Dust: A Bloods Book

by Andra Leigh

  So she had left Vance Manor and trekked into Seltley’s trade district. She had visited the busy centre a few times in her past as part of parades, so she was familiar with the cobbled paths.

  The street patrols were no longer on the lookout for her. Not since she had been seen being ‘kidnapped’ by Jinx and Eliscity. If there was any doubt that she had been kidnapped before, it had become doubtless the moment that had happened. The guards didn’t work on the theory that kidnappers let their hostages wander the streets, so they weren’t looking for her face among the crowd. The faces they were looking for were terribly rendered sketches of Jinx and Eliscity. Sketches of the two faces were pinned to posts and stuck in store windows. But the guards at the Falling Inn had clearly all suffered from recall issues after her fugitive companions had finished knocking them out, as her ‘kidnappers’ could easily stand next to the posters and not be recognised. Jinx’s brows were too far apart, his nose too sharp and jaw too slack. The only thing they had correct was his general face shape. Unlike Eliscity. They had given her a rounded face rather than her oval face. Her lips were not as full as they should be and they had marked her hair as plain brown.

  It made Acanthea incredibly sceptical in the Full-Post’s skills. If she had actually been kidnapped there would be almost no chance of her being recovered on the poster’s likeness alone.

  Just like Trelyes, it hadn’t been difficult to spot the Blood highs peddler amid the people trading and browsing the Seltley stores. This time it had been a girl younger than Acanthea. The child’s hair may have once been a vibrate orange, but with the help of her drug habit it now hung stringy and dull around her shoulders.

  She had brought a few doses of Dust from the child, using coin she had taken from Cyan Vance’s study. She didn’t necessarily feel good about the borrowing, but the last of her own coin had been left in an alcove of the Falling Inn.

  After paying for a room in a small tavern she had Dusted for a few hours. She had floated away on the blue dance, building the sandcastles. But when the sandcastles had fallen they had come crashing down around her. It hadn’t been like her normal Dustings. It had been shadowy and eerie, even frightening.

  She wanted to believe that it was because the Dust had been laced with something, but the more she tried to tell herself that was it, the more she knew it had to do with what she had learnt of the Realm she was meant to reign over one day. She couldn’t get any of it out of her head. And it had taken over her Dusting.

  She was currently in the process of returning to Vance Manor. Fumbling for the large door key in her cape’s pocket, her tingling fingers finally managed to tumble the lock on the front door. She plodded through the hallway, humming to herself. She doubted it was in tune. She couldn’t tell. The Dust was still slowing her reactions and dulling her senses.

  It was as she entered the sitting room that a dark shape lunged at her, shoving her up against the wall. The sudden movement spun her vision into a mass of glittering colours. She felt it in her veins.

  She laughed.

  It was funny.

  Why was it funny?

  Wait, what was funny?

  Jinx’s face loomed in front of her.

  Yeah, that was pretty funny.

  He looked so furious that her nose tingled with the urge to laugh again, so she gave into it. It was a soundless drawn out chuckle that vibrated through her body, tickling her.

  “Sorry,” she gasped. The sudden intake of breath cleared some of the fog that had been knocked into her. “Your face really isn’t that amusing,” she assured him with what she hoped was a serious face. But she could feel the corners of her mouth desperately trying to lift. She tried to remind herself that it was just the after effects of the Dust, stimulated by the rapid movement, but that didn’t make it any less amusing.

  She heard Jinx call to someone over his shoulder. A moment later Cyan stepped into view. She had never noticed just how much he resembled a rabbit. It was the mouth, she decided. His thin lips were drawn into a tight line, cutting across his face and curving as a rabbits would. If Eliscity was a descendent of a Fae, was it possible he was a descendent of a fluffy white rabbit?

  “I’m not sure,” Cyan said thoughtfully and she wondered if he was answering her thoughts. She relaxed as she realised he was replying to something Jinx had said. It reminded her that he currently had her pressed uncomfortable against the wall.

  “Why are you holding on to me?”

  He ignored her.

  “If I was to guess,” Cyan said, and once again she had to wonder whether he was answering her question. “I’d say she’s exhibiting similar characteristics to users brought into med-buildings on a regular basis.”

  “Blood high?”

  Cyan nodded, scanning her face. “More specifically, Pyrem or Dust. The tinge of blue in her lips suggests a lack of air. Both highs act by smothering the air in blood.”

  Jinx had started searching her while Cyan spoke. There was nothing she could do to stop him finding the small vial of powder hidden in her cape.

  She didn’t feel like laughing anymore.

  Part of her wanted to deny any knowledge of how the vial had come to be in her cape but instead she found herself hissing, “Give that back.”

  Jinx ignored her.

  He handed the precious vial to Cyan. She watched it with a careful eye.

  “At least she picked the kinder of the two,” Jinx sneered. “Growing up in Hynxt I’ve seen Dust and Pyrem deaths. Dust is the cleaner one.” He adjusted his grip on her so he was able to pull her forward with him. “Let’s go get our family back.”

  He dragged her down the underground staircases, making her dizzy with their looping shape. As they reached the end of the nauseating steps she saw that the large room, with the lit crystal pillars everyone insisted on calling the Playground, was empty.

  Was it night time? Had everyone gone to bed? No, of course not, it had still been light outside as she had entered Vance Manor. She shook her head, trying to clear the last remnants of the Dust from her mind.

  Wait, had he said he was getting his family back?

  Where’d they go?

  She was pushed down onto one of the sofas. Her legs happily obeyed. They still felt a bit weightless.

  Jinx disappeared from her line of vision and Cyan moved forward to check on her. He pressed his fingers to her wrists, pinched at her skin and counted under his breath. It was most irritating.

  When Jinx next entered her vision, so too did the walking fur-ball Casamir and one of the creepy identical brothers. She looked around and found the rest of Jinx’s dysfunctional family standing around her.

  Wonderful.

  First her Dusting had been rather unpleasant, now it seemed that she wasn’t going to be allowed to shake off the Dust’s residue in peace.

  “You’re telling me this was all for a high?” Casamir-the-fur-ball was seething.

  “Let’s calm down and figure this out.”

  “Figure what out, Jinx? She can’t be trusted.”

  “We don’t know that,” Cyan soothed.

  “Either way it was reckless. It’s not just her life she endangered.” Raiden-the-walking-boulder, pointed a thick finger at her. “If she was caught she could have told them all about us.”

  “I wouldn’t have,” she giggled at the absurdity, quickly biting her tongue to stop. Perhaps giggling wasn’t the best method of expressing her reliability.

  “Maybe not intentionally, but under the influence of Dust…”

  “I wouldn’t have,” she repeated. “I just needed a break from all this. You’re all a rather large secret to be let in on.”

  “So you bought some Dust!” Fur-Ball spat.

  She didn’t answer. It was none of their business what she did. She didn’t have to justify her actions to a group of human experiments.

  “How long have you been using?” Cyan was looking directly at her.

  She replied with a frosty expression.

 
Cyan sighed. “This isn’t the first time,” he told her. “Your pulse and skin reaction tells me that much.”

  She frowned at her hands, wondering how his pinching of them had told him she had Dusted before.

  “You’re suggesting she left to get Dust because she needed it,” Laleita, the pretty dark Witch said.

  Cyan nodded. “Prolonged use of any Blood high will result in a dependency.”

  “I don’t have a dependency,” she hissed.

  “If Acanthea is familiar with the high, then it stands to reason that she would have felt she required the Dust in order to relax, or perhaps even process the things she had learnt since she joined us here.”

  “Stop talking about me like I’m not in the room.” Despite her being the subject of their gathering no one was paying her any attention.

  “How long for the cravings to stop, Cyan?” Jinx demanded.

  “It’s different for all addicts.”

  “I am not an addict.” She cringed at the shrillness of her own voice.

  Casamir strode towards Jinx. “You sound like you’re wanting to help her.”

  “We have to help her.”

  “Why?” Raiden-the-boulder gawked at him like the thought was ludicrous.

  “I don’t need help.”

  Jinx finally looked over at her. “Yeah, you do. You’re no use dead or Dusted into insanity.”

  “What am I useful as?”

  “As the Gentle Reigness. You’re the daughter of the man responsible for the continuation of the Clinic. I’m not foolish enough to let something like that disappear. Not when you could be the key to finally ending the Bloods War.”

  “The Bloods Wars ended three hundred and twenty six years ago,” she snapped.

  Jinx laughed. “Please. Look around Acanthea.” He waved his hands at the others in the room. “We’re the new Bloods. And they’re killing us.”

  She knew he was right. She also wasn’t surprised at the reasons Jinx gave her for keeping her around. Of course it was his plan to use her title and power to help him end the Clinic. Perhaps he thought she had the authority to walk into the palace – or perhaps the Clinic itself – and announce its closing. She didn’t. She was sixteen. And no matter what the people of the Realm were saying, the Reigner of the Realm knew she had run away.

  Maybe Jinx was thinking of a way to escalate her journey to the reigning title. But she wasn’t prepared to be the Lady Reigness yet. She didn’t know how to reign over an entire Realm. Her history tutor had ensured she had grown up understanding the flaws of human nature and how, when coupled with the reigning title, it could cause devastation.

  A hundred and fifty years ago Lord Reigner Cohl Zehae and Lady Reigness Leese Zehae had let their compassion rule their decisions. It saw the largest case in riot killings since the War. Their inability to justify the incarceration of human life, or public exhibition of sentences carried out, had created a Realm without consequence. It had been a wonderful breeding ground for murder. One day that breeding ground exploded, neighbours turned on one another with pots and knifes, storeowners and traders had attacked the Posts and children had removed their shirt laces to throttle each other.

  While she wasn’t under the illusion that she suffered the same problem as the Zehae family, she sometimes wondered if she lacked compassion.

  There had been a Reigness – Acanthea couldn’t remember her name – in the first century after the War, who had ruled without mercy. Her lack of sympathy to the Realms farmers and their soil conditions had resulted in a crop shortage for almost two decades.

  There was a precarious balance to reigning over anything. There would always be consequences, Acanthea knew this, but if done well there would also be benefits. Centuries from now she didn’t want to be taught in classrooms as the Reigness who was responsible for, say, facilitating a deadly epidemic or setting fire to the desert…

  But all this wouldn’t matter to Jinx. He wanted her help with one small part of the Realm of Rylock. He wasn’t thinking about what it meant to take the reigning title. In truth, she wasn’t sure what she would do with the responsibility of the Clinic, if she ever became the Lady Reigness. There were a lot of potential consequences that could come with putting an end to it.

  But if she told Jinx that, there was every possibility he’d decide she wasn’t a key worth having around anymore. And she still owed it to Cathrainra to find out what had happened to her son. The best place to do that from was Vance Manor.

  “Important or not, she’s not one of us,” Fur-Ball growled. A few of the others nodded their agreement.

  “She’s just a Duster.” Eliscity’s voice was barely audible, as if she was talking to herself. Only Casamir and one of the Triplets seemed to have heard, but neither jumped in to defend her. On the contrary, they appeared to agree.

  Acanthea had never been called a Duster before and found she didn’t like it. Especially when it was coming out of the mouth of a deformed thing like Eliscity.

  She wasn’t a Duster. She just Dusted. Her habits didn’t define her to others. Did they? It wasn’t like her eyes and lips were permanently ringed in blue. She didn’t have a dependency. She wasn’t addicted. She didn’t need help!

  “I’m not an addict,” she said again.

  “Then prove it,” Jinx challenged.

  “She doesn’t belong here,” the Boulder grunted.

  As Jinx ignored him she felt her lips tug up into a smirk. He was on her side.

  “I’ll prove it,” she agreed.

  This clearly annoyed the Fur-Ball and the Boulder. She couldn’t read the identical expressions of the sandy haired brothers. Neith looked wane with worry and Laleita’s alarming white eyes were concentrated on Acanthea as if she could see into her thoughts. Eliscity was the only one not focused on her. Instead the strange Fae-Human was watching the others.

  Suddenly the Fur-Ball strode toward her, pulling her to her feet. From this angle he was less Fur-Ball, more Fur-Wall. On her tip-toes she only just reached the height of his chest. He was so close she could smell the syrupy scent of sweat on his skin. It made her want to sneeze.

  “You will not put my family in danger again. Do you hear me? That’s not a warning. It’s not even a threat. It’s a certainty.”

  She believed him. His face was twisted with honesty and danger.

  “I’m more than capable of giving her the scary talk myself, Casamir.”

  The Fur-Wall let her drop back to the sofa as he turned to Jinx. “No, you’re too interested in using her title to give her a scary talk. If she stays here, she needs to obey some rules.”

  Many of the group nodded or murmured their agreement.

  “I think she understands that she can’t leave alone again,” Jinx laughed.

  Raiden put a hand on Casamir’s chest to stop the man from lunging at Jinx. “She’s a Duster, Jinx.” The Boulder’s voice was low with carefully contained anger. “We don’t know we can trust her.”

  Jinx dismissed the comment with a shrug.

  “Would you listen to your family!” Eliscity suddenly snapped.

  Jinx’s heated glare flared over to her.

  “What, just because she’s not one of us means she doesn’t belong here?” he said. “Please. You’re both of us, you’re Blooded and Born, yet you sure don’t belong here. So why don’t you go find home, Eliscity.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Scars

  • Eliscity •

  He’d never called her Eliscity before.

  In that moment, Eliscity knew for certain that the time for her to leave was near.

  Casamir hissed air through his teeth, looking at Jinx like he was ready to lunge. She didn’t want that. There was already too much between Jinx and the Family because of Acanthea. She didn’t want to be another thing in the Manor causing arguments. She believed Jinx loved them. And that he would never purposefully do anything to cause them harm. But he wasn’t listening to them. She had the distinct impression that was because to li
sten to them, he would also have to listen to her. And he really didn’t want to have to do that. They didn’t see eye to eye on the one thing they both had such strong feelings about. The past. Jinx could no longer ignore that, it would seem.

  He was still looking at her. Still waiting for her reply.

  She just sighed.

  Wanting to be far away from him she walked away, moving for the closest staircase.

  “Where are you–”

  “This is not about me, Jinx,” she interrupted. “This is about your family.”

  He opened his mouth to reply but she was already ascending the stairs.

  She left the Playground.

  Collapsing on her bed a few minutes later she kneaded her aching temples. Jinx was becoming rather adept at giving her headaches.

  From her island bed she could gaze around her room and see the extent of her life at Vance Manor. Two pairs of dark breeches, two of her winged blouses and the extinguished elemental crystal she had used to blind the guard at the Falling Inn, sat on the corner shelf. The Bloods Encyclopaedia and a few other books were piled on the corner seat, waiting for her to find the energy to return them to the library fourteen doors away. That was all of her life. A few changes of clothes, a stone and borrowed books. It made her sad. It wasn’t that she wanted a collection of useless baubles and pretty clothes, but something would be nice. Her room in her memories had small embroidered tapestries hanging over the walls. Some had been done by a child’s hand, all loose stitches and abstract shapes, others by a more experienced hand depicting animals and scenery. But all had an ‘E’ stitched into the bottom corner. A few delicate wood carvings had sat on her dresser and bedside table. A four point star, a perfectly rendered family of birds and an oak tree just like the one in her and Drae’s clearing. Her room had held possessions dear to her. She couldn’t imagine her room at Vance Manor ever holding the same testament to her life.

  She didn’t want to never have that again.

  But Jinx was right, she had no way of knowing which way to turn the moment she stepped out the Manor door. She had no control over her memories. No way to direct them toward the answers she wanted.