by Kelsey Quick
His reply is a jumbled mess in my head. I know my parents didn’t survive. I watched my father, mouth sputtering blood-infested gurgles, getting eaten alive. I remember my mother’s ferocious, transformation cries and how they stopped so abruptly as I escaped down the basement. If she somehow was still out there, she would kill me on sight. The fallen don’t discriminate. But hearing their fate said out loud from someone who experienced that same night somehow reopens the wound that years of countless nightmares could not. Streams dabble down my face, but I wipe them, refusing to sob.
“Yeah, I know they are dead,” I say in a tougher-than-I-currently-look voice. “I meant anyone else, if you paid any attention, that is.” The bitterness finds reprieve on my tongue.
“Castrel, you mean?” Zein responds rather gently to the bitterness, and I nod.
“If he were, I would have taken him as well. We searched the city and you were the only one we found.”
They’re all dead.
My lungs twist into knots and my hands fall to my lap. All the freshly opened wounds now bright red and victim to the chilled air. My vision skirts the bed before resting on Zein’s form, then his eyes—which have started to oddly welcome mine.
“Why wouldn’t you have taken me if my parents were alive? Weren’t you on a mission for your slaughter-house?”
He scowls and I correct myself. “Sorry. Saya. Slaughter-house. Both can be easily confused for us inferior humans.”
He surprisingly lets it go. “It would be a bit morbid, wouldn’t it? Sending a child to Saya. They would have started breeding you after your first cycle.”
That’s a horrible thought but I stick to my guns. “That didn’t answer my question. Because why would you care what happens to human children? To me?”
“A very good question, at that,” he commends, turning to stand from the bed. I notice the gait of his shoulders—primitive and predatory—loosely covered by his leather robes. He finishes. “I like your hair.”
The joke catches me off-guard but I quickly recover.
“You’re lying. It’s obvious,” I retort.
He chuckles when he looks back at me, and I fight off a smile of my own.
Zein walks to a line of bookshelves surrounding a simple, ivory desk illuminated by the deep blue lanterns above. Everything I ever believed about Zein since arriving at Nightingale has been stripped down in a matter of minutes, and it’s taking all of his steps to his desk to regain my composure.
“The truth? All political. Abethos had recently claimed that territory, I had no authority to take you, even. I only did so because you would have died if I left you there, orphaned and awaiting your final assailant.”
“Why do you care what happens to me?” I repeat bluntly as he grabs a scroll canister from his desk and pops the silver top.
“Is it always about you?” he returns swiftly, and embarrassment floods my face. “I do things for no other reason than whim sometimes. The years get boring without a little spontaneity and I have to admit, thus far, I am rather amused with you.”
Anger straightens my posture. I wish I could get one good welt on his pretty face, but I’m pretty sure that would land Savvy in the fallen pit.
“Don’t get all offended,” he sneers. “What I mean is… the company of a free-thinking human is refreshing. I don’t much like to be worshipped by humans.”
I cough a laugh. “And why is that?”
“Because we are not gods, for one. But Saya breeds them that way so I don’t have much of a choice.”
My breath hitches for a second. Is Zein who I thought he was? This Zein seems so much different from the one at the Distribution.
I sigh and force down the feeling those words evoke—kind of upset and kind of not—lost in my own thoughts. Against my will, a small smile draws across my face. Nearly everything I thought about Zein was wrong. Nearly. He’s still a narcissistic ass, but he seems to actually care somewhat for honor and dignity—having been the one to try and salvage Avignon. He’s also surprisingly calm, and strangely… forgiving. Did I picture him to be something he never was?
“Well, thank you for answering my questions,” I murmur.
He nods once as his eyes glass the contents of the scroll.
While there’s more I want to ask, I decide to call it good for the day.
“I think I will be going... my lord.” God, that still feels so gross to say.
Standing is a split-second chore until my body recalls the skill of balancing. How will I ever make it to the other side of the castle?
“Wavorly,” Zein calls out right as my fingertips grasp the handles of the huge wooden doors.
He analyzes me before finishing his thought.
“Rest well. I will be summoning you often.”
chapter 11
I don’t know if it’s because I’m a special case or if the organization of the castle is especially lacking, but when I exit Zein’s quarters, all that’s left are the guards standing outside the doors. Narref is nowhere to be seen, nor Gemini, nor Ceti. An escort is supposed to be here to take me back to the seraglio.
“Uh… excuse me,” I say hushedly to one of the idle guards. “Do I go back on my own, or...?”
Both of their beady eyeballs swivel to me, devouring me with careless gazes for a moment before they revert to as they were before, as if I said nothing at all.
Maybe they aren’t supposed to interact with the humans, since things could easily get ugly if Zein ever has the need to question if his supply has been touched by anyone other than him—the equivalent of a hired hand stealing precious sugar from a Sunday market’s storerooms.
My limbs still feel as if they are out of alignment, every part of me hollow like a vampire’s heart. Nothing feels real except when I focus on what’s straight ahead. I should eat something of more substance when I get back, but I haven’t racked up enough prestige or “currency” to do so outside of normal meal times.
I walk down the hall, expecting some angry vampire to jump out at any moment and ask me what the hell I’m doing all alone, but to my pleasant surprise—nothing. Even descending the ivory stairwell of bone, crossing through the grand hall and down the corridors, all the way down to the seraglio’s chambers—nothing. Only passerby servants here or there who offer an extra glance or two. It takes me too long to realize I could probably map an escape route now while I’m free of watch…I halt in my tracks.
As I make up my mind to turn around, a flicker of violet catches my eye. I flip my head back and there it is. Down the forked path, to the right. That same violet light from the first night in the castle. The library room. Dropping my previous idea, I trot toward the emanating light. It’s as it was before. Shining, rippling, plum-like water, harnessed and fixing into the shape of a wall, a door, and a handle. I waste no time opening it.
I expect the library, but instead a dark room welcomes me. One shrouded by crimson, emerald, and sapphire hues—stained glass depicting the lost religion, filtering in the last bit of sunlight. I know instantly where I am. My hand somehow finds my mouth to cover it as tears burst forth to my lashes. The Cathedral de Avignon.
None of the windows are busted in, none of the walls demolished, none of the pictures clawed through… even though I remember, distinctly, that they were on that final night. I turn to retreat, not ready for whatever sort of nightmare, demonic magic, or hallucination I’m playing with. Whatever it is, it’s not real. It can’t be.
To my horror, the violet door is gone. The entire violet wall is gone. I can’t leave.
“No!” I shout, opening the next best thing—one of the room’s doors only to find a dark hallway leading to the familiar mezzanine. In the center of the hall stands Castrel. His pale wheat-blond hair curves around his childish face, while his leathered form stands taut and alert.
“Wavorly?” he says in the same voice I recall from memory.
Once again, my hands find my mouth. My mind fills with boiling heat, my vision dizzy, my fingers n
umb. I slam the door shut and sob.
Why here? Why did it bring me here?
“Wavorly?” A different voice permeates from a split off section in the room, from my parents’ old bathroom.
I manage to find my will, my normalcy, my composure as I recognize the voice.
“Mother?” I hiccup, brushing away the heat from my face.
“Darling, come here. What are you doing up at this hour?” her voice is angelic, unchanged, much unlike the last time I heard it.
This all feels somewhat too familiar. I remember this night.
I approach the room, toward her voice. Her reflection in the mirror becomes apparent through the open doorway. This version of her is nothing like in my nightmares. The strawberry-blonde of her hair isn’t matted or coated in blood. Rather, it is freshly braided on either side of her head, leading to a perfectly straight ponytail, curling only at the ends. Her ears are weighted with gold and turquoise rather than jaundice and scabs, her lips pastel pink and her skin, half burned and half tanned from playing in the afternoon sun with me. Her eyes welcome me warmly rather than trying to scare me away.
“Did you have a nightmare?” she asks, pinning the right side of her cloak, connecting it to her left.
I don’t respond but I remember how I did back then. “Yes.” I had said. The nightmare back then was about loneliness. This is my memory.
Is this the power of the violet wall? What kind of power is it?
“Mother.” Tears form as I test the confines of this reality. “Are you alive? Do you know why I am here?”
She tilts her head. “Wavorly, dear. Go back to bed. Your father and I will be out late and you need your rest.”
It’s proceeding as I remember it. My mother bore a soft heart, but my father, the lead priest of the entire city, made her discipline me to his standards. Her eyes, the twist of her mouth, it all shows that she would have rather hugged me and rocked me to sleep. If only I could run into her arms, but every bone in my body is frozen. She stands her ground against my youth.
“You know what disobedience means. Go to bed.”
The walls to my left and right, even the mirror that I see her through from outside the bathroom illuminates violet. I turn. Behind me, the wall reappears, the door as well, and I waste no time throwing myself through it, collapsing onto the floor of the dark, sandstone hallway of Zein’s castle. I’m nearly sick as I recall that days after that incident, I would never see her again. Except I did. She was so real.
I’m barely able to stand when a shadow filters down the hall. I stand rigid and pretend to be normal, although I’m sure my scent is full of adrenaline. The shadow gives way to Madam Ceti.
She cocks her head and glances behind me. I do, too. The wall is gone, so she shouldn’t see anything, but I’m sure she’s curious as to the nature of my scent. I prepare for her to question it, but she asks something different.
“Why didn’t you wait for me at the top of the stairwell?”
“I…” I don’t have a decent answer. Why didn’t I wait longer? I could have, but I didn’t. “I was dizzy and not making very good decisions.”
“Ah. Pretty normal, for you new ones. Why so frightened? Did you get lost?”
I play off her assumptions. “Yes. I-I thought we turned right when coming back. Was it actually left?”
I’m safe. Downplaying human intelligence is always easy with vampires.
“Yes, always left, my dear. Come, come.” She stretches out an arm that is covered by a creamy, lavender-lace shawl. I oblige and step in line behind her, while the power of everything I just saw threatens to knock me down to my knees. Everything felt so real. The smell of old paper and recently blown-out candles, the draft of wind tasting of bitter winter and impending spring. I was in Avignon again. I could kick myself for not trying to excavate the room, the cathedral. For not trying to grab my mother’s thin shoulders and shake her until she realized I was there. Were her shoulders always so thin? I think I am even taller than her now.
Experiencing a life I long thought dead is enough to spiral me into a depression I haven’t felt since the beginning. Wounds I thought that had healed years ago were barely stitched together by time. That violet wall, whatever it actually is, must be trying to tell me something. Thinking that lofty thought leads me to consider another possibility:
I could very well be crazy.
✽✽✽
The artificial blood, made from the compounds of animal blood and potent chemicals, nearly makes me vomit as I stir the synthetic before preparing it for packaging. I wipe the sweat from my forehead and glance around the room for a change of scenery. It’s been three weeks since I’ve arrived, and I haven’t found it in me to enjoy any part of it. Friends, a constant food source by way of work, metaphorical chains in the form of little, idle rules and restrictions... it’s no different from Nightingale, except that nearly every other day one of the most prestigious vampires in all of Cain summons me to take my blood. Yes, within two days I shot to the top of Zein’s preferred menu of sorts. Which, if it were anyone other than me, that detail would mean instant popularity. But, because it’s me, it means the opposite. Everyone tries to avoid me, talking about me behind their outstretched palms—aside from the usual crew of Savvy, Katarii, Emi, and Glera.
I have to give it to him, at least Zein’s nice enough to use the kortrastet in his feedings instead of his fangs. Older supply units who have attended gatherings with him among other vampire officials recount their slaves as scarred head to foot in puncture wounds. If there’s anything to be thankful for, it would be a lack of that.
Aside from the obvious, the summonings haven’t been that bad. Zein allows me to chit-chat with and goad him, probably recognizing it’s something I need to get through the five minutes in his presence without going insane—although I don’t know why he continues to put up with it. If I were a narcissistic, selfish monster I would probably pay someone to kill me in the funniest way possible and then eat my remains. Zein as company isn’t horrible, but it’s still forced and I can’t stand that. On top of it all, the only lead I have for a potential escape is throwing myself in a laundry chute and hoping for the best. Basically, I have nothing and I am so very close to slamming my head in a door.
In a matter of seconds, the distinct and irritating beeeeeep of a tag drains the monotony of the room. My eyes find its owner almost instantly.
Anaya.
The other supply units take notice of her, too, before promptly putting their heads back down, likely pretending not to care. Anaya stands, throwing her nose in the air and looking to me. I meet her salty expression with one of my own. Even if I don’t care to play her games, I refuse to give her the satisfaction of thinking she’s winning. I don’t know, maybe I do care. The ruby red smirk upon her lips falls to a frown as she glides toward the stairwell, and once she’s left, I have a hard time cooling down.
“Jealous?” Glera snickers to my right.
“No, not at all,” I answer, stirring the synthetic with slightly more vigor. “I wish Zein would call on units who don’t get a big head each time they’re summoned.”
“Well, he’s summoning you tomorrow, right?” she asks.
“I don’t care if it’s me or not,” I insist. “It would be nice to see Anaya become a bit more humble, and Zein isn’t helping.”
“I can see that.” Glera nods as she rotates the vials. “She’s definitely confident.”
“I think the brainwashing worked a little too well on her,” I mutter.
“Brainwashing? What is that?”
It slips my mind like nearly everything else I try to train my brain to remember. Brainwashings of Saya’s human children is one of countless forbidden subjects of study for humans. No one else here knows, because no one else dared learn how to read. And I wasn’t about to be the one to tell Glera, let alone the rest of them. For one, they wouldn’t believe me. For two, how can I convince someone their desires are not really their own?
I try to cover my tracks the best I can. “You know, like the fallen. Except instead of lusting after blood, she lusts after Zein’s affection. I don’t know, a phrase I heard somewhere.”
“Oh, then you’re probably the only one here who isn’t brainwashed.” She laughs a little at the novel joke because she doesn’t know that, deep down, it’s hard for me to bear the truth of it. I laugh anyway to keep the atmosphere, but sink into my chair.
Maybe I am jealous of Anaya, but not for the reason that Glera probably thinks. Anaya’s confidence—not the confidence in herself so much, but the confidence she places in Zein, the brainwashed aspects—are actually tempting at this point. Every time she returns from being summoned she’s lost in her own mind, with a genuine smile on her face. Unquestionably and undeniably happy.
If only my happiness could depend on such a shallow thing, maybe I could stop wasting time searching for a freedom that I’m bound to never find. I could focus on making the most out of this place and my friends. I could run and do honest work within the castle and call it a life well spent—for a supply unit, anyway—at least for a decade or two. Besides, given everything thus far, it’s evident that Zein isn’t just some heartless monster. I could at least try to get used to serving a vampire who has even a small sense of decency. And the others... Gemini, Ceti, and Narref. They have all grown on me over the last few weeks. The boys often indulge my sarcastic remarks with coy quips of their own, which make their company less of a burden, while Ceti is so lost in optimism that anything I say makes her laugh. She’s so weird that I kind of like it.
I let out a heavy sigh, thinking about the greener grass on the other side of the wall.
But what’s beyond the castle walls, anyway? Rogue vampires and trees? Aside from eventual death, unmet expectations, and steadfast pride, what is there, really? My hands slow their stirring as I stare blankly down into the mixture of dark red liquid. I must be sick. It’s an odd day when I question the beauty of freedom.
