Seraphina's Lament (The Bloodlands Book 1)

by Sarah Chorn

  “Look down there,” Eyad said, gesturing wide with his arm.

  “The city, Premier, is beautiful,” Seraphina acknowledged.

  She wasn’t sure what he wanted her to say. The last time she’d been in the city had been when she and Neryan were fifteen, brought to the palace from the slave training school. Their parents had been part of the elite breeding program, selected for their slave-pale skin and their fire-red hair; two qualities that, if bred true, would ensure priceless slave children any minister would pay handsomely for. When they’d matured, and been tested for talent, Seraphina’s fire and Neryan’s water had sent them straight to the Premier, a man who collected rare and valuable things. Their talents would only add to his strength both in perception and in actuality. He had enslaved water and fire. He was capable of anything.

  He had been young at the time, twenty-five to their fifteen. A young, dashing revolutionary savant. He was kinder then. But as they’d grown, and Eyad had settled into his authority, they’d watched as, one by one, the people around him started disappearing, vanishing to never be seen again.

  Anyone who might have known anything about the man he had been back before the monarchy fell and his collectivism was born could no longer be found.

  That’s when she made the decision to help Neryan escape. Chances were, he wasn’t in that sort of danger; but she saw an opportunity, and she took advantage of it. That door slamming shut behind her twin, and the subsequent beating which resulted in her damaged leg, injured spine, the thick scar tissue that covered her back, were defining moments for her. She hoped Neryan was still out there, living a full, wonderful life.

  She needed to believe he was alive.

  “The city is a prison,” Eyad waved a hand in the air, dismissing it, bringing her back to the here and now. “Look beyond the walls, Seraphina. Everything your eye touches is mine.”

  He turned to face her then, eyes searching her.

  “How can your brother possibly survive out there, in a world I own?” The words were whispered, soft, and far crueler because of it.

  Their gazes met and held. She felt that abyss of worry for Neryan widen, the darkness down deep in her soul threatening to rise up and swallow her. For the thousandth time she wondered if helping him escape had been the right thing, or if she’d, perhaps, been dooming him to his death. She filled herself full of all the defiance she could muster and watched Eyad’s slow smile uncurl like a snake.

  Eyad reached out, wrapped one of her copper curls around his finger, and stroked it with his thumb. Then he dropped it and moved away. “Come along, Seraphina. The night is still young. I have work to do and I will need you to keep my fire well-lit.”

  He moved, yanked on her leash, briefly cutting off her air, and then walked slowly to the stairs, giving her time to lurch behind him, dragging her right leg. Guards opened the door, and the roof was flooded with amber firelight. Torches behind them died with her will, and the ones in the hallway flared to life as though greeting her, fire hissing and spitting eagerly, showing off for her pleasure.

  She was one woman holding herself steady in the face of a world set against her. She was a tragedy covered in roses and wrapped in lace. An unfinished poem draped in shining white pearls and shattered dreams. She went where the gold and silk shackles of her slavery led her.

  What else could she do?

  Premier Eyad

  Shadows loomed at Eyad from every corner. Some created by torchlight, some cast by the past. Seraphina was on her cushion across the room, hunched against the wall, her eyes closed, a soft snore sliding past her lips. Her silken leash dangled from a hook above her head.

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose and stretched his back until it popped. He’d lost track of time, wallowing in an endless pile of paperwork. Who knew that running a nation would require this many documents and signatures?

  He glanced across at Seraphina and part of him, the part he tried to ignore, felt bad for her; a tiny pang of guilt still trying to be heard over the roar of his intent. He was aware of her obvious pain, the lurching way she moved, her right leg, and that tight knot of eternal agony she carried with her. He worked hard to ignore the nagging remorse he felt for losing his temper. He regretted it—the moment when he’d given in and allowed himself to snap, branding her with the marks of his ire and the signs of his weakness. Now, in sleeping repose, he saw her as she could have been, unmarked by pain, or misuse. These quiet moments when she was free, even for a short while, of what he’d wrought on her showed him who she truly was.

  He was a cruel bastard and he both despised this, and reveled in it.

  Anxiety threaded through him, an unusual feeling he savored like the sweetest wine. Mentally and emotionally, Seraphina couldn’t keep hanging on. Her anguish, the constant circles she spun herself around in, humored him; but eventually she’d work herself into such a state she’d be useless. She’d be broken in mind as well as body.

  It was time, he’d come to realize, to push her one way or pull her the other. Soon, everything would change. He’d free his caged bird, and what perches she landed on in her journey.

  He opened his top desk drawer, pulled it free, and carefully, quietly, scooped out the loose papers, quills, bottles of ink, and various other sundry items that had collected in it . Checking to make sure Seraphina was truly asleep, getting the taste and feel of her dreams, he pulled on a tiny hook in the back of the drawer, and the false bottom slid silently up, revealing a deep red velvet bag, tied closed with black strings.

  He shouldn’t be doing this. He didn’t need to go down this road. He had a meeting with Samson soon, but he couldn’t help himself. Tomorrow, everything was going to change. Tomorrow was the day he would put it all into motion. The wheels would start turning, and there would be no going back after that. His past and present would meet in a clash the very world itself would feel. He stared at that tiny bag like it was a poisonous snake, and decided to put Seraphina in her cell. He put the drawer back, leaving the bag on his desk.

  Some roads a man needed to walk down alone. He got up, stretched, and grabbed her tether from its hook on the wall.

  “Seraphina, my pet,” he said. “Time for bed.”

  She blinked her eyes, rubbed them with her fists, and yawned. Fire roared to life in the fireplace, torches and lamps he had long since snuffed blazed. The room, for an instant, was brighter than the heart of the sun. He felt the heat of it nearly blister his skin. It wasn’t just light, but a brilliant assault on the senses, and it took him aback.

  She never used to be like this. She’d been born with this rare talent, and even a weak command of it was priceless. Hers was mostly good for just lighting one or two torches, enough to impress onlookers, but very minor tricks in the scheme of things.

  Recently, her talent had been bursting forth in almost frightening ways, as if she was consumed by a firestorm that was yearning to break free. Or perhaps the fire hungered for her touch. Torches lit when she came near. Fireplaces blasted to life in an explosion of energy, as though the flames were a flower and Seraphina was the sun that fed them. She was getting stronger and she shouldn’t be. Talent faded over time, it didn’t increase; but with her, the opposite was clearly happening, and it…

  Frightened him.

  Seraphina frightened him?

  It almost made him feel human. Normal. Just another man.

  The fires went out as instantly as they had roared to life and she struggled to her feet, barely hiding groans and curses. A silent scream cut through her mind. It set his teeth on edge. Usually he would block it out, but it was late and he was exhausted. He led her to her room—no more than a small, windowless cell, really, adjacent to his quarters—and she curled up on the blankets on the floor. He closed the door behind her and let out a sigh of relief, glad to finally be alone.

  He was so rarely alone anymore. Now, with the palace asleep around him, government rooms emptied out, he heard no foreign thoughts echoing in his mind; no voices, no strange,
unspoken words. Just him, and that damn velvet bag laying on his desk like an accusation.

  He picked it up angrily, and a memory flashed in his mind’s eye, as sharp and vivid as cut glass and just as painful..

  He stood across the alter of the Mother, clasping a pair of larger, darker hands in his, making vows of love and devotion. His wedding had been small and private. Secret, and all the more powerful for it. Just the two of them and the priestess. Two lives becoming one, nothing but a love so strong it sucked the air from his lungs, and a future full of tomorrows arrayed before them like a banquet.

  He blinked, bringing himself back to the present, and looked at his candle, at the lines on it marking the hours, and cursed. He couldn’t afford to wander down these paths right now, not with Samson waiting. Not with the morning just hours away. He shoved the small bag in his pocket and left his room, closing the door firmly behind him.

  His feet took him through the palace, past rooms he never went into. After the revolution, the first thing he did was remodel the royal residence, hire workers to turn it into governmental offices and apartments for those whom he trusted, and others who needed to be near the seat of power due to their own obligations. He’d turned the huge ballroom into the seat of the counsel, where elected officials would vote on the motions that would eventually make it to his desk for final approval or rejection. The library was scoured of monarchist texts, and filled with the books of those whom he tried to emulate, the underground collectivist thinkers who had paved the way for his rise.

  His revolution began here and spread outward, eventually infecting every aspect of life in the Sunset Lands.

  The old monarchy had been losing touch with the people. Kept in their palaces, they hadn’t noticed the workers’ riots, or the strikes for fair pay and equal rights. They hadn’t paid any attention to the starving, the serfs chained to the land and dying for lack of bread and hope. They’d easily ignored the peasants who wanted a voice in how their country was run. They failed to understand the stagnant, failing economy. There had been no progress. The Sunset Lands were dying under their yoke.

  He’d been Premier for ten years now, and a lot had changed. The palace. The city of Lord’s Reach. The surrounding countryside. They’d entered into collectivism under his guiding touch and unique vision. It hadn’t been easy. It had been full of pain and sacrifice but already his reforms were paying off.

  He felt Samson’s mind long before he reached the room where the man was waiting. He was full of dark thoughts, absolutely devoid of any morality. He was perfect for the job. Loyal to Eyad’s vision and the future he worked toward, this man would do anything Eyad asked of him.

  “Comrade Samson,” he said, sounding far too loud after so much quiet as he crossed the threshold and pulled the door closed behind him. Once, in the days of monarchy, this had been a religious chapel devoted to the Mother. But he’d disbanded religion, made it all but illegal, and now this small space was the perfect place for meetings like this. Quiet, and avoided by nearly everyone, it was his little corner of the world to do the things he couldn’t be seen doing.

  “Premier,” Samson said. He didn’t bow, scrape, or salute. Not here, not when it was just the two of them, alone. “You have a job for me?”

  “Yes,” Eyad replied.

  Samson cocked an eyebrow in question.

  “The raid you are orchestrating tonight, how is it going?” he asked.

  “It’s starting now, I’d guess,” Samson said and looked out the window. “It will be forceful. I’m sending them into Freedman Quarter. The ones who survive will be put into the two ghettos we’ve built. No one will put up much of a fight if it’s a bunch of palefaces doing the dying.”

  Eyad let that sit inside of him for a moment, rolling it around. Those with white skin were less than human to most people in the Sunset Lands. This raid would give him the excuse he needed to action his plans. Samson had a knack for these things. It would be perfect. He was paving the way for Eyad’s grand gesture. He would be seen as a protector of the undefended, the marginalized, the minority. A hero.

  “Tomorrow,” he said, keeping his voice inflectionless, “I will ride into town to see what happened. I am taking Seraphina with me. She will not be chained or bound in any way. She will try to escape. You will give her chase, make her feel like she will be caught and brought back to me. But you will not catch her. You will let her go. Do you understand?”

  “Premier, I will send word to the appropriate people,” Samson replied, but there was a question lingering in his mind.

  “We will go by the West Gate,” Eyad said. “That is where she will run. Have trusted people there.”

  Samson just looked at him, his features schooled to show nothing; but his mind spoke freely to Eyad’s. Seraphina was Eyad’s treasure, and he desperately wanted to know why the Premier was going to let something he prized go; and not just let her go, but why was he going through so much trouble to give her the opportunity to flee. Eyad would give him a part of an answer. Not the whole thing, but enough to quench any doubts. He owed Samson that much.

  “She will run right into the arms of some subversives. They are holed up just outside of town, the ones that keep getting away. Her brother is among them. She will go to them, and eventually she will lead them all back here.”

  “Why would an escaped slave come back to the place she escaped from?” Samson blurted out, his brow puckered in thought. It was moments like this that Eyad was truly grateful for his mind talent. He saw how events would unfold, understood how minds worked, how thoughts mapped themselves out; he saw plans and actions before the person thinking them even realized they were thinking them. He knew how this game would end. He understood how these particular revolutionaries operated. Seraphina would present an opportunity they couldn’t help but take advantage of. She would open a door leading straight to him, and they would walk right through it.

  “Because she won’t be able to help herself. None of them will. The fools will come back here in an effort to confront me, and that is when I will deal with them and their futile little…” he flicked his fingers in the air as though he was dislodging something dirty, “rebellion. They will swim back to the place that spawned them, and then I will crush them.”

  His blood was pumping, filling his ears with an ocean-roar of life. Excitement thrummed in his veins. His hand went into his pocket, crushed the bag he’d shoved into it, felt the velvet crinkle against his palm. This would be his moment, the events that would marry his past and his present. This would bring to fruition what he’d been yearning for ten long years now. For far too long these particular rebels had evaded him. He was trying to make the Sunset Lands into something better, and they were undoing all of his hard work with their constant raids, their underground networks that seemed to rise up every time they moved, the robberies from food stores and state banks. They’d even started sneaking people over the border, into the desert.

  A land divided could not survive. He was done chasing them. So, let them come. It was time.

  He handed Samson a rolled piece of parchment with orders scrawled on it. “Once tomorrow is dealt with, I will need you to turn your attention to the east. Our breadbasket is drying up, grain production is down, and word has it that the countryside is emptying. I want to know where my people are, where they are going, and what is really happening out there. The local party officials are feeding me half-truths and placating lies. Send your men out there. Tell me what is going on. Tell me what is happening to our food.”

  Samson clasped a fist over his heart and bowed his head, and left with a muttered, “Sir.”

  Eyad moved to the window as Samson departed. It used to be stained glass, until he’d had the religious scene it depicted removed. Now it was just glass. Down below, the city of Lord’s Reach sprawled out in all directions, controlled by the wall and the guards that walked it. This was his largest prison, where he kept the old nobility carefully contained. If grain stopped coming in from the e
ast, if those fertile farms dried up, then his grip on these officials, these monarchy-loving fools, wouldn’t be nearly as strong. They’d try to revolt. They’d fail, but it would be bloody, and with this drought he couldn’t afford that. He had to manage a delicate balance.

  He had to regain his grip on the countryside.

  When he knew he was alone, Samson’s mind-presence receding into the distance, his hand strayed back to the velvet bag. He pulled it out of his pocket, untied the strings, and opened it up, letting the ring it held slip into his palm, soft as a child’s wish. It was black obsidian and finely crafted, but simple; perfect for him. He rolled it around in his palm for a moment, eyes locked on it, seeing all the broken promises it represented, before looking out at the city again. Past and present merging, until he couldn’t pick one from the other.

  His thoughts drifted.

  They’d been young, still going by their birth names rather than their revolutionary pseudonyms. He’d been born as Evgeny, and his husband had been Vladimir. After the revolution, they’d gotten rid of those names and gone by their aliases, Eyad and Vadden, exclusively. That was who they were now but then, they were young adults bent on revolution and filled with zeal and overflowing with charisma.

  They’d been drafted into the Royal House Guard at seventeen, right out of their prestigious school. They’d worked hard to keep their revolutionary ideas quiet while they moved up in the ranks. By the time they were twenty-two, they had become captains of the guard, and were trusted to watch over the Lord and Lady’s chambers personally.