Beyond the Black Door

by A. M. Strickland

  5

  OPEΝ DOORS

  Beyond the black door was a dark hallway, darker than even the dimmest soul I’d ever visited. The way ahead vanished into blackness after only a few feet. The walls leaned in to meet at a point above; they and the floor were made from the same flawless material as the door—at least insofar as I could see, which wasn’t far at all.

  Hairs rose on the back of my neck. This didn’t seem … right. The darkness almost looked tangible, like my reaching hand could disappear into it as if into black water.

  I slammed the door without hesitating. Oddly, it didn’t resist, its weight gliding back into place with as little sound as when it had opened.

  Maybe because it didn’t have to resist. The door no longer latched. As soon as I let go, it began to swing inexorably open again. Panicking, I cast around for something to barricade it and saw a lovely wooden table, made of entwined branches, lining the wall nearby. I wasn’t supposed to move anything in a nehym. That was one of my mother’s rules, but I’d broken so many of those already. Pinning the door closed with my foot, I grabbed the end of the table and dragged it in front of the frame.

  It held. But even at my most hopeful, I knew the solution wasn’t permanent. After all, my mother hadn’t told me Never open the door, Kamai—but, oh, if you do, just block it with a table.

  But all I could do, beyond hope, was pretend this would be enough. And then, since I didn’t want to think about what I had done, I fled.

  * * *

  Nikha startled awake when I did. The first thing to occur to me, as I flushed with embarrassment, was that I’d practically shifted my legs onto her lap to avoid bumping the man who was sleeping across from me in the carriage.

  The next thing was: Nikha. The fire. The black door. This was all real. My mother was dead, and I’d opened the door.

  “Nightmare?” she murmured sympathetically. She gave me a traditional blessing, using three fingers to touch the crown of her head, between her eyes, and her lips—symbolizing Tain, Heshara, and Ranta—and then my lips. A kiss, of sorts. Father and mother, protecting their daughter from the evil behind the stars. “We’ll arrive in the capital in another hour. Sleep a bit longer, if you want.”

  I was too stunned by her kindness to respond. The last person to bless me like that had been my mother. Her absence felt like a hole straight through me, gutting me, while the memory of the darkness behind the door refilled me with something sickening and awful … and somehow a morbid anticipation of what might lie beyond it. Shame followed quickly on those heels, and nothing could keep my eyes from tearing.

  Nikha reached for me in a heartbeat, cradling my head against her chest. It was hard and mostly flattened under her leather tunic, the opposite of my mother’s soft curves, but it was still a caring gesture. I had guessed that she was awkward with such things, but maybe she wasn’t now that her men weren’t watching her.

  The kindness flayed me, worse than the ant bites. She thought I cried because I missed my mother and my home, or maybe even because my skin burned. Not because I had done something awful—maybe even to her.

  The act was what kept me going. If I hadn’t needed to pretend I was only a grieving girl, I would have lain down and never moved again. If spite had filled and animated me before, now it was lies.

  Through my tears, I searched Nikha’s eyes for a sign that something was amiss, that I’d unleashed something dark and horrible in her soul—or that even moving the table had upset her in some way. She did seem slightly off-balance, shaking her head and blinking a few times, as if to clear a fog or knock something back into place—but then all she did was grimace over my ant bites anew and encourage me to go back to sleep.

  I shouldn’t have been able to sleep. I didn’t want to sleep ever again. But I had to know.

  I ducked into the soul of the man across from me, because I didn’t want to risk hurting Nikha further. It was a creepy place, cramped like a cellar with ropes and chains hanging from the low ceiling, each dangling strange items—I saw a crudely stitched doll and a red-stained, lumpy satchel before I spun away. I was glad I hadn’t let my knees touch his.

  When I turned, I found myself facing the door. It was open again.

  The blackness bored into the rough stone of the nehym’s wall, like I was looking down into a deep pit in the floor. For a second I was disoriented, dizzy. But then my eyes locked on to something that hadn’t been there before, and I froze.

  On the smooth floor, just beyond the black threshold and before the thick darkness, lay a single red rose. An offering.

  Or maybe bait.

  I waited, watching and listening for anything else in the murky gloom beyond the doorway. Nothing came. I wanted to close the door and block it again, but I didn’t want to touch a single thing in this man’s soul, and not out of respect for the rules. Besides, I couldn’t spot any object heavy enough or that I could easily drag.

  Backing away without taking my eyes off the door, I slipped away into dreams.

  * * *

  When we arrived in the capital, the sun was just peeking over the mountains and setting rooftops alight. I’d been to Shalain only a couple of times, even though we lived a mere few hours away. Had lived.

  I supposed I lived in the capital now. My mother had often made appearances with Hallan at court, the two of them on display like jewels for coveting. They had frequently stayed with others in the city or even at the palace, though on rarer occasions, they’d allowed guests of their own to come out to the villa, which was when I’d practice soulwalking on strangers. Truly though, my mother had kept me away from the court’s eyes.

  And now I was here, while Marin and Hallan were dead. Despite the horrific circumstances, I couldn’t help staring out the window in wonder.

  The city was made of sandstone and coral like many of the villas outside of it, but it was built narrowly upward rather than sprawling outward. Bronze domes gleamed against the white stone in every shape and size, wavering in the air like coins at the bottom of a fountain. Most of the buildings hid private central courtyards within their tall pale walls and colorful tiled roofs, rising in a neat slope toward the mountains like pearly rows of teeth. The capital was in an easily defended position, in a niche where the central mountain range, Ranta’s Fingers, bisected Eopia and met the sea at the southern tip of the island continent. The port lay shimmering deep blue to the south, while rocky, forest-veined mountains rose jaggedly behind the city to the northeast. The only easy access was from the west, the direction from which we’d come. The sun fully crested the peaks as we wove our way into the city, making the buildings glow in pink and orange, the bronze domes flare like torches, and the ocean glitter aquamarine. For a second, the view made me forget that everything about my arrival here was miserable.

  Just like the roads threading the countryside, the city was impeccably well kept and organized. It was no wonder to me that the king was loved and respected, especially by city folk. They were cared for by their king, and perhaps by the goddess who was bound to him. I could almost imagine the sensation of Ranta’s presence that people had reported at the king’s coronation. The very streets and its inhabitants seemed blessed.

  City folk were out and about, walking or riding horses, some in plain attire, others in rich finery, and still others hidden away in carriages as richly decorated as desserts. Even several horses had their manes and tails braided with silk, their harnesses hanging with chiming disks of bronze, glinting in the morning light. The sun shortly grew strong and hot, which explained the white and pastel silks and linens that dominated the streets, matching the city walls. I was used to the shade of the forest and the cool tile halls of the villa, but in this baking heat, even I would have been tempted to forgo the dark colors I preferred.

  Despite the warmth, many heads were covered. Women wore scarves for a number of reasons: to keep the beating sun off, and, if they were devout, out of respect for Heshara, who hid her bright self during the day. Although the moo
n goddess was often partially shrouded in the night sky as well, many argued it was her loose black hair that curtained her pale face, so it was far more common for women to go without scarves in the evening, unless they really didn’t want a breeze to disturb their hair. I’d never bothered with them, at the villa.

  Skin color varied like clothes—the bronze like Hallan’s from the original inhabitants of the island, said to have been Ranta’s first children; the darker brown like Nikha’s that may have come from once-nomadic sailors of the distant east; the deep black of our nearest neighbors from the green continent to the west; and the pale tones of the traders from far across the sea who’d stayed and since multiplied, resulting in the likes of me. Many peoples had, throughout time, arrived here to mingle and create Eopians. Historically, such intermixing was seen as particularly blessed, since Tain had dark brown skin, Heshara improbable white, and Ranta, whether depicted as a babe in her parents’ arms or a voluptuous woman, was somewhere in between, her hair and skin a rich light brown. Statues of all three, from human-size to building height, stood among the population as reminders of their favor. Most recently, the foreign trade that the king had encouraged had resulted in the city’s latest wave of prosperity, a blessing that felt much more tangible.

  So many bright people, so many new fashions. I felt pride for my homeland rise within me, and I turned from the carriage window to exclaim something to Nikha. Suddenly, as if cold water were splashed in my face, I remembered who I was with and why I was here. I sat back in my seat and looked at my hands, ignoring the eyes of the sickly souled man across from me, which flickered in my direction far too often. I tried glaring, and then a staring contest to get him to stop, but neither worked. I wished I had something to discreetly throw at him.

  Finally, the carriage rolled to a halt. We were on a quieter, cobbled lane, the stones pale cream and smooth under the wheels. A town house sat elegantly alongside a cluster of equally large, lavish buildings. This was no doubt a neighborhood of business and culture, the homes of the wealthiest merchants and maybe even minor nobility. For the first time, it occurred to me that my father might be higher in society than Marin and Hallan.

  The two men inside with us piled out. I caught Nikha’s arm when she shifted and jerked my head at the man who’d been sitting across from me, now stretching his back in the morning light.

  “He’s a foul man,” I muttered to her.

  “Gerresh?” she asked in surprise. She frowned but kept her voice as low as mine, her tone turning hard and deadly. “Did he say something to you? Do something?”

  “No…” Of course, I couldn’t explain what I’d seen in his soul. “It’s just … his eyes. A feeling I have. Be careful around him. He’s sick.”

  She blinked, looking at me oddly, a ragged girl she barely knew, warning her, a grown and heavily armed woman, to be careful of one of her own men. For a second, I thought she might laugh at me. But then she nodded and slid out of the carriage, extending a hand afterward to help me down.

  The men headed through a narrow alley that ran along one side of the house, toward a back service entrance. But Nikha escorted me up the main walkway.

  I found myself standing in front of a new door, sky blue to match the lacquered roof tiles several stories above us, trimmed in gilded wood set in the white sandstone walls. It should have been far less intimidating than the black door, but it wasn’t.

  Nikha took a deep breath and shot me an uncharacteristically nervous glance. “Just be patient with him and remember that he did send us to find you last night, the very moment a message arrived from your mother. He cares.”

  Which definitely didn’t make me feel better. I wanted to hold back, assess, slip in quietly instead of march right in the front, sneak around like I would in a nehym, but she didn’t wait, opening the door for me to step inside.

  6

  SURPRISIΝG MOΝSTERS

  The interior of the town house was cool and dim, with sunlight filtering through thick shuttered windows and gauzy curtains. The floors were polished dark hardwood, accented with pale, intricately woven rugs. The upholstery of the furniture was equally rich, but reserved, with creams and dark browns set against each other in constrained geometric patterns. A golden statue of Tain lorded over a small alcove, his hair like sunbeams and his gaze stern. The whole place was dark and light, buoyant and heavy, opposites holding each other in check with strict, refined order. Every surface was impeccably clean.

  A man appeared at the top of a sweeping set of dark stairs. He was dressed in a fine linen suit in shades of cream trimmed with white, a pale blue silk sash at the waist, his airy attire in contrast to his severe expression. He stared at us—at me, rather. Indeed, he had my nose.

  “Sir,” Nikha said, bowing. “This is Kamai Nuala. Kamai, this is Sir Jidras Numa, His Royal Majesty’s esteemed head of tax collection and lord of the Numa family estates in the Risha province.”

  Risha was well north of us. Inland, up against the mountains, even more arid without as much of a wet season, and cooler. They made wine up there—red grape wine, not white palm wine, like down south. Superior wine, supposedly. I preferred palm wine. It was sweeter.

  Tax collector told me the rest. I suddenly remembered Hallan’s rich tone of amusement at dinner a couple of years ago. The only thing tax collectors are good for is pinching their rear ends together and pennies out of the populace; tight asses, is what they are.

  I suddenly wondered if Hallan had known who my father was and had been needling my mother. Based on the way she had laughed and shot him an exasperated glance, it was probable.

  As if Jidras could sense my thoughts, he looked down at me like I were some ragged piece of junk Nikha was trying to hawk. I probably appeared no better than that, with my gown half-torn away and my still-red skin. I stared back at him, too overwhelmed for any real defiance. I did what I always did when unsure of my footing: I studied him.

  Jidras Numa’s skin was a touch darker than mine, a creamy tan. His eyes were an odd shade of blue, very unlike the brown of my mother’s and mine. His hair was straighter too, and tied tightly behind his head with a ribbon. I could see why my mother might have liked the look of him; he was handsome, aside from the scowl on his face.

  All my mother’s careful training in decorum and manners evaporated like a spray of water under the beating sun. “Um,” I said.

  He wasn’t bothering with niceties, either. He stepped the rest of the way down the stairs and stood in front of me, his shiny leather shoes clicking on the hardwood floor.

  “Sweet Heshara, she looks like her.” Jidras’s eyes narrowed farther. “And like me.” He said the latter like it might be a bad thing.

  “Trust me, the feeling is mutual,” I murmured. My voice was faint, so it took him a second to realize I might have been insulting him.

  Nikha cleared her throat in the awkward silence that followed. “Sir, if I may be so bold, Kamai had a rough night. This is your daughter,” she said as if reminding him.

  “And Marin’s daughter,” I interjected, anger rising quickly.

  “Good gods, she even sounds like her.” This was definitely a bad thing.

  He wasn’t much taller than me, and yet he was speaking over my head as if I weren’t there. I tried to stand straighter, throw back my shoulders, but my ant bites chafed under my bodice. Even so, I was about to say something in the haughtiest voice I could muster when his next words hit me like a punch to the stomach.

  “Just so we’re clear, Kamai is not my daughter,” he said with a hard glance at Nikha. Then he brushed me aside and headed for the interior of the house.

  Still without saying a word to me.

  As my breath whooshed out, Nikha’s hissed in like she wanted to say something. When I glanced at her, her jaw was clenched so hard a muscle twitched. Even as the head of his guard, she probably couldn’t completely speak her mind.

  Well, he couldn’t fire me. If he didn’t like whatever I said, I would be no worse off tha
n I already was: homeless and hungry. “Hey,” I snapped as I followed Jidras. “You can’t just walk away like that. My mo—Marin said—”

  He spun on me in a wide hallway, his eyes angry again. “I can do whatever I wish in my own house. As for your mother’s claims,” he sneered, “I may have been the one to help put the bulge in her belly, but I’ve had nothing to do with you, no part in your upbringing. And that was how she wanted it, so blame her if you feel like blaming someone.”

  The vitriol in his words made me take a step back. At least he was speaking directly to me now.

  “But … if you are my father…” It was like he was insisting that something was both true and false.

  “As far as you or I are concerned, I’m not. You might look something like me, but don’t go calling me Father, or anything of the sort. You’re your own person, and I’m my own, separate. And let’s keep it that way.” He resumed his march toward a set of double doors with golden knobs. Their inset glass windows revealed a leafy green courtyard of white stone, drenched in delicious-looking shade.

  So he didn’t want me. This wasn’t a safe place. It probably should have been obvious as soon as I’d stepped inside. And yet he was my last hope. “But I have nowhere else to go,” I nearly shouted. “My mother is dead.”

  He paused with his hand on the golden knob. His fingernails were trim and clean. I looked down at mine, which had dirt crammed under the pale half-moons. They blurred in my vision. I could feel Nikha at my back, like a shadow.

  Jidras’s words were suddenly much softer. “I thought she might be, if you were here. Her letter said…” I desperately wanted to know what her letter had said, but he shook his head and changed the subject. “Anyway, that would be the only reason she’d allow me to see you.” He opened the door and stepped into the cool, shady courtyard. He glanced back at me. “Well? I’m very busy. Do you need something from me?”