Blood and Betrayal
Page 1
Blood and Betrayal
A dark fantasy anthology
S. K. Sayari
A. M. Dilsaver
R. L. Davennor
Christiana Matthews
Jay Rose
Aisling Wilder
Ine Gausel
Edited by
Emma O’Connell • S. K. Sayari
Illustrated by
Fictive Designs
Copyright © 2020
Paperback edition ISBN: 978-1-7777139-0-4
Electronic Edition ISBN: 978-1-7777139-1-1
Published by Zasra Press, a registered trademark of Ardent Dawn Publishing Ltd.
First Edition: June 2021
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, places, or persons, whether living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover Art by Maria Spada Design https://www.mariaspada.com/
Illustrated by Fictive Designs https://www.fictive-designs.com/
Compiled and edited by S. K. Sayari, edited by Emma O’Connell. Proofread by Caitlin Wade.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the authors, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Introduction © S. K. SAYARI 2021
THE PATH OF DARKNESS © A. M. DILSAVER 2021
BEAUTY’S CURSE © A. M. DILSAVER 2020
BLOOD OF THE STARS © S. K. SAYARI 2020
CURSED IN BLOOD © JAY ROSE 2020
DEATH’S REQUIEM © INE GAUSEL 2020
FEED THE SEA © AISLING WILDER 2020
HARVEST © CHRISTIANA MATTHEWS 2020
HEART OF SHADOWS © A. M. DILSAVER 2020
NEVERENDING SUMMER © INE GAUSEL 2020
PAVANE FOR A PRINCE © CHRISTIANA MATTHEWS 2020
SEAWHISPERS © R. L. DAVENNOR 2020
THE BLEEDER’S WIFE © AISLING WILDER 2020
THE DOE PRIESTESS © S. K. SAYARI 2020
THE LAST SINGER © AISLING WILDER 2020
THE PRICE OF PROPHECY © INE GAUSEL 2020
WITCH-DRAGON © S. K. SAYARI 2020
WYRMS OF AVASAL © S. K. SAYARI 2020
Contents
Introduction
Seawhispers
R. L. Davennor
The Last Singer
Aisling Wilder
Blood of the Stars
S. K. Sayari
Pavane for a Prince
Christiana Matthews
Neverending Summer
Ine Gausel
The Doe Priestess
S. K. Sayari
Beauty’s Curse
A. M. Dilsaver
The Bleeder’s Wife
Aisling Wilder
Harvest
Christiana matthews
The Price of Prophecy
Ine Gausel
Witch-Dragon
S. K. Sayari
Cursed In Blood
Jay Rose
Death’s Requiem
Ine Gausel
Feed The Sea
Aisling Wilder
Heart of Shadows
A. M. Dilsaver
Wyrms of Avasal
S. K. Sayari
About the Authors
S. K. Sayari
A. M. Dilsaver
R. L. Davennor
Christiana Matthews
Jay Rose
Aisling Wilder
Ine Gausel
About the Editors
Introduction
To make a promise is to be bound by oath to your word—for the honourable, at least. But many are not honourable. Especially not in this book. In the face of love, lust, envy, fear, anger, and deception, binding words are easily cast aside.
The driving force behind this anthology was to explore what we fondly call ‘our happy dark hearts.’ After all, while hope and heroes and happy endings are all lovely things to read about, not everyone is a hero. Not everyone makes the ‘right’ choice. Not everyone can hope for happiness.
Now, the characters we created aren’t necessarily villains, but we can assure you that we, as the authors, have indeed taken lessons from some. After all, who better to learn from than the ones who never get happy endings?
The authors contributing to this anthology were asked to create gripping stories incorporating both an oath and a betrayal, not necessarily in that order. They were also tasked to weave stories that enrapture readers with fantastical elements of deliciously dark fantasy.
From tales of dryads and jinni to stories of dragons and wizards, you’ll partake in a journey that will leave you questioning characters’ morals and actions, and perhaps sympathizing with their cause.
So grab your cloak and lantern, turn the page, and descend into the depths of darkness with us.
S. K. SAYARI
2020
THE PATH OF DARKNESS
* * *
Here Death walks among us,
And jinni lose their hearts.
Hearts are cursed in blood,
And princes play their parts.
* * *
The witch-dragon approaches;
The sirens lay in wait;
A bounty hunter reels at
The twist in her own fate.
* * *
A hidden song is calling—
We’ll dance into the night.
The shadows keep us warm,
And the Darkness brings us light.
Loved ones haunt our dreams
While we bury our old ghosts,
Trading brand new love
For the one we needed most.
* * *
Blood drips from the walls
And the moon is out of sight;
You won’t know who to trust
When the Scourge rains from the skies.
* * *
Strength of will is tested
As new promises are forged,
But bonds are meant to be broken—
Dear reader, you’ve been warned.
A. M. DILSAVER
2021
Seawhispers
R. L. Davennor
Music
* * *
by the sea
lived a witch
alone
but content
she weathered
storms
she weathered
torment
with no ears
to hear
she heard them
speak
the dead
buried
the living
shriek
Waves caressed Agathe’s toes like soft sheets of silk. The tiny grains of sand were gentle against her tired skin, ebbing and flowing with the lull of the tide. She closed her eyes, relishing the breeze enveloping her where the ocean couldn’t, and exhaled before beginning her song. The melody started quiet and low—a stark contrast to the sirens’ resounding laments that had echoed along these shores for centuries—but despite the competition, Agathe sang it anyway.
Her world had gone silent years ago, even the music, but she had never stopped singing. Agathe didn’t have a choice; if she refused to give life to the lyrics, the songs within her writhed and thrashed like eels, desperate to get out and be heard. Luckily for them both, music was a thing she enjoyed—a distraction. And the sirens liked it too.
They began t
o appear when Agathe reached the chorus. Settling onto the rocks dotting the landscape, the creatures watched her, their glowing eyes shining like beacons. One might mistake a siren for a beautiful maiden in passing, but certainly not when up close. Their appearance had terrified her until she’d grown to know them. With sallow skin, thinning hair, and bony frames, the sirens quite resembled Agathe in her old age. The only beautiful thing about any of them was their voices—Agathe’s ragged and low, the sirens’ ethereal and otherworldly. Their razor-sharp teeth glittered in the morning sunlight, reflecting on the surface of the waves.
Blood dripped down their chins when they smiled.
The sirens had feasted well last night. A ship had fallen victim to the brutal storm that raged until dawn, and Agathe had counted more than a dozen corpses littering the waves before they were devoured one by one. The waters lapping at her feet were tinged red, but rather than signaling an end, it was only the beginning. The sirens hadn’t come to listen to her song or keep her company.
Not today.
Agathe ignored their whispers until they flooded her mind, sinking their claws in deep. She’d heard nothing but the sirens’ voices for nearly two decades, and as much as the creatures brought her comfort, in moments like this, it was enough to drive a person mad. The sirens’ matriarch, Ligeia, spoke loudest.
Defeated, Agathe halted her melody and frowned. “I’d really like to finish my song.” Though she couldn’t hear her own voice, a faint rattling in her skull informed her she spoke aloud.
Ligeia shook her head, eyes narrowing into slits. Young must feed.
“They had all night to feed.”
Not enough. Need more.
Agathe clenched her fists. The sirens had multiplied in recent months, their hunger never sated no matter how many corpses the sea offered, and the newborns were the most ravenous of them all. It worried her.
“How many?” she asked, referring to the number of bodies that had washed ashore in the night. They may have escaped the sirens’ clutches once, but they wouldn’t a second time, not with Agathe around to fetch them. Refusal wasn’t an option. If she tried, the sirens’ whispers would flood her mind until she truly did lose it.
Ligeia raised a trio of bony fingers.
Three. These days, it was a struggle for Agathe to lift even one of the waterlogged corpses. Her hunchback was getting worse with each passing year, and it didn’t help that her bad leg acted up any chance it got. She hadn’t needed to rely on a cane thus far and wasn’t about to start now.
Agathe smiled. “I’d best get to work, then.”
Ligeia hissed something in her mother tongue before slipping beneath the waves. One by one her sisters followed and Agathe was once again alone. She should have been accustomed to it now, after decades of solitude.
She wasn’t.
Absently rubbing the place where a ring should’ve sat, Agathe began limping her way from the surf, each step placed deliberately and carefully. Her joints protested, but she welcomed this over the aches that liked to settle in her heart and mind. Physical pain was tangible—and with the right poultices, fixable—unlike the invisible wounds inflicted by him.
No, she reminded herself. Matthias is dead.
If she kept saying it, maybe one day she’d actually believe it.
Progress was slow, but Agathe eventually made it back to her modest dwelling. A long-abandoned lighthouse acted as a shield for what was essentially a shack in comparison, but it was functional, and it was home. Once through the door of the smaller house, she eyed the array of herbs and bottles along the far wall. A poultice to soothe her joints was more than tempting, but there wasn’t time. Not with corpses awaiting her attention.
Agathe turned instead toward her sled. A modest creation, she’d fashioned it out of twine and driftwood to aid in dragging the dead sailors back out to sea. Once upon a time, she’d been able to shoulder the bodies with nothing but her own strength, the same strength that had seen her through heartbreak. She smiled, envisioning her younger self swimming and singing among sirens. Vibrant, fierce, and beautiful, she’d been a sight to behold.
“Hells,” she said aloud, “I still am.”
She now sported wispy grey hair, sagging and wrinkled skin, and a misshapen frame, but Agathe’s eyes were still bright, and she was still walking this earth. Like the rocks dotting the cliffside, she’d weathered countless storms without incident, unshaken and unbroken.
After wrapping the sled’s rope around her waist and ensuring she possessed her dagger, Agathe set off.
There was only one place where corpses washed up. Her work may have been hard, but it at least kept the bodies from fouling the beach. Without her hearing, the fresh, salty air was even more precious, and Agathe would keel over before allowing anything to ruin her peace. Certainly not filthy men. Even alive, they always reeked to high heaven. The scent of death was almost preferable.
The cove wasn’t far. Surrounded by jagged rocks, the shallows meant the sirens couldn’t swim here, and the narrow inlets were the perfect width for human bodies. It was a sanctuary of sorts, a cathedral if the ocean possessed one, complete with hymns and prayers from the sailors begging for death. Occasionally, but rarely, the ones that ended up here were still alive.
Today, though, the corpses lay lifeless. Agathe exhaled—less work for her. She wasn’t opposed to slitting throats but would hate to get more blood on her robes when previous stains still lingered. Approaching the first body, she kicked it gingerly, grimacing not at his bruised and bloated face, but at the smell. It didn’t matter that she’d been doing this for decades; there simply was no getting used to it.
She worked as quickly as her tired bones would allow. After positioning the sled behind the dead man’s head, Agathe yanked his arms to pull him the rest of the way. Dragging the loaded sled from the beach and into the tide always took longest—she swore the sand worked against her. But once she made it to the shallows, the ocean took it from there. Agathe walked alongside the floating sled and its cargo, guiding it through the inlet while enjoying the tide caressing her lower half.
Faster, hurry!
Agathe shot Ligeia a pointed glare. The siren matriarch and her sisters waited just beyond the cove, prepared to pounce the moment their prize was within reach.
“I’ll get there when I get there.” Agathe kept her pace steady, grateful the tide swayed in her favor.
Ligeia was upon the corpse the instant Agathe shoved her sled into the open sea. It made no difference to the sirens that the body had already started to decompose; they tore into the flesh as if starving. Crimson leaked into the waters around them. Clotted and thick, the blood gathered in clumps, releasing a putrid scent that forced Agathe to hold her breath.
She didn’t stay to watch the carnage and yanked her sled free at the first opportunity. Gathering the second corpse went quicker and expended less effort, given the smaller man was missing a leg. The sirens finished the remains before Agathe had fully turned away, and Ligeia wasted no time demanding the third.
He proved a challenge. Tall and dense, Agathe’s sled could barely accommodate his frame, and she exhausted herself getting him aboard. She doubled over, resting her hands on her knees while she caught her breath, and took the opportunity to study him. His skin was cool to the touch, but not nearly as frigid as the others. He possessed all his limbs. Even his clothing appeared in relatively good condition—soaked and torn, but not tattered. That wasn’t what caught her attention.
He was staring at her.
He was alive.
His widened eyes as blue as the waves, he spoke words she couldn’t hear. He didn’t seem capable of movement apart from his head, and Agathe wondered if he was truly as whole as she’d thought. Please, he begged again and again—beyond that, she didn’t bother to read his cracked and parched lips.
He wanted her to save him.
Agathe scoffed before reaching for her knife. He was hardly the first pathetic soul to beg for his life, and
he wouldn’t be the last. For some reason, they all saw her as a savior, foolishly unaware they spoke to Death itself. Dropping to her knees, she rested the blade against his throat. One slice and it would be over.
But as she tensed to do so, on the sailor’s hand a second piece of metal glinted in the fading sunlight.
A wedding band.
The sight took her back forty years. The ring was nearly identical to the one Agathe had placed upon Matthias’s finger all those years ago: plain and unassuming. If she closed her eyes, she could hear his laugh intermingled with the flowing tide, followed by the vow he’d whispered into her ear.
“Always and only you.”
If only he’d been telling the truth.
Agathe glanced at the still-living sailor. She could—should—be merciful.
She didn’t want to be.
Sheathing her blade, Agathe turned toward the tide. Despite struggling so much with the loading, dragging him into the surf was surprisingly easy, as was delivering him to be devoured.
No doubt hearing the man’s cries, Ligeia gave Agathe a toothy, bloody grin. Fresh?
“Fresh.”
She stayed to watch him die.
Once the sirens had eaten their fill and disappeared beneath the crimson surf, Agathe made her way back to shore. She secured the sled’s rope around her waist, humming various pitches until the correct one resonated in her skull, and started toward home.