by Plum Pascal
The thought makes my grip slacken on the hilt, and a new emotion washes over me. It’s hard to put a name to. Not fear, precisely. Nor disgust. I’m... disturbed. Deep disquiet steals through me as I consider exactly what I wished to do. He’s my blood. I’ve never looked at him as an enemy before.
I force myself to relax and reassess the situation. Leith doesn’t afford me the courtesy; he’s stalking toward me again.
“What part of ‘stop’ did you not understand, Sorren?” he snarls.
“I didn’t hear you.”
“Yes, because you were too busy carving them like a roast! They were bespelled, you bloodthirsty madman! You could have just incapacitated them without fucking butchering them!”
Bespelled? The thought brings me up short, forces me to let go of the last threads of indignation I cling to.
Yes. That makes sense. For men of their size, they were too uncoordinated. Muscle of that caliber suggested professions of some skill. Blacksmiths, stone masons, or other craftsmen. There was no strategy, no communication. Fuck, none of them had even seemed to react as they were killed. Perhaps the first two were incapable when I was through with them, but the last ought to have been screaming. But there was nothing.
I cast my gaze to where the bodies lay. Nash and Kassidy have dismounted and Kassidy kneels by the bodies, examining them with a look of mild disgust on her face. Nash stands as a still and silent sentry, scanning the surroundings for further threat. I should assist. I’ve come to learn as much as I can about magic in the last decade, first in an effort to understand what had been done to me and then to perfect my traps when I realized the curse upon me could not be reversed.
When I try to push past Leith, he lays a restraining hand on my bicep.
“Let me past,” I growl.
He glowers at me. “Not until I have your word you won’t try to harm her. I saw that look in your eyes just now. You wanted to kill me.”
I’m blessedly free of chagrin, so I shrug one shoulder. “Tell me it shocks you, cousin.”
There’s a flinching around his eyes, but he doesn’t release me. “Your bloody word.”
“I won’t harm her. I don’t want to harm her. I want her too badly to cut her up, Leith. I won’t risk it. So let me past.”
Leith examines my face for a few long seconds before seeming to decide I’m telling the truth. His grip slackens and I jerk my arm out of his hold, crossing the distance so I can kneel beside the bodies, as well.
Kassidy runs her fingers along the skin of the dead and they come away trailing a shimmering, translucent ooze. I’d almost say it was pus, but the stench isn’t foul enough for that. Besides the smell of the leaking excrement, there’s almost no odor to these bodies. It’s too late to warn her not to touch the stuff. I watch her for ill effects, but the only change I can spy is her expression. The mild disgust deepens.
“It’s like a snail’s trail,” she mutters. “Like mucous.” She brings the stuff to her nose and sniffs delicately. “And it smells... sweet.”
Gingerly, I take her wrist. She stiffens, eyes flicking up to meet mine. Her body is coiled tight like a spring, and I know the slightest movement toward her will have her backpedaling in an effort to get as far away from me as possible. She still doesn’t trust me, even after what passed between us in the aviary. I relax my grip still further, until the pads of my fingers barely touch her.
“I just want to scent it,” I assure her, my tone so low that even Nash can’t hear, keeping the intimate whisper between us. “I won’t hurt you, little dove.”
She doesn’t believe me, I can see that plainly on her face. But she does let me pull the wrist closer, so her palm hovers a half inch from my face. I draw in a deep breath.
She’s right. It’s sweet. A crisp, tart aroma that brings to mind the orchards in fall, when the green skins of the apples turns a dusky red. I’ve smelled this once before, when we faced Discordia ten years ago.
“It’s Discordia’s apples.”
“Apples?” she echoes. “Why would the bodies smell like apples?”
I straighten from my crouch and offer her a hand up. She takes it. Both my cousins stand by, trying not to appear interested. They’re as bemused as Kassidy, neither having seen what I have. They sheltered in our compound during the war, and they didn’t bother to ask for accounts of the war when I returned altered. I have a feeling they don’t want to know.
“Discordia can taint food. Crops are the most efficient, but she has a fondness for the theatrical. She likes to poison fruits, the way it used to be done in those children’s tales. Her fruits will allow her to control any who ingests them.”
“So, this was an early warning system,” Leith mutters. “And now she knows someone has breached her defenses.”
The three exchange poignant glances. I feel like an uninitiated observer, watching longtime friends communicate so I am left out of the conversation. It rankles. I can’t even catch the tenor of their thoughts.
Thankfully, Nash speaks aloud what they’re thinking.
“Do we proceed? If she knows...”
“Then we’re in deep shit,” Leith concludes.
Kassidy wipes the ooze from her hand onto the ruined skirts of her frock with a shake of her head. Her jaw is set, determination glinting in her emerald eyes like light off a blade.
“We have no choice. We have the power, and we’re getting Sorren’s heart back. I don’t care what it takes.”
I act on impulse, stepping closer to her. I wind my arms around her waist, draw her tight against me, and then bring my lips down onto hers. She’s shocked, hands fluttering like two frightened birds before they settle on my shoulders. They’re amazingly small and dainty in a feminine way that belies her strength. I like it. It’s maybe a second or so but then she returns the kiss, allowing my tongue to mate with hers.
When I pull away, she blinks at me in shock, but she doesn’t try to extricate herself. “What’s that for?”
“For trying to help me, damn the consequences. For thinking I’m worth helping.”
Her eyes soften, the emerald becoming almost molten. “You’re a hero, Sorren, a soldier who doesn’t deserve to be left behind. I want to meet that Sorren. And his heart is in Discordia’s fortress. So, I’m going to steal it back.”
I want to kiss her again, but I can feel both Nash and Leith glowering at me for touching her. I can, occasionally, learn to pick my battles.
She shakes herself visibly, like a dog shedding water.
“Let’s go.”
And so we follow her into the ever-darkening cave, toward almost certain doom. We are all likely to die tonight, but I can’t force myself to care. I’m too busy staring at the retreating back of the golden-haired thief.
She doesn’t have to steal my heart. When I return to my body, it’s hers for the taking.
FIFTEEN
Kassidy
The small city of Morsoe, where Discordia’s palace is located, lies at the furthest reaches of Grimm, in the bottom of a curious bowl-shaped depression in the ground, settled deep within the cavernous mountain. It’s almost as if a giant’s hand scooped away massive chunks of earth long ago and left a scabbed-over rocky crust in its wake.
It looks eerie.
We observed if from a rock outcropping, overlooking the city for a time, trying to ascertain the number of foes we’ll face when we enter. It proved impossible. Too much mist hanging over the town. I didn’t need Sorren’s confirmation to know the stuff’s not natural. There’s no reason for fog at this time of year, and in a cave, no less. There exists no body of water for the mist to lift from. It’s Discordia’s doing. If we had any doubt about her presence here, that doubt has been erased.
There are no lights in the city. No fires burning, no lanterns hung to guide the way. Not that lights would do us much good through the mist, but damn it, it would be something. We’re creeping into the town blind. I think I’d rather cut off one of my less-treasured body parts than attempt this
without the element of surprise and almost no visibility. What I wouldn’t give to have my brothers or Neva at my back. At this point, I’d even take Tenebris, and I don’t like her much. Tenebris, or Belle (her first name), is something of an arrogant bitch, though the arrogance is well deserved. She’s possibly the most powerful sorceress Fantasia has ever seen.
But, Gods, she’s a cock.
The road into town has thankfully hardened due to the cold, so we’re not squelching through mud. We’ve opted to leave our horses behind, sure the things will spook if they end up being surrounded. If one of them gets overturned and lands on us... well, that’ll be the end. At least for me. I’m not built as strong as the rest of my traveling companions.
I twitch every time shapes loom out of the darkness. Even the innocuous form of a wishing well within the square makes me jerk in surprise. The longer we go without seeing a humanoid shape, the more paranoid I become.
This village is completely barren, devoid of everything—people, animals, sound even.
“Where are all the damn people?” I whisper.
“They’re coming,” Sorren says suddenly, his voice eerily flat. Flatter than I’ve ever heard it. The words raise the hairs on the back of my neck.
“The people?” I ask.
“No.”
I strain my ears, cursing my mere mortal status. My life would be so much easier if I’d just been born a huntsman, instead of being adopted by them. Sure enough, after a few more seconds, I can hear them as well—the thudding of many feet on the packed earth, coming toward us fast. I bring my bow, which I’ve held pointed toward the ground, up to its ready position. It’s hard to know where to aim because it’s dark as hellhound balls and I can’t see a fucking thing.
My heart pounds painfully against my ribs, doing its level best to try to escape the cage. It’s hard to swallow and I nearly jump out of my skin when shapes in the darkness begin to emerge, simply more dark than the darkness around them. They speak in unison. Hundreds of voices layer over each other, issuing a single hissed command.
“Get out.”
My mind is screaming panicked obscenities.
I’m a fucking idiot. And soon I’ll be a dead fucking idiot.
We knew walking in here was a bad idea. Sorren told us what awaited us. And I came anyway, too impatient, too arrogant, too headstrong to do anything else. But faced with these overwhelming odds, I’m suddenly forced to reconsider. Sorren has five years before his heart ticks down to the end of his life. Five years is a long time to plan. It’s definitely long enough for me to come up with something less monumentally foolish than charging headlong into this fucking mess.
The voices speak again, rising in pitch with every command. I still can’t see them—they simply appear as pitch black blobs that shift in the darkness.
“Get out. Get out! Get out! GET OUT!”"
You heard the fuckers, Kassidy! They want us to get out so why the hell aren’t we doing exactly that?
Then, their line breaks and they’re emerging into the square, a hundred dark shapes so crowded together, it’s impossible to make out one from the other. I shoot blindly, just hoping for a hit. Shame burns through me. My brothers would slap me for being so reactionary in the middle of a crisis.
Damn it, damn it, damn it!
I can’t see a thing in the mist and they’ve stopped their weird chanting. I don’t hear a sound of impact or a cry of pain. Nothing. And that’s beyond weird because I know my arrows have to hit somewhere.
Sorren and the others bolt into action, but soon they too are lost in the mist. Fuck. I can’t take a shot in the dark now—I could hit an ally as easily as an enemy.
A hand jerks my bow free of my grip and snaps it in two. I whirl, just in time to see a grizzled stranger lunge in my direction. He appears human but his eyes are blank and glowing white. Where his eyeball should be, there’s nothing but white. His mouth is wide open to take a chunk out of me. He goes for my neck, aiming to tear my throat open.
I act on pure reflex, hand flying out to get him in a chokehold, and as I do, I draw on his life force. But the instant I touch the power that buzzes beneath his skin, I know I’ve made a mistake.
He feels wrong, I think.
Let him go, Kassidy! Let him go!
I try to pry my fingers away from him but their stuck fast. No matter how hard I try to pull my hand away, it won’t budge. A dark miasma fills my lungs, and I choke on it, coughing against the putrescence that fills me. My brain is fuzzy, possessed by an eerily calm sort of madness. Nothing around me matters any longer and as I watch the darkness, I feel as if I’m suddenly miles away from it.
Is this what it feels like to be Sorren? Floating in a haze of detachment? It’s strangely nice.
With the detachment comes a revelation: I’m more powerful than I realize.
But what does that mean?
It means you’ve never needed to touch your victims to pull their life force, Kassidy. That’s always been a crutch you’ve leaned on to keep yourself from rising to your true potential.
What is my true potential then? Am I a witch?
But I know I’m not a witch. Because I don’t want to be one. Don’t want to be like arrogant Belle Tenebris, or Mad Hattie. I don’t want to be taken away from what I love like they were, to be separated from the only family I’ve ever known, for being too special.
But now? When I’m so vastly outnumbered, I can’t afford to be lost in the wonder of what I am and what I could be.
I don’t have to touch anyone. It’s a realization that suddenly penetrates every inch of my being and I understand the truth in the words deeply.
I reach out with my mind and take, pulling the cloud of seething madness I can sense in each and every human in the area—Ye Gods, there are three hundred in total!
The only way to stop them is to drain them, Kassidy. Do it with your mind!
But can I take all that darkness into myself?
If you don’t, there’s no way we’ll survive.
I realize what I have to do. So, I draw that vitality into myself, breathing in the stuff until my lungs seem to burst. The darkness fills me entirely, like a vase, and each and everyone one of the zombies collapses where they stand, their eyelids closing over those glowing white eyes. Men, women, and children simply fall to their knees, like puppets with their strings cut.
But there’s too much of the darkness. It pours from my mouth, my eyes, my ears, my fingers, billowing into the air like smoke and catching the wind before drifting away. Even as I try to expel it from my lungs, I’m choking on it. The madness circles through my mind and it’s all I can do to hold onto some sense of myself, to not allow myself to fall into the trap the madness wants me to.
I want to bite, to claw, to rip and tear and spend this madness on the earth until I collapse dead on the ground. Gods, is this what it’s like for Nash, with so little control of his beast?
Arms come around me like steel bands, smacking me into a chest that’s broad, hard, and unfamiliar. I loose a primal scream that shakes the ground all around us as I try to throw an elbow back, to pulverize the man’s ribcage so the mindless husk of a villager will drop to the ground like it should. The shape twists, avoiding the pointed edge of my attack by mere centimeters.
“Kassidy!” Sorren’s voice roars into my ears, struggling to be heard over the wail of sound that is my own scream. “Kassidy, you must release the energy within you! Otherwise it will tear you apart!”
Tears stream from the corners of my eyes. He’s right. The power is too much, threatening to flay my mind with every passing second. Three hundred people. I’ve taken in the madness of three hundred, and I might burst at any second from the strain.
“I can’t,” I grit out from between my teeth. It hurts to even talk. “Too much...”
Sorren pauses, considering my words, and then releases me, spinning me so we’re facing one another. It’s hard to see him clearly through the haze of tears, but I think he’s star
ing at me earnestly, with an expression that tries to imitate concern, but can’t quite form the true thing. For Sorren, though, it’s incredible. It’s the closest thing to panic he can experience.
“Let me help you bear the weight of it, Kassidy,” he breathes. “Give me some of it!”
I startle. I think it may be the way he’s said my name—it feels like true emotion lurked behind the word. Still, I reject his suggestion almost at once. Give the brimming madness to a man literally incapable of restraint or remorse? It’s a recipe for disaster…
His next words bring me up short.
“Leith has been injured, Kassidy. Badly.”
No! The word pounds through me and I realize what Sorren’s asking. I need to help Leith but I can’t do that if I’m overcome by this darkness that continues to feed on me, trying to pollute me.
Sorren continues. “None of the rest of us possess magic, Kassidy, and we don’t have any Ambrosia with which to heal him.” He pauses and I swear his eyes are searching, pleading with mine. “Leith needs your help.”
Immediately, that screaming panic rushes to the fore.
Gods, what have those… things done to Leith? Are Leith’s insides lying on the ground? Have they hacked his throat open? Cut him up? I almost don’t want to know.
“If you… shoulder this… burden with me,” I start, winded and fading fast. “What will that… do to you?” I manage to gasp through the pain.
“It doesn’t matter,” Sorren says, grasping my chin. His eyes are raw, determined. Fierce. “Do it now, Kassidy. You must save Leith.”
Before I can even think, Sorren brings his mouth down on mine, latching on with a savagery that both frightens and thrills me. He tears at my lip with his teeth until I gasp, the tang of blood and dark power spilling up from the core of my body and up my throat, seeking a way out. The darkness blisters out of me and into Sorren. It pours eagerly into this new vessel, a sickness that’s quick to spread from host to host.
