai’s hand, still gripping the hunting knife and painted in Rusalka’s ink-coloured blood.
Kai’s hold on the hilt tightened, and his fingers twitched against his say-so. Velizar was trying to wrest control, little by little like a coaxing parent. The panic struck deep, propelling Kai into unrestrained fury. “At least this is shit I’m used to stepping in!”
“You should’ve stayed in the hut permanently,” said Gavran.
Kai ground his teeth as he snarked back, “Tell me how you really feel, Shit-for-brains.”
The skin-bag roosting the raven bristled. “Now, she will only grieve more.”
Kai took a threatening step forward. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ve still got a fish to grill. I’ll cut out the cancer when I’m done.”
Gavran regarded him through slit-eyes. “You best hurry, then, or your cancer will metastasize. I’m sure you’ve noticed…how light it feels…how the weight slips away. You invited him in.” His mouth twisted into a scornful rictus. “Guests are never a burden.”
A wave of nausea wracked Kai as Gavran’s words sunk in. It was true; Abaddon had always felt heavy, unwanted. Now, Kai felt almost nothing. Save for the disconcerting tingle running through his left hand, he felt better than he had since Rusalka had abducted him. He stared stonily at Gavran and said, “I’ll figure it out.”
“So you say,” Gavran mocked, then turned on his heels. “Your last request has been honoured, wolf.”
Kai didn’t bother watching him leave. He squared himself to Rusalka’s scent, the residue of rot and fear washing over him. “You said I’d be able to end the bitch.”
Velizar’s grainy laugh rattled around the inside of Kai’s skull. You speak as though the woman has never been stabbed through the heart before. Come now, even you must know how such a monstress is born.
Kai arched a brow as he sheathed his knife and inspected his hand. He curled his fingers into a fist, then shook them out, wiggling each digit to ensure he had control. “Violent death or something, if you’re meant to be our cautionary tale.”
Rusalka was brought into the world by a man’s violence and hatred. Another man’s violence and hatred can only make her stronger, rooting her more firmly in her cause. It’s her entire reason for being.
There it was again—that twitch. Kai’s eyes darted to his hand, stiff as a board as he tried to suppress the tremor.
A man’s violence.
For so long, he’d denied being a man. It felt too…human. He was a wolf. He was only trapped in a man’s body, fated to be held to humanity’s puritanical laws.
