by K. E. Blaski
“Kiss him, Nobless. Let’s see if he reacts.”
Damen sensed her lack of enthusiasm. If her hand-holding was a precursor for what her kiss would be like, he was in trouble. He prepared for her lips to smash against his. Hopefully, she wouldn’t break his jaw.
But when she kissed him, her lips were surprisingly soft and tender. Her warmth lingered after she pulled away. Even with inhibitor in his blood, the kiss left him feeling . . . nice.
“Convincing. A normal man would have her on the bed by now—but look at you, cool as the Sea of Undine. And all this time you’ve been drinking a potion. You can let go of my wife’s hand now.”
Damen did as commanded, and Noble sat on the edge of the bed again, thinking.
Believing silence was the best course of action, Damen limped as lightly as possible back to the divan. It was not the time to interrupt, and Jennica seemed to instinctively know to keep quiet as well. He stared at her profile and the angle of her jaw. Where Nyima’s had been round and fleshy, Jennica’s was hard . . . determined. He should’ve seen it earlier. Anyone who really knew Nyima would be able to tell that this was not her. They had only to look: her jaw, the way she tightened her mouth, that flash in her eyes.
Lightning cracked the sky, turning her skin white for an instant, then dark rose again. Rain spattered the stone ledge. A fine mist clung to the tops of her cheeks. No, she didn’t look like Nyima at all. She was Adora made flesh. He remembered the sculpture as a child on a trip to Denizen with his family. The stone beauty come to life was now standing just a few feet away from him.
“Do you want to poison me?” Noble asked them, shattering the moment.
Damen’s adrenaline surged. He wanted to say, of course not, but he couldn’t speak lies. He’d have poisoned Noble long ago if it had been possible. If anyone could invent a poison strong enough to work against Noble’s self-healing powers. As far as he knew, that poison didn’t exist, but Noble was cautious anyway. Dark scientists were creating new potions every day.
“Let Damen drink first. Then you’ll know it’s not poison,” Jennica said, as if trying to rescue Damen from having to tell his truth. But he’d heard the question; he had to answer.
“Yes, I want to poison you.”
Noble nodded. “Is there poison in your vials now?”
“No.”
“I believe you believe that to be true, boy. But someone else might have tainted those vials without your knowing. I’ve decided. You drink half—if you survive, I’ll take the rest. Then I will ask my questions without distraction.”
As Damen swallowed, he carefully watched Jennica. She scrutinized his every move. Noble had always prided himself on being resourceful, but Damen thought that maybe she was the resourceful one. By suggesting Noble take the inhibitor, she’d just bought herself another day of life.
DAMEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE ANSWER
“Bitter. Like eichenberries.” Noble’s tongue darted to catch a stray drop on his lip.
“The plant grows along the roadside where I grew up,” Damen said.
“Interesting. It leaves my mind sharp—peeling away desire, layer after layer.” He strode over to Jennica. “Test time.”
Damen held his breath as Noble’s scaled hand caressed Jennica’s hair. He cupped her chin, stroking her cheek with his thumb. She gasped when he nicked her skin with his claw; a rivulet of blood crept down the hollow under her cheekbone. Noble sucked the blood from his thumb and sauntered away.
“Interesting. Even her blood tastes dead to me. How long will it last?”
“For me, about sixteen hours—longer since I’ve had two doses. For you? I don’t know. Probably not as long.” Noble was a big man. The effective dosage could be three times, ten times what Damen took. Giving inhibitor to Noble was a mad experiment.
“Okay. Let’s begin.” Noble scooped Jennica up into his arms as if she were made of air. Her feet clanked together as he carried her across the room and plopped her on the bed. For a moment Damen thought she was lost—the potion unsuccessful, and Noble would take her right in front of him. But instead he left her there and joined Damen on the divan.
“Why did you put me on your bed?” She straightened her robe over her exposed legs. Her fingers quivered but she kept her voice steady.
“Our bed, Nobless. On our wedding night, it’s where you belong. But before I join you, you will answer my questions. And for each lie you tell, I’ll bite off one of your fingers and fuse a metal one in its place.”
“Too bad inhibitor doesn’t make people nice,” she said.
“Nice is replacing your fingers. Mean would be feeding them to you and leaving you with nothing but a full stomach.” He cracked his knuckles and the noise filled the room. “You’ll find me to be a generous husband, my love.” He spoke to Damen without taking his eyes off his bride. “Serve us, boy. All this talk of eating has made me hungry.”
Damen hobbled to the table. He worked at assembling plates of food while at the same time listening to the questioning. Noble must’ve wanted Jennica’s information more than Urion itself to consume inhibitor instead of his bride’s soul.
“Let’s start with your name—your real name.”
“Jennica Lorinne Duncan.”
Damen tried slicing the bread, but his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. He caught Noble staring at his progress. “Almost through, sir.” Noble’s stare continued. “Oh, sorry. She’s telling the truth, sir.”
“So, Jennica Lorinne Duncan, where are you from?”
“The city of Portville, in the state of Indiana, in the country of the United States of America. Third planet from the sun: Earth.”
“Truth,” Damen confirmed.
“And why are you here?”
There it was. The question whose answer would sentence Damen to death. He was the one responsible for Jennica’s arrival.
“To give you knowledge—about my planet. Knowledge is power.”
What? Damen had a sudden realization. Jennica also had multiple truths existing inside her at the same time, just like he did. And telling one truth to Noble was good enough. She knew she was on this planet because Damen had stolen her soul—he had told her so—but somehow, she’d also come to another belief: that there was a reason her soul was the one chosen.
“Damen?” Noble asked.
A wave of relief washed over him. “She tells you the truth.”
“Why should I be interested in your planet?” Noble leaned forward.
“Let me tell you about it, and then you can decide whether it’s worth your time to listen.”
“I always decide.”
“I know.”
Before presenting Noble a plate, Damen tasted each piece of food in front of him. Then he prepared a plate for Jennica and one for himself. It was times like this, when he was forced to be Noble’s poison tester, that he was reminded he wasn’t indispensible. No doubt, Noble used these moments to put Damen in in his place.
Noble stretched languidly on the divan and tore into a hunk of porsha soaked in brine oil. “Enjoy the food, Nobless,” he said when he saw that she’d set aside her plate without touching it. “You’ll need your strength—for later. You too, boy. Eat up.”
Jennica picked up a ragged piece of langor bread and took a bite. Her eyes widened, and the tiniest of gasps escaped from her lips. She darted her gaze to the floor.
There was nothing like seeing someone taste langor for the first time—all the golden warmth of Aprica captured in each grain. Damen smiled and started to pick at his own food, while Noble’s gulping and chewing drowned out the raging storm. When Damen raised his head, he saw that Jennica had emptied her plate.
“More bread for my wife. She has an appetite. And pour some wine.”
Likely from walking and standing in metal feet for over an hour. Damen prepared another plate.
“You enjoy our food,” Noble stated.
“Yes, but I miss the food from home, too.”
“Mashed potatoes swimming in butter, fried chicken, a crisp salad with cherry tomatoes exploding between your teeth, and a tall glass of ice-cold milk with a little froth at the top.”
Jennica seemed to enchant Noble with her unique words and the cadence of her voice. Damen had to agree—she wasn’t like anyone of this world.
“But food isn’t just about eating because we’re hungry,” she went on. “It’s about who we’re eating with: friends, family, all our loved ones. We have a special meal we call Thanksgiving—it’s coming up in a few days—where we celebrate our gratitude for the people and things in our lives. We eat way too much, play football, and watch parades and more football on TV.”
Damen handed her a second plate, with extra bread this time. He poured a goblet full of wine, and tasted it in front of Noble before handing it to him. Then he settled into a chair near the door and listened to the melody of Jennica’s voice. The more she spoke, the more the tension drained away from her shoulders and face. She even giggled once trying to explain the football.
This world where Thanksgiving and football existed was abundant and strange. Damen followed most of what she described, until she told them about television, which didn’t make sense at all. Signals flying through the air? Streams of electrons? Pixels and phosphor? It sounded mad, but she spoke the truth, and when Noble looked at him for confirmation, Damen shrugged his shoulders and nodded. Dark science for sure. But Noble looked enraptured, eating her words as she served them to him.
The storm trickled away. Aprica peered over the edges of the windows. Gray streaks brightened the room and the shadows softened. Damen’s toes had stopped throbbing hours ago, replaced with a sleepy ache. The washed air blowing through the window made him alert even though he’d been awake all night.
“Later, if you have something for me to write on, I could try to draw what some of these things look like,” Jennica offered.
“You assume later will exist,” Noble said.
Jennica’s neck and jaw tightened. Her weary eyes sparked again.
Noble chuckled in response. “I’m tired. Boy, let’s leave Nobless, and we’ll all get some sleep.” He rose and stretched to his full height, scales shimmering in Aprica’s morning rays. “Until tonight, dear Nobless Jennica.” He kissed her firmly on the mouth.
She wheezed when he released her.
Damen followed Noble out of the wedding chamber. When he went to close the door behind him, he saw Jennica slump, clutching her elbows, her Rosen cheeks shiny with fresh tears. He didn’t understand. Why was she sad when she’d lived to see another day?
DAMEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
FAVORS
“She’s dyin’. Isn’t there anything you can do?” Amada took Coralee’s hand from Damen and pressed it against her own cheek.
Coralee lay on a cot in the back of the kitchen, moaning and shivering uncontrollably, even though blankets buried her body and the hearth fire blazed.
“It’s the Urion. From his teeth. It must be in her blood. Her body is fighting.” He drew Coralee’s hand out from under the covers. Noble’s bite mark swelled and festered on her pale wrist. “What did the herbist say?”
“’He said, ‘Sorry, nothing to do but keep her calm,’ and then he covered her with blankets and left. How ’bout another dark scientist? Couldn’t one of ’em help her?”
Damen considered taking Coralee to Argathe, or even bringing Argathe to the castle, but who knew what she could end up doing to the girl? She’d look at Coralee as another test subject. “They’d make her worse, Amada. Turn her into a hawk or something.”
She nodded. “I hate to see her sufferin’ so.”
He had two vials of inhibitor left. He wished the potion worked on pain. “Give her a little florimel wine from the cellars. It might help her sleep.”
“Thank you, Damen, for coming to check on her. We’re both fond of you. Yes we are.”
“I’ll come back later. See how you’re both doing.”
Poor Coralee: caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. He wished he’d gotten to know her better. That was the problem though, wasn’t it? He could never get close to anyone, or he’d risk sharing their secrets with the world. Nyima was the only person he’d ever called “friend,” and now she was gone forever. Even if he wasn’t a Tovar, life span at the castle could be short. Why make another friend when they could easily be murdered or thrown in the dungeons? Maybe Coralee would win her battle against the Urion in her blood. More than likely, her soul would be gone tomorrow.
He slipped out of the kitchen and left Amada to stand vigil over her daughter.
His next stop was the archivist’s shop, for paper and charcoal. That meant venturing into the heart of Durand. He patted the dagger sheathed and strapped to his chest, hidden beneath his robe. In his side pocket, he jingled a handful of coins and the silver scale Marcis had torn from his flesh this morning.
The soldier’s pounding had startled him upright four hours into his troubled rest. Marcis had demanded to know why Jennica wasn’t with the other wives. He’d had himself assigned to breakfast duty for the harem so he could see her. When Damen told him how she’d survived another day, he ripped a scale from his forearm and thrust it into Damen’s palm. The gesture had astonished him. He now fingered the bizarre reward in his pocket. Perhaps he could use it for barter in the city. Castle oddities were sometimes popular.
Of course, now the castle buzzed with reports about Nyima—and about Coralee. He begged them to use discretion, but staff, soldiers, and visitors kept seeking him out to confirm or deny the rumors. He tried to make himself scarce, but who could blame them for chasing him down? They wanted to hear for themselves how Nyima, who wasn’t Nyima after all, had saved herself to live another day.
It was only a matter of time before someone would ask Damen the right question and he’d spill everything about his role in Nyima’s soul transfer. About the Urion he’d stolen. His temple throbbed.
A quad of soldiers rounded the corner and made a straight line for him. He slipped out through a servants’ entrance only wide enough for the underfed, and left the soldiers’ cursing behind him. At least the city might give him some respite from the incessant questions. Outside the castle, news tended to travel more slowly.
The air was drenched from the previous night’s storm, and soon Damen’s robes stuck to his arms and legs as he walked. He no longer limped, and his toes didn’t hurt unless he wiggled them. He kept that urge under control, and he made good time with his long strides.
He’d already forgiven Jennica for stomping on his foot. He’d deserved to be throttled. What if he’d been the one stolen from his life and dropped into another? Especially one where monsters like Noble Tortare ruled? He couldn’t blame her for taking her frustration out on him.
“No regrets,” he whispered to himself. No matter how sorry he felt for Jennica, or how justified she was in hating him, or how close he was to being discovered, he’d done the right thing. Nyima was safe, and even though his heart squeezed whenever he thought of Jennica facing Noble Tortare in Nyima’s place, he pushed on.
He wondered what Jennica would say if she knew he suffered too—knew that he’d lost his best friend, that the last of his family had been devoured by dark science. Most likely, she was too preoccupied with her own plight to care about his. Tonight, he’d present her with paper and charcoal, and she’d understand from his gift that she should push on too. That was his plan, anyway.
“Excuse me. I need to get through here.” He should’ve made this trip earlier. By midday the dealer carts jammed the center of Durand. Noble allowed only two hours for public trade, and during that time throngs of vendors and customers would clamor for each other’s attention. Children raced underfoot. Animals brayed and thrashed under their master’s whips. The mud was thick in the streets, further slowing his progress. The stink didn’t help either.
Once he was beyond the ven
ding boundary, the crowd at last thinned, then disappeared. He traveled unimpeded the rest of the way. This part of town featured the top-tier shops that had once served the village leaders and their kin—before Noble had them all assassinated or imprisoned. He replaced them with a single Granden set up in a huge home overlooking the sea, filled with servant staff to meet his every need.
Now the shopkeeps were forced to sell their wares in the street at midday or take their chances in the black market alleys. A boarded-up bake shop, a swordsmith’s gutted and burned . . . the archivist’s was the single shop left doing business on Dulcea Street.
Since Noble had outlawed all forms of personal writing, only those who needed paper for official record keeping frequented the shop. Or the members of Noble’s traveling messenger staff who were in charge of spreading his propaganda. Damen couldn’t forget them. They nailed posters around town with Noble’s face scowling at the people, his eyes tracking their every move, so no one could possibly forget the silver-faced man with the lizard teeth.
A bell over the door chimed as he entered. The smell of pulp and chemicals greeted him a few moments before the owner. The man arrived wearing gloves past his elbows and a smudged apron that covered his rolling belly. His face was mostly hidden under a tied rag; only his pale, red-rimmed eyes and a shock of gray hair pressed flat across his forehead were left visible. He pulled the cloth down to speak, revealing summer-chapped skin.
“I’m Fausto.” The man welcomed him with a cordial nod. Damen nodded too but didn’t offer his own name in return.
“From the castle, huh?” Fausto gave him the once-over. “You’re not the one who usually comes from the castle. A woman does. Once a month or so. Older, keloid scars on her face—like stripes, know her?”
“Yes,” Damen was forced to answer. Only one woman from the castle staff had that pattern of scars on her face, and he didn’t want to have to explain how Madam Meilyn had met her demise. He quickly changed the subject. “I need paper and charcoal.”
