The victim has no tongue!
Half-screaming, half-sobbing, I claw desperately at the side of the creek-bed, pulling myself over its sticky slope. The smell engulfs me. I lean over and retch. My stomach twists and turns, but there is nothing left to choke up. Cramps immobilize my legs, and I fall helplessly against a tree, clutching the rough bark beneath my hands. Hands that have decades of humanity coating them. Decades of pain and decay.
Human components stick to my legs. I unscrew the cap of the water pouch and pour a stream of the liquid down my thighs. The filth descends down my legs onto the ground. My skin feels clean – yet dirty. I look at the thousands of lives in the creek-bed – the thousands of lives that Celectate Wood took – and my nails dig into the tree bark again. Damn him! Damn the devil!
How many of those people were innocent? How many of them fought to stay alive in this wretched place? How many gave up and died? How many took the poison pill that Celectate Wood gave them?
I stare at the vial slid into the rawhide around my waist. It gleams up at me, the only beacon of hope in this dismal place. If things come to worst – would I be able to take it?
No! No! I mentally slap myself. Then strike my own cheek with a knuckled hand until I see stars. I must remain strong. I must think positively. But no matter how hard I try to imagine the sun shining above the blackened trees, the lands that surely rest beyond this forest, I find myself looking at the creek – and it’s the only thing that looks peaceful and comforting. No more pain. No more suffering. Will I be one of those decomposing bodies?
“You won’t die.” Well, it was easy for Selena to say.
But . . . I press aching palms to my temples. I know more about the Wilds than any person in Kirath. I studied – for years. I have seen a demon – a cannibal – from the Wilds and lived to tell the tale. I have made it farther than even Lord Telman. I am not dead. I am not in pieces. I am not beaten yet.
Celectate Wood had been smiling – smiling – when I’d jumped over the slope’s edge. He’d been so sure of himself. So sure that I’d grovel and cry and plead for mercy. So sure that I’d fall to the same fate as Lord Telman and a thousand others.
But Landor had thrown me a dagger – his dagger. His symbol of loyalty and his one tie to the Celectate. He believes in me. He believes I can make it. Mother hadn’t shed a single tear. She’d smiled and praised me – she knows I can make it.
Picking myself up takes every last ounce of strength I possess. The scar on my shoulder burns hot. I haven’t had much time to look at it. Now, as I walk, I trace its form. Trace the lines. The skin it burned away. I feel like dirt. Like one of those decomposing bodies.
“Go to hell,” Aspen had said.
I have.
When I finally stop, I cannot tell if it is night or day. All I know is it feels like I’ve been in this darkness for an eternity. My feet are wet and sticky with what I know is blood, staining the brown sandals a permanent copper color.
I have to sit. And sit I do. On a black tree root as thick as two men. The rough bark scratches the skirt of my tunic. Scrapes the back of my thighs. I pull the skirt down to my knees but it snaps back up and flutters at mid-thigh.
No longer do I feel a humid heat lingering about my face. Instead, a cool breeze blows. Not from east or west. The trees are too thick. From above my head, swirling down into pockets of damp and dismal underbrush. There is no escape from it.
It is night. The chill has joined it, and I have no sleeves, no blanket, and no fire to keep me warm.
There are no leaves to pile around myself for comfort or protection from the cold and wildlife. I unsheathe my knife and lay it beside my head atop the tree trunk, inches from my hands. If worst comes to worse, thank the gods I know how to throw it. I rarely miss anymore.
My body begins to shake as icy prickles tingle along my body. I struggle to keep my hands warm against my mouth. Hands that hold the vial of death. A death with no cold or pain or suffering. The ice has done nothing for my backside. The wounds, which have yet to be cleaned, crackle and bleed as the scabs open up against the harsh bark of the tree, my only shelter against the wind. Everything in this forest defies nature.
I stare at the vial in my hand, eyelashes heavy with the ice beginning to form upon them. Everything within me says to throw it away. To cast it into the forest. Figures dance before me. Figures of horror. Their limbs hang in strange shapes around their body. Their faces are in different states of decomposition. Their eyes are hollow and lifeless. They hold out gnarled arms, flesh peeling from their finger-bones, and beckon me to join them. To ease my pain and suffering. To be free of it. I am outnumbered. And yet, my heart – which pumps the blood that calls for my defeat – pounds a living rhythm in my chest.
Death is my choice.
My shoulder joins the spirits of the outcast ghosts before me by screaming for peace. With the scar I, too, am an outcast. Never again can I cross the Wall and enter Kelba. I will be found. I will be killed. Or will be placed in a cage and sent back here. Several people tried to do so when they were ostracized. They were dismembered, piece by piece, and hung in cages along the Wall, facing the Wilds. Some were whipped through the streets. And others were returned to the Wilds and never seen again.
Around me, the horrifying figures of death laugh at me. Call me “foolish.” They tell me to take the pill. To end it. To not hope for something that will never come. I will die eventually. They remind me of the horrible tales surrounding the wasteland. The tales of cannibals and monsters too horrifying to comprehend. I must take the pill – I am nothing now. Death would be the best place for me.
“Death wants you,” one of the figures whispers, the bony hand halting inches from my own.
I close my eyes, blotting out their faces, their taunts, their seductive whispers. A smooth brush across my cheek fills my insides with tranquil quiet. All the turmoil in my mind eases away into nothingness. My hand tightens around the vial – the pill. It would be a painless death as the poison shut down all my senses, then my heart. I would be at peace. No more suffering. No more worrying about the damned devil in Kelba or the fate of my family. I could leave it all behind.
“You can rest,” the sultry voice whispers, bare meters from my ear. I can feel the cold – but also the warmth – from whatever creature lurks near me. “Join us.”
The rebellion curls inside of me – but its claws are missing. I can’t fight the wave of soft heat that bristles across my skin. I don’t have to open my eyes to know that the deceased have drawn closer.
My body lightens and sleep weighs heavily against my eyes. Arms encircle me – warm, loving, friendly. Memories flash in my mind: Mother holding me as a child, laughing joyfully at my first steps, my first dance, my first drawing. Father teaching me to dance, his arm firm around my waist, his smile full of pride, and Landor’s firm stance behind me as he directed my daggers, my mind, my focus. I wish I could see them. I struggle to picture their faces. Mother’s beautiful blue eyes, which I did not inherit. Father’s dimples. Landor’s smug smile.
A white flash ignites against my eyes, blinding me, cracking me full in the forehead, spreading talons over the back of my head. I scream, but it doesn’t stop. Everything spins and swirls around me, as if my body is flying through a maze, a whirlwind. A portal of bright light somewhere at the end of the swirling mass fills my vision. I cannot stand the brightness any longer.
I open my eyes.
I don’t see the forest. I don’t see the pill. I don’t see the deceased. Instead I am in my house. In the foyer of my home!
It is night. The beautiful, ornate candles are lit along the stairwell and there’s a light beneath the door of my Father’s study. A shadow moves inside. I reach out to touch the candle nearest me, but my fingers grab nothing but air. It is not real. I am not really there. The corners of my vision are blurry and frayed, like an old picture. Like I’m looking through a lens. But I am there. I smell, I taste, I sense the room. The lilac flowers on the ta
ble nearest the door. The towering chandelier above my head. The familiar scent of Father’s strongest wine.
The study door opens and Father, pale as a ghost, steps into the foyer.
“Papa!”
He shows no sign that he’s heard me, his eyes staring straight at me – but not at me. They are listless and dry, like he hasn’t slept in decades. His hair is uncombed and wild around his head and his clothes – I wrinkle my nose. He smells strongly – too strongly – of wine. He stumbles against the frame of the door.
“Elinor!”
She comes down the stairs, elegance in her walk. Her usually pink cheeks are colorless and dry. The remains of a tissue are crumpled in her hand. She did cry for me. She did!
“Where is our son?” Father doesn’t even argue as she pulls the empty carafe from his hand and sets it on a nearby table. “He’s not back yet! That bastard sent for him and he’s not back yet! What’s he done with our son? Where’s our son, Elinor? Our son . . .” He loses his breath and stumbles forward.
Mother puts an arm to his chest and pushes him back. I see the twitch in her eyes as she struggles to remain calm – to hold that facade of strength around her, for Father’s sake. It nearly kills me to see her lips go deathly white. “He’s fine, Gavin. I swear, he’s fine.” The lie brings tears to both their eyes.
My heart pounds heavily as I watch Mother half-drag, half-carry Father into the solar and spread him over a sofa, calling for some “strong coffee.” Then . . .
“Hail, Sir Landor!”
My brother doesn’t even glance my direction – he can’t see me no matter how loud I scream at him – and barrels into the solar. My parents look up at his entrance, but don’t say a word. His back is to me so I can’t see his face, but it must be ghastly because Mother looks like someone struck her. Landor stands stiffly for a moment – then grabs the nearest glittering figurine from a table and hurls it across the room. Glass shatters.
“Do you know, Father? Do you know . . . ?” Landor kicks a three-leg mahogany table and it sails through the air. Wood cracks. He stares at father, back muscles tensing. “Do you know what that son of a bitch has just done?”
“Son . . .” Father attempts to speak.
“No!” Landor slams a fist against the arm of the sofa. “I say, ‘no!’ You hear me? No! He called me in there . . . and do you know what he said? He said that Kyla’s inheritance, the forty percent of the diamond mines that she would receive upon marriage, solely belongs to him because of her treachery. That he has the right to claim all the belongings of any traitors to him and his rule.”
“It is the law,” Father stammers.
“Damn the law! What law? He made the law, Father. He crafted it perfectly to make sure he profited from it. Him and only him! With Kyla’s inheritance, do you realize what he can do? He won’t need the Community. He won’t need us. He won’t need you. He already has the people hanging on his every word by whatever evil he secrets away from us. If he doesn’t need you, Father . . . if he doesn’t need the Community . . .” Landor cuts himself off and punches the arm of the sofa so hard the wood beneath creaks in protest. He shows no sign of pain as he stares relentlessly at Father. “Do something!”
Father practically flies from his reclined state and grabs my brother by the collar. I scream and so does Mother as he thrusts Landor up against the wall, knuckles white with strain, eyes dilated from too much alcohol. The anger fades from my brother’s face.
“What would you have me do!” Father screams. He tightens his hold until Landor chokes. Mother pulls at his shoulder but he doesn’t budge. “What can I do, son! I have struggled for years to keep that man from attaining his dreams. I have fought and bled until there is so much weight on my back I can barely stand. But in that fight I’ve learned something . . . and you might as well know it now before you get any reckless ideas in your head. I have done all I can – I have held my head high as a Community elder and struggled to keep this nation – my family – safe! I have fought . . .”
Slowly, his hands release Landor and he backs away. Landor sucks in a sharp breath and Mother gives a decent amount of space between them. Tears sting Father’s eyes.
“And it was not enough,” Father says. “I had to watch that man force his enemies into a wasteland left to hell . . . I had to watch one of my closest friends suffer beneath Celectate Wood’s thumb . . .” His lip quivers. “I had to watch my daughter bleed and suffer and take the stand I should have taken long ago. I had to watch your sister fight a fight that was too great for her to win . . . too big for a small warrior like her to stand victorious. And through every hour, every minute, I stood there I told myself to say something. To stop it all. To stand with her. Die with her. And I couldn’t. I didn’t move. I didn’t say anything. I left her to suffer on her own. I left my own daughter! I turned my back on her . . . to save my own life!”
He falls to the ground, sobs racking his body. Mother and Landor stare at him – I stare at him. My lungs feel so constricted. I want to run to him – put my arms around his neck and tell him it’s alright. I want to scream at him to get up – to stay strong. To fight. To wage a war against the Celectate that I could not.
“So that’s it?” Landor’s voice is angry again – and entwined with a bit of cynical cruelty I’d seldom seen in our growing up years. He looks at my father like one would a groveling beggar. “That’s all you’ve got in you? You feel guilty. You are guilty. I understand. So am I. I should have put a knife in that bastard’s back years ago . . . should have refused to cut up that merchant who didn’t buy the Celectate’s ‘tax’ papers. Should have refused to personally sack the village that didn’t send his highness a ‘fealty gift.’ Should have refused to hunt down the simple pheasants attempting to craft a rebellion against him. I am responsible for hundreds of lives lost – behind the Wall and inside Kelba itself. For thousands of weeping children. For spreading the evil I served.
“But I won’t do it anymore. Kyla took a stand where we would not. She said ‘no’ to his tyranny. To his dominion over us. To his power. She stood strong. She didn’t flinch or beg or grovel like a beaten pup. Do you know what I heard Celectate Wood say tonight when he thought I had gone? He swore he’d hunt down every last lord who dared vote for Kyla’s release . . . and he’d make them pay. I won’t let him. He already took my sister from me. He can’t have Kelba.
“So get up, Father. Behave in a manner deserving of Kyla’s sacrifice. Because she didn’t stand up there on that podium and refuse because of herself – No! She’d have gladly married Aspen if she knew it would protect us. She’d of allowed herself to be defiled and shamed if only to keep us safe. No! She refused on that podium because of us – because she had faith that her sacrifice would be revenged. She did it for you! And if you are too blind to see that, then you’re not the man I thought you were. Get up, Father!” He grabs Father’s arm roughly and jerks him to his feet, slamming a palm to his chest in the process. A palm to his heart. “If you loved her, Father . . . if your heart beats for that bastard’s blood as much as mine – vow to have it!”
That coldness in Landor’s eyes – the hate and the wrath and the lust curling within them – chills me to the bone.
“He will dispose of the Community,” Father says, his voice no longer quivering. Instead, his eyes are glinting too. “That we cannot stop.”
“No, we cannot,” Landor agrees with a careless shrug. He ignores Father’s startled gaze and picks up a shard of glass from the floor with such grace it doesn’t even break skin. He holds it in front of him. “But the Community stopped being useful years ago. We don’t need that to make him bleed.”
“What do you mean?”
But I know what he means. I saw it in the Celectate’s face when I stood on that podium. When he offered me leniency. A pardon for an apology.
Landor merely folds the glass in his palm and squeezes. Blood drips onto the floor. “Lothalar leran de revelan.”
Father looks confused.
“Celectate Wood wants total supremacy. When people begin to rise against his tyranny, he’s easily managed to deflate the rioting and return to his position of grace. But if you give the people a hero they will start to grow stronger – it’s why he sentenced Lord Telman. Took his tongue. His weapon. And then he made the biggest mistake a damned fool could make.” Landor smiles maniacally, eyes dancing with joviality “He relied too much on his pride – his certainty that he could frighten a girl into marrying his son for political power. He painted her as this endearing, sweet, little thing with no fire, no brains, no importance. But when she refused him it defied everything he’d painted her as. The pup had become a fox. If he proceeded with the punishment, if the girl who was “weak” but still rebelled against him could go through with it, what kind of message would that send to his subjects? That even the weakest can fight. He turned Kyla into a ‘martyr’ and then tried to correct the mistake. She refused again – and insulted him. Publicly. She went from ‘martyr’ to ‘heroine’ in the blink of an eye.”
“What are you saying?” Father asks, understanding beginning to show in his eyes.
“I am saying that Celectate Wood underestimates us – all of us, lords and beggars alike. He sees us as spoil for the taking. But when we fight back, when we begin to undermine his authority over Kelba, he is frightened. We can rip him apart – we can take Kelba back. We can restore the Community when he crumbles it.” Landor drops the glass onto the floor, blood shimmering around its crystal corners. “And all we have to do is bleed a little bit.”
Ostracized (The Ostracized Saga Book 1) Page 14
