Seraphina's Lament (The Bloodlands Book 1)

by Sarah Chorn

  He whistled a folk tune under his breath and kept walking until he found…

  Yes, this would work.

  He collected the branch from the undergrowth and weighed it in his hand, guessing it to be about as thick as his wrist and roughly as long as Seraphina’s legs. He brushed it clean of dirt and twigs, and carried it back to the cabin, finding a seat on the front stoop. With his knife in hand, he started shaving off the bark.

  Snick. Snick.

  He fell into the rhythm, the pattern of carving and cutting, of turning something that nature had created into something manipulated by his own hand. It was a small power, but it was one he’d always cherished. Creating had always made him feel useful, and calmed him. It cleared his mind. While his hands worked, he could really think about things. The world fell away until it was just him and…

  Footsteps.

  He didn’t stop carving.

  “If you have come to arrest me, you have chosen a poor time,” he said without lifting his eyes.

  There was a pause, heavy and thick, as hot as the night around them. Then, a gasp.

  “I know you,” a woman said. Vadden felt his muscles stiffen. It took all his effort to keep calm, to stay still. Her voice was familiar, straight from his memories, from the time before Eyad had become Premier. Before he’d used his knife to give the Lady of the Sunset Lands a fatal scarlet necklace. He glanced up and saw her. She was older now, and thinner, a sick gray tint to her skin and sunken eyes, but he knew her. Varvara was her name, and she’d walked straight out of his memories, from the days where there had just been a handful of them, teenagers on the cusp of adulthood, hiding out in cellars, talking about revolution like they knew what that word meant. She was one of them. A friend and confidant.

  “I forgot about the cabin…” she said, moving closer to him.

  He didn’t look up. Didn’t pause his cutting.

  “I wouldn’t come closer if I were you,” he finally said, words low and even. He shifted the branch and knife into one hand and used his other to call the lightning down. White flashed around his arm, coating him in a feeling that was so intense it was almost erotic. “My lighting is unpredictable these days.”

  She backed away, her fear so acute he could almost smell it. “Vadden—”

  “Let me make this very clear: we aren’t friends. Not anymore. Not for a long time.”

  There was a pause.

  “Eyad was poisoned,” she told him.

  That stopped him. It stopped him mid-motion. Stopped his heart, froze his soul, upended his world, blacked out his vision. He blinked fast to clear it, couldn’t speak, couldn’t think to form words, barely held the lightning that was raging inside of him in check.

  Eyad had been hurt? Elation stole through him. Finally, someone had hit the bastard, given him what he deserved.

  Then came the agony. The years might have taught him to hide it, but the love he had for Eyad, still buried deep inside, came tearing out, all teeth and claws and wounded vengeance, and oh, by the gods, was Eyad alright? Division, warring sentiments, scratched and brawled in his gut. His husband was a monster, but some part of Vadden would always love him. Always.

  “That’s a sad story,” he finally said, words so sharp they could cut glass. Inside, everything was twisting. He was about to lose it.

  He kept carving away the silence between them.

  “Best move along,” he muttered.

  “He’s not dead, Vadden. If you were wondering. He’s not… he’s not dead.”

  Another span of silence he felt no need to fill.

  “There are counter-revolutionaries, Vadden. Useful people, if you’re going back to the city. People you know. People you can contact and trust, if you’re looking to act, and I hope you do. Eyad, he had good intentions but he’s unfit to rule and people are suffering. I’m heading toward the Desert, trying to cross the border. My family was—” her words choked off. “They were killed, and I’ve got nothing left. No one to go to.”

  One more tragedy in a world of them.

  “Goodbye, old friend,” was the last thing she said before her steps receded into the forest.

  He kept carving, kept working that wood, listening to her leave, moving west, toward the Red Desert and an unknown future.

  He rested a hand over his heart, surprised by how much it ached, and hating himself for that. Eyad was a monster, so did that make Vadden a monster for loving him?

  As soon as he knew he was alone, just him and the moon, a gasp of pain sliced its way out of his throat and landed with an explosion so powerful it felt like it ripped him in half. He was gutted. Eviscerated. He felt like a man who’d had his skin torn off. The stars above glittered like knives, and he realized that this is what it was to be shredded.

  There was so much in him, so many torments, so many what ifs and if onlys. One decision, one word, could have changed everything.

  Seraphina echoed in his mind, her calm, determined voice. “I want him to die.”

  Eyad deserved to die. How many people were suffering or dead because of his regime, his programs, his new social order? He was a tyrant who ruled with an iron fist, and no velvet glove. Vadden knew this with a conviction that was the bedrock of his reality. However, faced with the fact that Eyad had almost died, he was surprised by how completely uprooted he felt, soul shaken, world bent. He was swimming in the sky. Nothing made sense. How was it possible to love someone this intensely, and hate them so viscerally at the same time?

  He thought of Seraphina and Neryan, neither of whom had any idea of his feelings for Eyad, his internal torment and confusion. He felt like he was betraying them. One more guilt to add to a pile of them.

  “That woman,” Mouse said, appearing from between the trees like a ghost, “is gone now.” She sounded cold, and her eyes had a wild light to them, an uncanny burning that sent a shudder up his spine and made his muscles bunch. “And there were men around us, watching. They are no longer there.” He was prey frozen in the light of the moon, and she was the hunter. She moved with a preternatural grace, slow and sinuous, as though she didn’t quite walk but rather parted the dark and flowed through it. She looked healthy, cheeks flushed, like she’d just eaten too much.

  “Gone?” Vadden asked, certain that his version of ‘gone’ didn’t match hers.

  Mouse turned, looked where his visitor had disappeared and slowly blinked. She came back to herself with a force that was almost violent. There was a gasp, and she became Mouse again.

  “Vadden,” she said. “I’m going to go to sleep.”

  And then, just like that, she swept past him and disappeared into the cabin.

  One more problem for him to think about. Mouse was scaring him. He tried to hide that from her, felt guilty that she made him feel this way, but there it was. Mouse scared him. She was turning into someone he didn’t know and he didn’t like it, but what could he do about it? He’d have to talk to Neryan. Obligation weighed him down.

  Snick. Snick. His project was finally taking shape, beautiful, despite the ugliness all around him. Seraphina would love it, he was sure. Well, he hoped.

  Alone now, his thoughts wandered down unfamiliar, forbidden paths. He had to move, one way or the other. What had Amiti always said? Man wasn’t meant to stand still. He loved Eyad. He hated him. His heart ached. His soul throbbed. One thing was clear, undeniable despite his conflict. The world could not continue with Eyad at the helm. And the only way Eyad would step down from his seat of power was if he was pulled from it, forcefully. He’d have to be dead. He knew his husband well enough to know that. The years wouldn’t have changed him that much.

  And with that knowledge bowing his spine, he realized something else.

  The only person that he would allow to kill his husband was himself. It was the least he could do. He’d helped create the beast, and now it was his responsibility to put it down.

  Varvara had said there were people in the city still. Contacts he could use. That would help.

/>   He couldn’t keep sitting here, waiting around. Everything, Eyad included, seemed to be pulling him toward the Reach. If it was just himself and Neryan, he could easily cut the younger man loose and go his own way. He knew Neryan had very little desire to go back there and face that part of his history. But there was Seraphina too, and he’d sensed a deep well of anger and confusion churning under that scarred exterior. She had a drive to light everything on fire. She wouldn’t be content walking away, disappearing into nothing, fading into the background and becoming someone else. No, Seraphina would never settle for that. She wanted a fresh start, which meant leaving the charred remains of what she used to be scattered around her like so much debris. She would never be happy until her past was cinder. That much was obvious after just one brief conversation.

  The food stores were also dangerously low. Nothing edible was growing out here, and anything that did went into Lord’s Reach never to be seen again.

  It was time to decide. Time to move one way or the other. Now or never.

  Snick, snick.

  He spent the hours carving, turning the thick, twisted branch into a long, slender stick. By the time the sun rose, he was further than he’d thought he’d be, putting the final touches on the vines and flowers in the wood. He was polishing it with a rag, working out all the splinters and making it smooth, when he heard movement in the cabin. Feet shuffling, soft voices, Seraphina’s pained gasp as she gained her feet and straightened out her body. Above him, the dark was being chased away by amber hues of dawn. It would be another hot, sunny, not-very-winter-like day.

  The door opened and Neryan appeared, a withered apple in his hand. He crouched on the stoop next to Vadden and ate, eyes scanning the forest.

  “You’ve been out here all night?” he asked.

  Vadden shrugged. “Had some thinking to do.”

  “Ah.” Neryan bit into his apple. “I’m going to give Seraphina some of my clothes to wear, but they’re far too big on her.”

  “We can scavenge some of the empty farmhouses nearby,” Vadden grunted.

  They sat in companionable silence for a while. Vadden finished polishing the stick, held it out and inspected it. He’d done an incredible job, if he did say so himself. It was long and slender, the natural curve in the wood turned into part of the art. Flowers and vines twined around it in a cacophony of growth and promise.

  “Seraphina,” he called out. He stood and went into the house. “I made something for you.”

  She was kneeling as she had the day before, though he knew it was less out of obligation and duty and more because that was the only position her body found comfortable anymore. The fire was popping merrily at her back. There was nothing in the fireplace, but that didn’t seem to matter with her talent fueling it.

  “What is this?” she asked, taking his carving from him with wide, shocked eyes. “Vadden, it’s beautiful.”

  Her hands traveled down the timber, touching the flowers, admiring the vines. Relishing the twisted beauty of the thing.

  “Stand up,” he said, reaching out to help her. She took his arm and, with effort and swallowed curses, she gained her feet. “I had to guess on the length. It should go to about your hip. Neryan told me that it’s your right leg that bothers you the most, yes?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Hold this in your left and let’s see…” He placed her left hand on the top of the walking stick and saw with satisfaction that he’d guessed right. “There. Perfect. Now, when you swing your right leg forward, move the cane as well like, yes, just like that.”

  Seraphina took a few steps, timid and testing. A smile broke on her lips, and he felt like the sun was shining on him.

  “This is amazing!” She said, walking around the cabin. She was still limping, still in pain, but at least she had more freedom of motion now. “Oh wow, Vadden, how did you—”

  “My mother used a cane. She was born with a twisted spine. I used to carve them for her.” He shrugged as though it was nothing, but in truth, this moment meant more to him than she would ever know. This reviving of his past in a way that infused his present with goodness and hope was the medicine his tattered soul needed. “It’s not a cure, Seraphina, but a tool, and there’s no shame in using it. Tools are meant to be used.”

  She walked over to the bed, her limp heavy, her back bowed, leg dragging, pain still shining in her eyes. It was an effort, with or without the cane, but at least the cane seemed to make it easier. She turned and flashed him a determined smile. “It’s not a cure, but it’s mobility. I can walk more, and with far less pain. Oh Vadden, I feel as though you have just truly given me my freedom.”

  “It will take practice to get used to,” he said.

  “You did this in one night?” Neryan asked. He’d moved to Seraphina’s side and was inspecting her new walking stick. “Vadden, it’s amazing.”

  “I have a bit of skill,” he shrugged. Heat flushed his cheeks. Neryan was staring at him, considering him with an odd expression, as though he were being reassessed. “It’s nothing, truly.”

  Vadden turned away, gave the twins some time to whisper and exclaim to each other. He busied himself near the fireplace, pretended he didn’t notice how Mouse wasn’t really asleep. He moved chairs around for no particular reason, looked out the dusty, yellow window. He wondered about Amiti and Kabir, two people he’d been very careful to keep his thoughts away from. Dead, or in a labor camp somewhere, he had no doubt that he’d never see them again. Their last goodbye hadn’t really been a goodbye. He hadn’t had the stomach for it, and neither had they. Instead, he’d just left, feeling Amiti’s sad, resolved eyes on his back while he faded into the forest behind the inn.

  And that right there was what made up his mind, the thought of Amiti watching him leave, moments before he was helplessly driven into the terrible arms of his own fate. He couldn’t live like this anymore. The center could not hold.

  Make a move! he yelled at himself. Make a decision and go with it. Dedicate yourself. Stop running around like a coward and do something, godsdamn it.

  “I’m going to Lord’s Reach,” he said, interrupting whatever conversation had been going on without him. Fate clicked into place with a finality that made his head ring. Sure, they’d talked about it like they were planning on it, but that was before Seraphina woke. Since then, neither of them had mentioned it again. “I’m going to Lord’s Reach, and I will face Premier Eyad.”

  “You will die,” Neryan said coldly.

  “Then I will die. I will either succeed or I will fail, but at least I will be doing something.”

  “And us?” Seraphina asked, her cane tap-tapping on the floor as she walked over to him. “What of us?”

  Vadden looked, saw the twins staring at him, Neryan wide-eyed and Seraphina studying him carefully. Mouse was curled up on the floor, eyeing him, a tiny ball of human so used to being overlooked, and yeah, what about them?

  “You can do what you like. None of you are slaves to me, though I doubt you twins could handle being parted from each other, not without your talents acting up. You’re too unstable. Keep that in mind.” Vadden tilted his head and let his dreadlocks fall around his face, hiding behind them the way he always did when he wanted to watch, but not be watched, to see but not be seen.

  “Vadden.” Seraphina was before him now, moving his hair off his shoulder, pushing it back, exposing his face to the room, refusing to let him hide. He felt her gaze on him, taking it all in, her eyes lighting on each and every wrinkle, every pain, every agony that he couldn’t hide. “It seems to me that this is less a political stand and more of a personal one.”

  Her hand cupped his cheek, warm. She was so warm, her touch almost brought him physical pain. It was like being gripped by an inferno. Her eyes changed suddenly, from green, to filled with flames, no whites, no greens, just fire eating her alive from the inside. Her hands started smoking and Vadden hissed and pulled away.

  Neryan was there in a flash, a hand resting firm
ly on her arm. She closed her eyes and inhaled deep. Steam hissed in the air where they touched. Vadden’s lightning was licking away inside of him, eager to be let out. It took everything he had to keep it back, penned inside of him. What was happening to them? All of them on edge, all of them just elements wrapped in skin, all this growing strength and almost no control. He felt it inside him, that storm brewing, constantly yearning to be let out until he thought he’d explode with it. He didn’t trust himself anymore. Not really. He didn’t trust anyone else, either. Where did that leave him?

  She looked shocked for an instant, her eyes wide. “I’m sorry, Vadden. I didn’t know I’d burn you.” She paused. “Your vendetta is personal, and so is mine. I don’t know how to be in the world. I don’t know if I’m a part of it, or a symptom of it. I don’t understand the ins and outs of this. The talk of revolution means next to nothing to me. I wouldn’t be useful on a farm, and while I can read, I am no scholar. I have nothing. Eyad made sure of that. I am nothing and I will always be nothing.”

  She squared her shoulders.

  “He owes me,” she said, “for my pain.”

  She looked him in the eyes then, fire burning bright inside of her, the fury of her element awakening something in his. Lightning flashed down Vadden’s arms in answer, crackling, blue and full of energy; and gods above, didn’t that feel good. Almost as good as sex, just to feel it rubbing against his flesh, hear that singe in the air, the static hum of his potential filling up the space. They faced each other. Fire against a storm, both barely held in check. Gods exchanging their first glances.

  “He will know,” Vadden said. “His mind talent is strong. He’ll know the second we enter the Reach. He’ll know exactly what we intend.”

  Seraphina’s smile would haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life. “Let him know we are coming,” she hissed. “The informed burn just as well as the ignorant.”

  Vadden turned his back on the room and let out a long, low breath. Pain lanced him. He couldn’t imagine a world without Eyad in it, but he also couldn’t imagine a world where he was allowed to go on living.