by P. J. Fox
“Remember,” he said, “once it begins.”
She nodded.
But then, surprisingly, he pulled her up into a sitting position so that she was facing him on the bed. The room seemed to have grown darker, even though he hadn’t put out the single stand lamp. The flames themselves seemed to have grown darker, smaller and strangely blue. The darkness seemed to crowd in around them, almost like a living thing.
Pressing. Wanting. She swallowed.
He drew his hand down her cheek, one more time. And then, as quick as lightning, his mouth fastened on her throat. She cried out as his teeth pierced her, tearing at her flesh. She felt his tongue, lapping at the ragged wound. He was drinking her blood. She sagged in his arms, feeling the strength drain out of her.
She didn’t know how long it lasted but then his lips were gone, the faint breeze in the room stinging on her exposed muscle. He reached up and, in another quick gesture, gored a hole in his own flesh over where his heart should be. Where the dead heart of his host still rested.
Pressing her head down, pinching her nose closed with his free hand, he forced her to drink.
She gagged, resisting. And then, desperate for air, her mouth opened. The blood, meaty and metallic, poured in. The pain in her neck was bad enough but the feeling that spread through her now was worse: like molten metal had been poured into her veins, burning her up from the inside out. She shrieked and thrashed, or tried to, but he held her steady.
Part of her, some very dim part, remembered his warning: that if she stopped, she’d die. But the animal part of her, the part that had taken over at the first sign of danger, was immune to reason. All she could think of was to fight. For life and—for air. She couldn’t breathe. Her chest felt like it had been locked in a leaden cage. Like Piper was standing on her ribcage. She beat her fists against his shoulders, realizing even as she did so that she was weakening. The agony coursing through her, doubled now from her lack of air…she was dying.
Her eyes fluttered shut.
And then opened again as he thumped her firmly on the back and her mouth flew open and air rushed in.
And then his mouth was on her neck again.
Even with the fresh inrush of air, and the renewed vigor that it brought, she was still weakening: from blood loss and, she knew, from something else. From whatever poison was now working in her veins. Poison he’d introduced, when he’d forced her to partake of this unholy sacrament.
A third time, the exchange was made.
She was now too weak to fight him off.
“The blood of a virgin,” he murmured, “on her wedding night.”
So that was why he’d waited. She knew without knowing, through the bond of the ring, that circumstances produced powerful magic. The more laden, the more potent the circumstances, the more powerful was the working that resulted. The sacrifice of a virgin had mystical significance, for a host of different rites; the sacrifice of a virgin on her wedding night, sacrifice upon sacrifice, on the twin altars of love and torment, was the most powerful sacrifice of all. For the bride—the sacrifice—had been willing.
Isla had indeed been willing, although now she was scarcely anything.
“The first sacrifice has been completed. The second sacrifice begins.”
She fell back against the pillows, with him on top of her. His weight felt like the weight of the earth. Blood still poured from her neck; how she wasn’t dead of blood loss by now, she didn’t know. Perhaps she was, and she hadn’t yet realized it. Perhaps she’d died in her father’s study, at the hands of Father Justin, and everything since then had been a dream.
She felt him pressing at her, and then he was pressing into her. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She felt like a curtain, being ripped apart at the seams; she felt herself opening, and the sensation was disgusting. Opening, as he forged in past her defenses.
And then he was inside of her, his arms wrapped around her. A single tear rolled down her cheek. The part of her that was still rational knew that, whatever she’d expected, it hadn’t been this. Part of her cried in fear and part of her grieved for what she’d lost.
For the expectations she’d had, of this night.
“It’s alright,” he whispered into her ear. “Just breathe.”
Except she had so little energy, she could barely do that. Could barely do anything, only lie there and stare up at him. She blinked; even that took an almost overwhelming amount of effort. The space between her ears felt like it had been packed with cotton wool.
His mouth moved in silent syllables. He was chanting something, something that she couldn’t hear. It seemed to stretch on for an eternity, the chant growing in force and strength as she felt herself weaken. And she literally could feel herself weaken; feel the last of her remaining strength pour from her like water from a sieve.
He put his hand on her chest, directly above her own still-beating heart. There was a flash of searing heat, pain upon pain. So many layers of pain, she could barely tell where she began and ended. She was awash, split open, ripped from end to end, floating in a sea of pain.
His eyes bored into hers. “Do you promise,” he asked quietly, “to bind your life to mine?”
“Yes.” She barely mouthed the word and, even so, responding took all the energy she could muster.
“And in so doing, to forsake your own ties to this earth, cleaving only to mine?”
“Yes.”
“And in so doing, to forsake the cycle of birth, death, and resurrection?”
“Yes.”
“To live through me?”
“Yes.”
“And in me?”
“Yes.”
“And with me?”
“Yes.”
“To accept my mastery over your heart, mind, and will?”
She mouthed the word again.
“To accept my guidance? My protection?” He paused. “My love?”
She nodded.
“Then this thing is done.”
And with those final words, her world was eclipsed in pain. A white hot searing that was so powerful, it put what she’d experienced so far to shame. Everything up until this moment might have been a mother’s caresses. She cried out, a thin, ululating wail that she didn’t recognize as her own, that couldn’t have possibly come from her own throat. Or from any human being’s. Whatever powers of rational thought she had left splintered and fled.
And then blessedly, mercifully, she thought no more.
SIXTY
Everything hurt.
She felt as though she’d run a gauntlet of ogres, each of whom had set upon her with a mace. She wanted to sleep forever, to escape that hurt. To escape everything. But slowly, despite her best efforts, her consciousness returned. Slowly, and in fits and starts; she’d rise almost to the surface and then a fresh wave of exhaustion would pull her back down again.
But then, eventually, her eyes fluttered open.
She didn’t know what she’d expected to see: a completely different room, perhaps? To wake up back in her old room at Enzie, discovering that in fact everything had been a dream? To wake up inside some crypt, moss-tainted water dripping down on her, having been mistaken for dead? Piecemeal, still scattered and confused like the pieces of an upset puzzle, her memories were filtering back to her. There was a time, indeed, when she’d been certain that she was dead.
And now?
She didn’t know what she was now.
She shifted her weight, and groaned. She was still in bed, ensconced in a mound of pillows that propped her up in as much comfort as was probably possible. And she was alone. Turning her head, she gazed at the window. It was light out, but not the strong light of the morning before and, indeed, the entire week before that. This was a wan light, and gray. The kind of not-light that signaled bitter cold, and an approaching storm.
She wondered where Tristan was. She wondered how she was, in truth, still alive. She’d seen animals slaughtered; she knew that the life should have poured
from her hours ago. She reached up and, tentatively, touched the side of her neck. She winced as she did so, expecting to encounter the ragged wound that Tristan had made. But there was…nothing. She slid her fingers up and down, pressing harder now, confused. But all she encountered was an expanse of smooth skin.
As though she’d never been bitten at all.
She sighed, relaxing against the pillows, and stared up at the canopy overhead. The bed’s curtains had never been closed, but she wasn’t cold. Wasn’t anything; was too sore and nauseous to be anything except sorry for herself. Ogres? She’d been through the intestinal tract of a dragon twice. Her spine felt like it had been ripped out of her body and replaced. Her skin felt like a single bruise, combined with the raw, screaming pain of a bad scrape.
She’d slept—or been unconscious—the entire night. Which was strange, because she had no sense of time passing. What happened, might have happened only moments ago. Seconds. And yet the light filtering through the window wasn’t the gathering light of dawn.
What had happened to her?
Wincing, she sat up. A fresh wave of nausea poured over and through her. The closest she’d come to feeling like this before, she’d decided, was when she’d caught the plague as a child and almost died. It wasn’t the worst plague, or she would have died, but rather its less malignant cousin. The survival rate of the true plague was nonexistent; the survival rate of this cousin was about one in five. And she’d been insensible most of the time, tossing and turning in a welter of her own sweat, but when the fever had finally broken she’d felt something like this: hollowed out, like a dried up gourd. Like someone had scraped her clean from the inside. Her muscles had ached then, too. All that was missing now was the muddy feeling of her own dried sweat, clinging to her like a second skin.
She wasn’t dressed; she pulled a sheet around her like a robe and, carefully, placed her feet on the floor. The tiles were cold. That was reassuring; were she dead, she wouldn’t feel cold. Wasn’t that right? In truth, she didn’t know what the dead felt, or didn’t feel.
That one could be both dead and alive at the same time hadn’t ever occurred to her, until she met Tristan.
Draped in the sheet, she padded over to the mirror. It was a large thing, set in its own claw-footed stand. She didn’t know what possessed her to do this; perhaps it was that she hadn’t believed the evidence of her own fingers, that the skin under them was healed. Not just healed: perfect. A wound like that should have left a terrible, disfiguring scar. If she’d survived it at all, which by rights she shouldn’t have. And she didn’t know, precisely, what she was expecting to see. Herself, she supposed; the same Isla she’d always known. A little the worse for wear, perhaps, after her ordeal.
But…
She stared.
The person staring back at her was a complete stranger.
She’d thought, the afternoon before, that she understood what that term meant. She’d felt like a complete stranger to herself, encased in her wedding finery. Certainly that hadn’t been the Isla she’d grown to know over the years, the one whose hair was pinned back any old way and whose hands, more often than not, bore the myriad discolorations of the dye vats. The Isla who smiled, sometimes, at how little like a lady she’d always managed to look and who was always slightly rueful as a result.
She’d still known who she was, though; the confusion had come from confronting a version of herself that she’d never expected to see.
Except…
She’d wrapped herself, shroud-like. Snow white linen, against her snow white skin. Skin that had always been pale, but was now the translucent color of alabaster. As hard, and as cold. Her features seemed…more refined, somehow. Like she was staring not at herself but at a sculpture of herself. An artist’s rendering, more aspirational than factual.
The freckles powdering the bridge of her nose were gone.
Her eyes had been green since birth, but now they were a different color of green. Where before they’d been the clouded, slightly dull green of zinc spar, now they were the clear and depthless green of two perfect emeralds. As depthless, and as emotionless. Too perfect to hold emotion; too perfect to do anything but be beautiful. She blinked, and blinked again. The movement looked strange; as strange as if a statue had moved.
As strange as when Tristan moved.
She swallowed.
Her hair was so black it was almost blue. At some point during the night her braids had come unpinned and it flowed down around her shoulders, perfectly straight and shining with the dull luminescence of a raven’s wing. The contrast between skin and hair was alarming, almost as alarming as the change in her eyes. And her lips, too, were red: the bright, rich red of fresh blood.
Bronwen, whose name meant white.
Who was she now?
What was she?
SIXTY-ONE
She heard the door open, and then he spoke. “You should rest.”
She didn’t turn. That wasn’t the most romantic greeting she’d ever heard. And it was easier to be mad than scared. She said nothing as he approached her, and placed his hands on her shoulders. They regarded each other, in silence, in the mirror. Two pale, silent creatures.
“You’re still human,” he said.
“I don’t feel human.”
“You won’t, for a long time. You’ll feel wretched, as wretched as you can imagine feeling. But the feeling will pass, in time.” He paused. “You should eat something. It will help.”
“I couldn’t possibly eat anything,” she protested.
“Part of why you feel so weak is that you haven’t.”
Reaching up, she placed her hand over his. His hand was still warm. She leaned back against him. Being so near him felt right. Good. She felt less incomplete, less fractured than she had even a few moments ago. Her anger, her fear, began to dissolve. Even now, she had to admit that he made her feel safe. And there was something more: she was aware, now, of their bond as she’d never been before. Aware of him as part of her.
“The ritual required a great deal of energy. Energy I took partly from you.”
“Which is why your hand is still warm.”
“Yes.” He put his arm around her and, turning her from the mirror, guided her to the table and down into a chair. There was food there, that some invisible hand had left. While she was asleep, she supposed. That same invisible hand had stoked the fire, and added more wood. It burned merrily now, pine knots hissing and fizzing as the sap inside them overheated.
Seeing the food, she realized that she was hungry. Ravenously. She fixed herself a plate: of bread and cheese and sausage, and some wedges of dried apple. Even so, until she put the first bite into her mouth, she wasn’t sure that she’d be able to keep it down. Her stomach still roiled. The last thing she wanted was to vomit on her husband, the morning after their wedding night. A wedding night she barely remembered, except in those strange bits and pieces. Like a dream, really, more than an actual memory.
But the food tasted ambrosial. Such crusty bread, such magnificent cheese she’d never tasted. She set to with a will, not caring how she looked.
She wanted him to tell her more, though, and he did.
While she ate, as methodically as a soldier who’d been denied his rations for a fortnight and then presented with the world’s finest feast, he talked. “You’ll need to eat more, now; the demands on your system will be much greater.
“The bond that’s been created has benefits for both parties.” He paused, his eyes on hers. “Isla, do you know what an aura is?”
She shook her head slightly; she’d heard the term, but that was all.
“An aura is a field of—for lack of a better term—magic that surrounds all living things. Human beings. Other animals, of all kinds. Plants, even. Everything that grows, and changes, and belongs in some respect to the cycle of life that governs this plane. The fullness of a being’s aura determines its health. A flourishing plant, or man, will be encased in a thick, fluid coating. A plant t
hat suffers from blight, however, will have patches in its aura. Places where the plant is weak. And these—I suppose the correct term would be holes—are in turn places of vulnerability. Chinks in the plant’s armor, where further disease can enter.” He made a small, dismissive gesture. “Unless and until the plant heals itself, or comes under the hand of some skilled gardener, its aura will continue to weaken.”
“So its aura is its life force.”
“Yes.”
Isla fixed herself another plate of food. She couldn’t believe that she was eating all this. But Tristan was right: she had begun to feel a little better. Still like she’d gone the better part of an afternoon against an ogre, or ten ogres, but less like she had the plague.
“The dead have no aura.”
Which explained his need to feed on the living.
He made another small, dismissive gesture. “It’s not optimal. But during those times when, for whatever reason, I can’t feed, or the demands on my resources are especially great, I can…siphon energy from you. Which I did last night, not because I had to but because doing so was necessary to the successful completion of the ritual.”
“Oh.”
“We now…share an aura, if you will.”
She considered this. She’d eaten enough food to satisfy three grown men, and for the moment she thought she was sated. But she still…something was missing. She was at a loss for how to translate that need into words; she only knew that, since waking up this morning, she’d felt oddly…empty. Breakfast, or lunch, or whatever this was had helped, but not enough. It hadn’t completely filled the hole inside of her.
Tristan stood. “Come,” he said. “Sit with me, by the fire.”
Hesitantly, she did as he asked. Leaving the chair, she let him lead her over to the massive fireplace where he’d sat so many nights, brooding, both before and after his change. The mantel, like everything else in Caer Addanc, was beautifully carved. Isla found the leering faces less frightening, now, than she would have even the night before. She supposed that she was too—tired wasn’t the right word—to care. She wasn’t sleepy; she’d had enough sleep to last her into the foreseeable future. Heart sore, maybe.
