Scryer

by West, Sinden

  I turned my head to the side to spare myself from my reflection and was faced with Lake sitting beside me and staring down at me. Slowly, his lips formed a smile.

  “You live. I doubted it would work.” He reached over and took my cold hand. “But it did.”

  I opened my mouth to speak but instead of words just a rasp came out.

  “Wonderful. A scryer who cannot speak. What use is she?” Dorothea Corin’s bitchy voice snapped from the corner, searing at my ears. I couldn’t find the energy or the will to face her.

  “There’s no reason for you to be here, you hag,” Lake said dryly, never taking his eyes from me.

  A sharp intake of breath was audible from wherever she stood. “No reason? I have every reason to be here. What I have sacrificed to have her live again is more than anyone should have to give!”

  I heard footsteps on the wooden floor before the person came into view. Except this wasn’t Dorothea. I managed to make a gasping sound in fright as I was confronted with her. Her face was withered, skin sagged from her bones and deep lines of time crisscrossed over her cheeks. Maybe she was hairless now, because she wore a purple scarf wrapped around her head in the style of a turban. Enormous bags swallowed up her eyes, and her downturned, thin lips revealed yellowed teeth as she laughed sourly.

  “She’s scared! She’s scared of me! I am her savior and the little bitch has the nerve to look at me like I’m a monster!?” She reached toward me with withered and nearly skeletal hands, yellowing nails out like claws.

  Lake gripped her hand before she could reach me or scratch me, whatever her intention had been. She howled in pain at his touch even though it did not appear that he had held her tightly, and he let go abruptly. She speedily retreated with that hand back to being held against her chest.

  “My bones! You broke my hand,” she snapped at him. “My bones are brittle now.”

  There was no sympathy coming from Lake. “Go. You have no business being here. If you enter here again without my permission I will have you locked away, naked in the dungeon. Judging by the state of you now, it would not take long for the cold to kill you.” The cruelty in his eyes made me shiver.

  She glared at him and then at me, before she retreated, still gripping her injured hand. The slamming of the door indicated that she had left, and I looked to Lake in question.

  His eyes softened. “You should rest,” he said gently. “You don’t need to worry about anything anymore. We have brought you back to life, and you’ll be safe with me. That’s all you need to know.”

  I heard the door open and Felix came into view. My eyes widened and he gave me a small smile as if he could read my mind. “I didn’t die, Ms. Scryer. Nearly, but I’m very hard to kill.”

  He put down a tray on the edge of the bed. “Soup?” I managed to shake my head. “Maybe later then.” He gave a nod to Lake before retreating out of the room with his tray, but just as he reached the doorway, he turned back to us. “I’m sorry about the scar. The herbs didn’t work the way they normally do. Perhaps coming back to life meant that your body could accept no more manipulation.” Then he stepped through the doorway and left us alone.

  I opened my mouth again to try and speak, but Lake shook his head. “Ivy, you need to rest. The witches…they haven’t done a resurrection for centuries. We don’t know a lot about the effect that this will have on you. So please, just rest for now.” He gave my hand a small squeeze, and then leaned over and delivered a small kiss on my forehead.

  The memory flooded back to me of Caleb doing the same as my blood pulsed from my body and I jerked in reaction, my hand going to my neck. Grasping at my scar, that terrible rasping coming from me sounded like I was some kind of nightmare creature. Lake gently pried my hands away from my skin and brought them together, tucking them under the covers.

  “It will be all right, Ivy, I promise.”

  But then he left me, switching off the lamp before he walked through the door so there was nothing but darkness. I was glad that I could not see my reflection any longer though. I had no desire to see the corpse looking girl that I had become.

  Later, Felix returned. Maybe it was morning or evening, I couldn’t tell because the heavy drapes had not been opened. He propped me up on the pillows and slowly and patiently fed me soup. “You need your strength,” he said as I listlessly opened my mouth for the spoon. I felt no hunger though, and after he left, I did not feel satiated in anyway.

  When I was alone in the room, I would try to speak. It was such an odd sensation to move my mouth and feel my throat that had been slit move with each sound that I managed to make. In the dark, I imagined myself as some nightmarish creature to be feared, which was preferable to the reality that I weak and pathetic, with no control over anything. What was I? Half dead? Half alive?

  I managed to get out of bed, only to fall to the ground and not be able to control my limbs or voice to call for help or move from the floor. Felix found me, and after that, he would open the drapes and settle me in an armchair beside the window. It was winter now, and deep snow blanketed the world and made it white and almost pure. I found the white calming and would just stare out that window for hours.

  In the evenings, Lake would sit with me. With Michael’s demise, he was the leader now and you could tell. The way that he carried himself and the confidence with which he spoke all told me that he was making his mark.

  He would tell me about their hunt for the white witches. They would find small enclaves of them and systematically slaughter them, yet they had to find their leader, Caleb’s father. There was no revulsion rising in me when he spoke of the slaughter, but there should have been. This should have worried me, yet it didn’t. It was almost like I was a canvas as blank as the snow outside. Somehow, when I died, something else in me had died as well.

  But I did want to ask about Caleb. I knew now that he had killed me to save me, alerting Lake somehow to where I lay, dead and cold, before the white witches could tear open my chest and extract my heart.

  “Hello,” I managed to greet Lake one evening, my voice little more than a whisper. His face broke into a smile as he sat opposite me at our usual seat by the window.

  “I missed the sound of your voice,” he said, and for just an instant, he wasn’t the formidable powerhouse of the Circle, he was the Lake that I had thought I’d known.

  I smiled at the memory.

  “What happened to Dorothea?” I asked. “Why is she such a…”

  “Monster?” He snorted. “She always was. Only now you can see it on the outside. For the resurrection, the witches I recruited needed a sacrifice. It’s tricky. They needed life but no one could die.” He gave a brief smile. “It’s like a riddle. So what they did was take her youth, her lifespan was dramatically shortened, yet she will not die straight away.”

  “How did she agree to that?” I rasped out.

  He looked me straight in the eye. “I told her that I would crucify her if she didn’t. She stood by and let Michael lock you up while I was going after the witches. I entrusted you to her and she betrayed me. It’s as simple as that.” He reached over and took my hand. “I am not a good person, Ivy. That is no news to you. I’m selfish and ruthless and I will always get what I want because of it.” He took a breath. “I can’t undo the past. I can’t take away the lies and how I used you, but right now, I’m being honest about what I am, and what you need to know is that there will be nothing getting in the way of my protecting you. I don’t care who I have to kill, I won’t let anyone hurt you again.” His eyes glittered with the ferocity and bloodthirstiness of his words.

  “What will happen to Caleb? Is he still alive?”

  Lake leaned back in his chair. “As far as I’m aware, yes.”

  “Will he live if you catch him?”

  “It’s highly unlikely. Why do you care so much?”

  “He saved my life.”

  Lake opened his mouth and then closed it again, standing. “So did I.”

  As he w
alked past me, his hand swept down a strand of my hair lightly, and then he was gone. I spent the remainder of the day watching the snow until night closed in and Felix arrived to help me back to bed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lake stayed away for several nights after that. My arrogance refused to let me give in and ask Felix where he was. As I sat in my armchair watching the snow, I heard the door creak open. I straightened and raised my head, waiting for Lake to sit beside me once more.

  But it wasn’t him. Dorothea shuffled in, a hunched over and pathetic figure. She used a cane, holding it tightly even as she lowered herself to sit opposite me. She still wore opulent and expensive garments, but they now hung on her emaciated body, too bright against her paper-thin skin and liver spots.

  I watched her and waited for her to speak. She took her time, freely inspecting me with her squinting eyes.

  “You were never as pretty as me,” she began. I let myself smile as best as I could and chuckled slightly.

  She raised a sparse eyebrow and continued in spite of me. “I don’t know what it was that Michael saw in you. I always found you so dreary and depressing.” She let out a snort. “Maybe that’s what men like best—stupid little sluts who play hard to get.”

  I kept my face immobile. “I’ve never played games, Dorothea. My hatred was always real.” My voice was stronger and clearer now.

  “Your hatred?” Her eyes glittered with the most life in her that I had seen thus far as she pounced on the word. “You’re a fool, do you know that? You played the poor victim card so well, when in reality you enjoyed it. This is what made you special. We made you special. Otherwise, what would you be? Just some other pretty girl among a thousand others waiting for the boredom of an ordinary life to hit them, every step and decision just bringing you closer to death. We gave you purpose. I gave you life.”

  I shook my head at her. “What’s the purpose of your little speech? Get to the point.”

  She adjusted herself in her chair, her shriveled eyes shooting daggers at me the best they could. “I’m dying because of you. I gave you life. I don’t want to see it wasted.”

  I barked out a laugh. “Why? Why do you even care?”

  She leaned in closer, gripping the cane for extra support. “Because,” she said in a low voice, “when they raised your corpse from the dead, they stole my youth, they stole years from me and gave them to you. You’re not just Ivy Scryer now. Oh no, you have part of me in you now. I will live through you. You will take on my characteristics in some form. My ruthlessness, my lust for power…” Her lips formed a gruesome smile. “My lust for gorgeous young men…when I die, you will have far more life in you than you have right now, but up until then, I will feel what you feel. When you take a lover, I will feel his lips on your skin. When you rise up in lust, I will rise with you. When you taste good wine, I will taste it with you. Until I die, I live through you. Your happiness is my happiness.” Her cheeks were flushed with the exertion of speaking while her eyes shone with satisfaction.

  I waited a moment before speaking. “You don’t know me very well then, my life is rarely happy.”

  “I know! And that is what I’m telling you to change. I will not live out my final years in the misery that you have made your life. You have had every opportunity to grasp happiness and you avoid it at every turn like it’s the plague!”

  I concentrated on breathing as her words sunk in and swirled around in my head. “You’re right, Dorothea. You’re completely right,” I finally said.

  She smiled and looked smug.

  “But, the only problem is, that I don’t like to share.”

  “You don’t get a choice,” she snapped. “This is how it is.”

  “I’m going to take your advice. I’m going to pursue happiness. And this is how I’m going to start, by not sharing. ”

  I wrenched the smooth cane from her weak grasp with ease as I stood. My excitement and intent gave me more power than I had felt since I had woken up from my death. She shrunk back in fear, but I did not see the old and withered woman, I saw Dorothea at her prime—her snake like painted smile, her cruel tongue and manipulative ways. She was Michael’s vessel, and she needed to break.

  I swung the cane at her face. It hit her square across the cheek and she fell to the floor. I swung it again, almost blindly, and blood splattered. I hit her again, and this time the blood hit my lips. My tongue darted out automatically to lick at it. And just that taste of her blood sent something through me like a bolt. I felt invigorated all of a sudden, like I was taking what was mine. And it was. It was her life blood…and it belonged to me. Once she was dead, her life and energy, would be mine.

  She lay unmoving at my feet, but I knew that she wasn’t dead yet. I could feel that she wasn’t. Again, I raised the cane up above my head and with mechanical motions, brought that stick down on her time and time again.

  I felt it the moment she died. I let the cane drop from my grasp as the energy came over me. I sensed it pouring into my veins and arteries and pumping around my body. I turned to look at myself in the mirror. No longer were there dark circles underneath my eyes, color pulsed in my cheeks and vitality shone in my eyes. My hair had returned from the limp lethargy of before to something that would not be tamed or harnessed. My lips were reddening as I watched my self revitalize in the mirror before me.

  The door opened, and Felix stood there, tray in hand. He didn’t drop it, just calmly placed it down on a side table and stared down at the body.

  “Is she dead?” he asked smoothly.

  I didn’t tear my eyes away from the mirror. “Yes.”

  “I’ll have the body removed, then.”

  “Good.”

  Soon, all that was left of Dorothea Corin was blood on the floor and the vitality running through my body. Lake appeared later, his eyes going to the stain.

  “How do you feel?”

  I looked straight at him. “Wonderful. I feel alive.” I couldn’t stop the smile forming on my face. “Isn’t it funny? The characteristics that I received from her were the ones that ultimately ended her life. Her cruelty, her selfishness…”

  “Are you sure that was all?”

  My smile froze. “What do you mean?”

  He stepped closer. “All I mean is, are you sure that those thing weren’t there all the time. That this is the real you—ruthless and ambitious.”

  I stared at him for a moment before letting out a peal of laughter. “Ruthless and ambitious. Perfect for the consort of the powerful leader of the Circle. Are you looking for a queen, Lake? Someone to sit at your side and stroke your ego?” My tone was supposed to be mocking, but he stepped even closer and the look in his eyes made me half want to run, while the other half of me wanted to drag him into bed.

  “And just what is so wrong with wanting that?” he asked softly as his eyes bored into me in such a way that I couldn’t escape.

  “We…” I faltered, all reasons escaping me. “We’re enemies.” It sounded weak and lacking conviction, even to me.

  “Are we? Your hatred has softened, and I don’t think that is Dorothea’s doing…”

  I shook my head, not knowing what to say. He gazed at me for a while longer and when it became apparent that I had nothing more to say, he straightened his posture. “Anyway, I’m sure that you’ve lost track of days but tonight is the ritual.”

  “Is it?”

  “I’m here to give you a choice. You can either be left alone, or you can spend the night with me. There’s no threat here or ultimatum. The choice is yours.”

  I cleared my throat. “And if I say no, will you just go ahead and choose someone else to take my place, take someone else against their will?”

  “Stop it, Ivy! Stop turning this around on me. I need the information that I get. It’s vital for my success. Now I want to be with you, only you, but I will not put everything my family has worked so hard for in danger. I can’t, and I’m sorry.” He stared at me for a few seconds longer before turning on
his heel and heading toward the door.

  “Wait!”

  He stopped and turned, looking at me with hope in his eyes.

  I took a breath. “All right, if that’s what you want.”

  He frowned and strode back to me, his arms going around my waist. “No. Not because it’s what I want, but because it’s your choice to want me. You did so long ago, Ivy. It can be the same again.” His tone was nearly begging.

  Could it? The bitterness had overrun all coherent thought for such a long time…

  “Come on,” I told him. “Let’s go to bed. Let’s do this. We can talk in the morning.” Unwinding his arms from my waist, I took his hand and led him to the bed. I felt almost nervous as I kissed him. There was nothing hurried about this. I was like we were lovers for the first time as we slowly undressed each other, letting our clothes fall to the floor, one by one, as we took in each other’s revealed form.

  When he stood before me, naked and still, I raised my hand to trace my fingers along his collar bone and down to the muscles of his chest. “I can feel your heart beating,” I murmured as I pressed the flat of my palm against him.

  His hand came up to cover my breast. “I don’t know what I would have done if they had ripped out your heart,” he said softly.

  “Can you feel it beating?” I asked.

  He waited. “No.”

  “Does it matter that you’re in love with someone who’s really dead?”

  He leaned in so his forehead touched mine. “I would take you in any form that you were given to me,” he whispered.

  He kissed me slowly and softly, and I felt warmth from his lips and his touch as if I had been frozen in ice for centuries. As he lifted me up onto the bed, I let my legs circle around him to coax him in, but he shook his head.

  “No, just let me touch you for a while longer.”

  I lay back as his mouth came to lick across my breasts, his tongue dragging around each nipple until they stood up as stiff pink peaks and my breasts felt achingly full. He kissed down my rib cage and across the flat of my stomach while his hands massaged my thighs and my body arched up to his touch. He broke from my skin and grinned up at me.