I watch the mourning bury the dead outside Gavrone among the trees. I watch them pray and sing the dead souls to the “resting place.” I listen to the gossip, the horror stories, the rumors as I scrape my hands raw among the wood and stones.
I see very little of Shade and Axle. Whether they are both attempting to hide from me, I have not decided yet, but in the evenings, around our campsite that the Gavronites have ordained for us, they sit on one side of the fire and I on the other.
The rumors spread. The gossip spreads faster.
The village folk talk of a “cursed being” who “called” the demons. They remind me of Dirk. He’d said I was a “curse” when I arrived in Agron. A few days later, the shadows arrived. The only problem? There had been no newcomers in Gavrone for a year and a half. But, of course, the traumatized villagers are not inclined to reasoning.
At night, when I lay in the glow of the fire, I stare at my hands, palms upwards towards the sky. They look normal. Feel normal. Act normal. But during the day – for no reason at all – they will pulse. Stiffen. Attach.
I catch Keegan watching me on the third night, brows raised. His green eyes glow emerald in the firelight, and I glare, hoping my unusually dark eyes look even darker in the night’s light. He only stares back at me, unflinching, and wiggles his middle finger grotesquely once more. My neck grows warm with hate. A glowing ember from the fire jumps in his direction. He gasps and slaps the flames eating at his blanket. I turn my back to him and the fire, smiling. Serves him right.
Mornings dawns.
I wander closer to the edge of the village where the Gavronites say the “attack” started. My arms are loaded with sticks, but I continue on. I can carry more. That’s when I hear it. Sniffling. I walk around the corner of a blackened wall. A lone figure hunches against it, skinny and covered in ash. I have never seen anyone with skin so pale – except for the unfortunate man killed by the shadow blade. The boy’s arms are bones covered in a pasty white imitation of “flesh.” And, from the looks of his position, it appears he’s been here for days without anyone’s notice.
Slowly, I settle down beside him and drop my load of wood. “Are you alright?” I ask.
He looks up. I try not to flinch. If his body was ghastly, his face was worse. Cheekbones arched with hunger. Eyes large in his sunken skin. A layer of soot paints him from head to foot, dirtying his fine, blonde hair. He isn’t older than fourteen. Fifteen maybe?
“Are you hurt?” I try again. He stares at me dumbly. Can he speak?
The boy stares at my eyes a moment longer. Peers closer. Notices the absence of dark rings. The shawl falling from my shoulders. The scar peeking from beneath the sleeve of my tunic. I see the truth finally dawn within him, but he doesn’t look frightened. He’s too tired to be frightened. Too frightened of something more frightening to be frightened of me.
“Yavre e Kelban,” he says.
Vaguely, I understand. Up here in the mountains, ancient Kelban is spoken more often than the mixed dialects down below.
“Rae yer valesa?” I ask.
His eyes widen in shock, revealing deep blue color that pulls me in like the tidal waves of an ocean, shockingly different from the usual blue eyes. The rings are less defined around his pupils. Hardly noticeable, actually. Is he not completely of Wilds birth?
“Yer avrandas?” he asks. You understand?
I nod.
“Vel?” he asks. How?
“Ral Kelban vasras levran sa pav fo tavre vasgaras.” All Kelban nobility learn as part of their tutoring.
Silence again.
“Vat dagvasas raeve?” What happened here?
The boy’s shoulders quake. A tremor shakes his thin body. I reach out to steady him and he shifts away from my touch. Maybe the stories about “my kind” aren’t completely lost to him despite his trauma.
“Cav yer tav mi vat ti vas ave?” Can you tell me what it was like?
Suddenly, he’s rocking back and forth at a frightening pace, his head in his hands, and his voice cracking with strained, broken sobs. “It was dark,” he says in ancient Kelban. “Quiet. There were stars blinking the sky. I was looking at the stars. I always liked looking at them. So far. Yet so bright. So many of them. Like little candles lit on distant planets. That’s what mom said. And then . . .” Pain shifts across his face. “There was screaming. Bright light. Fire. Pain. Everywhere. In my head. In my body. Hurting. Tearing. Ripping. I couldn’t get away. I tried. I ran. There was too much darkness in the light. Dark. Everywhere. Dancing. Laughing. Taunting.” He swallows, eyes bulging in fear. “Shadows.” The muscles of his face constrict. He’s terrified. He grabs my hand. Pinches skin. “They spoke to me.”
I flinch.
“The shadows spoke to me.” He lets go of me. Stands up. Stares at his hands. At his arms. At his body. Terror – so real, so frightening – radiates off of him. “Demons only speak to the possessed. The cursed. Only speak to their own evil. The mother gods prophesy it is so. The mother gods warn of curses. Of demons finding their own.”
I shake my head.
“I’m the reason. I’m the reason we were attacked.” Paranoia flickers in his eyes. “I murdered them! I . . . I murdered them all. I killed them. Oh, mavre draves, I killed them! Mavre draves, gav ressa!”
“That’s not true!” I insist. I lay a hand on his arm. His skin is cold. Too cold. He needs warmth. Food. Sleep. “They’ve hurt you. Made you see things that aren’t so. Come. I’ll . . .”
He shoves me away. “No! I’m the cursed one! I killed them. They found me! They let me live! They found me and let me live because I’m a demon too! I’m a demon!” He gasps between words, short on breath. He’s in hysteria now.
“It’s not . . .”
“They killed my mom,” he whimpers, staring at the ashes of his home. “They called her a ‘whore.’ A ‘bitch.’ They said she deserved it. I heard every word. I heard them speak. They tried to take me. Drag me away. My mother tried – tried to stop them! Tried. Tried. They killed her. They told me ‘stay’ if I wanted! Stay! Stay!”
“You need to calm down. Calm . . .” I step towards him.
“No!” He jerks away. Shakes his head. Wildly. Madly. “Don’t come near me. I’ll kill you too. I’ll curse you.” He steps back. One step. Two. Three. Farther from my grasp. And with each new step, the hysteria turns to something colder. Darker.
Panic.
“You’re not cursed,” I say.
I follow him. He backs towards the end of the village. Towards people. He cannot be within earshot in his state of mind. I have to catch him. Subdue him.
They will kill him if they hear him talking like this. The villagers, with their superstitions and misguided gods, will kill him. “You didn’t do any of this. This . . .” I throw my hands out to encompass the destruction, “. . . is just them! They are monsters. All of them. Don’t let them frighten you. Don’t believe any of their lies. You’re just tired.”
“No. I did it. They came for me. They came for me because I’m one of them!” the boy screams. “A demon! A cursed demon!”
A gasp to my right assures me that my worst fears are realized.
“It’s him!” a woman cries shrilly. She screams.
I hear voices nearby. Others are coming.
“The cursed one. I’ve found the cursed one . . . Alvar! Help! Help! Before he calls them again!”
“No . . .” I gasp.
The boy turns and runs.
Half the village follows him. I shove my way past most of them, kicking shins, elbowing sides, and pushing faces. A second heart throbs beneath my chest. I cannot let anything happen to the boy. He isn’t cursed. He’s like me.
The boy is me!
The boy reaches the cliff’s edge and has no choice but to stop. The villagers surround him – keeping twenty feet of distance between themselves and the “curse.”
“Knew it had to be him . . .”
“Always was quiet and strange . . .”
&nbs
p; “His mother kept him inside all the time . . .”
“Knew his eyes weren’t normal . . .”
I reach the front of the crowd.
Alvar spits in the boy’s direction. “You’re lower than a damned, devil-worshiper!” he screeches. “You deserve to be torn limb from limb. Mark my words, you’ll pay for the lives we lost, boy. All of them! You son of a bitch!”
The boy isn’t crying. He can’t. There aren’t any more tears to shed. He looks at the crowd, those unnaturally blue eyes flickering over the faces of people who, mere days beforehand, had been friendly neighbors. He glances over his shoulder at the edge of the cliff. At the sea beneath. The Dark Mountains beyond. He faces the crowd again. Those temptingly beautiful eyes finally look at me.
The air leaves my lungs in a sickening rush. I know that look. I’ve seen it on the thousands of faces of thousands of “ostracized” before me. Fear. Despair. Guilt.
Defeat.
My hand grows hot. Pulses. Pounds. But the pit in the back of my head wavers. Like I’m hovering over the edge of a cliff too. I can’t connect.
“I’m sorry,” the boy whispers.
I shake my head at him. Don’t. Don’t do it.
He turns and jumps.
NO!
I leap at the cliff’s edge, kneeling over it, screaming after him. The pulse in my fist lashes out after his descending body. And – like an invisible rope suddenly appears between us – the boy wavers in midair. I see the surprise in his widened eyes. Something – nerves, bones, I don’t know – snaps in the back of my head. Blinding pain. A white flash.
And the boy falls into the fog below. Out of sight.
Chapter XXII
I wait for the cover of darkness before slinking to the cliff’s edge. The fog is thicker than ever. The distant sound of waves echoing below the rocky outcroppings invades the silence. Over the thick mist, across the sea beneath, I spot the Dark Mountains once again. They glare at me, warning me to retreat back to the warm fire and my blankets.
I look away from them, but their presence remains over me. Axle had said they were unknown territory – territory that the shadows infested. No one had entered the dark expanse of rock and returned. I have the unnerving feeling that the Dark Mountains have monsters of their own, besides the shadows.
I return my attention to the task at hand. I cannot see the bottom of the cliffs, but I know they are there. I know I am three miles from the surface of the water. I know if I fall my bones will split apart, my flesh become buoyant, and my body will drift out to sea and fall prey to sea monsters. I know my body will tense up, I will lose my grip, and I will fall.
I turn around. The fire is better. To live is better.
But everywhere I turn I see the boy’s terrified eyes. His wide-open mouth. His screams. The people who laughed when he fell and turned, congratulating themselves on his demise. No tears were shed for him. No grave was dug for him.
All because of superstition. Because of the damned mother gods. Because of hate and malice and misunderstanding.
Because of fear.
Gingerly, I crawl over the cliff’s edge onto the rocky outcropping beneath. Immediately, my muscles harden at the new weight – the new shift in gravity – as my toes dig into the side of the mountain. I left my sandals at the edge of the cliff since they would hinder my descent.
The air is chilly, and the mist clings to my cheeks. A breeze flutters beneath me and blows the edge of my skirt up past my waist.
I look down. Any confidence I foolishly built up blows away, and there is nothing but ice in my veins. The fog is gone, gently brushed aside by the tongues of sea breeze licking up from three miles below. I see the waves. The rocks. The dark water waiting to encase me. Welcome me. Claim me.
My grip on the mountain weakens.
I slip.
Stone scrapes along my side. My arm. My knee. I grapple at the mountainside and my fingers find a knot-hole. I hang over the steep embankment. Over the waves. I claw desperately at the rock. I cannot fall. I cannot hear my bones crack. My lungs explode. My eyes burst from my face. The heavy beating in my chest is like a wild animal struggling to escape its cage. My ribs ache.
Breathe. Breathe, Kyla. For some reason, a mixture of Landor and Shade’s voices speak to me.
I close my eyes.
Concentrate. The voice has darkened.
I don’t want to fall.
“Be careful, Kyla Bone. You don’t want to fall.” Celectate Wood’s voice.
“You don’t want to fall. You don’t want to fall. You don’t want to fall.”
You will fall. Your kind always falls. Your kind is meant to be ruled.
I am lower than dirt and meant to be ruled. Ruled by him and ruled by my fear.
Tears sting my eyes. I open them.
For a moment I can see his face, etched in that dark smile, and his eyes shining into mine as he leaned over. As he let go of my hand. As he condemned me to death.
But I didn’t die!
I snag the edge of the mountain again and dig my feet into the stone until they burn in pain. Slowly, his face disappears. His smile floats away. I am once again staring at the mountainside. At the sea beneath me. At the waves.
It is rock.
It is water.
They are nothing to fear.
He is nothing to fear.
Those were the fears of a little child. I am no longer a child. No longer a pawn.
I am no longer afraid.
It is a slow process, but the waves grow closer. The salty smell of the water fills my senses. Burns my nose. Stings my eyes. I finally settle my bleeding, aching feet at the base of the cliffs and look up. The air is too thick. I cannot see the top of the mountain.
A different smell captures my attention.
Blood.
I draw my dagger and weave through the fog. Water laps up around my heels as the waves slap against the rocks. A dark substance floats through the ripples like the fingers of a beckoning hand. I follow it and find the first piece. Throat tightening, I pick it up and continue the search until I’ve made a pile of the remainders. A few are missing – floating out to sea or in the belly of some scavenging sea urchin.
I cannot leave them here.
A crater in the side of the mountain looms in front of me. I gently pack the pieces inside of it and reverently border up the opening with stones. I shove. Push. Prod. But it isn’t tight enough. At the coming of the tide, they will wash away.
He will wash away. Forgotten. Alone. Banished.
Like me.
Rage turns the ice in my veins to fire. He won’t be left as food for vultures and monsters. He won’t go unburied and forgotten like Lord Telman and a thousand others before him. I ball my fists and the angry pulsing in my head flows downward to my enclosed fingers.
I flex my fingers. They are heavy. Burdened.
The stones around the cave’s opening flex with them. Move. Pulse. Reposition. Like a puzzle that I’m dictating and piecing together with a thousand hands.
I squeeze my hands into fists again. The stones compact. Grind. Shift against once another. They grow tighter and tighter into the side of the mountain. Pain shoots up and down my body, like I am pushing into the mountain myself.
“Do you know where you stand, Kyla Bone?”
The stones cease to move. The pulse slowly dies, leaving me weak and cold. I stare at my hands. Trace the ridges of my palm where that pulse had been at its strongest.
No, I do not know where I stand. But it sure as hell isn’t where I thought I did.
The returning climb is more strenuous than the descent. It takes me three hours to reach the cliff’s edge. A line of pink is just beginning to form on the horizon. In the dim light, my hands are torn, gnarled, and covered in dirt and the black muck of the mountain. My feet are equally bloodied.
I hurry to the trough of water positioned at the corner of Gavrone. The evidence must be washed away. I know the Gavronites will not take kindly to me bur
ying a “demon.” They will not like my explanation. And they will definitely not like the words I wish to call them.
Wretches. Filthy, horrible bastards. Child-killers. Murderers. I scrub at my hands – at my feet – with vengeance. I want to hurt them. Want to open their blind eyes. Want to tell them what I can see, what I can do, and what I can hear. That I am not the cursed, weak Kelban they think I am. That I can destroy them. Hurt them. Kill them with just as little compassion as they showed that boy. I want to rip them to pieces.
And it scares the hell out of me.
What am I thinking? What am I becoming? Gods, help me.
I finish washing, but the blood and new wounds still remain. I will find some excuse for them. No one will care, anyway. If anything, they’ll be pleased that the “Kelban” is suffering.
I turn around to return to the campsite.
“Back at last?”
I flinch at the voice.
Shade steps out from behind one of the skeletal buildings. Both of his Illathonian blades are gripped in his left hand. His right rubs at black soot lodged on his vest. His eyes only look at me, though.
I stare right back, unblinking. Unflinching. Unafraid.
“Can’t a Kelban relieve herself in privacy?” I step past him. I am tired. Shaken. Angry. And not in the mood to face one of the boy’s killers.
“Was it done right?” he asks.
I pause.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say over my shoulder.
Even though I don’t look back once, I know his eyes follow me. I know he knows where I went. I know he knows what I did.
I also know he doesn’t know why.
And if he finds out – he’ll run his Illathonian blade through my body.
Chapter XXIII
“Goodness, child, you’ll get dust in my bread. Then how will I explain to Otis why his meal is so clumpy. He’s picky about his food, you know?” Mama Opal struggles to remove the imaginary dust specks I’ve scattered over her dough.
We returned to Agron last night and Keegan was more than happy to relay the dreadful Gavrone event to Otis personally. Otis disregarded the story with horrified, enraged outbursts about Alvar’s foolishness and the poor boy’s demise. He stood alone in that opinion. Several of the villagers followed Keegan to the inn for a drink and more of his wild tales.
Ostracized (The Ostracized Saga Book 1) Page 38
