by A J Gala
She writhed under his hold as he continued to kiss and nibble and suck her neck. “It didn’t happen like that! You wanted this—”
“Tizzy.”
She felt his fangs pierce her skin, and she gasped. He released one of her arms and caressed her face as she relaxed into him.
“I wasn’t going to let you keep saying no.” She swallowed hard. “Shame was the only thing holding you back. I was not going to let shame come between us.”
He broke from the wound and touched his forehead to hers, and she wiped a line of blood off his bottom lip.
“Good. Now, what else are you going to say to me?”
“But this is—”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s been a good thing for us or not.” He still held one of her arms, and his grip tightened. “If I’m going to stop letting people walk all over me, the first person I have to stand up to is you.”
She pouted, then sighed. “I’m sorry that I thought this would be something you—”
“It’s sounding less and less like an apology, Tizzy.”
“I’m sorry!”
At last, he released her other arm and lay over her, propped up on his elbows. “Was that so hard?”
She sniffled, avoiding his eyes. “You had me really excited for a minute. I thought you were going to start tearing my clothes off, and then we were going to have this romantic, moonlit—”
“—dirty, scratchy, pine-laden fuck in the woods?”
She huffed. “Yes.”
In a flash, his hands were back on her, pinning her down, pushing her into the dirt.
“The night isn’t over yet,” he whispered, biting down gently on her earlobe. “And I do have a lot of extra energy to burn off.”
8
An Offering
There was a cricket in the cells. Somewhere, hiding in the hay and debris, there was one single cricket playing a song of desperation. Whenever it paused, it was quiet as death.
Meeka wanted to believe Centa was asleep but couldn’t be sure. She couldn’t hear him snoring, couldn’t hear him breathing, and she couldn’t see anything in the ruthless darkness that swallowed them when the lantern in the hallway burned out. The cricket was the only thing reminding her she still existed.
Her stomach growled, and in that second, she felt more alive than she had since her arrival. The tall blonde sister had come by with dinner—a chicken, apple, and onion stew—but in protest, she had only taken a single bite. Now her anger had waned into depression, and as hungry as she was, she never wanted to eat anything again.
By accident, she thought of home. She’d been trying so hard not to let her thoughts wander there, but it was the damn cricket. She remembered wandering through the valley in the tall grasses when the night was young with its first stars, following cricketsongs till she was too close and the chirping would stop. She’d stand perfectly still, waiting for the bug to think she was gone, waiting for the song to start again.
“Meeka.”
She gasped, her chain of thought broken. Who had said her name? Had she really been so distracted that she hadn’t heard footsteps? Her eyes could barely focus in the dark, but she saw the faint shape of a short woman.
A short woman on her side of the bars. The queen. At once, Meeka scrambled to her feet and got ready to throw a punch.
“Shh, shh, it’s okay, Meeka. I’m not here to hurt you.”
“You bitch!” She wanted to strike so badly, but her legs were shaking beneath her. She should have eaten earlier. Perhaps then she would have had the strength to fight.
“There aren’t many places you could get away with calling the queen a bitch to her face,” Allanis said with a smile Meeka couldn’t see. “I want to talk to you, Meeka. I fear I’ve made a mistake. Will you come with me?”
Was this her chance to escape? Of course it was, Meeka thought. She had gotten a clear view of the queen when she had first arrived and had no doubt that even in her weakened state, she could take her on and win. Meeka narrowed her eyes.
“Are you taking me to the interrogation room again?”
“No. This isn’t like that. I’d like you to come up to my study for some tea, and we can just talk. I need to know what happened during your interrogation.”
This was it. Meeka’s fists shook. It was going to happen. After the horror that she had endured, she was going to get her chance to turn the whole world against the necromancer, and she would get to watch him burn.
“I don’t trust you,” Meeka told her. “I’ve learned I can’t trust any of you.”
“I don’t trust you, either,” Allanis replied. “And that’s my fault. If I had come to you sooner, had just spoken to you myself, maybe that would be different. So are you coming or not?”
Meeka wondered what would happen if she killed the queen. She would be executed, of course, but what else would happen? What would House Hallenar do? What would Suradia do? Everyone knew Suradia’s queen was friendly with Saunterton’s queen, so what would Saunterton do? She wanted to see how it all ended.
She allowed Allanis to lead her out of the cells, but a strange, terrified curiosity kept her too occupied to try and run away. House Hallenar was old and dusty and familial. Despite everything that had occurred, she still felt like she belonged there, walking the halls right behind the queen. She wondered if anyone else knew about the two of them. The whole place seemed so desolate that their outing felt like a secret.
Allanis’s study was full of the same old yet welcoming aura. It was a cramped space with ledgers stacked on the desk and books on the floor, but it was lit with at least a dozen candles. The lambent light danced on the surface of an iron tea kettle and a tray of little spice cakes.
“Go ahead, help yourself to whatever you want.” Allanis closed the door behind them and gestured to the offerings. “Rori said you barely ate today, so I figured you might be hungry. Lords know I am.” She grabbed a cake off the tray and sat down at the desk.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked. “I could kill you right now.”
Allanis scoffed and poured herself a cup of tea. “You could certainly try. Everyone thinks I’d be so easy to kill, but I’ll have you know I’ve got more fight in me than it looks like.”
“But aren’t you asking me to try? Isn’t that what all of this is? You’re trying to lure me into attacking you so you can have—” her throat tightened as she thought about the words, “—so you can have that man, have him—”
“Who? Who are you talking about? What is he going to do? Talk to me, Meeka. What happened? It was my brother, wasn’t it?”
“It was the necromancer.”
Allanis felt the chill deep in her bones. It was as she had feared. He had finally crossed a line.
“Lazarus. It was Lazarus. He interrogated you. What did he do, Meeka? I know you don’t want to say it, but I have to know these things if I’m going to make it right.”
“You can’t make it right!” she yelled. “What he did to me can never be fixed! He knew that before he did it! Before he showed me that terrible thing on his hand.” She covered her mouth and shut her eyes tight, begging herself not to cry.
Allanis turned her head up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What was on his hand?”
“Why don’t you go fucking ask him yourself? I don’t know what it is either!” There was a sob, but she swallowed back the tears. “He said he took ten years. What does that mean? What happened to me?”
Allanis didn’t know enough about necromancy to answer Meeka’s questions, and Meeka didn’t seem to know enough to answer any of hers. However, there was one question Allanis could answer. It was the only meaningful thing she had to offer, and she knew she’d have to offer something if it meant getting the girl’s cooperation.
“I know who the Protégé is.”
Meeka glared, unfazed by the change in topic. “Bullshit.”
Allanis sipped her tea. “What’s the goal? Why do the Hunters want the Protégé? Do they wa
nt to kill her?”
“Her?” The one detail made all her thoughts of the necromancer melt away. She shook her head. “No. No, we were all told to make sure the Protégé gets to Lord-Hunter Cyrus alive. I don’t know why. I’m not privy to that information. Do you really know who it is?”
“Not only do I know who she is, but I know her. She’ll be much more than this Lord-Hunter person bargained for, I can tell you that.” She leaned over the desk and started playing with one of her curls. “I only just found out. I haven’t told anyone yet. I need to find out what he wants with her, but I don’t have anyone on the inside like that. And there’s no way I can trust you. You’ll just turn around and try to kill us.”
“You’re a smarter woman than you look.”
“How sweet of you.” Allanis sat back up. “Alright, I’ll have to think about that later. Right now, out of respect for you, I need to figure out what to do with Lazarus. I need to figure out what he did. You say you don’t know?”
Meeka shivered and watched the queen pour her a cup of tea, silently admiring the tactical use of a brief change in conversation to clear her head.
“There was a mouth on the palm of his hand. He put it over my mouth, and I felt like my life was sucked right out of me. Ten years, he said.” She felt sick again. “Why did you let him do it? You had to have known!”
“I knew I should have known better.” She pushed the cup toward Meeka. “I know what Lazarus is, and I know lately his judgment has been off. I just thought I would always be able to trust him. That’s why I let him question you. It came time for it, and I was preoccupied, and he offered to take care of it. I figured it was his apology for overstepping his bounds about something earlier… the details don’t matter. He’s my brother; why shouldn’t I trust him? I’m sorry, Meeka, that I had to learn my lesson at your expense.”
“You’re saying all the right things, but I still hate you. Nothing has been made right.”
“I can’t just have him killed, Meeka.”
“You need to do something!”
Allanis didn’t know what that something would be. She rubbed her eyes and sipped her tea again. No coherent thoughts would come to mind.
“I will do something. I’ll confront him in the morning and go from there, but that means you have to go back to the cells.”
“What? Why, so he can come back and do it again? I will not go back!”
“You’re going back. I need you to go back. You are a prisoner because you pose a threat, and I cannot let you go until I can ensure that threat is gone. So, you’re going back. If he comes down into the cells again, Meeka, I need you to know that he’ll be there against my wishes. And if he comes for you again, I’ll need you to act.”
Allanis hated that it had come to this, but she was prepared. She had always been prepared. With heaviness in her heart, she opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out a small dagger with a gleaming silver serpentine blade.
“It’s called Golgotha,” she said. “It’s a dagger of Botathora. I hunted around for something like this when I was old enough to understand what it really meant for Lazarus to be what he is.” Her family’s predicaments had been robbing her of her innocence from an early age, but she remembered the exact moment she had truly started to fathom the darkness.
Shortly after her thirteenth birthday, before Lazarus had set off for the Fallarian Isle with Rhett again, she had glimpsed the tomes he’d packed with him. She didn’t understand their words, but she could feel their intent, their nature, their power. And from then on, despite her brother’s warm and sagely disposition, she knew the abhorrent aura he had invited into himself that hid beneath the surface.
“I knew I’d never have to use it,” Allanis told her. “But a part of me thought I should still be afraid. That I should be ready. The bone priest told me I’d have no chance of using such a weapon and sold it to me cheap. ‘You’ll never get close enough to use it,’ he said. ‘A necromancer does not trust anyone.’ But of course, he didn’t know. I couldn’t just tell him. Meeka—” She paused, swallowing hard. “If Lazarus comes back into your cell for any reason, you should kill him.”
Meeka stared with wide eyes, frozen, as Allanis handed her the hilt. “And what will become of me then? Will I suffer the same fate Centa did for stabbing your sister? You’re going to have him executed, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do! Just take the damn knife!”
“You’re stupid to give it to me before you have me behind bars. I could just use it on you as you’re taking me back.”
“Be my guest,” she huffed. “Maybe I deserve it.”
Meeka grunted and took Golgotha out of the queen’s small hand. “You are a nice woman. I hope I don’t have to kill you.”
“Me too, Meeka.”
“Are we ready to go, Allanis?”
Meeka followed the voice to see the door open. A tall figure stood in the doorway. Allanis beckoned for Athen to join them.
“I think so,” she said. “How much did you hear?”
“I heard everything. When did you find out she was the Protégé? Have you told—”
“I haven’t told anyone. I’ll talk to you about it later. Meeka, we’re escorting you back to the cells.”
Meeka smirked, her eyes darting from Athen, to Allanis, and then to the dark hall beyond them. “You are indeed much smarter than you look.”
Vayven 14, 1144
It was a cold, misty morning that the sun couldn’t touch. The Convent stood high in the Wistwilds, shrouded by low clouds and pre-dawn darkness. Eidi could hear everything as she passed through the walls and into the courtyard. The hushed words of a few who were awake, the murmuring of the river down below, a wolf’s howl in the distance.
She went to a twisted oak tree and sat beneath its hanging branches, red and brown leaves phasing through her form. She stared at a pile of rocks she would never touch or artfully arrange. They lay in the dirt and mocked her.
Soon she had company. Torah took his place beside her in silence, waiting for the banshee to speak when she was ready. For a long time, she wasn’t. She knew he was there, but there was no reason to talk, not when she could feel the prying eyes of other people in the Convent waiting on their words.
A breeze picked up, rustling the branches but never touching her. She glanced at him.
“You don’t look like yourself.”
“What do you mean by that, little ghost?” His words were light, but she could sense the heaviness in them.
“I don’t know,” she said with a sigh.
“You don’t seem like yourself either. I haven’t seen you around much since I’ve been back.”
She shrugged and then hugged her knees. “I’ve been keeping to myself. When you know certain things, it makes it hard to be around people. There’s too much my face will say, and I can never keep my mouth shut when they ask me what’s wrong. I hate the burden of secrets.”
Torah leaned back against the trunk of the oak. “Oh, Eidi. You and I know it too well. Louvita?”
“Yes.”
“The things she makes us do. And for what?”
“For an idea.” She watched a tiny beetle crawl along the ground and through her foot. “Her idea that will save us all. But she’s not really one of us, is she? She can’t see the way our world is meant to be. It’s vicious, everyone for themselves, and it’ll never change.”
“Wouldn’t it be something, though, if she were right?” Torah could have almost smiled. “If it could be changed? If we could have a territory just like theirs and function freely and openly with them like we were no different? The common folk have no more to fear from us than they do from themselves. They’re in conflicts with each other constantly.”
“You know it would be different. You give our kind an inch, and we will take the whole road for miles and miles, and there will be no one strong enough to stop us. That’s why the common folk band together to kill us. Keep our numbers small, make us loners,
and we can never be the threat they fear.”
“You’ve thought this out.”
Eidi shook her head and wrapped her arms around herself tight. “Of course. I’ve also thought about how ridiculous it is to assume that more of our kind would even want this life Louvita proposes. I suspect the majority of us are very much what the common folk fear. Take you, take bloodkin, for example. Do you think they will openly obey feeding laws? And do you think daemons will follow any laws at all?”
“They will if the right person makes them.”
Eidi turned to him, feeling the disturbance in his voice. His eyes were vacant.
“The Protégé,” she said. “The reason for all this effort.”
Torah took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “And now Louvita has Korrena and her special ability too. The ability to psychically control weaker nightwalker blood…”
“Is that what’s been bothering you?”
He scratched his head. “There’s a lot that’s bothering me, Eidi. When I finally get the chance to talk things out with Aleth, I’m leaving for good.”
“What? No! You can’t!”
“I have to. It’s good that people took his side. It hurts, but I think my heart would be worse off if they had pushed him away instead of me. I’ll be alright, Eidi. The chapter of the Convent where I’m a part of it—” he shook his head, “—is over.”
Up above from a curtained terrace, Talora and Lilu listened to the conversation between the nightwalker and the banshee. They peered down, watching as Canis entered the scene, sweaty from a morning run through the forest. His presence altered the serious discussion, turning it into something shallow and friendly and about the weather.
“There we have it,” Lilu muttered. “Now we know.”
Talora kept surveying everyone below, her fingers idly picking at a frayed hem on her veil. “Do we?”
