A Curse of Blood and Power: A Chronicle of Fanhalen

by Viviene Noel

  ‘So it is said.’

  Ayslinn had told her that much.

  It could easily accommodate the horses, Mahena realised. As if in answer, the sound of neighing reached them. Out of an arm of the tunnel she had somehow missed, the man from the tavern emerged with their three mounts. He said nothing and simply handed them their leads. She noticed extra bags attached to the saddles.

  They all patted their mounts’ neck in encouragement. Farak scratched the ground repeatedly, rubbing his head frantically against his owner’s legs. ‘Adventure my friend,’ Fàaran murmured gently to him. ‘It will be fine.’

  Mahena shook her head at the love in those words before eyeing the two horses gifted to them by Darios. ‘Do you think these two are used to these conditions?’

  Fàaran, surprisingly, gave her the answer, ‘Warhorses are trained from birth to remain calm through any sort of discomfort, whether it be loud noises, darkness, pain. Darios respects horses more than most humans, he would never put an unprepared beast through a task that would cause them distress. Which is why he offered these two in exchange for the others.’

  ‘Why did you hang on to Farak, then?’

  It was Emmerentia who replied, ‘He has a warrior’s heart.’

  Mahena smiled to herself at the softer tone. She opened the new bag attached to her saddle and was happy to find extra food within. ‘How long is this going to take?’

  ‘Days, if we’re lucky.’

  Mahena didn’t understand why her stomach tightened at the answer. They were crossing countries. Did she expect an accelerated tunnel trip?

  37

  Kingdom of Dartar, Military encampment of Val d’Hora.

  Hellion followed the scent whenever he caught a whiff of it. Most of the time, he listened to the whisper running through his veins—a low, muffled screeching in the deepest part of himself, as though a talon scraping against a wall, trying to go free. And when it dimmed to nothing, he halted until it murmured again. Sometimes, it was silent for days, weeks even.

  But when the scent strengthened, ever so slightly, at the foot of the ramshackle encampment of the resisting horse-lords, Hellion grunted. He didn’t know the reason behind this wild chase. All he trusted was the echoing certainty in his mind. He breathed the scent in, ensuring to remain hidden behind the brush surrounding the encampment. He checked the reservoir of his glamour—he had to be so very careful with each drop to avoid running out.

  The Lord of the Court of Dusk sent out a low call to the fairies inside the camp, for anyone who had encountered that scent. Maybe none of them would answer. There was heavy silence in the dark, and he waited, waited until—

  Hellion stilled. Retreating into the core of his fairy blood, where their innate magic lived, he paused. There, a probing—imperceptible almost. But it was something.

  38

  Kingdom of Dartar, The Underground Tunnels of Vas’Mor.

  Without the sun, figuring out how long they were travelling in the tunnel was difficult. They advanced at a rather fast pace, given the strain starting to embrace Mahena’s upper thighs, which prompted her to think they would reach the other Inn sooner than later.

  They stayed on foot longer than they were astride. Mice ran rampant on the edges of the passage, their squeaking a neverending accompaniment to their progress. Mahena slowed down as much as she could at every arm they passed, trying to see through the dark, to see if she could catch a glimpse of even the smallest of inkling about how this first civilisation lived. The wall-lanterns, weirdly, only illuminated the main passageway.

  They moved along in silence. Mahena kept shivering, although surprisingly less freaked out than she would have thought. She had imagined fear would have crept in at some point; from either the dark atmosphere or a potential attack—they were, after all, trapped underground. And who knew what might be dwelling in the darker corners, what might have found refuge in the forgotten galleries beneath the land.

  A screeching noise echoed in one of the adjacent galleries and Mahena held her breath as their heads whipped to it.

  Yet the horses didn’t stop, or even seem to react.

  Mahena released the air caught in her lungs. The underbellies of the world, perhaps exciting to some, never were her cup of tea.

  They walked, and walked for days, listening to the drops of water splattering on the ground in the distance. The air, both cold and humid, with a rancid aftertaste, chilled their breath at times.

  Mahena swallowed as a crippling feeling this underground journey was a sanity test persisted in her veins, forcing her to reflect on her own demons as her eyes wandered to the ones in the shadowed corners of the paths. This escape tunnel looked nothing like an underground city built to save a population from war. Should it not be crawling with refugees by now, if it truly was? They were at war, after all, weren’t they? Would it be used as an absolute last resort? Would it be for everyone who made it here, or the selected few?

  Yet every time she cocked her head slightly to follow one of the many small arms, something clutched in her stomach—snivelling, darkening whispers of wrongful intentions. It seemed awfully big for torture chambers, yet... What did she know after all?

  ‘Am I the only one who finds it strange that it is completely empty?’ Mahena broke the silence one day, a birthing itch to mount and canter the rest of the leg.

  Fàaran snapped his head to her, as though breaking the silence would ensure their peril.

  Emmerentia did not bother turning to look at her, and simply replied, ‘They might use it for other purposes, and they probably do. The infrastructure could be many things. As long as we stick to the main road and do not disturb anything that does not concern us, our crossing should not be an issue.’

  Mahena opened her mouth, then closed it. So, there probably were other...inhabitants, then it explained why they remained so utterly silent.

  Darkness is home.

  Mahena swallowed hard at the whisper, at the dance the little voice had started once they’d stepped into the gallery, into the ground and the darkness, confirming her hypothesis about what brought it to life.

  She did not know what to do with that realisation, so Mahena silently prayed they got out quickly.

  B

  They stopped to rest when their legs screamed—from the fatigue, the lack of proper food, the relentless awareness and the rampant dread that these tunnels transpired.

  Fàaran had taken one long to his sister, nodded silently, and crashed. But Mahena had turned and turned and, finally giving up, had plopped herself next to where Emmerentia leaned against the wall, twirling one of her knives in the air. She had never hated sleeping alone more than in these past days.

  ‘Does it play on your mind, being surrounded by darkness?’ Mahena asked as she failed to find sleep.

  There was a low rumble in her guts.

  Emmerentia put her knife down and slowly turned to her, the light of the mineral next to her projecting starlight in her blue eyes, and said, ‘I am aware of my darker impulses.’

  Mahena shivered at the words, the smoothness with which it rolled off her tongue.

  ‘I control them. They do not control me.’

  It had taken all of Mahena’s strength not to scream, not to bite her nails to blood as the thing within her laughed and smiled and danced with glee at the malevolence that permeated the underground air.

  ‘Was it hard to accept them?’

  The twin toyed with her short braid and nodded after a moment. ‘I was raised differently from the path I chose. What I was taught, and who I was inside, only came together when I accepted what loomed within my heart. The good, the bad, and the ugly.’ She met Mahena’s troubled gaze, a heartwarming smile in the shadows. ‘We are all beings of light and darkness. Understanding, learning about both, and accepting all the sides of you is what will bring you peace of mind.’
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  Mahena averted her eyes from Emmerentia’s piercing stare, a sudden urge to fold into her arms for comfort she ignored. She brought her knees to her chest and hugged herself instead. The tunnels were colder than the nights spent sleeping under the trees, and the constant chills running up and down her body had her rubbing her arms. It took all of her wits to not curl in a ball at the twin’s feet.

  Emmerentia was smart enough to understand the question wasn’t a mere conversation opener. ‘Did you have another dream whilst we were apart?’

  ‘No,’ Mahena answered, squeezing tighter. The choice of words echoed in her heart, stronger than she’d wished. Her heart thundered. ‘Something in me is changing, I can feel it. The thoughts that cross my mind, they scare me sometimes. It is not me, does not feel like me.’

  ‘I believe we have had a similar discussion in the past. Our actions define us, not our thoughts.’

  ‘But what if I do not remember my actions? What if I did horrible things and I simply do not recall any of it?’ She traced abstract symbols on the cold floor. She hesitated for a moment, then breathed out. ‘Some of the dreams...they are not...ok. Some of the things that happen are wrong. And if it is me, if these are truly my memories... I don’t know what kind of person it makes me.’

  A flame lit the twin’s eyes at that revelation. Although it wasn’t much of a revelation at all. And when she met those eyes, she saw a reflection of her own. ‘That dream I told you, with that woman on the battlefield. I slaughtered people in it. And I knew I was against it. But I did it anyway and I can’t accept the fact that it could be me.’ Mahena swallowed down. ‘I can’t accept the feelings I awoke with.’

  Emmerentia placed a hand on Mahena’s ankle. A sign of comfort without invading her personal space, without leaving space for a wrong interpretation, even if she would gladly accept a lot more. ‘The girl I witnessed being flayed—the screams, the smells, the sounds, the pleas. I long dwelled on the emotions that ran through me as the punishment was being bestowed, and the repercussions on my mind afterwards.’

  Mahena’s heart twinged at the revelation—she’d forgotten that confession.

  The twin continued, ‘My stomach tightened when my brain understood what was going to unfold. Yet as it did, I felt no pity, no disgust, no thrill either.’ A roaring silence settled in Mahena’s breathing as the twin simply stated a fact. ‘The cruelty of the Prince was well known, yet that woman willingly jeopardised her life and committed treason. And she aimed her action at the wrong person.’

  Mahena didn’t know what to do with that.

  ‘Do you think it makes a terrible person of me, not to have been sick to my stomach by the scene?’ Emmerentia eventually asked.

  ‘What was her crime?’

  ‘She tortured the only person the prince loved.’

  There was a long pause, the sound of their breathing lullabying the crawlers around them. ‘The person he loved, did they die?’

  ‘She escaped just in time. She was a nice girl and didn’t deserve what they did to her. Although your life increases in value once you get entangled with royals, she was a slave nonetheless. They played a game, and they lost. Perhaps that is why my feelings remained neutral.’

  ‘I understand why his revenge was so heavy.’ Mahena weighed her words. ‘I am almost’ —and the almost, she realised, was there only because the little voice pulled— ‘certain I could not personally skin someone alive, regardless of what they did to me. But he protected the woman he loved against further danger, making an example of it.’

  Emmerentia cocked her head, her hand still on Mahena’s ankle—and she noticed.

  ‘Will you take my mind off things, tell me a story about that prince?’

  Emmerentia hesitated, then she pulled one of her legs in and told a story about a prince with legs that didn’t work, whose name travelled across kingdoms for his intelligence and his cruelty.

  Mahena’s eyes went from wide, to terrified, to wondering and curious.

  ‘Was he truly that monstrous?’ Mahena asked as she placed a strand of hair behind her ear.

  ‘His mother weathered his temper immensely well. But he always found ways to exert it. I was...’ she searched for the correct word to use, ‘around after the Prince met that slave. I do not personally know how he changed, but I witnessed her influence on several occasions. They...’ A spark flashed in her eyes, something like longing, and pain, and rage. ‘They were something to behold. The energy that flowed between them, for anyone with a keen eye, was extraordinary.’

  ‘Do you believe in soul mates?’ The question escaped her lips unintentionally, and Mahena looked up beneath lowered lashes. If it hit a chord, Emmerentia hid it.

  But the answer wasn’t what she expected. ‘Races that still have a foothold in the forest have mates, true mates—a bond that runs deep into the foundations of a body, of a soul. The sort of bonds humans will never experience. At least, that is what I’ve been told. But I think we, humans, have a few, each completing some part of our soul. That being said, every time I caught a glimpse of them, I was less certain that there isn’t one person that can complete another.’

  Mahena let the twin’s words settle into her—sink into her bones, into every fold of doubt, of pain, of lack of belonging she ever felt, and into that horrible hole in her chest that had clung to her her entire life. Until she realised it had started mending, bit by bit, little by little. She peered at the woman who had shown her kindness and compassion and offered her companionship when she was vulnerable and scared; peered at the woman who had been in a hell of pain and doubt herself, even if she would never admit to it.

  Absorbed in an ocean of old memories and ancient feelings in the tunnels of last hopes, Mahena noticed every line on the twin’s face, every crook and nook and hidden smiles she concealed to perfection.

  Perhaps it was the atmosphere, perhaps it was the lack of sleep, perhaps it was everything that had happened since she had arrived here and what was about to unfold, but Mahena let her hand slide to her knee, lacing her fingers through Emmerentia’s, the instant contact igniting an extinguished kindling in her veins. She shifted the angle of her body, and when Emmerentia didn’t budge, Mahena grazed the twin’s cheek with her lips, her other hand pressing on her lower back. The warmth beneath her mouth sent a tingle down her body.

  Hesitantly, she murmured in her ear, ‘I feel a pull towards you, too.’

  The little voice hissed and yanked and bellowed. Mahena shut it down.

  Emmerentia bristled—a light shiver she could feel through their clothes, but did not push her away.

  Mahena leaned her face in the crook of her neck, breathing in the scent of her skin that brushed her nose—sweet and fiery—and laced her hand around her waist, tugging her closer.

  The twin let a second slip, let the cocoon of darkness ensconce them as the mineral illuminating the tunnel flickered, before her own fingers find themselves brushing the exposed skin of Mahena’s nape.

  39

  Kingdom of Valàander, The Royal Castle of Vassalis.

  Nepherym Vasselian, princess of the Scholar Kingdom, was awakened by her frantic maid.

  ‘Your Majesty, your majesty, wake up.’

  The old woman’s big eyes met hers as she jolted upright, almost banging her on the head.

  ‘What is it, Layla?’ she rasped, her tongue a leaden weight in her mouth.

  The maid handed her a wet cloth after she lit the candles on the bedside table. ‘Your nightmares. They struck again.’

  Nepherym dabbed her forehead. It took her a moment to realise she was covered in sweat that was now causing her to shiver in the chill night air. Her body was bare save for her chemise. The heavy covers of her bed laid discarded on the floor.

  Layla lifted them back onto the bed as she added, ‘You were screaming.’

  The old woman, who was more wrink
led than an overly ripe prune and who had been her chambermaid since birth, tucked the blankets back into the bed. She then sat down next to the princess. Layla folded her leathery hands on top of her lap and cast that melting, iron gaze upon Nepherym’s still sleepy eyes.

  ‘Your Majesty, I worry for you.’

  The princess blinked repeatedly, separating dream from reality until the face of her servant appeared clearly. Rubbing her eyes with her small fists, she said, ‘Do not call me your Majesty, Layla. I am not Queen.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, your Ma…Highness.’

  Nepherym levelled her stare to the woman who had raised her. The nurturing love she saw in them made her want to jump in the woman’s arms and never leave their warmth.

  She said instead, ‘The screams must be worse.’

  ‘Do you want to discuss them?’

  During her parents’ rule, should they have discovered a simple chambermaid in deep conversation with the future bearer of the cloak, they would have whipped her raw. Regardless, the maid always ensured the princess was aware of her availability should she wish for a friend in this wretched castle.

  ‘I would not want to burden you with more heartache than what you have experienced.’

  Layla reached for the princess’ cold and clammy hands.

  Nepherym squeezed back.

  ‘You do not have to shoulder the world on your own, my child.’

  Nepherym sighed through her nose, closing her eyes for a second. A dark figure flashed behind the curtains of her eyelids. She contained a shiver and breathed out. When she opened her eyes again, she forced a smile to her face.

  She whispered against the shadows in her room, ‘Will you sing me a song?’

  There was a passing ghost in the old woman’s stare as Nepherym denied her the motherly bond she proffered. But she nodded and stretched her lips into an answering smile, conveying all the love she could on her worried face. Layla pulled the blankets over Nepherym’s slightly shaking body without a word. In silence, she sat back at the edge of the baldachin.