by Brandon Barr
Meluscia scanned over the first list, her heart aching. It was a daunting task her father performed. How would her handling of each problem affect the Hold? Though she believed it would be for the better, it was still imaginary. Her own convictions were unproven, and they would always be unless tried on the reality of her father’s throne.
The weight of kingdom politics, as her father said, was a heavy load. She felt the investment it would take on her life more heavily than ever before. She was so close to the possibility of becoming Luminess that the very real demands were all the more tangible.
Including the demand that she forsake the love of a man. One couldn’t give their baby a breast while leading armies, or stay up nights soothing away cries when rest was needed to face the next morning’s political challenges. The Hold was not like the two Sea Kingdoms, whose Queen rulers handed their infants off for servants to raise. Her people held to the sacred teachings and traditions, and though they were hard as a diamond hammerstone upon a young woman with an eye for leadership, the bonds her people had between mother and child ran strong, even into the high imperial families whose Regents oversaw the fourteen regions of the Blue Mountains.
Her thoughts turned briefly to Adulyyn, the Regent she was to meet two days from now. To rule as she did, Adulyyn had forsaken a man’s love her entire life.
Meluscia saw beauty and purpose behind the sacrifice. There was a power the Luminesses of the past had drawn from their denial of sexual intimacy and children. The people of the Hold were their family. Monaiella, in her short reign, had made it a point to eat and visit with citizens when passing through the Blue Mountains, almost always sleeping on the floor of a servant’s home rather than the extra bed of the town’s overseer. Denial of privilege and comfort for the sake of the Hold was a pleasure in itself.
But Meluscia couldn’t deceive herself. Certain aspects came more easily to her nature than others. But then, the value was in the cost. Selfishness was easy, sacrificing one’s desires for the good of the whole was not.
Had not the gods designed life to be such? Food came from hard labor, greatness came through sacrifice, love came by selflessness. The sacred writings seemed clear on one thing: a good, worthwhile life was not painless or simple, but one of faithfulness through adversity. Faithfulness to the gods’ wisdom scrawled down by human hands.
But curses! Where were the Makers now? It felt as if mankind were forgetting them…or had the Makers chosen to leave them on their own?
Meluscia found herself staring blankly down at the parchment she’d been handed. She placed it back in Crocido’s hand with a thank you and moved into the long torchlit hall.
Ahead, the oven fires glowed out upon the tunnel walls from where they lay in the belly of the kitchens. The air was warmer here, and throngs of servants busied about, carrying food away or bringing requests. The entire Hold was living on tight rations. Except for her and her sister, who could eat whatever they liked. Her father was adamant about surviving without the Verdlands’ resources and that meant the servants were forced to eat whatever was left after the Luminar, his family, officials and soldiers took the best foods.
Sweating in front of a large oven was Mairena, one of the kitchen matrons. She spotted Meluscia and her eyes smiled but not her lips.
“Has your father made you Luminess yet?” said Mairena in a low voice that barely rose above the din of the kitchen. Mairena was a delightfully bold woman and Meluscia was relieved she did not speak for others to hear.
“I’m becoming afraid he will never do so,” said Meluscia.
“You know how we feel about you. You would bring hope back to the mountain for everyone.”
By we, Mairena meant the servants, the commoners.
“I’ve come with meal requests for the week.”
“What shall we make this time for the biggest eater in the Hold?”
“I’ll take the ration meals all week. You know what to do with my food. Double portions. Spread it out.”
Mairena’s smile flattened out, weighed down by the tears forming in her eyes. “At least have your breakfasts, dear. I know how much you like breakfast.”
“Not this week. Make sure to tell them who it’s from.”
“I know,” said Mairena. “The Luminar and his daughter.”
Meluscia left the Kitchen and, to her dismay, she wondered if she were not sadder than when she had arrived. Was her act of kindness a vain hope to the servants and no longer a promise of things to come?
In the sparse shaft light of the tunnels, the darkness closed in on her. Her father’s inability to see her leading the Hold felt like a betrayal. He had encouraged her at first, until the blight struck, and his entire mindset turned. She had been preparing herself and arranging her life to be Luminess since she turned sixteen, and now, a month away from twenty-three, to be in between a yes and a no from her father at this stage was painful. She was isolated from the people passing her by in the tunnel who had more normal families and time for friendship. What had pouring herself into studying history and politics achieved for her?
The gift of knowing and loving people long dead? A father unimpressed by her long hours of study and preparation? Was all the time sitting in on his judgments in the throne room a waste?
At the very least, she could take hope in the fact that she wasn’t sitting idly by to let her father decide. The closer he came to his last days, the more pressure she felt to assert her power. Soon, she’d be meeting with Adulyyn in hopes of influencing the thirteen other Regents at their quarterly council.
Still, she couldn’t stop. She had to do more.
But first, a reprieve from the heavy burdens on her mind.
Her bedroom was not her destination any longer. When she reached the guarded spiral staircase that led to her and Savarah’s private quarters, she shut the oak door behind her and stared at the dimly lit stairs. To the right of the chiseled stone steps was a wall of blackness. A secret passageway lay beyond the shadowless dark, and it beckoned her, promising her things she craved.
Sights that weren’t hers to see, and words that were not for her ears to hear. But…despite the voice in her head telling her to walk away, she couldn’t.
With a sigh, she broached the passageway.
Chapter Nine
MELUSCIA
Meluscia stretched out her hand to feel the cold stone at the end of the dark. Her fingertips found their mark, and she worked her way deeper into the crevasse until her hand brushed past a crack in the rock. A small opening. Blackness shrouded in blackness, cut off from the shaft light above. She wriggled into the narrow space. It was close to sixty paces of walking slantwise through the fissure, likely a lava run nearly as ancient as the mountain itself. Blindly hugging the wall, she traversed what she surmised was an old spy passageway.
Slowly, the space opened wider, and then light began to filter through small holes bored in the rock. A whispered voice inside told her to turn around and go back…that if she wanted to be a Luminess she couldn’t continue to lurk in this hidden corridor. But it was chased away by the rejection from her father and goaded on by the distant Makers whose silence left her own shame buried and undisturbed.
Besides, the promise of what lay ahead fed an empty hunger that was never too far away.
Voices echoed faintly as she passed illuminated slits in the rock. The openings fed into what were now the head servants’ rooms. Meluscia guessed at one time in this mountain’s history, they had been the rooms of foreign dignitaries.
Meluscia counted the slits until she arrived at the eleventh one. She peered carefully through the opening. Warm relief tingled through her insides. She wouldn’t have to settle for her second- or third- favorite couple to quench her curiosities and longings.
Mica and Praseme were both in their quarters, and to her delight, she’d caught them sharing a moment of intimacy…this was what she needed. This was what she craved right now. Amidst her crushed hopes, when she needed someone to love her and pi
ck up her broken pieces, she could survive by living through the love of others.
Praseme lay reclined in Mica’s arms upon a cushion of pillows, her tunic rolled up over her stomach. Mica’s strong hands traced slowly back and forth, up and down, over his wife’s barely swollen belly.
Such an intimate moment. It was uncommon to spend an hour watching Mica and Praseme and not overhear warm words or see long drawn-out kisses. If Meluscia came at the right time of day, she could be there for what usually was a sweet lingering kiss good-bye as Praseme left for her duties in the kitchen. There were other servants that she occasionally watched when Mica and Praseme were gone, but she’d grown accustomed to their comings and goings, and more times than not, she would only come to the spy tunnel when Mica and Praseme were likely to be there.
It was only a year ago that she discovered the forgotten tunnel and, since finding it, it had become a small obsession.
Nothing she couldn’t control, though she craved it at times like these, when her soul felt empty and worthless and watching others live life together filled a little of the void in her heart. At the very least, it helped feed her own love for the imaginary Jonakin. Mica’s strength and charm deepened Jonakin’s image in her mind. Made him more real and needed. In a way, she supposed Jonakin was growing more like Mica. Was becoming Mica.
She saw herself in her mind, reclining in Jonakin’s arms, her belly just beginning to hint at the growing life inside. Meluscia was the same size as Praseme—stomach and all—only her own slight paunch did not have the adorable validation behind it that Praseme’s did.
She could be her. Be with him—with Mica—now. Meluscia smiled and touched her own belly. Its slight bulge was not the hint of a babe, but only of the fine food of a Luminar’s daughter. She’d lost some of that girth recently, eating the servants’ slop. Another month, and she might actually be as thin as Praseme was before she was with child.
Seeing Praseme there in Mica’s arms, the perfect peace on her lips, her face so calm, Meluscia couldn’t help feeling envious. She tried to imagine the comfort Praseme must feel…a baby growing inside…the steady, faithful love of a tender husband, his hands caressing her belly, his body warming her back.
Praseme worked in the kitchen as an apprentice cook and a scrubber. Mica was one of the three horse masters in charge of the stable grounds, overseeing the health of the Luminar’s three hundred horses. He had eight men under his lead when on duty, and Meluscia had gone and visited him on a few occasions, creating reasons to speak to him.
Those short, cordial exchanges always left her wanting more.
More time. And the freedom to press beyond benign politeness.
To press against him.
She smiled at the thought.
Meluscia’s attention returned to the two lovers below. Mica whispered something to Praseme and her barely parted lips spread to show her white teeth. She rolled her head to the side, and Mica seemed to know instinctively what she wanted of him. His head bent down, and he began to softly kiss her neck.
Meluscia closed her eyes and imagined it. Jonakin’s words: You’re beautiful…You’re mine…I love you. And then the kisses on her neck. She imagined them like scintillating sparks, burning, moist. The thought of it prickled the hair on her arms and neck. You’re an amazing Luminess. Your passion and care make the citizens of the Hold feel safe. I hear it everywhere. Meluscia has transformed the Kingdom. She would say words back. Her concerns for the people living on the fringes bordering the Star Garden Realm. How the monstrosities seem relentless. And Jonakin would reassure her. Believe in her. His faith in her abilities would feed her inner strength.
The deep darkness of the tunnel should have been cold around her, but warm blood coursed through her veins.
She imagined her father relenting. Declaring her Luminess Imminent, and her traveling to the Verdlands. Who would she take beside Savarah? Would her father’s peace proposal come anywhere close to making the amends it needed to?
A sound, as primal as the soul itself, stirred her from her daydreams. How long had she been swept away? The sound drew her to the slit in the rock. She peered through.
Her heart caught in her chest.
Praseme lay beneath Mica’s moving body, her hands pressed against his back, feet hooked over his naked legs. He was making love to her.
A voice inside Meluscia’s head told her to turn away. To leave.
Meluscia stepped back into the darkness, but the moment she did, she felt a hollow fear—intangible at first until she recognized her own self-deceit. Underneath her posturing, was this not secretly something she hoped to see one day? Something, that if she became Luminess, she would never experience in reality? Would she dare run away, now? Was it not the physical culmination of why she’d been coming to the spy-passage the past year?
And of all the servants’ quarters she’d found with warm relationships, Mica and Praseme’s youthful love was the most captivating. She stood frozen for only a moment, then like a dark storm cloud opening its flood gates, she rushed quickly back to the shadowed spy-hole. Mica’s hands gently played and tugged in Praseme’s hair. Their every movement and breath shouted into the deep void felt in Meluscia’s soul: the song being sung before her filled an emptiness, echoing its music in hollow flesh, creating the delicious impression of substance.
A longing grew in her, like musical notes steadily rising toward a crescendo, matching the passion taking place before her eyes. To be there, in that moment. To be where Praseme lay. To have the substance of Mica—everything that he was—his words, his love, the physical power and intimacy of his body, impressed so securely into her form. Keeping out the cold world like a hand in a mitten.
The hungry warmth stirring inside Meluscia began to burn. Aching for consummation. Growing stronger as she watched.
Mica and Praseme’s love song sprang from something as solid and real as the mountain itself, but when it reached Meluscia’s eyes and ears it was disembodied, genuine but untouchable.
Fiery flames licked inside with no water to put them out.
Meluscia found her hands clenched into fists as Mica and Praseme finally lay still. Slowly, she unwound each finger. Only moments ago the two lovers were powerfully abandoned to each other, but now their forms lay dormant, tranquil.
Meluscia stepped into the darkness, surprised at her own emotions. Her hands shook. She pressed her fingers flat against her chest to calm herself, but she couldn’t soothe away the powerful desire within her. It was stirred up inside like coals blown to a bright orange burning. Her appetite was ravenous, her thirst, unquenchable. And there they lay: satisfied, whole.
She glanced one last time through the slit. Mica’s muscular arm was wrapped over Praseme, his hand softly stroking her back. The two whispered words that floated up to the concealed shadows where Meluscia stood. Words about the child in Praseme’s belly. Mica laughed at some humor Praseme spoke. Meluscia didn’t understand the humor in it, for the words came with a history that only the two of them shared.
Meluscia turned away, numb. The walk back to her room was long, and when she called up Jonakin from the mists of her mind, she found his presence did not warm her. His supportive words, his intimate touch, his love making—they lacked fire and feeling.
Savarah had asked her if Jonakin was a ghost. If only he were, thought Meluscia. A ghost was real, at least.
She lifted her hands and stared at her palms and fingers. They felt so cold.
Chapter Ten
SAVARAH
Savarah ran like an animal for hours. Wet leaves and mud clung to her feet in silent surrender, and birds beat their wings before her in frantic flight. Slung across one shoulder and hooked to her belt was a fawnskin quiver of four arrows. A short bow was tied loosely against the white-speckled fur. She dragged a rope behind her that ended in a bundled knot of ketvell flowers.
Enough to drive the big cats to complete madness.
She was alive with power. A luminous energy carr
ied her feet further and faster and more nimbly than ever before. A bitch hungry for her pups. A hunter of assassins. An unfaithful wife. A bent, toothless hag restored to her youth. She was like these things and a dozen other living images that swam through her mind.
The dank smell of algae and warm, sitting water finally slowed her legs. A marsh filled the flat gully capping the east-most finger of the valley. It was where Orum knew she would make her camp. She found a tree overhanging the water and climbed to where two upper limbs narrowly split, it was high enough to be out of reach of the tigers. She tossed the ketvell into the grass below. With care, she unbound her quiver and laid it flat between the junction of the two branches, securing the leather chords to each limb. Her bed made, she climbed down the tree and began to pace the perimeter of the marsh, bow and arrows attached to her belt.
She would betray her master, Isolaug. For he had hidden something from her, something beautiful, and had smeared its splendor in shit. Words, words, and more words, until everything was so twisted around, his lie was like a dark poetic knot. But she’d unraveled it.
She wanted to destroy her master. Destroy everything she’d helped build for him.
Sweat glistened on her arms, trickled down her face, ran to the corners of her lips. Blood, brain matter, ragged tendons and torn muscle—she could see the gore drenching her, swelling up and up to the one being at the pinnacle of her newborn hatred.
She didn’t know where to start, or how it would end. She knew only what she wanted, and it felt good.
A small shelled thing wriggled in the wet vegetation. She scooped it up quickly, pinching its neck with her thumb and forefinger, so it could not tuck its head back into the shell. A young terrapin. Red and yellow stripes ran beneath its eye down to its neck. She placed the head in her mouth and bit until she felt the skull pop, then dropped it into the grass. She found more as she walked the marsh. One fled toward deeper waters. She pursued it, the cool mud and silt squishing between her toes and sliding up her sore calves. The eleventh carcass had just fallen from her fingers when she spotted the figure moving toward her along the marsh’s edge.
