“Shhhhh, lass, ’twill be oot o’ ye soon enough.”
“I never stopped caring about you,” I said, shocking myself with the sudden admission. Still, it was true. Despite everything that happened between us, and all the literal bad blood we shared, I truly loved this man. And still did.
His face remained unchanged.
Tallis scooted me closer to his chained arm and lowered my head underneath it. “Mah blood will strengthen ye, so drink deep one last time.”
He sliced open his palm and made a fist. Raindrops of crimson magic-infused blood began trickling into my slack mouth.
I’m dying repeated over and over in my head.
No, Tallis is protecting me, the foreign voice interjected but I was so close to sleep that I no longer cared. Indeed, who could care what Donnchadh had to say? His very essence was spilling all over the floor beneath me. He had to find his way to Tallis’s stupid tree so that he could join the ether of the otherworld and never be seen nor heard from again.
I looked for the black tar Tallis warned me of. The sludge that would expel itself from my veins, sludge that represented the removal of the demonic spirit inside me. Instead, I saw a spreading pool of bright red blood… my bright red blood.
“Tallis, where is Donnchadh’s essence?” I asked weakly. I knew I should have been more outraged but my eyelids felt so heavy.
“’Tis nae there, lass,” Tallis answered, placing his palm on my forehead, “’Twas all a lie.”
I fought to keep my eyes open but surprise coiled through me just the same. “Whhh… what?”
“Donnchadh is gone,” Tallis wrapped his arm around my neck. “The only interloper in Lily’s body now is ye.”
He tightened his hold and the last thing I saw was Tallis’s face, his eyes so bright and shiny as his mouth broke into a malicious grin.
Chapter Six
Persephone
I was in the dark.
Floating weightless, I could not recall a thing about myself. How had I arrived in such a terrible place? Who was I? Who abandoned me here?
The first thing I could remember was my name, Persephone. Yes… I was Persephone, once and forever, the Queen of the Underground City.
The next thing that occurred to me was what the darkness implied. My heart ached with the fear that I was again forced back into the crown.
No, I assured myself, it’s far too warm for me to be inside the crown.
A light washed over me from somewhere.
Then I was consumed by the burning hatred I harbored for Tallis Black. He brought me to this lowly place with an artful lie I never thought he could even conceive, never mind utter. It was his fault that I was now here and suffering in this destination that was nowhere.
The fires of indignation began to blow through me as I promised myself I would see that for every minute I was left here, Tallis suffered twice as long. Surrounded by this nothingness, I could only see myself in my naked form.
This body, MY BODY—
“No, it isn’t,” a voice called out from the darkness.
I looked around. Only the endless expanse of oblivion was in view. Could it be I was hearing voices even here?
To focus myself, I looked back down at my nude form. This body was mine by right and by fortune. Mine to claim, mine to own, all mine.
“That’s not true,” the voice said, again interrupting my thoughts. Terror vibrated through my…her…my perfect body as I finally recognized the sound of the intruder. It was the foreigner who was invading my thoughts ever since that night I tasted blood while being taken by Alaire.
“Who are you?” I demanded, fully aware now that this was not the voice of Donnchadh. He was no more than a fabrication, a lie, a ruse to lure me here. I was not entirely certain if I said the words aloud or merely thought them but either way, there was no response.
“Don’t play coy with me, coward!” I screamed. “Do you know to whom you are speaking?”
“A thief,” the disembodied voice replied.
As if in response to the voice’s words, something began changing in my surroundings. The blackness that was all around me was fading into something… green.
In the blink of an eye, my feet were touching solid ground. A lake was visible on my left with the castle I saw in my vision standing strong in the distance beyond it.
“Here again,” I said as I shook my head without understanding. That was when I noticed the man ahead of me, Tallis Black, the treacherous Bladesmith who summoned me to this hell.
“Ah am glad tae see ye’ve made it, mah queen,” he called above the whipping gusts of wind. White poppies floated through the air like snowflakes. The woman covered in mud, whom I suspected was the source of the mystery voice, lay at Tallis’s feet. I did not look at her. I only had eyes for the backstabbing bastard who brought me here.
He was back to his clean-shaven self, and his hair was cut close to the scalp. The sunlight above illuminated the lengthy scar that ran through his eye, making it much more pronounced . The Bladesmith’s sword had also been returned to his side. Suddenly feeling afraid, I tried to back away, only to find myself rooted in place.
Already fearing what I had not yet seen, I looked down to find the vines once again wrapping themselves around my legs.
“You son of a bitch!” I screamed at the Bladesmith.
The wind picked up, drowning out my words. Tallis raised his sword, mumbling an incantation I could not make out. He brought the sword down in an arc over the drying mud that trapped the other woman in the earth below. The dirt flaked off and blew away in the wind as the blade cut across the body it formerly covered.
Finished with his strange form of gardening, Tallis jammed the tip of his blade into the ground, where it swayed back and forth in the heavy breeze before helping the woman to her feet. I was prepared to yell at him once more but when I saw the woman’s appearance, my words dried up and died in my throat.
I don’t understand, I thought to myself as I continued to stare at her, now aghast.
The woman was me. The same facial features, the same body…a mirror image of the vessel I inhabited. Except I knew there was fear in my eyes, and I saw unbridled rage dancing in hers.
“Lily,” I said, the name clinging to the air around me, pulling me down even harder than the vines.
Tallis wrapped his meaty arms around her and kissed her deeply. She returned the kiss with enthusiasm, wrapping her (our) meager arms around him as best she could. A pain shot through my chest and I was brought to my knees as the vines quickly clung to me at the hips. The earth beneath me began to yawn open like a waiting grave.
“No! NO! NOOO!” I wailed, reaching out for something, anything that would help me escape the fate that I now saw for me. I clawed at the dirt and snatched at the weeds and the grass but it was all for naught. The weeds snapped. The grass gave way.
And suddenly I was falling.
The world around me rumbled and the wind whipped my hair, blinding me temporarily. I could hear the soft crunch of approaching footsteps. With no warning, the wind ceased, rendering the water and grassy shore as utterly silent as the former blackness. Before me stood the two deceivers, Tallis and Lily. Retriever and Bladesmith. Bastard and Bitch.
“Tallis,” I pleaded, doing my best to suppress my anger over yet another betrayal. “Please… don’t do this! I’ve waited so long to be reunited with you! I… I love you.”
“Aye, so ye’ve told meh afore.”
He shook his head. As usual, I could not tell if it was out of sadness or disappointment.
Lily, the imposter, the enemy within me, knelt down before me. Our eyes were now level with one other. For the longest time, she looked at me with the same stare as someone who is just about to squash a troublesome bug. In that moment, I wondered if this was how Saxon felt just before his demise.
“You must understand,” I started to babble. The tears, real or not, leaked from my eyes as I spoke. “I waited so long in that dark, cold, lonely
prison!” And that’s exactly what the crown was: a prison. For all the power and opportunities it granted me, it also was my ultimate bane.
Lily just continued to look at me, the rage in her eyes gradually being replaced with contempt. Finally, when her face became hard as the earth imprisoning me, she spoke.
“I’ve watched you while you desecrated my body, ruined the man I love and tortured my friend. I had to silently watch you allow Alaire to…” Her voice faltered for just a moment, prompting her to swallow. Then she came back with “… to use me. I had to feel him inside me against my will! And now that the shoe is on the other foot, you ask me to spare you?!”
“I’m sorry,” I said, rather pathetically.
“Now you are. But you weren’t before.”
She didn’t say anything more as she stood up. A sword that was not there previously materialized in her hands. It was a blade almost the same size as Tallis’s and just as finely crafted.
She continued to speak like a magistrate pronouncing a prisoner’s sentence. “The most important truth is this: there are fates far worse than death and sometimes…” She paused to lift the sword above her head.
I reluctantly had to admit that Tallis had trained her extremely well. Her form was impeccable.
“…There are those who deserve that fate.”
The sword flashed down. I winced, waiting for the sudden burning pain of a decapitation or impalement. But nothing happened. I dared to peek from behind a tightly shut eyelid. The sword was buried almost up to its hilt… in the ground in front of me.
“What… what is the meaning of this?” I started to ask as I looked up at her.
“Tallis said death was way too kind for someone like you,” she seethed at me. “For once, I’m inclined to agree with him.”
Prickling, burning pain started radiating over my body as the vines began their inexorable crawl up my form once more. I tried to plead, to scream, to curse at the pair of them. But as I opened my mouth, a vine crawled into it, plunging down my throat. Its needle-like thorns shredded my tongue and esophagus. Once more, I tasted blood, knowing well and truly that this time it was my own.
I turned to face Tallis, hoping he would come to his senses and realize what was happening to me… me, Persephone, the woman he once loved. I pleaded with him using only my eyes, as everything else was in the process of being consumed by the rapidly expanding greenery.
“Persephone, Ah am truly sorry it had tae come tae this,” he said softly. “An’ Ah hope mah apology keeps ye warm for the eternity ye are goin’ tae spend in this place.”
Eternity… no… NO!
But the vines had already overtaken my entire body, leaving only my eyes to bear witness to my fate. The gaping hole beneath me opened up wide enough to finally swallow me up. As I sank into the dirt, I watched the hole gradually collapse around me.
My last thought was not of Alaire, who would not know this had even happened and thus, could not defend himself from Tallis’ further machinations. Neither did I think of Saxon, my loyal dead soldier whom I should have valued far more highly than I did. It was not even a violent anger toward the woman, Lily, who had been the cause of all my sorrows in the first place.
No, my last thought was of Tallis and the memory of the first time we met before our tragic love had sadly developed into such a bitter hatred.
The earth piled in around me and my existence was once again smothered in utter darkness. One that neither Tallis’s apology nor the numbing cold could assuage.
###
Lily
As the green earth finally swallowed Persephone, I involuntarily let out a deep sigh of relief. I was back in action. Lily Harper was well and truly back. However, I was still in shock over how this dream had finally managed to come true.
Then I turned and faced Tallis, and an indescribable warmth filled my chest that I couldn’t compare to anything. I jumped at him, embracing him in a hug that I wished would never end as I planted kiss after kiss on his face, neck and chest.
“Oh, God (kiss). Thank you (kiss), Tallis (kiss, kiss). I can’t ever repay you for this (kiss). But damn if (kiss) I’m not going to (kiss) try to do my best.”
Tallis pushed me off him, gently but firmly. His face held its usual sullen expression.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, failing to understand his mood.
“We moost go back soon, Besom,” he said sadly. “An’ ye moost be willin’ tae keep oop the illusion that ye’re still Persephone.”
The ominous weight of his words bore down on me as the world around us began to fade. Why couldn’t things be more simple? I thought, which prompted a less-than-inspirational quote from H.L. Menken, although it seemed right on: “For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong.”
“Ah may nae remember this, Besom,” Tallis began but I lost my focus on him because I was suddenly swimming in vast pools of nothingness. “Ah had to use mooch o’ my blood an’ natural magic tae orchestrate yer return. As such, ye moost convince meh that ye are indeed mah Lily.”
“What does that even mean?” I inquired while I shook my head. “Why wouldn’t you know me? Didn’t you just set me free?!”
All at once, I lost sight of Tallis. And then, I lost sight of everything else.
###
When I came to, I was lying on the floor in front of the Druid, who appeared to be passed out. The candles had long since burnt out and I reached around to feel the still-aching flesh on my back. My fingers examined the smooth skin, which meant that Tallis had somehow healed the lengthy cut he made before blacking out.
Ye moost be willin’ tae keep oop the illusion that ye are Persephone…
Those words repeated themselves in my overwhelmed mind as I took a deep breath. A quick inspection of my hair revealed Persephone’s black tresses in place of my usual auburn strands.
But going back to Tallis’s words of warning, I wondered if I were even capable of continuing this guise. Would Alaire believe that I was Persephone?
Regardless, that was exactly what I had to do; I had to manage to convince everyone that I was still Persephone. Well, everyone except Tallis. He’d have enough post-dream amnesia to forget what he pulled off. So I’d have to tell him everything that happened, along with everything else we’d been through to convince him that I really was myself again. Maybe I could do the same with Bill? On one hand, I felt sure my closest friend would be more than relieved to know that I had returned to myself again. On the other hand, he was also the biggest gabber I’d ever met. Expecting Bill to keep a secret was like relying on Persephone to be anything but selfish.
I sighed deeply as I contemplated all of this. So many obstacles still lay ahead of me, so many places where I could trip and fall, and so much that could go wrong…
It was enough to make my head spin.
In that moment though, my brain cherished one memory from my time near the castle and the lake: Tallis called me his.
Chapter Seven
Lily
So, to briefly recap, I was now back in control of my own body while Persephone was trapped in what Tallis called the “place between worlds.” I too had been dwelling in that place, and I’d come to know my own darkness from the moment Persephone first took control of my body.
The darkness made me feel completely hopeless. As hard as I fought against Persephone, I hadn’t had enough strength to defeat her. Her soul was too old, too powerful, and too filled with unbridled rage. All that made her strength nigh insurmountable. If it hadn’t been for Tallis’s blood and quick thinking, I would have been doomed to play the role of her prisoner for all eternity.
Remembering my servitude, I could only focus on the moments of respite when Tallis managed to reach me in his dreams. And even then I was a victim: trapped in the earth, the sticky mud rooting me in place, and doing my best Sleeping Beauty impersonation. Other times, I could only lie there and watch my body’s slow corruption. Even worse, I could only see what was happen
ing to me in brief clips and disjointed snippets, like an array of illogical videos that made little sense to me.
I saw myself having sex with Alaire, then I was raking a cat o’ nine-tails across Bill’s chubby back while he screamed vulgarities at anyone who would listen, and tormenting Tallis with the promise of sex or pain. At those moments, I wished I could have shut my sight off completely, wished I didn’t have to witness what Persephone was doing to them and me. At other times, I was forced to stare into the skies above the lake. That, or I’d see nothing at all.
At those times, I truly felt Lily Harper slipping away.
Other memories crossed my mind. Memories of my old life, and my mother and my friend grieving for me. A car accident that turned my world not only upside down but inside out. The memories of a life I’d already lost, and even those began to fade while I was rooted in the emptiness that had become my destiny.
Then there was the moment that changed it all. I’d felt a rush of adrenaline inside me. Not within the body I was still desperate to take back but inside me, my essence, that which I called me, no matter what body I was occupying.
Tallis.
At first, it was just another name. The shadow of a memory that remained vague and buoyant; every time I tried to grasp its meaning, it simply bobbed away again. Still, I knew there was something important about that word, and that name.
That’s when my Bladesmith finally found me.
At first, he couldn’t remember me anymore than I could recall who he was. Unable to speak to him, I could only hope the innate connection between us would be enough. And luckily for me, it was. But our minds didn’t bring us back to the precipice of understanding. No, it was our bodies… Even though neither of us knew the other, something existed there, something that drove Tallis to touch me.
His touch brought me back to life. His desire strengthened me; and I began to push against the encroaching darkness of my prison.
It was the fourth time our dreams crossed paths when I was finally able to speak again, and the mud was cleared away from my mouth.
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