by Nancy Gray
Erebus nodded. “It had to have been an elaborate ritual so that wouldn’t surprise me.”
Mercy frowned. “So, where does this leave us?”
Beryl said, “I visited with the North while Pyron ran some errands for the Ashen capital. I’ve convinced them not to attack and that the Ashen capital is probably being framed, but things are getting tense. We were getting ready to go together to make some sort of peace arrangement, but we weren’t feeling very hopeful, but with this new news…”
Mercy grinned as she realized what they were planning. “I see. Now that we know a noble from the desert has gone missing, and there are no traces of the Ashen capital being involved, we can convince them the Ashen people probably aren’t responsible for the missing prince either.”
“Exactly. So, we need to set sail as soon as possible.” Pyron’s face clouded over for a moment and Mercy felt a pulse of anger and despair flood through him before he could control his emotions and continue. “Besides, I’m supposed to take care of the captain of The Knave if I run across him. I hope that we do. I have some unfinished business with the man.”
Beryl seemed to sense the tension. “Well, in the meantime, we’ve got a week to prepare. You’ll want to buy some warm clothes.”
Mirilee chuckled. “I can’t say I’m looking forward to it, but if poor Mercy and Erebus can suffer through the desert heat, I can deal with the cold for a little while.”
Kylas grinned. “I could keep you warm.”
“Sleaze.”
Mercy nodded. “All joking aside, we do need to get some new clothing. Desert attire won’t fit in around here, and you’re definitely right about the warm clothes.”
Pyron pulled a money pouch from around his neck and tossed it to them. “I have a stipend from the capital. I’ll pay for your new clothes and any other supplies you think that you’ll need. As far as I’m concerned, you’re ambassadors for your people and should be treated as such. We can use as much extra help as we can get.”
Mirilee smiled and looked Pyron up and down for a moment. “Wow, rich and a gentleman, too. Aren’t you a keeper?”
Kylas frowned and gave Pyron a dirty look.
Pyron rolled his eyes. “Not to worry, Kylas. I don’t have time for a relationship and I don’t intend to get into one. My line of work is pretty dangerous, so I tend to avoid entanglements.”
Beryl seemed to be about to say something, but Pyron shot him a murderous glance and he quickly pretended to be interested in his bowl of stew instead.
Mirilee grinned mischievously and chuckled but didn’t say anything more.
Erebus spoke up. “I think before we go I’ll visit with my father. It’s about time we had a little chat.”
Mercy frowned. She sensed some hostility from Erebus that made her nervous. Pyron seemed to sense it, too.
“Well, don’t cause too much trouble. We don’t need to be delayed.”
“I don’t intend to fight him, but we don’t get along very well.” He glanced at Mercy, “And I just don’t appreciate him gambling with other peoples’ lives.”
Pyron nodded and something unspoken passed between the two of them that Mercy didn’t understand. There was a certain measure of respect, but there was an undertone of hostility along with it. She was about to ask what was wrong, but Beryl interrupted her.
“What are you going to do while you’re in town, Mercy?”
“Lots and lots of sleeping.”
Everyone chuckled.
Mercy paused and thought it over for a moment. “So much has happened lately, and I’ve been traveling for so long. I think a vacation on the beach is what I need most. In fact, I think if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a little walk just to clear my head.”
Pyron smiled. “Understandable. I’ll get things ready for you.”
36
The blood red moon smiled down at Mercy. It looked huge, hovering low in the sky over the water. Normally she would think of it as a bad omen, but it was beautiful. The reflection played on the black waves of the sea painting everything in a ruddy light and making the distant clouds look similar to the red clouds that she had seen on the day she left her village. It seemed that everything had come full circle. She was back at the lighthouse again about to go searching for the source of a magical storm, only this time it wasn’t for her father. She wasn’t even sure why she was continuing the search in the first place.
Mercy heard a familiar voice say, “A young and attractive girl shouldn’t go walking alone at night. It’s dangerous.”
“Erebus. I guess you to needed clear your head, too?”
“Something like that. The moon looks beautiful this evening.”
“Yes, it’s very beautiful, but I always thought that a red moon meant bad luck.”
“Our people think it’s a good sign.”
Erebus sat in the sand next to her. He still looked totally human, but his eyes were the strange violet color she had seen when she first met him. They reflected the light of the moon, and she was struck by how handsome he looked. He caught her looking at him and grinned.
She blushed. “Why did you pull away from me that night in the desert?”
Erebus sighed. “I didn’t want to, but I knew it was for the best. If we kept kissing, the venom might’ve affected you. I don’t want to get you addicted to it.”
“You didn’t have to keep kissing me, but you didn’t have to pull away either.”
Erebus raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Don’t tempt me.”
“So there was another reason, wasn’t there?”
“Yes.” Erebus sighed and Mercy braced herself as she felt the sorrow he was feeling over what he was going to say. “More than one. First of all, I remembered the look on your face when I started talking about the half-breed children.”
Mercy cringed. She hadn’t thought about what a physical relationship with him might produce, or the fact that she might’ve hurt his feelings with her reaction. At the time she didn’t care, but now she cared very much and she felt very guilty.
“The look on your face right now says it all.”
“Well, now I know the truth. You’re born human, so any child we would have would be the same. I’m not opposed to the idea. I just haven’t even thought about children since I was betrothed to Wind Runner. There are also ways to prevent that sort of thing.”
“That’s not it, though.” He sighed. “Mercy, I don’t think we can be together. When you find the source of the rain, I know for a fact your father will welcome you back to the tribe. There’s no place for me there, just like there’s no place for you among my people.”
“Who says I’m going back when this is over. They banished me, after all.”
“You’ll go back because they’ll need you. You always put others first. Your brother wasn’t emotionally stable after we rescued him. Which do you think your people would prefer as the chieftain’s heir, him or you?”
“I don’t know, Erebus. I don’t even know who I am anymore. Even though it wasn’t long ago, I don’t feel like the same person I was when I left my village.”
Erebus shrugged. “Neither of us are who we used to be. You aren’t that scared doe that I saw fleeing her village the evening of the blood rain, and I’m not that same beast man revolted by the fact he noticed one of the tribal girls was very attractive.”
“That was why you were disgusted? You thought I was pretty.”
Erebus smiled and nodded. “I told you I wasn’t revolted by you. I was revolted by my reaction to you.”
“And, I never thought I would be sad to hear that I can’t have a relationship with one of the beast men, but here I am about to cry. I’ve changed.”
“You got stronger and smarter, just like I did. Traumatic events do that to people.”
“It’s just everything happened so fast. I haven’t changed that much, but I know I’m not the same. Who am I?”
Erebus put an arm around her shoulders. “You’re the person holding this group together. You’v
e done amazing things, and I know you’ll do more. When you talk, everyone wants to listen. You have brilliant ideas and have single handedly made friends out of enemies, saved your people, and caused a temporary cease fire in a war that’s lasted for years. Don’t ever doubt who you are.”
“Did I really do all of those things?”
“Yes, and then some.”
“Thank you. I never thought of myself as actually making a difference.”
“Who do you want to be, Mercy? It’s up to you, you know.”
Mercy blinked in surprise for a moment. The logic was so simple that it wasn’t something she had thought about.
Mercy grinned. “You’re right. It really is up to me. Not my father, not my culture, or anything or anyone else. I was just wondering why I was still looking for the source of the rain. Now I think I know. I’m doing it because this was my quest, and I want to see it through to the end. That’s who I am. I’m not going to let a scar on my back change that.”
Erebus smiled. “While we’re in Concord, I think we should cover up that scar. The pattern it makes could make a nice tattoo, and I have some ideas you might like.”
“I will. I didn’t do anything wrong to get banished. It was part of my plan. I don’t need to keep a mark of shame for doing what was right for my people.”
Erebus smiled. “That’s the Mercy I know.”
Mercy glanced at her ankle. The wound had scabbed over entirely, leaving red and pick jagged flesh where the tattoo of her betrothal band used to be. It made Mercy remember what Erebus had done to Green Arrow.
“You know, Erebus, I’m also the one who chooses who I want to be with. I’m not going to allow the place where I end up determine who I’m allowed to care about.”
Erebus frowned. “But you know I’m right. As things are right now there’s no place for a beast man among the Forest Tribe, and I would never take you to live in our city.”
“Then I’ll just have to make a place for us, even if it means I have to grow my own set of wings.”
“I’ll be here when you do.”
Erebus smiled and held her hand and they stared at the moon in silence. Mercy felt a smile spreading across her face. She squeezed Erebus’ hand and then slowly stood up to walk back towards the lighthouse. She suddenly felt more confident than she ever had before.
Mercy stared defiantly at the blood moon and thought, “I’ll find whoever caused that storm, and I’ll make them pay for what they’ve done. I’ll protect the people I love from them, because I’m going to become someone strong enough to change the way things are.”
Mercy approached the lighthouse with renewed determination. She saw Beryl and Pyron looking out on the top of the tower watching her as she approached. Mirilee and Kylas were walking towards their tents waving at her. She waved and spread her arms out to feel the cool night breeze blowing beneath them, imagining having wings. Her heart was so light she felt she could almost fly up to reach them. Erebus followed her like a silent shadow.
Excerpt from Book Two of the Blood Rain Series: “Blood Moon”
The rust on the door reminded Mercy of blood. The guard pulled the door open and there was a small Ashen man with a white coat standing over a long wooden table with chains on each of the four corners. He had wild, white hair and strange pink eyes with light gray skin. The man looked at her with a stare as passive as that of a spider regarding a moth in its web. Mercy tried to struggle, suddenly deciding that she would rather have her neck broken than endure whatever the man had in mind.
The guard overpowered her and secured her in the chains, one around each of her arms and legs. Still, she managed to kick him in the stomach one last time for good measure as he secured her final foot. She knew it was too late, though. He wouldn’t kill her now. After all she put him through, she felt sure that the guard thought torture would be a better punishment for her than a clean death anyway.
The doctor smiled cynically. “Rather spirited one this time.”
“She made a weapon out of a dead rat.”
“Resourceful, too. It seems a pity. Well, I’d better get started.”
The guard nodded and exited the room. Mercy wanted to call out after him not to leave her alone with the doctor, but she fought off the urge. If she was going to die, then she would die in defiance, and at least would try to be brave.
The doctor said, “I’d better sterilize those hands of yours. We wouldn’t want you to get sick and die from handling that rat before I find out what I need to know, now would we?”
He ran some sort of strong smelling liquid across Mercy’s hands. She coughed slightly at the sharp smelling fumes and flinched as the liquid seeped into the cuts on the tips of her fingers, burning slightly.
The doctor began to put on some very thin hide gloves. “It would be best for you to answer my questions honestly. First of all, judging from your anatomy and your accent while you were talking to Claudius, I’d say that you aren’t from the Sylvan Islands. Is that correct?”
Mercy frowned. If she told him he was right, that could incriminate her people, but if she lied and said she was from the Sylvan Islands, then she would be executed as a traitor. The man was watching her as she thought it through. He had a tight-lipped smile on his face, as though he knew that she was debating inwardly whether to lie to him or not. She wouldn’t just have to come up with a lie but also a convincing story, and she was running out of time to think. Mercy flinched as she saw him reach for a scalpel next to him.
“I know, decisions, decisions. How should we start, with a lie or with the truth? I know my physiology. You’re not from the Sylvan Islands. But what are you going to tell me?”
“I’m not from the Sylvan Islands. I’m one of the Forest Tribe.”
He smiled very slightly. “Ah, so we start with the truth. I can already tell you’re going to be a very fascinating subject. Now, why were you in Crevane?”
“I’m an escaped slave. I took an Ashen lover in Concord, and he convinced me to come to the capital with him. He sold me into slavery and told my masters that I was one of the Sylvan people.”
The doctor sighed and said, “And now a lie.”
“I wasn’t lying.”
The doctor acted like she hadn’t spoken. “You see, the body is an amazing thing. Eyes dilate, people sweat, they avoid eye contact, and everyone has a unique ‘tell’ for when they’re lying. You just have to know what to look for, but what to do about it? That also depends on the individual.”
He put the scalpel down and began to look over his tray of tools. There were several types of knives and scalpels, a hammer, and some tools that she couldn’t place at all. He glanced at Mercy and then at the row of tools in front of him, then finally picked up the hammer. He grabbed her left hand and slammed the hammer down on the nail of her little finger. Mercy shrieked in pain, unable to hold the sound back in her shock and immense pain.
“Now, that was for lying. Are you going to lie to me again?”
Mercy swallowed hard but didn’t say anything.
“You’re very bright. If you said no, I would have to do that to another finger. It’s in everyone’s nature to lie, if they think that they have good reasons. You didn’t want to tell me that you were of the Forest Tribe, so I have to assume you’re a spy for them. Are you a spy?”
Mercy said confidently, “No.”
He frowned, “Hmmm…interesting. Then, I’ll ask again, what were you doing here?”
The doctor exchanged his hammer for a scalpel and held it just above Mercy’s right eye. Mercy felt herself beginning to sweat and found that she couldn’t pull her eyes away from the sharp object. He didn’t have to tell her what he was going to do if she lied to him this time, but she also knew if she told the truth, it would mean he would hunt down her friends and they would be the next ones strapped down to the table.
“I’m waiting. For every minute I wait, the scalpel gets closer.”
He took a strange looking golden device from his pocket. It c
licked in a strange rhythmic way and he stared at it intently, moving the scalpel closer and closer.
Mercy shivered and closed her eyes.
“Don’t make me pry your eyelids open. I have tools to do that. Tick-tock…”
About the Author
Nancy lives in South Carolina with her husband and two daughters. She graduated from the University of South Carolina with a Bachelors of Art in Media Arts and an English cognate. She started out as a graphic designer and then changed professions when she realized that writing was her calling. She enjoys reading, gaming, anime, manga, and horror.
If you want to find out more about Nancy Gray, she has a website at www.nancygray.net, and a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/WriterNancyGray. You can also follow her on Twitter under the handle @NancyGrayWriter.
