by Ben Alderson
Slowly, he raised both his hands, and black shadow seeped like hungry clouds towards the five bodies. One by one, the shadow disappeared into their open mouths and filled them entirely until not a sliver of shadow was left out.
“Stand.” I shivered under Gordex’s command.
It seemed the entire city watched from hidden shadows as the five bodies stood from the ground, spears and blade still stabbed into them. Their bodies clicked aloud as the shadow made them stand, controlling them like a new born fawn with no grasp on the use of its legs.
“Monster,” Queen Kathine spat. I was not sure if it was aimed at Gordex or me. “Goddess knows you are a monster.”
I could have stopped this.
It was all so wrong. They were nothing more than kids. Brave enough to face an enemy, but naive not to see he would destroy them.
I should have stopped this.
Burning heat crawled up my legs, numbing my body and mind. Anger.
My own taunting message spun in my mind in a violent vortex of hate. I didn’t register as my hand slacked and dropped Queen Kathine’s chain. My mind was occupied on the magick I released and the wind I connected to. My power, it was tainted, vile and alien since Gordex claimed it. But before it was his, it was mine.
Gordex snapped his head towards me, but it was too late for him. Even Marthil didn’t have time to reach out and stop me.
With a breath, I thrust my air forward until it met shadow.
My move had been made.
I siphoned my magick into the five bodies that stood before us. Silver strands of visible power forced their way into the newly created shadowbeings, and it followed my one command. I annihilated all shadow within them, just like I’d done at the temple in Thalas. It was exhilarating, latching onto my power for the first time in days. It was stronger, hungry and fresh. Heart Magick. It sang in my blood like purple light, urging for more of my mind. It was a physical representation of fury. Overwhelming and wild.
The five bodies dropped back to the ground, dead. This time, for good. I was too late to prevent their deaths, but I could at least make sure they were free of Gordex’s ungodly grasp.
A flash of light lit my mind, and I faltered. A cold bite nipped into the left of my stomach, and my knees collided with the ground. I released my magick, now focused on the warm in my side. My vision doubled, but I didn’t need it to see what had happened. I could feel the dagger that was lodged to the hilt in my skin. It tickled my insides, draining my magick as I bled down myself.
“It would seem you have not learned anything, Zacriah,” Gordex said, his voice dripping with humor. I peered up, looking away from the blooming patch of red at my side. His yellowed smile was the last thing I saw before darkness swallowed me entirely.
I CAME AROUND to the soft brush of a finger across my forehead. Round and round, it danced in circles, sending pleasurable shivers down my arms and legs. I nuzzled close into Hadrian. The haze was still thick in my mind, enough for me to forget. But it took seconds for the clouds to pass and reality to return.
I bolted up, gasping for breath. A spasm of discomfort pinched in my side, so I slammed my hand above it. I was topless, a patch of white cloth had been placed above the origin of my pain.
“I have been waiting for you to wake for a while now,” a deep voice uttered beside me. I had been too focused on the memory of being stabbed to check my surroundings. I scolded myself instantly for my lack of awareness.
“Petrer?” I croaked, vision blurry as I took a moment to get used to the light.
He was perched on the edge of my bed, his hands half hovering in the air. The tickling, it was not Hadrian. It had been Petrer. My stomach turned, jolting violently. He’d touched me with his vile, murderous hands.
“The one any only,” Petrer replied, a grin overtaking his entire face.
I mumbled over my words, shaking my head and rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Surely this was an apparition, an illusion of kinds caused by the stabbing. I’d not seen him since the fight on the ship when he dragged his knife across Browlin’s neck.
“Stop jolting about unless opening your wound is what you want to happen,” Petrer said, reaching across the bed and grasping the tops of my arms. “I’m not happy about it, but the lack of willing healers meant I had to stitch you up myself. Goddess knows I didn’t inherit my mother’s ability to knit.”
“Get off me!” I muttered, yanking my arms from his grasp.
Red crawled up his neck. “Zac, stop.”
His hands clasped on with more vigor, and he hissed as he attempted to pull me back again. Having his hands on me repulsed me to the edge of madness. I didn’t care if the stitches ripped; I wanted him away from me.
“Get off!” The clapping sound of my hand connecting with his face was blissful.
His head snapped backwards. As he turned to look at me, he had his own hand pressed protectively to his cheek. I peeped the red mark I had left him.
“Touch me again and it will be much worse for you.” My warning boiled in the space between us.
“Now, Zac.” He dropped his hand to show the river of red leaking from the corner of his mouth. With one great swipe of his tongue he dragged the blood and smeared it across his lips. “Is there much need for such disdain towards me? All I have done is help you, but I see our time apart has not helped you distinguish my kindness from the warped view you have of me.”
“Leave now. Get out.” My voice cracked. Was it fear from him being close or the lack of my own energy that scared me? I couldn’t fight him off, not with this stabbing pain in my side.
“Not until I check on your wound,” Petrer said, his smile melting from his face. “Unless you would prefer the Druid to do it himself?”
I paused. I would rather they both not check.
“I’ll do it myself.”
“No, Zac. No, you won’t. Lie back down and keep your hands to yourself,” he commanded.
I flinched as he reached out. Laying myself down before he could reach out and make me do it, I bit down on the insides of my cheeks to still the repulsion that flooded me.
“I’m truly happy to see you again, Zac. We left on such bad terms, and I’ve been sick with worry since. This seems to be the universe’s way of giving me a chance to make it up to you again. To get back to those old days between us.”
I winced as he pulled back the bandage to reveal my wound. I got a quick look at the raised mark, enough to see that it was free from infection. It was red, but no more than any other minor mark would be.
“I’ve found it to be terribly lonely without you. Your company always got me through those boring days back home in Horith, and it has been lacking since he took you away from me.”
I tried my best to block out his words. I didn’t believe them, nor did I want to hear them.
“You want to harm me, don’t you?” He gently placed the bandage back down and withdrew himself from me. “Your eyes burn with your desire to cause me pain.”
“Do you blame me?” I said, unsure where my question came from.
Petrer was deranged and a murderer. As I looked upon the boy I once knew, I could see his expression when he dragged the dagger across Browlin’s neck.
He shrugged and stood, his frame towering above me.
“Then why don’t you do it?” he asked. “Why not finish me off right here, right now? Nothing is stopping you, and between me and you, I quite fancy a little tussle. Just like the old days.” He winked, his dark eyes reflecting with malic and hunger. “Well?”
I pushed myself up to sitting, trying not to show the discomfort my side caused me. “Not now.”
“Of course not.” He laughed. “That wouldn’t be your style, would it?”
“You don’t know the slightest thing about me, Petrer.” I spat his name, allowing my hate for him clear with each letter.
“Maybe I don’t.” He took a breath, running his eyes up and down every inch of me. “Your wound is healing nicely, I think in a couple
of days you will be right as rain. Until then, you must rest and let your body heal naturally. Marthil is growing something that may help speed future healing along, but I’m certain you will not be acting out again. Isn’t that right?”
I didn’t reply. Never again would I make promises to comply. I twisted in my seat, causing my wound to burn like liquid fire.
“You know as well as I that Gordex would never have hurt you if you didn’t go against him. And so publicly. That didn’t help your cause. Why didn’t you learn from the first time?”
The first time Gordex had caused me pain was no more than a few slaps across my face and his fingers around my throat. This was different. I’d grown used to him not punishing me that I was blind-sided when he stabbed me.
“And I suppose you would have stopped him if you were there? Save me?”
“Who knows what would have happened, Zac. Stop acting like the hero. You might end up with a few less scars.”
Hero? I’d acted like no hero. I’d stood back and hid in my room as the rightful Queen was taken through her city with a chain like a prized animal. I was a bystander, which, in a matter of ways, was worse than that of a person who committed the crime and horrors.
The many days had given me more time to think than I cared for. All I wanted was to go home, not to save the world, not to have this power anymore. I wanted home. The smells of the hearth mingled with Mam’s baking. The farm. The dusty books Fa brought home for me. And my friends. I wanted them back.
Hadrian. I wanted him more than anything else.
“Why are you here?” I tipped my head to the side, squinting my gaze at Petrer. His complexion glowed in the morning light that shone from the open balcony. “Why now? After a week of me being kept here you decide to show up when I’m hurt. It would seem that it is you who is acting as the great Hero now.”
Petrer rocked back on his feet, sticking his hands in the pockets of his trousers. I caught the hilt of a dagger strapped to his waist. Only briefly but it was there. Of course, he came with protection of his own. The last time we were in a similar situation I was captive on a ship after he forced a band of gold around my wrist. He didn’t look much different from then either. His short, coal-colored hair was still in perfect curls. He’d eaten in the past weeks, that was clear. Even trained by the looks of his bulging arms. Not a single sign of suffering visible on the boy before me.
“I am no hero. I just picked the right side, simple as that. And to answer your question, the other loyal shifters and myself have only just arrived in this city. Otherwise, you would’ve seen my face sooner.”
Only just arrived? What was keeping them from Lilioira for so long?
“And I was the first thing you had to see?”
“No question about it. You might not believe it, but I have worried about you. Stuck with that prince, nothing good would come for you. I’m glad, beyond words, that you are here. Back with me where I can do my job and keep you from harms reach.”
A deranged laugh burst past my lips. “The day I believe those words is the day I no longer can hear. Go, Petrer, before I make you.” I injected as much threat in my voice as I could muster.
Reaching for my magick pained me still. Knowing the Druid was linked like the tight binding of a chain always made it harder. But wind listened to my call and roared beyond the window of my room. Petrer regarded it for a moment and took a few steps towards the main door.
“I will not give up on you like you gave up on me, Zac. I will keep fighting for you until I prove you are mine.”
“Don’t you see? There is nothing to fight for. You lost me when you bedded someone else. Now get out.”
A strange shadow passed behind Petrer’s wide, dark eyes. A twisting snake of black that moved to make itself known. The Druid’s power. Still it leaked within him.
Petrer reached a hand for mine which lay on the bed. As he moved, I yanked it from his reach and snarled. I thought he would give up. But with speed of a beast he lunged forward, encasing my hand in his vice grip.
“If kindness is not what you respond to, I will use other means. You have forced my hand, Zac. This is your fault.”
I cried out as my fingers clicked beneath his force. Then as quickly as he held on, he let go. Hugging my hand to my chest, I looked up at Petrer through tears. Not of sadness, but of hate.
“What happened to you?” I croaked through a cry.
“What hasn’t?” Petrer responded, turned and left me to my own thoughts.
The rest of that day and the two that followed, I hardly slept. And when I did, black feathers and eyes full of hate were all I could see. There was something about Petrer that made me feel more unsafe than I had with the Druid alone. A strange twisted evil that I had hoped was the result of Gordex and his strange grasp on Petrer. But I was wrong. Petrer always had a seed of potential revulsion within him.
He just needed the Druid’s power to water it and give it life to flourish.
Only King Dalior’s chest moved. The rest of him was as still as stone. I’d spent hours staring at him, hoping to see a sign that he was finally waking and not lost to this eternal slumber. But it never happened. His chest would rise and fall, his mouth parting ever so slightly. But not once did his eyes open and the flush of life return to his paled skin.
He was not dead. No, this was different. Perhaps even worse.
Since Gordex had taken me to see King Dalior on the day Lilioira fell, I had visited him as often as I could. Every moment that was not occupied with feasts and hiding, I came here.
I hoped the King dreamed as he was laid within his glass coffin, sealed from the world beyond. That simple thought warmed my heart. I wondered often if he saw his son, Hadrian, during his peaceful slumber. Was he unaware of the turmoil the world beyond his coffin was in? There wasn’t any point trying to open it, Gallion had warned me of that. He said if the glass broke, King Dalior would die. So, instead, I would just watch from the side, taking in the figure of Hadrian’s father.
The glass coffin was a strange contraption. It was made half from wood and the top from a clear glass that allowed me to look in without blind spots. Silken, plush cushions kept the sleeping King aloft, his head raised slightly compared to the rest of his tall frame.
Just as the Druid posed as him, King Dalior’s long midnight hair shone. Although his eyes were closed, I could already imagine the gray eyes that I had seen back in Olderim. The very eyes that Gordex wore as part of his disguise. He was full and looked healthy. Asleep. Alive. Not dead as we first thought. I’d cried, wasted countless moments in pure disarray that Hadrian had no clue of his father’s state. I couldn’t tell him he was alive. It broke me inside, ripped my heart in two every time I laid eyes upon the sleeping king.
“The Goddess told Hadrian you were still alive,” I said, opting to tell him this story today. “If only you could understand the hope it gave him. Hadrian would give everything to see you. He missed you dearly. Just as I miss him now.”
It was the silent moments when I looked upon the King that I thought of Hadrian. He’d escaped with Gallion before the Druid’s siege, but had they found a way back to Nyah? Was Hadrian awake and well? All questions I would ask when I could risk communicating with Nyah.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried. I’d lost count of the number of times her cold trickle ran down my mental wall. But with Gordex close, I wouldn’t risk it. I worried he would find them if he sensed her trying to get through. He seemed to know she was doing it when he stepped through the dark portal into Lilioira.
Gordex kept me close for some reason. Was he waiting for me to communicate, so he could use his mysterious powers to locate them? I would rather be alone and know they were away from his reach. I only hoped they would find a way back soon though. I didn’t know how long I could keep this up here.
A shuffling of feet sounded behind me. Turning on my heel, I expected to see Petrer, or Gordex. But it was Marthil who watched me from the shadowed doorway of the dark room.
She leaned up against the stone archway, bright eyes standing out even in the dark.
“Thought I’d find you here.” Marthil stepped forward into the cramped room.
I’d not shared many words with her in private, only passing snarls she gave me and burning looks. Never had she activity come looking for me.
“What do you want?”
“Many things.”
She was dressed in a muddy brown tunic that was cinched in at her waist. Her boots were laced up to her knees which blended seamlessly into the black trousers she had opted to wear today. She looked like a vagrant, one who’d seen much in a short life.
I moved from King Dalior’s glass coffin and towards the door. I was in no mood for conversations with my captors.
“Gordex told me to speak to you. You see, he’s fed up waiting for you to heal now. I’ve been told to tell you that you’re not allowed to miss supper tonight. A lot has happened whilst you’ve been sleeping, and Gordex wants to see you and update you on all the exciting events you’ve missed.”
“I am tired. I need to rest.” I kept my head down, trying to get out of the small room. “I’ve still not healed fully—"
“Here, I’ve something that might help.” She thrust a hand out. In it was a strange vial. “It’s for your wound. Taken me days to grow the right herb, so don’t say you are not taking it because I’ll make you. Should sort out that little cut of yours.”
As she referred to my wound, the stitches in my side twanged. The pain and swelling had reduced tenfold over the past days, but it still caused me discomfort. The threads had grown loose, even beginning to fall out of my scabbed scar.
“I think I’ll pass on that,” I said, side eyeing the vial with distrust.
“Take it. Unless you like the thought of getting an infection. The longer that cut lingers the more of a chance you will catch some nasties inside it.”
She referred to it as a cut, but we both knew it was much more than something so simple.
“And why do you care if I heal or not?” A dark feeling turned within me. It didn’t belong to me, but I didn’t have a moment to register how fast it came on.
