Beyond the Black Door

by A. M. Strickland

  For a moment, I was struck utterly speechless. Then: “She made the black door? She left my soul to you?”

  All those times, she’d said my soul was safe, hidden from what was behind the black door, and what she’d really done was hide me from my dark, poisoned soul. I should have realized it as soon as I’d discovered this place. I should have known because of what Lenara had said about my mother’s protections, or how much Vehyn could affect me, or how the door followed me from soul to soul.

  “How did she do it?” I asked.

  “Only for a few days of life is a soul easily affected on this scale, because it isn’t fully inhabited by its owner yet. That’s how I did what I did and how your mother, in turn, did what she did. After much longer, neither of us would have been able to exert our influence here without changing you, damaging both you and your soul beyond repair. Still, ironic, isn’t it, that you opened the door and ruined all her hard work? You’re your own worst enemy—your mother’s worst enemy—not me.”

  Here were my answers now, delivered when they would most hurt me. My mouth worked, but nothing came out.

  Vehyn, on the other hand, wasn’t quite finished. “I told you, you’re mine. I embraced you before your mother did. My lips touched your brow before hers. I protected you from the world first.”

  Fury tore through me. “What do you mean? You possessed me, you didn’t protect me!”

  “Agrir was the one who forged the link between you and me. The night of your birth, he was the priest that blessed you—all arranged by the Twilight Guild, of course, to open the way of Darkness into your soul. Darkness needed a human agent on earth, not only a manifestation in this realm. I was created specifically to inhabit someone like you.” He smiled. “Really, we’re the same age, born together, even though I came into this world like this.” He gestured down at himself. “Fully grown, as you humans count things, and with a deep understanding of my purpose, but only a vague understanding of the world—distant memories from a time long gone.” His voice sounded equally distant. “I learned it all, through your eyes.”

  I was shocked beyond anger, despite myself. “If my mother locked you away, you were here, all alone, until I opened the door. Only seeing what I saw.” I blinked and looked up at him. “No wonder you’re insane. How is it that you don’t hate me?”

  He regarded me for a moment. “Sometimes I did. But this was my purpose—to inhabit you—and I couldn’t hate that. I built myself a place I could tolerate from the bones of your soul, and after you opened the door, I couldn’t hate you. I knew you too well. As well as I knew myself.” His eyes glinted with shadowed mirth. “Though I will admit your singing lessons were torture. I’m eternally grateful you gave those up.”

  He was right—I couldn’t sing. I’d been eight years old when I’d quit. He had seen absolutely everything. Maybe he could tune me out, but I had to assume he’d witnessed my entire life: every joy, every embarrassment, every horror. I was truly a part of him. What I didn’t know was how much he was a part of me. And yet if my soul was any indication … this strange piece of Darkness and I were very much intertwined.

  “What are you?” I breathed. I had asked before, so many times, and I still didn’t truly know the answer.

  Vehyn shrugged, as if it didn’t much matter, but something in his eyes betrayed him. “Until I came about, Darkness had only been able to influence chosen ones like Agrir with vague intuitions—what I was once again limited to after your mother sealed the door. But before that, I could speak to him as you and I are speaking now. He let me into your newly formed soul with a ritual he spent half of his puny life learning, expecting my arrival here, as I was expecting to meet him. But neither of us were expecting you. We didn’t know you would be a soulwalker, because we hadn’t known Marin was one. And Agrir still doesn’t know about you, because I found you first and hid you from sight then, as I did just now.”

  “Why?” I shook my head, baffled. “Why did you, back then?”

  He hesitated, as if truly considering his answer. “You surprised me. Your presence, the possibility of company here, intrigued me, even though at the time your spirit was only a tiny thing small enough to fit in my hands.” He held up his palms, as if remembering. His look was curiously vague. Almost soft. He shrugged, the look dropping away, the moment broken. “Agrir would have tried to control you if he knew you were a soulwalker, and it’s thanks to me that he doesn’t.”

  That was why he hadn’t wanted Agrir to come back to my soul, even before Agrir wasn’t able to. “Only because you wanted to control me,” I snapped.

  “True, I wanted you all for myself. But then your mother took you from me, building a wall between your spirit and your soul, between here and the rest of the sleeping realm. At the time, no one had any idea she wasn’t a true member of the guild, or that she was a soulwalker. And after she foiled the ritual by sealing away your soul, she kept up her act so successfully the Twilighters didn’t suspect what she’d done. Agrir assumed the ritual failed somehow, that your soul, irreparably damaged in the process, had collapsed, closing the way into the world for me. But on the slight chance that even a part of me had survived inside you somewhere, he ordered you protected.”

  “You want to take credit for that too?” I scoffed. “Some protection. He tried to kill me at the villa.”

  “Agrir gave the soldiers orders not to kill you, but the soldiers didn’t realize you were inside when they started the fire. Agrir even tipped off Razim to ensure your safety, but that fool nearly didn’t get to you in time. This is why I don’t trust anyone but myself with your safekeeping.”

  “Still, any safety I have was carved out by my mother first.”

  “Your mother’s influence is nothing compared to mine.” Vehyn’s lips snarled. “I didn’t see you face-to-face again until you were nearly grown. But I watched over you, shaped you from the shadows. You’re my child, my bride, my soul. You are mine, forever.” His voice dropped. “And forever, Kamai, is a very long time.”

  I shoved him violently. It hardly budged him. He narrowed his eyes.

  “Why?” I screeched. “Why did you do this to me?”

  “I told you. Darkness needed a vessel, and among the Twilighters, your mother was conveniently about to deliver one. It’s as simple as that. She was merely a tool to be used, and you and I came together through chance alone.” He smiled. “Or perhaps it was fated, since we go together so well.”

  “What do you intend to do with me?” I ground out, ignoring that last part. “You owe me answers at the very least, after borrowing my soul for so long.”

  “I owe you nothing, because this place is as much mine as yours now, if not more so.” He paused, as though reflecting. “And yet, in spite of that, I’ll tell you what you’ve always wanted to know. I’ll tell you who killed your mother: Agrir did.”

  He’d been responsible for the queen consort’s and Hallan’s deaths, so I’d already guessed as much. That was probably the only reason Vehyn was telling me now, other than to upset me. Hearing it confirmed made my eyes close and my teeth grind. “He ordered Marin’s death specifically, not just Hallan’s and the queen consort’s?”

  Vehyn nodded. “Not on my command. I would have spared your mother’s life, for you. But I was locked behind the black door, unable to make my will known, and Agrir made a … hasty … decision.”

  My eyes were still closed, my voice nearly a whisper. Pained. “Why?”

  “He discovered that Marin knew too much.”

  I opened my eyes. “The plot to murder the king.”

  “Something like that.”

  I shook my head. “But against Razim’s wishes and on Agrir’s orders, the king is still alive. My mother’s discovery of the assassination plot couldn’t have been the only reason she was killed, if that was it at all. I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what else she discovered?”

  “No. But don’t be vexed, dear Kamai—I am nothing if not generous. Soon, I’ll give you all of your a
nswers and more.” He paused, the silence heavy. “I’ll give you the world.”

  The offer was obviously meant to impress, but I stared at him in horror. “If the world will be anything like my soul once you’re done with it, I’d rather have no world.”

  “I’m sure that could be arranged, if that’s what you really want.”

  It was too much: his talking about my mother’s death and threatening to destroy the world so casually, as if all life on earth were a card in a match of Gods and Kings to use against me. I couldn’t pretend this was only a game anymore.

  I slapped him as hard as I could.

  For a second, he looked as surprised as when I’d kissed him. That alone made him appear younger, more human than I’d ever seen him. But then his eyes sank a shade darker than usual, more like a skull’s than ever, and his face went as deathly still as a corpse’s. His expression was an ugly, angry bruise, even if his cheek wasn’t.

  Bruise. Something occurred to me that should have ages ago, a thought that fit like a missing piece into this grisly puzzle. “How was Gerresh able to bruise me, if I can’t even bruise myself?”

  Vehyn blinked at the abrupt change in topic, but then his expression went even more flat, if that were possible. “You needed bruises, so I let him bruise you,” he said, his voice chilly. Before I could gape at that, he added, “It was for your protection. Gerresh—that was his name?—needed to die, but I couldn’t let anything look too suspicious.”

  “Oh, so the hand through his heart was subtle?”

  Vehyn shrugged. “I assumed you would figure something out. You convinced that great, lumbering woman to cover for you. She’s about as smart as she looks.”

  “She is smart, she isn’t a woman, and she saved me, as much as you want to take all the credit and make me feel like I owe you.” I wasn’t betraying Nikha’s secret because Vehyn already knew what we’d discussed over the soul chart. But there was more to this, and I carried on before he could argue any other point. “Was Gerresh a Twilighter?”

  This time, he didn’t answer.

  “He was, wasn’t he?” I demanded. “He was in Jidras’s household as a spy, because the guild must have known I would seek shelter there.” I held his eyes. “Did you order him to come back to try to kill me?”

  Again, Vehyn didn’t answer.

  “You sacrificed him. You wanted me in danger just so you could rescue me, wrap me more around your finger … or, better yet, wrap your fingers around my neck. For all I know, you arranged this little scene with Agrir yourself, to make me think you cared enough to hide me.”

  “I didn’t.”

  At least there was that. But it wasn’t much to weigh in his favor; it wasn’t close to enough. “Still, with Gerresh, you may as well have put those bruises on my throat yourself.”

  “I told you, I’m the only one who can hurt you.”

  I returned his stare for a long moment. Neither of us moved or blinked, the silence like a held breath between us. And then I shook my head, once. “You disgust me.”

  My word had even more of an effect than the slap. “Get out, Kamai.” His voice was low—worse than a growl.

  Fear began to chill the fire of my anger, but not before I shouted, “This is my soul! I’m not leaving.”

  “Since I’m not going to let you wake up for at least another two days, you actually can’t. I mean get out of my sight, if you know what is good for you.” His voice grew softer, but that made me shiver—in an entirely bad way, this time.

  I could tell when my life was in danger. I fled the study. I wished there were a door to slam, but there was only a long hall. I ran down it, and countless hallways after. The dark maze passed in a blur, maybe from the tears flooding my eyes.

  This. This was my nehym. Endless warrens and cavernous halls and pits of darkness. I’d wanted to find my soul all my life, and now that I had, I was horrified and trapped here until my friends’ lives fell apart and something terrible happened in the waking world.

  But what, exactly? It had to do with the king’s assassination, I knew that, but why? And what else?

  Eventually, somewhere, I stopped, sagging against a wall, and slid down it. I looked around. It was all black, of course, with hallways shooting in all directions. For a flaring moment—a first—I hated everything about this place. I didn’t know where I was going, there was hardly any light to see by, only faceless walls …

  Before my eyes, the hallways began to shift, leaning, collapsing into one another, combining, until there was only one way stretching forward. The lamplight brightened, to the extent that it could, and cast a pattern on every dark surface that hadn’t been there before, floral on the walls and checkers on the floor.

  It had listened to me. It had always seemed to respond to me in slight ways, and now I knew why. This was my soul too, not just Vehyn’s dwelling.

  And so maybe it could help me. Maybe it remembered.

  28

  BURIED SECRETS

  Souls could speak, in a sense, at least through memories, like Jidras’s nehym and quite a few others’ had to me. Perhaps I could search my own soul for a message.

  But not from myself. From my mother. She had sealed my soul, after all. She’d been here at least once before and obviously knew how to affect a soul to a great degree. I figured that, as a soulwalker and a Keeper, she would have hidden her deepest secrets not in the waking world, but in the sleeping realm.

  Is there something my mother left me? I thought at the dark walls surrounding me. The single hallway before me shifted, curving in a slightly different direction than it had before.

  I leapt up from where I’d been sitting on the floor and took off down the passageway at a run. The walls seemed to fight me at times, and I had to keep focusing, like I’d done In Between, as Vehyn had taught me. It probably took far more winding passages and stairs than it could have, but eventually I ended up in a small, deep room, not unlike a cellar. At first glance, it was empty.

  But then I heard a scraping sound, and one of the black stones in the floor didn’t seem to be sitting quite evenly anymore. I dropped to my knees next to the stone and wedged my fingernails around the edges. It shifted, and I was able to lift it.

  Underneath was a creamy white letter, the brightest thing I had yet seen in this place, with my name written in my mother’s handwriting on the front. The image blurred in my vision. Impatiently, I dashed away my tears and broke the wax seal.

  You are only just born now, but I don’t know how old you will be when you finally read this. If you ever read this. I hope you never do, because that would mean the door remained closed. But in case it hasn’t, and I haven’t already told you all of this face-to-face, I leave you this letter that you might someday find it.

  You may or may not have heard about what your father did, but, Kamai, I have never regretted you. That didn’t mean I could let him get away with deceiving me, trying to use my body, and you, to get me to stay with him. I left him, carrying you inside of me.

  You might know already that I am a member of the Twilight Guild. That is not all that I am, but I fear to put more in here, so that will have to do.

  She explained, in brief, what I already knew: how the Twilight Guild had sheltered her in her pregnancy, sending her to live with Hallan and baby Razim—whom she knew to be the queen consort’s child as well—where she was to pose as Hallan’s wife, so the birth of her child would be less scandalous … supposedly. But in reality, the Twilight Guild had plans for me.

  Once again, Kamai, men have used the both of us for their own dark purposes. The day you were born, you were taken from me to be washed … and you didn’t come back. I became distressed, knowing you needed to be fed. Eventually, you were returned to me with the excuse that you’d received your birth blessing. And yet, as I fell asleep with you at my breast, I knew immediately something had been done to you.

  Your soul is … wrong. It is dark and much too big for an infant. Much too big for anyone. There are strange p
athways to young Razim’s soul that should not be here, and there is someone else here too. I whisked your spirit away from … him … when he wasn’t quite aware, and as I prepare this letter, I plan to trap him inside your soul. He isn’t human, and I fear he comes from a place antithetical to our own.

  I also fear the Twilight Guild is darker than their name suggests. That they are merely the prequel for something else, the darkest chapter in the history of our entire world. If I haven’t already told you, Kamai, never ever trust them. Know also: wherever you or I might be now as you read this, I did my best to try to stop them.

  If I discover anything else, I will leave my findings hidden in Razim’s soul. I have easy proximity to it, living with Hallan, and I believe he is as important to the guild as you are, with the disturbing connection between you two. Hallan and I are less so, and even if I am no longer here, I want my words to reach you.

  I love you.

  Razim’s soul. I’d only been in it once, long enough to see the black door and sob against it, just after my mother had died. I hadn’t been back since, only catching glimpses of its hidden knowledge during our game of Gods and Kings.

  I needed to get there immediately, even if it meant trying to travel the path In Between.

  But perhaps I didn’t have to go that route. My mother had said there was a “disturbing connection” between Razim and me. All this went far in explaining how wary she’d been of him for all our lives, how cool she had been toward him. And yet … she’d blamed a child who had been used as a pawn as much as either of us, and not Hallan?

  I supposed love could make you forgive an incredible amount. I certainly wasn’t one to talk.

  Never open the black door. Never fall in love. Those were the lessons I’d learned from her, and I’d failed at both, I now knew. Because while I hated Vehyn … I also loved him.