by Andra Leigh
Acanthea understood the hidden message he didn’t have the parental know-how to say. Rather than be allowed to surround herself with the children of the wealthy and privileged, of whom she ranked at the top, she would have to stand at her father’s arm like a good little Reigner’s Daughter. All his precious little council members would be in attendance, so it was important to pretend he was the type of father who knew his only child’s favourite colour and middle name. The only reason he knew her birthdate was because there was a ball for it each year.
The man never missed a party.
However in the case of this party, it seemed he was looking forward to having Acanthea on his arm as much as she was going to enjoy being there.
“I understand,” Acanthea said, not bothering to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
“Good.” The Reigner shuffled the document he had just signed into the middle of a pile of papers. “You may leave.”
Acanthea left before her father could announce that they should also wear matching colours to the feast, resisting the urge to slam the door. Storming through the corridors that led to her own quarters, she didn’t resist heartily slamming that door behind her. Ripping the sapphire studded pins from her hair she tossed them into the distant corner of her room. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders in a jumble of ringlets. With a scream she snatched a vase from her mantle and threw it with all her might against the wall. It shattered into a mess of crystal, water and bruised orchids.
She was going to need another Dusting.
Unfortunately, Cathrainra found her before she could indulge in the fantasy.
The maid bustled around her room. She set Acanthea on the bed and then busied herself cleaning up the vase – something that irritated Acanthea to no end. Why did this stupid woman always insist on cleaning up the things she broke? That shattered vase and flowers cut from their roots were Acanthea. Could no one see that?
The more she watched Cathrainra sweep up the crystal, the more she wanted to grab another expensive breakable item and throw it through the window.
Everything in the palace had a place, there was no dirt or debris and it was a lie. It drove her anger through the roof and she gave into it. Grabbing a heavy candelabrum she followed through with her previous urge, chucking it through the window. The glass shattered like an explosion, startling a scream from Cathrainra, and landing with a satisfying thud on the courtyard below.
CHAPTER THREE
Family
• Eliscity •
Cyan Vance was a grey haired man in his sixties. A single reading lens dangled from his coat pocket, emphasising his appearance for what he was. He was a doctor. His straight back and analytical stare did little to reassure Eliscity that she was safe here, despite all Jinx had told her. Not when everything about the man reminded her of the Clinic.
They were in a cluttered study, papers and books strewn over every possible surface. Sitting in a comfy chair, Eliscity tried her best to remain uncomfortable. She wasn’t letting her guard down. As Jinx had introduced her, Cyan had offered her a drink, which she had – possibly somewhat impolitely – refused. Now they sat facing one another, his large desk between them, her throat irritatingly dry all of a sudden. Jinx lounged on an identical chair to her, having no issue with the concept of comfort.
Cyan had seemed genuinely ecstatic to meet her, looking at her like she were some sort of intriguing math problem. He was yet to wipe that look off his face and it was getting a little annoying.
“May I?” Cyan gestured to her hands which were clasped together on her lap.
Eliscity looked around the study one more time, reassuring herself that no tools of torture hid in the corners. All there was to see were pages and pages of cramped equations and drawings of strange diagrams. They didn’t make any sense to her, so she turned away from them and gave her focus back to Cyan. Knowing what he wanted, she offered her palms. He didn’t show the same fear and uncertainty as the people in the Playground, nor the jubilant superiority as the Triplets. He looked incredulous.
“I wish someone had told me you existed sooner.”
Uncomfortable, she drew her hands away. “Why do I exist?” she asked.
“I’m afraid it’s human nature to play with what we don’t understand,” Cyan said sadly. “The Bloods War changed our Realm. It changed all the Realms, not just Rylock. It was a war where humans had a common goal. A common enemy. The Bloods.”
Eliscity knew this, no doubt from a past lesson she couldn’t remember, but kept her mouth shut all the same.
“These creatures that we named the Bloods, had magic and power we didn’t understand. In the end, those differences divided us and our species fought back against their many, many species. It still seems impossible that we won such a war. Fragile and young humans against creatures of immortality. I myself have made it a hobby to acquire records and diaries from that time, to understand how we could have achieved such a feat. While it was a cause that brought our species together, that wasn’t so for the Bloods. The Nymphs didn’t suddenly fall into the marching line with the Pyres. As we well know, the Nymphs didn’t fight at all.”
Eliscity nodded. The Nymphs, rather than be defeated or join in the bloodshed, had chosen to give themselves to nature. At the fall of the Bloods War they had sacrificed themselves to the land, fertilising the earth with their bodies. With their beings woven into the roots of plants, Nymph Shade had been created. A climbing vine with dark purple berries. It had grown like a weed, infesting gardens, hedges and whole territories, thriving while people tried to destroy it. Since the bodies of the Nymphs had created it, their magic lived on in the plant. It flourished in all seasons, defying any attempt to be rid of it. Its berries, while essentially poison, also served as a magical temptation. One that had been used to create the Blood highs and other banned and dangerous substances, like Shade wine. And while it was illegal to harvest and use, it was an impossible law to enforce. To this day Nymph Shade was still everywhere.
When their death was called for, the Nymphs sacrificed themselves and rose to immortality in the roots of plants that humans became addicted to. Many considered it their final joke on humanity.
“The War ended and the Extinction Laws were put into effect.” Cyan wove his fingers together. “The Bloods were eradicated. But their blood was kept. What you need to understand is that the Bloods opened medical doors that we humans could only dream of. I can’t speak for the reasons back then. It was three centuries ago. But I like to tell myself they were pure. For research or… somewhere along the way we lost that righteousness. We started playing with what we didn’t understand and had been taught to fear.
The Clinic began. They Blooded humans with the blood taken from the creatures. Injected it into veins and arteries. Desperate to find some way to control it. As changes happened it was realised that the blood held so much more potential than we could have dreamed. Factionation within the vein, rewriting of pathways, the Bloods magical essence! And so, those with lineages to the ancient Bloods were sought. Not for the Extinction Law but to see if the lineage in their blood could be reactivated. With these Born patients – as they became known – and the Blooded, it was imperative that there was a convenient method of detection between the two. And so the symbol of the Bloods was plucked from our history. The broken-lined blood drop. The left hand symbolising the essence of our birthright and thus, the Born. The right pertaining to the essence we create in life and therefore the Blooded.”
Eliscity looked down at her palms. Blooded and Born.
“Why are twin insignias so rare?”
Cyan shook his head. “We are still trying to perfect Bloodings and Born activations separately. To believe we’re close to being confident in combining the two in one patient…”
We.
To know that Cyan worked at the Clinic was one thing, but the way he kept including himself with the people responsible for attempting to further the already murderous trials, was something entirely differe
nt. Glancing back at the papers with their strange labels and formulas, she began to feel sick.
She became aware that Cyan had fallen silent. Registering his last words, she tensed. “What do you mean?”
Cyan didn’t immediately answer, apparently choosing his words carefully. Which only served in spiking her panic.
“What are your Typings?”
“Sorry?”
Cyan smiled patiently. “Which one of the Bloods do you share a lineage with? And which were you Blooded with?”
“Oh. Fae.”
He seemed to be waiting for her to say something more. She looked at Jinx for help, who was frowning in his chair.
“Didn’t think to question it at the time,” he murmured to himself. Looking up, he asked, “Fae lineage or Blooded Fae?”
“I – both.” Eliscity frowned.
Jinx was still frowning. “Why Blood someone with the same thing that they are Born with? Isn’t that a little…redundant?”
Eliscity had never thought about this. Then again, before yesterday she thought it was normal to be both Blooded and Born. Juliette had had different – what had Cyan called it – Typings. While she had the same. After everything – waking up in a formidable place, being the plaything of doctors who offer little explanation, the agony and above all the ways both her and Juliette’s bodies changed as their blood changed – the choice in their Typings hadn’t been one of the questions on her mind.
“Actually it makes sense,” Cyan said, frowning like he was surprised he’d never thought of before. “The blood of the creatures was discovered to be where the lineage was held and the blood is where that lineage could lie dormant for generations. But the strains have weakened and changed in the centuries since the War. We can’t activate a Born’s natural construct any further than what is there to offer.”
Eliscity was trying to keep up. “So injecting me with pure Fae blood could –”
“ – show your blood and body how to proceed,” Cyan finished for her. “It seems they were, to some level at least, successful. You are exhibiting a physical marker not yet seen in either Blooded or Born Feyfolk patients.”
She frowned at him, not understanding.
Jinx leant in. “I might have told him about your wings.”
Eliscity pressed her back into her seat, feeling like a show and tell subject.
“None?” she asked. “I mean, no one else?”
“None. Not surprising. There hasn’t been much success with Bloodings in general. We are yet to be able to find a method of using derivatives of the Bloods blood rather than just the pure substance. The Wolf strain has had the highest success rate as it has many similar components to humans compared with say, Lycephal. That one is a cold blooded transfusion. As it is, human bodies aren’t built to take any transfusion of Bloods blood. There’s too much magic in it we’re not meant to have. Although we do handle the warm blooded transfusions better than cold. Perhaps if…”
Cyan stared in the distance.
“If you Blooded someone with it that had a Born lineage like, for instance, your Fae lineage, its warm component could neutralise the cold better than your human cells could –”
Eliscity could see Cyan itching to grab a pencil and scratch out his sick idea. She couldn’t bring herself to say he wasn’t the first to dream up the idea. Or that it wouldn’t work. Juliette had been proof of that. It hadn’t been a cocktail of Fae and Lycephal in her veins like Cyan mused, but that was beside the point. The two different strains in her fought a war with each other that made her crazy and eventually killed her.
Seeing her face Cyan’s eyes softened. “My apologies for my musings. I am first and foremost a scientific mind.”
Eliscity wondered, not for the first time, if she were safe here. Would she be waking up tomorrow with needles in her spine and metal rods in her wrists?
“Did they reactivate your Born blood every four months?” Cyan asked.
“I didn’t count the days between shocks.” She didn’t like talking about this. Didn’t like remembering the lightning coursing through her body.
But Cyan didn’t show any signs of stopping. “Red cells have a lifespan of four months, so to ensure activation sticks it’s crucial to reactivate the new cells. But you were also being Blooded. Even if they reduced both in order to swap between them each month, that’s an incredible amount of strain to put on one body and mind.”
Eliscity shifted uncomfortably, trying not to think about her hallucinations. How Juliette went mad. How she seemed to be going the same way. Was it the Bloodings that were doing it? Did the Clinic do too many for her mind to handle when combined with her lineage? She tried to shove the thought away.
“What does that mean for me now that I’m not getting Born activations? Am I going to go back to normal?” She couldn’t hide the spark of hope that crept into her voice.
Cyan sighed. “Given the physical changes you have encountered, I’d say your Fae lineage will stabilise and remain in the consistency it’s in now. In Born cases, physical changes are normally a sign that the body has accepted the awakening permanently.”
“What about the Blooding?”
Cyan didn’t answer initially, taking a slow breath. When he did speak, a careful tone of comfort had been injected into his voice that did little to soothe her. “To awaken a Born’s blood is to jump start a dormant, natural gift. But to Blood a human is to infect them. Human bodies aren’t built to be Blooded. The reactions they exhibit from the infusions aren’t created gifts or new talents or the body working in harmony with the blood. They’re symptoms. Symptoms to a sickness their body isn’t designed to fight. This sickness will kill them. Sometimes fast, but sometimes slow. So slow they may grow old in the process. The sickness may weaken or flourish, presenting further symptoms, with time. But no matter the length of their life, the sickness will never remiss. It all depends upon the individual’s compatibility with the infusions.”
“So…” Eliscity’s throat went dry as cold panic swept through her and she found herself wishing for that drink she’d turned down. “While my Born lineage is making me stronger and my body accepts it, my Blooding is killing me?”
Cyan took his time answering. “You were Blooded with a strain that your body should already be compatible with. There is always a chance that your body will accept it and work in harmony with it.”
Had that been why Juliette had descended into madness so quickly. There had been no chance for the two warring bloods to find harmony in her veins.
“Did you get out of the Clinic yourself?” Cyan asked, as if guessing where her thoughts had taken her.
To her right she felt Jinx shift and realised she hadn’t yet told him about her own escape.
‘Look back, but don’t come back.’
“No,” she whispered. “There was another girl I was kept with. Juliette.”
“You thought it was just you and her in the Clinic,” Jinx remembered. “Another twin.”
Eliscity nodded. “Born a Witch, Blooded a Wolf.” She looked at Cyan, gauging his reaction. She could see a bombardment of questions pile up behind his eyes but she circumvented all of them with her next words. “She’s dead.”
Cyan’s shoulders visibly slumped. She knew what he was thinking. If the two bloods the Clinic had had the most success with hadn’t been able to live in harmony within the same body, then the volatile ones wouldn’t stand a chance.
“She was always sicker than me. From the beginning. And then…” Eliscity couldn’t quite bring herself to mention the steady decline in her sanity. The strange things she’d say. “Then she figured out a way to escape. For us to escape. She was good with things like that. Intuitive.”
‘You’re getting out of here’.
They’d been the first words Juliette had ever said to her. The first words Eliscity could ever remember hearing. A black haze had been smoking across her vision, her body heavy and stricken. Lying flat on her back, her head had rolled to the side and she
’d seen her. Juliette. Dark unruly curls teased around a heart-shaped face. So small on the unpadded table, her wrists bound down by her sides. Her eyes, so dark they appeared black, had locked onto Eliscity with a stare, honest and brave. Dried blood painted her lips, which parted to speak in a hoarse whisper. ‘You’re getting out of here’.
“It was the Witch in her,” Eliscity said, returning to the present. “She just knew where to go and what to do. Knew what the Guards would do. How to get past them. We made it into the Cityel. We could still see the Clinic, it was so much larger than I’d thought, we could hear bells sounding our escape. But no one really seemed to know what was happening or what they were supposed to be searching for. It didn’t make sense to me at the time but I guess it was because only our doctors and a few others knew about us. We were kept from everyone else. And them from us I suppose. I thought for certain they’d search the Cityel for us, drag us back or put a bolt through our heads right there. But they didn’t.”
“The Cityel is a desert,” Jinx muttered. “The Clinic is in a remote enough location that any way you walk your chances at survival are slim. Couple that with the fact that only a few people knew to look for you… What’s the protocol on break outs?”
Cyan toyed with his reading lens, a distant look in his eyes. “An initial search is deployed, short range only, as it would be suicide for the guards to do anything more with no notice. After that a long range body search is arranged. Like Jinx said, chances at survival are slim on the Cityel. I don’t think the Clinic believes a patient could make it to a city or a town before expiring on it.”
“Are bodies sometimes never found? Could they still think I’m out there?”
Cyan blinked out of his haze, focusing on her. “You misunderstand me, Eliscity. While these searches are protocol, it’s a protocol that doesn’t get used often. I only know of one other break out ever occurring.”
