House of Falling Rain (Eyes of Odyssium Book 1)

by C. A. Bryers

  With an unwavering hunger lying just beneath the shining surface of his eyes, Lochmore drew another step closer.

  Every breath Rainne took was raw and came shuddering from her chest like her airway was being slowly squeezed shut. The next moment, heat bloomed from seemingly every inch of her skin. She could feel sweat bead on her brow, neck and chest as if the two of them had been conjoined in the throes of passion for hours already.

  This cannot be real. This is wrong. What is happening?

  She closed her eyes, scouring the madness that had overtaken her for some means of escape. In the darkness she found endless pathways that wound and twisted this way and that. There, at the end of each road he stood waiting.

  Lochmore.

  He was a force, an inevitability that would wear her down as surely as if he had reached into her mind and manipulated the process centers of her brain to make her succumb to his desires. But at every sight of him she fled, unable and unwilling to go quietly, to give in and let him take what he believed to be his. There had to be some pathway that led to the light, some means to break this inexplicable enthrallment that already had a stranglehold upon her.

  Suddenly, there in the darkness, he appeared.

  Afa!

  She saw him materialize out of the black, his wizened old face a reminder of the inner strength he had instilled in her from the first day he had taken her into his loving care.

  The shadows disintegrated, melting away until Rainne found herself gasping for breath in the dreary, crumbling quarters of the Adjutu. Across from her, the intensity had vanished from Lochmore’s eyes, replaced by a strange look of curiosity.

  “Interesting,” he purred, a corner of his mouth rising in a smirk.

  Rainne was still panting, her pulse thrumming now from fear rather than some sort of artificial desire. “Stay back. What…what have you done to me?”

  “The question is not what I did to you. The question you should be asking is why, Rainne Zehava, did you do it? Why did you try to murder Ciracelle?” he asked, letting the words hang there like daggers waiting to fall.

  The breath caught in her throat. “What?”

  With another step, he stood directly before her. “I tried to protect you from all of this. I told you to stay in your room, to stay out of sight.” His hand caressed her appalled visage. Even such a gentle brush caused sensual quivers to explode through her psyche. “I wanted to keep you from the eyes of suspicion. No one else needs to know what you’ve done.”

  She shook her head, terror rising within her like a volcano threatening to erupt. “This is not true. Y—you’re lying.” She felt her lip trembling. “Why? Why would I do that? Why would I do that to a girl I do not even know?”

  He gave a nonchalant shrug. “Jealousy, perhaps. I can taste in you your feelings for that man—that unworthy scrapper below. He had become close to Ciracelle. But you knew that, didn’t you?”

  A vague, numbing disconnect between her body and mind slithered through her. Absently, she felt herself nodding.

  With a delicate touch, he drew back the scarf from her hair, letting it lie across her shoulders. “Or perhaps it was for justice. She and Joht, they tricked Salla. They thought to destroy him by conspiring together, didn’t they?”

  A flicker of control returned, and she shook her head violently. “No. No, I did not try to kill her!”

  Lochmore’s brows lifted, and he started circling her. “Is that right? Then tell me, when you were downstairs not so long ago, why was Iriscent so frightened of you?”

  “She wasn’t. I…I startled her.”

  “Come now, Rainne. You terrified her. I told you what she was doing down there. What was it?” he asked, running his fingers over her shoulders as he made another circuit around her body. “It’s okay. Tell me.”

  She felt a push somewhere within, compelling her to speak. “Sh—she was reconstructing…she was putting Ciracelle’s mem—memories together.”

  He pulled her to him, wrapping his arms about her like a snake grappling for position before it began to constrict. “That’s right. And what do you think she saw?”

  “No. No. It was not me.” She no longer fought against the numbness overtaking her. She sought it out, desperate for it to steal through her until she would feel nothing at all. But another glimpse of her Afa in the space of a blink of her eyes summoned forth another burst of strength. “This cannot be. This is a lie.”

  She watched Lochmore’s hand slip into the small pouch at her hip. When his hand withdrew, a burning panic sent her eyes shooting wide and a hand clapping over her mouth in abject horror.

  Held there between his thumb and two fingers, Rainne stared in disbelief at her lucky charm. Orius’s tusk glistened there in the dim light, smears of dried blood running from its lethal point down to the jagged break where it had snapped from her Afa’s pet ch’nook’s mouth.

  Aghast eyes sought out Lochmore’s, lips still parted in stunned silence. She did not try to speak. There were no words. How could she have done this? Why would she have done this? It made no sense, but somehow her mind would not allow her to refute the possibility. Her thoughts narrowed down to a lost future in some Majdi prison, her poor Afa wasting away to an inexorable death now that she would no longer be able to care for him.

  Fingers touched her chin, a thumb erasing the wet rivulet that had carved its way down her cheek. Her entire body was shivering in a potent blend of terror and desire.

  “Look at me.”

  Her eyes squeezed shut, another tear slipping from between her lids.

  “Look at me,” Lochmore repeated.

  At last she did. His face was close, his eyes warm and soft.

  “I can make this go away. Nobody has to know, Rainne. I will do that for you. I promise. Salla will take the fall when I’m finished with him, and you will remain here with me, just as we agreed.” He leaned close, giving her lips a brush with his own, light as a feather. “But salvation comes at a price.”

  29

  “What’s wrong, Joht? You haven’t been…you know, yourself for a while. Since we ate, actually,” Ystolt said, her icy blue eyes scrutinizing him as if she expected his skin to suddenly become flush with hives.

  Joht Tavross leaned against the cold stone wall of the Iron Grounds, only vaguely aware that the Esharic woman was even speaking. He hadn’t expected it, but somehow, that girl with the scarf—what was her name? He hadn’t paid attention. Somehow, she had gotten to him. She had done nothing to convince him of Salla’s innocence, but instead had sown a seed of doubt in his mind, whether she intended to or not.

  In the last weeks, his derision of the man who had called himself Tallas Corso had spread like weeds grown out of control. When Ciracelle had been discovered, Joht had laid the blame on the same man with unfaltering resolve, a man now exposed as a stranger to the Order named Salla Saar. Who else could it have been? Who else had the motive? There was nobody. Nobody but this man who had everything to hide, and everything to lose.

  “Joht?”

  It was Trigg who spoke now, nose wrinkling as he looked up at him.

  “Not now. Get back to your training. Both of you.” He looked squarely at Trigg. “Especially you. Been looking a little spongy around the midsection lately.”

  Trigg turned away with a bitter look, muttering something as he left.

  As soon as the pair were gone, they were absent from his mind as well. He gazed up to the deepening red hues of a sunset gleaming from a horizon he would not be able to see until he was released from this decrepit old place.

  Picturing Ciracelle in his mind, Joht envisioned the vibrant young woman she had been, then saw the deteriorating shambles of the girl she had become within weeks of arriving at the House of Falling Rain. Was there a connection? That girl in the scarf seemed to think so, claiming tephic ability did not just ebb away into nothingness merely from sleepless nights. But was that true? He didn’t know. He had known all along that tephic would never be a strong ally in
his quest to become archsentinel. The lessons would be useless to him, and so he had always treated them as such.

  Tracing his way back to her first days at the House, even in passing glances, Joht never failed to catch the reminders she sent his way that spoke of her love and devotion. But when he had withdrawn and she had become entangled in that foolish affair with Lochmore, that love had become mired in conflict, her devotion lost in confusion. Had Lochmore somehow poisoned her, tainting her thoughts as well as her body, draining her of the drive and passion that had always lain just behind her eyes?

  If it was not Salla who had tried to kill her, could it have been Lochmore? But for what reason? Had she questioned what was happening to her, perhaps even linking it to her nights with—

  The thought sparked something in Joht’s mind, recalling an echo of a voice.

  Her voice.

  Joht struggled to remember the conversation. It was not long ago, shortly before Tallas had appeared in their midst. Heat bloomed from within, his frustration mounting as he struggled to remember a half-ignored complaint Ciracelle had been desperate for him to hear. He pounded the back of his fist against the wall, picturing the pained expression on her face, but hearing nothing spoken. The back of his head thudded lightly against the stone wall.

  What was it? What was it?

  It had to do with Lochmore, regret and…concern. Fear, even. What had she been worrying about? Her tiredness, her failing tephic, obviously, but what else? An explosion of air burst from his lungs and into the evening air. His eyes closed, the frustration evaporating. A different sensation rose up, like a fist pushing its way up through his esophagus.

  “Ciracelle.” He breathed her name, swallowing hard to clamp down on the sorrow fighting to break free. “Why didn’t I listen to you?”

  Her face was there again in his mind, flushed with anger, as vivid as if she was standing there in front of him now.

  “Fine, pretend not to listen. Pretend you don’t care,” she had said, eyes venomous. “You’ll care when he’s all done and there’s nothing left of me.”

  That part, he remembered. When he’s all done, she had said. At the time he had blown it all off, regarding her hysterics as yet another plea for his attention. He’d watched her dart off, caught up in someone’s arms who had been standing only a dozen feet away. There, she’d buried her face in the figure’s chest and cried.

  Who was it?

  His fist crashed against the stone wall again as he fought to remember. When he opened his eyes and looked at his hand, the backside of his small finger trickled blood from a tiny gash. He could see the figure clearly in his mind now, the pain somehow giving his memory the jolt it had required.

  “Santerre.” He whispered the name, eyes searching the encroaching darkness that fell over the Iron Grounds for meaning. “Prime assistant to the Adjutu…did you hear what Ciracelle said to me? Did you…tell Lochmore?”

  There was no evidence, no certainty even, but there was possibility. Could Ciracelle’s attempted murder be the result of her suspicions of the Adjutu and what he might have been doing to her? Joht couldn’t imagine how Lochmore had been siphoning the strength and energy from Ciracelle, and he could never prove it even if it were true. With so much about the tephic side of the Majdi equation unknown to him, he refused to take such an absurd notion as this for granted. A chain of events was forming in his mind, convincing him that at the very least, his questions could not go unanswered.

  “Trigg! Ystolt!” he called out across the open expanse of the Iron Grounds.

  The two looked up from their training. Ystolt abandoned what she was doing and moved to join him. Trigg was not so quick to come when called like a subservient dog, but after a few moments of standing alone on the sparring pad, he grudgingly relented, jogging to catch up with Ystolt.

  “Follow me. There’s someone I want to have a talk with.”

  “Who?” asked Ystolt, wiping the sweat from her ash-gray skin.

  “The Adjutu. And nothing’s going to keep me from having that talk. Got it?”

  Her nose wrinkling in mild confusion, Ystolt shrugged and nodded. “Okay, Joht.”

  Joht ignored a handful of further questions the two lobbed his way on the broad, U-shaped circuit from the Iron Grounds to Adjutu’s Path. He set his face in stone as he rounded the gentle curve of the hallway that brought the doors of the Adjutu’s quarters into sight. A door opened a few feet away, and one of Lochmore’s assistants, one he hadn’t seen in Cereporis Hall for over a week, scrambled to bar their path.

  “Santerre said the Adjutu is not to be disturbed,” she said as forcefully as she could manage.

  Looking down at her as he approached, Joht noticed the dark circles under her eyes, heard the effort it took for her to issue the command.

  “Ystolt,” he said, refusing to slow his march toward Lochmore’s quarters.

  The Esharic girl sprinted forward, shoving the assistant out of Joht’s path. She did so with ease.

  “Wait! You can’t go—”

  “Get back in your room. Now,” he heard Ystolt bark.

  A moment later, Joht stood outside the door, his hand coming up at once to pound against the flaking paint atop old wood to demand entry. Feeling the surge of adrenaline flow through him in anticipation of the confrontation, Joht decided against it. He tested the handle.

  Locked.

  He glanced back at his companions. Trigg looked anxious, Ystolt almost eager.

  “Are you sure about this?” asked Trigg, his round, unshaven countenance looking none too certain.

  Lips twisted in a crooked grin, Joht shrugged. “When he knows he is in the right, an archsentinel lets nothing stand in his way.”

  But did he know? For certain? He undoubtedly had his suspicions, further cemented by the sight of the assistant who wore that same faded, withering look that had become a defining feature of Ciracelle in the last month or so. With a deep breath, Joht prepared himself to find out if he was right or not. He thrust his leg forward, his boot crashing against the door. It flew open from the powerful kick, laying bare the scene unfolding within.

  Lochmore stood shirtless with his back to the doorway, arms wrapped about the woman with the scarf—Salla’s rho—his face buried into her shoulder. The Adjutu’s body seemed to pulse and writhe, arms and shoulders rising and falling like a jungle predator grappling with its dying prey as it feasted. Despite the sound of the door crashing open, Lochmore’s head lifted from the girl without alarm. Then came the sound of a great breath drawn through the nostrils, of smelling and tasting the air as if to identify the intruders.

  When he turned at last, the sight was like nothing Joht had ever seen. Lochmore’s face, his chest, almost every inch of him pressed against the woman was a writhing mass of mottled green tentacles. They detached from her one by one as his body shifted to face Joht and his companions, but each one reached for her still, ravenous in their craving for more. From within the twisting mass of Lochmore’s face, Joht could see red eyes like molten rock glaring back at him.

  “W—what—”

  “Hey, Tav,” Trigg said from behind, his voice quiet and calm.

  He turned about despite the living horror standing before him, catching sight of a flash of movement. In that frozen split second, he saw Trigg, his arm arcing down with something in his hand.

  A knife.

  Pain ripped into him and his breath caught in his chest as the blade tore through skin and muscle, lodging itself just beneath the collarbone. He tasted blood rising up from his throat, staring at his faithful acolyte in shock and confusion. The face looking back into his was bereft of emotion, only tiny muscles in his face twitching as he fought to drive the blade deeper.

  “Joht! No!” Ystolt screamed with an expression as shocked and horrified as if she had been stricken herself.

  She wrenched at the man, trying to peel him off of Joht as she might some giant, voracious parasite. Overpowering him, she flung Trigg away, the knife sliding fr
ee from Joht’s chest. But without a moment’s hesitation or the faintest glimmer of remorse or anything on his face, Trigg closed the distance between himself and the Esharic woman. He jammed the bloody weapon hard between her ribs with such power that Ystolt was lifted off her feet. With a gurgling gasp, the pale woman’s cold blue eyes stared in disbelief into Trigg’s as if to ask why. Two staggering footsteps back in retreat was all she could muster before her legs gave way, and she crumpled to the floor.

  “Trigg…” Joht wheezed the name, a new surge of adrenaline rising up to snuff out the searing pain.

  Trigg came on, thrusting the knife forward again, but Joht sidestepped the maneuver, catching him by the wrist with both hands. Summoning all of his remaining strength, Joht bent the wrist until he heard a wet snap underneath his grasp. Trigg made no sound, and the knife fell away in a clatter. His expression remained flat and deadened, even as Joht Tavross smashed his fist into the other man’s face as if trying to force it all the way through to the back of his skull. Grabbing the reeling man by the shoulders, he flung Trigg headlong into the wall.

  With pain blurring his vision, Joht looked down at Trigg, lying dead a few feet from Ystolt’s body. He plummeted to a knee, his head spinning. Gasping for breath, his lungs on fire, Joht shifted his dread-filled gaze from his friend to the open doorway of the Adjutu’s quarters.

  The girl with the scarf was left as a lifeless, discarded heap on the floor as Lochmore strode coolly into Adjutu’s Path, his chest and face a sickening, undulating mass.

  “Your brash entrance has let you see me as I am.” His voice no longer resembled a man’s. It was low, garbled, and horrifying. “Now, my House of Falling Rain will become the place where you die, bleeding out like a gutted vopesian stag.”

  An archsentinel does not retreat, the reminder hissed in his mind. But Joht did just that, backing away from the monstrosity that stalked him as he clutched at the deep, ragged wound in his chest, trying in vain to stop the flow of blood.