Seraphina's Lament (The Bloodlands Book 1)

by Sarah Chorn

  Lyall pressed his arms back into the soil, closed his eyes, and called his potentials to him.

  The Bone Lord

  The village was in his way. It was as simple as that.

  He needed to be on the other side of it, and it was squatting on his path like a wart he had to excise. He stopped for a minute, his bones clacking and settling as he sent his senses out, testing the world around him, getting a feel for what surrounded him and the army that trailed behind him like a ribbon of death. As unmovable and unflappable as a mountain, as unstoppable as a tidal wave.

  They paused, waiting. His desire was their desire.

  He had no specific qualms with this village—it was just in his way.

  He could feel the mortality in those rustic homes; husks of humanity starving, dying, or almost dead. Withered farms lay barren and impotent around little cabins here and there, a dry creek bed and an empty pond nearby. He felt it all: all that life, all that death, sensed it in the vibrations under his feet, and the air brushing against his bones. He felt the earth drying up even more, turning from lifeless to truly dead where he trod. Famine roared inside of him, a need to always expand, to take more and create even in the midst of so much destruction was an irrepressible instinct driving him forward. So much potential. It was intoxicating.

  Creating and destroying. Unmaking and making. He was straddling the fine line that divided both spheres. Every artist needs a clean canvas on which to paint, and he was no different. In order for the world to be made new, it first must be turned over, broken, and rendered unto dust. He, his famine, his new disease, was one of the tools with which to make this happen.

  In that village were people. He would walk through the center of it, spreading his sickness with every step. Then, more bodies would join his ranks, and eat until they’d eaten the last of their humanity, and finally numbered amongst the bones.

  It was better than sex, more intimate than childbirth. This was what he existed for. He was a stone thrown in the middle of the pond, and villages like this one were simply caught in the ripples spreading outward from the collision of fate and fortune.

  And Hunger.

  Hunger was out there somewhere, wandering the countryside. Their minds rubbed up against each other, two different skills with one abiding purpose. He’d learned her name in that touch, learned the nature of her soul. She was still fighting what she was, but soon she’d break. Mouse would die, and Hunger would take her place. They would march. Him from the east; she from the west. They would meet in Lord’s Reach.

  And then… what?

  He tilted his head slightly as the question swirled around where his brain used to be, tasting it in the cavity where he’d once had a tongue.

  Well then, he supposed, they’d figure out what was calling them, what was drawing them to that spot, and why it was so damn important.

  And, they’d find out what will happen after; when it was just them standing on the dead earth under an impotent sky. They were so close to the end of things, to that point where the world seemed to stop and inhale, before it began again. He’d be there, right when the wheel started turning, right when that next thought was formed. He was too big for something as paltry as an ending.

  That was power.

  He turned his attention back to the village, that dusty sprawl of houses and yesterdays full of people with one foot already in the grave, and the other laying listlessly on the earth, waiting for death to come to them. But death wouldn’t come, at least, not the kind they were expecting. No, he was not death. He was a plague of famine, an angel of undeath come to call his sinners home. He’d gift them his poison, and they’d join him or die along with the world he left behind.

  There was no fleeing him or his army. No one had the strength. They just watched, glassy-eyed and devoid of hope while he led his skeletons through the village, giving their hunger shape, a weight and heft, a drive and desire. Giving it form.

  Form was important. Form led to purpose, and purpose was power. They weren’t just starving due to Premier Eyad’s will anymore. Now they were famine, weaponized. He was blessing the villages that he passed through, truly, giving them a life beyond life, a purpose beyond the grave, and a way for them to survive past the point where everything else urged them to lay down and die.

  He was a savior.

  He walked down the dried rut that had once been the main street. No one moved. Everyone was either dead, or dead enough to not even be aware they had arrived. His was a silent army save for the clicking of their bones as they moved. Conquering the Sunset Lands was as easy as taking a walk. His horde was miles long now. He could feel thousands of them behind him, all of them walking in a long, straight line under his command, all of their minds pulsing along with his.

  They passed through that village, and hours later he felt his numbers increase as more bodies joined their ranks, picked themselves up from the dusty sprawl of earth that was just waiting to claim their bodies as its due, and started chewing, devouring their mortality. Eating away their flesh until all they were was bone.

  He had no need to rest, but he had a need to think and he didn’t want to be burdened with motion while he did it, so he called a halt, pushing out his mental voice and hearing the scrape and shuffle of the bones around him draw to a stop, listened to them click and settle into place. He felt the moon’s pale light overhead, felt the fading heartbeat of the dying earth under his feet, and knew that in this moment he stood in the center of things; nothing but an empty sky above and a dying world below and the Bone Lord strung between the two, holding them together.

  He cast his senses out, felt Mouse, felt Hunger burrowed deep and called out to her.

  Hunger, I have need of you.

  He felt her stir, shift, and push to the surface, swallowing Mouse whole. A god was in the west now, looking east. He felt her mind reach out.

  Yes, Bone Lord?

  Excitement filled him. He didn’t want her, at least not in the carnal sense. There was no romance between them, but despite that, he yearned for her. He remembered what it was to yearn. He didn’t miss it, but here he was. She was out there and neither of them would be complete, would fully Become, until they were together. He knew that. If she refused to Become, if she smothered Hunger and stayed Mouse, he would die and so would she, and he had no intention of dying. They depended on each other to continue living. Their mortality had been spent. There were no other options left to them.

  Have you been to Lord’s Reach? he finally asked.

  As Mouse, came the reply, instant and cold. Not as Hunger.

  He wasn’t sure how to ask what he wanted to know next, so he let her words roll around for a while before he finally threw his question into the ether. Do you feel a pull to the city? Is something drawing you to it?

  I am closer than you are, she said after a few moments. It’s not the city I am drawn to, but something under it. A voice, calling.

  He felt her thoughtful pause in the air around him, thick and full of meaning, full of thoughts just held back from his probing. He let her have them.

  Mouse hates the Reach. Her life was horrible there but… I wonder if what is pulling me was repelling her? The others, Neryan, Seraphina, and Vadden, are going as well, though for different reasons.

  Who are they? he asked. She hadn’t spoken of companions before.

  Subversives. Old friends. Mouse thinks of them as family. They are changing, slowly. We are just further along than they are. There was another pause, but this time he could feel sorrow in it, Mouse’s emotions bleeding into Hunger’s. I don’t want to say goodbye.

  If what you say is true, the goodbye won’t be for long. You must break to Become, Hunger.

  He had broken. It was the starvation that had done him in, the moment he’d killed those soldiers behind his house he had cracked open wide enough for the Bone Lord to claw up through the gap and smother Taub. It hadn’t been easy, and it hadn’t been painless, but he had done it and survived.

 
There was no reply, and he felt her pull away, close herself off and retreat. That was fine. He’d gotten what he needed. Whatever was drawing him was under the city. He could work with that. He had no idea how to get under the city, but he was pretty sure he could figure it out.

  He started moving again, forward. No need to stop longer than he already had. He heard the bones following behind him, step-stepping toward the Reach. He wondered if they felt the same pull as he did, or if it was just his drive to go to the Reach that propelled them. He’d thought they were like him, but the further he traveled, the more he felt like perhaps he was the only real, sentient creature among them, and they were just mirrors of his intent. Alive, but not living. Odd that this hadn’t bothered him before. It hadn’t even occurred to him to wonder.

  They walked until the moon was setting in the west and the sun was kissing the stars in the east. He felt the heat of the night transform into the heat of the day. They walked through six more villages. They were getting closer together now and there were more people in them; less starved, but still starved enough to not kick up much of a fuss. Not that it would matter if they had. It wasn’t until mid-afternoon that he felt the change, the feeling of all that life in the earth, all those bodies nearby. A hum of expectation and anticipation filled him.

  He was close. So very close.

  They crested a hill and he stopped, felt his horde stop behind him. He cast his senses out and he saw.

  Empty, flat, dead ground turning black under his feet, and far, far ahead was Lord’s Reach, pulsing like a heart, glowing like the sun in the middle of all this darkness.

  I see it, he said to no one in particular.

  I can feel you, came Hunger’s instant reply. So very close. And then she was gone again.

  He stood on that hill, looking out to the Reach, a city he couldn’t see in any normal way, sensed only through the souls muddying up the air.

  That was his future.

  That was the lodestone that had been pulling him.

  Whatever was under that rotted city was calling him. He needed it the same way the living needed air. He’d come so far, endured so much, and now here he was, so close but still so far away.

  He sent his senses out, felt the bones around him, and realized they hadn’t stopped. Not really. He heard them shifting and stirring, felt the earth scrabbling under their bony feet, felt their anxious desire to keep going. They’d never been like this before. His desire had been their desire, but not anymore. That string had been cut and their purpose did not lead into Lord’s Reach, only his. Now, they had their own drives, their own needs to chase, their own paths to blaze.

  He let them go, cut the string that bound them together with nothing more than a thought, and they scattered, moving in all directions, going to spread their famine far and wide. For now, the earth needed to be unmade, and they could best do that by spreading their numbers out.

  Then suddenly, he was alone. One creature standing on a hill looking at his future. Behind him lay the past—a barren wasteland where dreams went to die. The setting sun made him feel like the world was burning. That flame was tearing through all of his todays, leaving him with nothing but the ashes of what he loved, and a future full of dust and mystery. He felt his humanity then, that echo of Taub he’d buried deep in his bones. Taub was still alive, part of him, but a smothered, silent part. He supposed that Taub was his strongest part, really. Taub had survived. Taub had endured. Taub had tattooed his determination in the Bone Lord’s soul, and made him what he was.

  He had to go to Lord’s Reach, and finish Becoming. Then, perhaps, Taub and the Bone Lord could be one and the same. No longer a house divided, but unified.

  The world turned black under his feet. If he’d had lungs, he would have inhaled. Instead, he stepped forward, one foot and then another, walking toward the city that was calling to him like a heavenly host. Walking toward Mouse, who would hopefully become Hunger. Walking toward all that unknown, the land rolling out before him like a welcoming black carpet.

  Mouse

  Mouse closed her eyes and concentrated. If she thought hard enough, she almost felt as though she was somewhere else. Somewhere flat and dry; black, dead earth spreading out like a disease. She’d look around and see an army of skeletons strung like a macabre pearl necklace sitting low on the horizon. Only, it wasn’t quite sight. Not the same as what was perceived through the eye. No, it was more like sensation, a world in vibrations, a story unfolding through touch.

  Bones. Marching.

  It had started out as visions, little moments where she was one of them, walking west, moving forward with all the determination of a thunderstorm. Then, the sightings had become longer, stretching into minutes until now, every time she blinked she was there, in the east, numbering amongst the horde.

  She could feel them, this army of skeletons, their new disease spreading out from them with every step they took. She felt them unmaking the world and adding to their army. Each village they passed through, each farm they trod past, caught their plague and became famine. The world went black and dead under their feet and…

  They connected, she and the Bone Lord.

  She spoke to him. Across the distance, through the void. Their minds like earrings piercing space itself. She never doubted it was real. She knew he existed and he was out there, coming toward the Reach, feeling that same pull she felt, his army of bones clack-clacking behind him.

  She felt like this had happened before, like she was playing a part in some big game. The world was a palimpsest. History written over history, until nothing was left but echoes and ghostly marks, the footsteps of today walking across the graves of yesterday. Eventually both would fade and become nothing more than hazy imprints showing the mystery of before.

  Hunger pushed Mouse into the background and stared across the landscape, black and empty, and realized that there was art in the unmaking of a thing. Beauty existed in how it unraveled and unspooled. In how the paint was scraped off to show the raw, white underbelly, the blank canvas, the space waiting to be used. She felt satisfaction. This was her empty canvass, her blank space, her erased history. This would be the stage for whatever came next, and like a master of her craft, she’d set it perfectly.

  I have to leave.

  The thought came to her as clearly as though she’d spoken it. She was full, lounging in the sun like a satisfied cat, an empty village at her feet and the dead, black earth under her back.

  Yes, the Bone Lord answered, his voice booming through her consciousness. You have to go and do as you were meant to. It is time. Either Become, or die. There are no other paths available for those such as us.

  And what are we? she asked.

  I think we are becoming conduits, came the slow, thoughtful reply. He was alone now, shucking off his army like it was a pair of dirty trousers. The world only has so much magic. It was diluted before, given to so many in small amounts, easy to tap into. But things are changing, and now only a precious few of us will have the strength to channel all of it.

  It will twist us.

  Yes. Power always warps those who wield it. This is why we must break. We must change who we are in order to Become who we are meant to be. We must evolve. This is why you must say goodbye. A butterfly cannot stay a caterpillar, Hunger. Eventually it must unmake itself before it can spread its wings and take flight, lest it become bound by the ground, and prey for all those stronger than it.

  She pushed him out of her mind, pushed away these thoughts, and let out a low, pent-up moan.

  For a moment she felt like two people trapped in one body. One side of her was Mouse, the teenage girl who deeply loved the family she’d grown into over the past five years. She didn’t want to leave them, didn’t want to become one more loss in Neryan’s life, one more hardship he had to overcome. She loved going into that tiny cabin and feeling human, mortal. She enjoyed the blood pumping in her veins, and the heart thudding in her chest. She loved the smells of family, and the feel of war
mth.

  But the other side of her was Hunger, and Hunger had an appetite that couldn’t be sated. Hunger was ravenous, and the longer she stayed around the people she loved, the more of a danger she was to them. She couldn’t become what she was meant to be while she was caged by all this mortality. They didn’t mean to confine her, but she felt it all the same; the bars slamming shut every time she went back to them, her soul quivering and shaking. Locked in, a prisoner kept from whatever it was that was driving her on.

  Like a wild animal, she would die if she was not given her freedom.

  Her humanity was a shoe she had outgrown, and her soul was rubbing raw.

  She had a belly full of souls, and still, she wanted more. She needed more. Mouse wasn’t big enough to hold her anymore.

  She got to her feet.

  It was time to either fly or die. One or the other. No more middle ground. Inside her, a war was being fought between anticipation and regret. She’d say goodbye, and Mouse would never return. This would be the final farewell and it would destroy her. It would break her just enough for her to Become. She would blow away like autumn leaves. Neryan would never see Mouse again. Maybe he’d see Hunger, but Mouse… Mouse would die today.

  Mouse bit back a sob. Hunger smiled.

  She found Neryan talking softly to his sister outside the cabin. Seraphina was kneeling beside him. There had been a tension between them recently, an undercurrent of anger and resentment that was positively intoxicating to her, so she’d tried to stay away.

  Not only that, but Seraphina made her wary. Mouse hadn’t spoken to her since she woke up. There was something about her, something about the fire that burned inside of her, that scared Mouse; an intensity in her eyes that seared her. Seraphina saw everything, missed nothing. Neryan—devoted, wonderful Neryan—looked at his sister with such a mixture of agony and anxiety it was almost painful to watch. His was a soul being ripped apart, his eyes telling a story his lips never would.