All Souls are unique, like fingerprints composed of desires and inclinations and conclusions and past times and environments. No one looks or sounds or feels quite like another. But all have similarities, as well. Somehow, despite the differences, every Soul sings in a sort of chaotic harmony with every other. Each is connected, and the web that holds them together is simple: the web is freedom.
In a more perfect world, I would be forever that little girl who snuck out of her window on warm nights and stared up at the stars. An observer, who got to see and smell and touch and feel the Souls that most people only ever have a vague understanding of. The beauty of it all, the wonder, was in the freedom. But freedom so often resembles shiny red apples. And I suppose that even back then, I knew that someday I would take a bite.
Look but don’t touch, it was how I defined myself. Seeing into Souls was one thing, commanding them was another. Sometimes, however, life throws you situations that force you to break your own code. Sometimes, you have to do the wrong thing, because it is the only option you have that you can live with.
Standing here, in the Queen of Two Rivers’ office, in the presence of eight Souls, that shiny red apple dangled in front of me, and it looked sweet and tasty to my suddenly parched throat. My mind – or rather that muscle in my mind that is a result of my tainted blood – salivated just at the sight of them all. Its hunger for control was amplified by my growing anxiety. Whatever the reason I was here, it was not a good one. I didn’t have to be a Searcher to figure that much out.
Two enormous warriors flanked the door – my only escape. Two more blocked the windows that made up the entire east wall. One more stood behind an armchair, across from which, on a couch that looked to cost about the amount of a college education, sat Queen Camillia and her niece, Bethany. In the armchair sat King William. It was his Soul that drew me so completely, like a secret present wrapped in shards of glass and thorns, fitting for what must be inside the box.
“Please, have a seat, Miss Montgomery,” said the King.
I found that I could not move. The battle I was silently fighting in my soul was all-encompassing. My mind wanted to be set free, to soar through the room and touch the souls within and hold them and squeeze them and see them. The muscles in my body were locked into their positions, as though by tensing and flexing alone they could keep in what stone walls would yield simply to. I wasn’t entirely sure I was still breathing, though my chest seemed to be rising and falling and filling, not with air, but with fear and fight. If I were to lose the battle over my control, things would go wrong. The apple would be sweet, I could no longer deny that, but the aftertaste was sure to be sour. If these people found out what I was, they would see my head on a spike. I was sure of it. My eyes floated over them. I couldn’t help it.
They will kill you or imprison you either way. You can see it on their faces. You weren’t called in for a nightcap. You’re half of a monster… and Alexa is M.I.A.
“Nelly, may I call you Nelly?” said the King. “Do you know who I am?”
It was that voice of his. It was as silky as flower pedals, as smooth as snake’s skin. My teeth snapped together as that muscle in my mind bucked hard, kicking and scratching in my grasp like an enraged toddler. For all the concentration it was taking to hold it in, I could not even risk sending the simple message of movement from my brain to my legs. I didn’t dare meet the King’s eyes, if his voice alone sent the beast that is my mind into a frenzy, there was no telling what kind of reaction the windows to his soul would receive.
In outright rebellion of my efforts, unwelcome thoughts from the dark side of me found their way to my head: Secrets, sooo many secrets in his soul, bad man, bad man, he’s a bad man, secretssss…
I cringed internally, the tensed muscles in my stomach shriveling up and seeming to congeal. If I didn’t get out of here soon, I was going to make an involuntary attempt to Search the King. His soul held the answers to so many questions, but he would feel my assault, no doubt. I knew this because I knew that he was a Searcher as well, and he had been drinking Lamia blood. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I did. I could feel it.
That meant that he was dangerous. That meant he could probably do things that no one should be allowed to do, things that no one can do, except for me, of course. But I didn’t choose to be what I am. I was born a freak of nature. I wasn’t selling my—
Puzzle pieces began to click together in my head, rapidly forming a picture that seemed to have already been painted, but only now in this frozen moment had come into focus. The blood that was being taken from the villagers, the size the King’s warriors in the room, everything, it all made sense. And it was awful. And I was scared.
But it wasn’t what had me glued to the rich mahogany floor boards of the Queen’s office. It wasn’t what had terrified – paralyzed – me.
Yes, this man held secrets, but the way my thoughts were hissing about them was what had me worried. I only knew of one creature that slurred S’s in such a manner. I was halfway one of them. My control was slipping, ever so slightly, right along with my right mind.
In front of me, glittering in my peripheral from what I assumed had to be countless diamonds and rubies, the King continued on, that voice seeming to slick and slither against my skin.
“I am King William, ruler of Two Rivers and its four sister cities that our kind call home,” he said, and I bit down hard on my tongue. The struggle that was going on internally was so mental that it was starting to become physical.
Cold sweat was rolling down my back. Warring thoughts were spinning in circles inside my head.
Ssssecretsssssoooo many…Do not lose control… jusssst a peek …not lose control...jussst a…Do NOT LOSE CONTROL…bad man bad man he’ssss a bad man just look and sssseeeee
It is a strange thing to not be familiar with the rhythms and inflections that ride the words passing through your head. To be afraid of the unwelcome thoughts that seem to gurgle up from somewhere that is so deep within you that it seems to not be a tenant at all, but rather a drifter that shows up, takes board, then breezes away on the wind. And you’ve seen him before, but you dare not become too acquainted, because he brings bad news, bad inclinations, saying the things that you dare not think. But when you get down to it, the thoughts he brings are yours. They belong to you. They are part of you, and they are hard to deny. Maybe your hands will get cut and bleed on the wrapping paper, but you want to see just what is inside that box. You need to. Secrets are necessary, and we protect them as Gollum protects his precious ring. We want them – to steal them – just the same. Such was the battle I was currently fighting.
King William stood up, and my eyes rose with him. His pale, smooth hands ran down the front of his black suit, the multiple rings on his fingers throwing shards of light my way. I blinked. I could feel the sweat on my back gluing the fabric of my shirt to my skin. Now that I was looking at him, I could not look away.
“You should also know,” he continued, in that awfully appealing voice of his, “that when I make an offer, it is not a request.” He approached me slowly, walking around me in a semi-circle of observation, the heels of his alligator shoes clicking softly with each step. My eyes began to lift again on their own accord. I forced them back down to his shoes, but only with effort.
Click. Click. Click. “Marv,” King William said, nodding to the Warrior standing behind the armchair he had just vacated. “Would you help Nelly have a seat?”
Before I had time to think, Marv had retrieved a wooden chair from near the wall, shoved its base into the back of my knees hard enough to make a traitorous tear leak from my eye, and I was seated. I think I heard the Queen hiss ever so softly, sucking air in sharply between her teeth. Excited little bursts of energy struck me from where Bethany was seated; she was enjoying this. For a moment, my mind was stalled. I felt nothing but shock and pain in the backs of my legs. I heard only the rapid pace of my heart, the whoosh of the air escaping my chest.
And then Marv
placed his hulk of a hand on my shoulder, and clamped down with his rough fingers. I knew without trying that I could not move now if I wanted. But that wasn’t all I knew. That wasn’t why my body jerked forward as though I had been electrocuted, and my shoes pounded the floor like the same.
I could not have stopped it. The contact was just too much. I squeezed my eyes shut and watched instead with my mind. I think a small, agonized groan escaped my throat, but I can’t be sure. So much information, so many secrets, so much…darkness. Now I’m sure I groaned. Marv’s soul was black and tainted and ugly. This too, was a bad, bad man.
My shoulders slumped when I was finally able to pull myself away from Marv’s soul, and my breath came in short gasps. More tears rolled down my face. If there had been any doubt in my mind about the type of people I was dealing with here, it was gone now. These men weren’t just bad, they were evil, all the way to the core. It was enough to make my heart hurt. The kind of encounter that instantly drains you of hope, saps the happiness from your world, and leaves you wandering in the dark. When I opened my eyes, blinking at the lights in the room that hadn’t seemed so dazzlingly bright just moments ago, King William was kneeling right in front of me.
Now my breath stopped all together.
“Don’t be afraid, my Dear,” King William said softly, almost whispering. “I don’t need to hurt you to find out what you know, but I will find out. Talking will more likely just make it easier on you.”
He’ssss the one with ssssecretssss…
“What do you want?” I said, and the words came out choked, broken. Marv’s grip on my shoulder was depressing me both physically and mentally. Salt water dripped off of my chin, and I watched it fall to my shirt and make little dark splotches there.
King William sighed, and the smell of peppermint and copper hit my nose. The combination made my stomach turn. “All right, I’ll skip the pleasantries,” he said. “I want to know where your sister is. The Sun Warrior? Alexa, I believe her name is.”
My head jerked up. I suppose it shouldn’t have surprised me, but for whatever reason I hadn’t been expecting this to be about Alexa. Endless questions flew through my head in the space between a heartbeat, rapid and seeming to grow darker as they progressed. There were two that stood out in my mind. First, if this wasn’t about me, then why was Bethany here? Second, what had my sister gotten herself into since last I had seen her? Knowing Alexa, it was pretty bad.
I looked into King William’s eyes, my vision still a little blurry from the tears that were now drying up quickly. His eyes were unlike any I had ever seen, and once again I felt my control over my mind slipping. If he hadn’t offered the answer to my biggest question right then, I may have tried to charge through his walls and retrieve the answers myself. His eyes were like the sight of water to a parched throat. Dirty water, maybe, but true thirst is never picky.
“Your sister has committed some very serious crimes,” King William said, holding my gaze and pausing as so to let his words sink in. “Treason, as a matter of fact.” Another pause, longer this time. “And murder.”
Like a strike of lightening, anger flared, red and ugly, inside of me. My sister was a killer, not a murderer. There is a difference. Also, if this was the man in charge of the whole show, then Alexa was more of a hero than a traitor. How dare he say these things about her? How dare he make me sit here and listen to him do it? What I did next was a first for me, and it happened before I could stop it.
I gathered what little saliva was in my mouth. Then I spat right at the dead alligators on his feet. The wad landed with a thwack! right on target. Half of me was horrified. The other half was just shocked. The only time spit comes out of my mouth is when I’m brushing my teeth.
A silence fell over the room that was thick enough to suffocate.
I watched as anger, sharp enough to slice, flashed behind the King’s eyes. He looked down at his shoes, stood from his crouched position—his suit smoothing out perfectly as he went—and shook his head. Once to the left, then to the right. Then his eyes met mine once more. I wondered if he saw the fire in my eyes, too. If you’ve got a problem with my sister, you’ve got a problem with me. I was still afraid, and I’d probably just earned myself a dark, dank cell, or worse, but I would not sit here and have him talk about Alexa this way.
As if to remind me that I would, Marv’s hand tightened on my shoulder. Not gently. I didn’t wince, but my teeth ground together hard.
“Have it your way,” King William said, and I watched as his pale, glittering hand reached out for mine.
I jerked my hand back, and the King threw back his head and laughed. It was not a pretty sound. More anger spiraled in my stomach.
“I wouldn’t do that,” I said, my voice coming out stronger than I would have expected. This got more laughter. A couple of the King’s warriors joined in.
“Bethany here tells me that you are a talented Searcher,” King William said, the smile on his face disappearing as though it had never been. “She says you can do things. Says you have impenetrable walls.” His steel gaze was hard, direct. “I would like to see for myself, if you don’t mind. See if you can keep me out.”
“Fine,” I said, bringing my right hand up. He out reached out to take hold of it, and I jerked it back again. “Wait. If you find my sister, what are you going to do to her?”
This earned me another laugh. This time, all five of the King’s warriors in the room joined in. Then King William’s hand shot out, quicker that a cobra’s strike, and seized my own. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was standing at the edge of a deep, dark abyss, and once I fell in, I wouldn’t see light again for a very, very long time.
And, yes, it all happened so fast; as fast as falling. I was not scared now. I was not the one who should have been scared. One can only be pushed so far before pushing back.
That is exactly what I did. King William’s hand felt as smooth as it appeared, and cold. So cold. In that moment of brief contact, I let go of the force that I always worked so hard to control. I removed the leash from the beast that I always kept chained inside of me, and it rushed outward, growling and snapping its invisible teeth. And it felt good.
The collision of his soul and mine was silent, invisible to the observers, but I heard the clap of thunder in my eardrums and felt the lightning strike straight through my skin. The very air around me vibrated, thrummed with the nearly electric energy that reverberated through the room. I felt the self that is me internally separate from the physical part of me, leaving my body a shell of little importance. For a space of time that was only half of a heartbeat, I could see and feel nothing. When these senses came back to me, I could see and feel everything. Now, I should have been scared. I was not.
King William’s walls were thick, solid, but even stone cracks when struck hard enough. I watched as he flew back from me, his body lifting into the air and crashing down to the floor, landing in a sprawled position. I didn’t turn around, but Marv’s hold on my shoulders was gone too, and I heard the thump! of his body strike the hardwood as well.
I was not aware of having done it, but I was standing now. I was free.
For a moment, all was silent and still. Not so much as an exhalation moved the air. Not so much as a thought penetrated the peace. For that tiny moment every soul present was stuck in a void, where time made no matter and only that still silence dwelled. I ran my eyes around the room, and drank in the things I was seeing. They tasted sweet.
The words that came out of my mouth next sounded nothing like my own. “Ssssee if you can keep me out,” I said, and I charged.
The force that came from me seemed to scream silently as it swept through the room. I watched white light explode from me, and knew instantly that I was the only one who could see it. It moved as light does, first here, then there, no time in between. I was vaguely aware of my physical arms rising, but my other, more powerful arms were the ones I was watching. They grasped each soul in the room, wrapping mental fingers a
round them in a vice grip. Seeing them, holding them, knowing them. That felt good, too.
“Seize her!” the King shouted, and I saw his own mental fingers, black and rotten, reach out to command his warriors.
Now, I laughed. And it sounded like a serpent’s chuckle even to my own ears. “Ssssleep,” I hissed. Five warriors fell to the ground instantly, sawing logs like lumberjacks. I felt my fangs push out over my bottom lip as a wide grin spread across my face.
I walked slowly toward the King, my body seeming just two steps behind the force that I was now acting through, connected by strings of invisible light tinged with darkness that is so much a part of me. I kept my mental hold on Bethany and the Queen with hardly any effort. Bethany was terrified, and I drank in her fear greedily. The Queen was in a state of shock. Everything that made them who they were was open and apparent to me. I knew their souls better than they did. And I drank that in, as well. I drank it all in. And it was glorious.
King William was regaining his feet. He stared at me with wide eyes, his confidence having been stripped away, making the jewels and diamonds that sparkled from him seem ridiculous. His soul was still guarded, but I could see the cracks running through his walls like veins in translucent skin. If I took a deep breath and blew out, they would shatter. The fearsome monster hiding behind them was shivering with anger and fear. This made my grin stretch wider still.
The Rise (The Alexa Montgomery Saga) Page 2
