by Kelsey Quick
Glera appears from behind me. How long has she been there?
“Is that true? But he hasn’t summoned you in weeks?” Glera manages to interject through her shock. I don’t answer, instead I fumble with the tray that Seriesa places before me. She tilts her head out of concern. She can’t possibly know what she just did to me—what letting every other supply unit know about the Laisse means for someone like me.
Glera throws her arm around my shoulder. “The rest of them are jealous. You are fulfilling your purpose to Lord Zein while they wash laundry all day. Take their anger as a compliment.”
Purpose?
The desire to run away returns along with other, darker, thoughts.
How can this, any of this be a purpose? To obtain the Laisse chain? To be the best at nourishing the murderers of our own kind? How does that have the possibility to be anyone’s purpose?
I catch myself returning Anaya’s expression of disgust, but for a different reason. While she is disgusted by my ability to become the most favored unit with an exceptionally poor blood quality, an average figure, and a freckled face, I am disgusted by her brittle and degrading, half-assed purpose.
It’s hard at times for me to remember that all of these girls were born and raised in Cain. None of these girls have seen the true horrors outside of their sheltered worlds. None of them have seen their families attacked, screaming and writhing in ways that people shouldn’t, nor have they experienced the trauma of nearly dying by the hand of a ravenous beast; one that takes pleasure in every tear and every plea of its prey.
It is because of their lush pasts that none of them understand why I feel the way that I do, and I hate them for it.
“Thank you,” I mumble as I walk away from both Seriesa and Glera.
I try with everything in me to ignore the stares on the way to the tables and—
CRACK!
Vertigo. Cement. Crashing.
The porcelain bowl from my tray splinters into a hundred pieces across the floor. Something struck me across the face.
“Ugh!” My voice ricochets violently as pain shreds my backside and elbows. As soon as my eyes work again, I take in a supply unit with a metal tray in hand—what she must have hit me with. Although her face is twisted with rage, I recognize her as Danny, a curvaceous supply unit with brown hair that falls past her waistline. One of Anaya’s apprentices.
Still in shock, I reach up to my face and touch my cheek. Searing with pain and wet with blood, I recoil.
“Hey!” Glera calls out as she makes her way toward me, but Emi stops her. Emi whispers to Glera just loud enough. “If you intervene, Anaya will make it worse.”
My bewildered gaze falls to the background, to Anaya, who is staring at me, snide and bitter. I reluctantly return my attention to Danny, who is but a glorified minion. A thousand thoughts and emotions fill every corner of my mind.
Savvy’s voice echoes across the cafeteria. “Wavorly?”
I catch a glimpse of her and Katarii between the other girls, but they are stopped short of my full sight when Anaya stands to halt them. The dubious Anaya eyes Madam Seriesa, our only overseer at the moment, who has suddenly lost interest in anything but the line of trays in front of her. She lifts her gaze once to me, before turning into the kitchen. I gulp, suddenly frightened by how many hands could have staged this. Isn’t Seriesa on my side?
“Continue,” Anaya commands Danny while her threatening stare keeps my friends at bay.
Danny nods, and apparently noticing the Laisse chain that now hangs freely to my rib cage, admits, “I don’t understand, why you?”
Everyone falls silent to better hear. “There is nothing about you that is especially appealing. Flat-chested. Bulky thighs. Your weird hair. And your lack of respect for our lord Zein. How could you ever be given the Laisse?”
Ouch. Okay, that was harsh. And even more ouch when the majority of the room nods at her assessment. If I could right now, I would drown every last one of them.
I give Danny my signature look of annoyance while cradling my slick and throbbing cheek, but I refuse her a response. I’m as ignorant to the answers as she… well, maybe not quite as ignorant. My feet slide under my body and I pull myself up to walk past her as if nothing happened, though I know I won’t get far before she tries something.
She doesn’t even allow me to get an inch beyond, when she grabs the neck of my robe, intending to throw me backward. But I grab her wrist and twist before she can think, wrapping her arm around my back and flipping her onto the ground. Her mouth gapes, aching for air that the hard ground knocked out of her. Everyone takes a step back, and I turn to Anaya.
“Next,” I say, wiping away the blood that accumulated along my cheek.
It takes two whole seconds for a hesitant, yet determined Anaya to strut over, her painted nails clacking against her own shiny metal tray with irritation.
I raise my fists defensively and crouch into a fighting stance, my body remembering my self-taught, low-level combat training from the recreation hours back at Nightingale. My heart thunders against my chest wildly, pumped full of adrenaline.
Danny stands, clutching her abdomen, gasping and huffing like a raging bull. She takes a step toward me, and my eyes leave Anaya for a split second, who then makes her move—swinging her tray from around her body to drill into my head. I duck while grabbing Danny’s hair and sling-shot her straight into Anaya.
“Get out of the way!” Anaya screams as her puppet falls onto her—the closest thing to a distraction I’ll get. I sprint for her and in two strides my fist connects with Anaya’s cheekbone, sending her stumbling into the sea of supply units.
Her comrades catch her. She slowly turns her face back toward me, her eyes saturated with tears of anger, and now fear. This is exactly what I wanted to avoid, but now that we’re here, it’s time for her to see how the real world does things. What it’s like to see things writhe.
She reclaims her footing and sizes me up, probably realizing that attempting to beat me into submission was not her best move. I step forward, inviting a fight. Anaya does the same when Emi jumps in and bows.
“Anaya, please. If you go any further then-”
I move Emi out of the way and stand inches from Anaya’s tall, lanky form. “What you have seen is only a fraction of what I’ve trained myself to do,” I say. “While you’ve been staring at yourself in the mirror all your life, I’ve been training myself on how to best ruin your reflection.”
Her blue-gray eyes widen.
“Back down,” I mutter.
The mood shifts and I can already tell I’ve won, if only by fear-mongering. Anaya breaks her posture and moves to the side, her eyes—for the first time—vulnerable. I push past her and find the other supply units making a path in their huddle for me. Savvy calls for me, but I ignore it. All I can think to do is leave. Leave the seraglio. The chain gives me that power, nothing is stopping me.
Anaya’s sobs fill my ears from behind. While it serves her right, a small flame within me ignites from sympathy. Maybe I don’t understand it completely… but Zein, the vampire that practically cradles me in captivity, is Anaya’s beacon of hope. Her purpose. And I’ve gotten everything she’s ever wanted without even trying. I blink the displaced guilt away.
At the end of the room, Madam Seriesa leans against the wall, watching me with interest. I give her the scowl of scowls since… well, why not? I don’t have to come back here. I can sleep in the libraries or studies, maybe even an abandoned janitor’s closet somewhere. God, Zein’s going to be furious when he finds out, but I don’t care.
The stairs lead me up the floors to the front room where the plants and benches sit gathering dust. I shuffle my way through the exit of the seraglio. The vampire attendant fusses as I try to leave but showing him my chain is enough to silence him. I’m well on my way to the grand hall, when I see it again.
The violet hue from the passage to the left.
My mind freezes but my feet lead me to exactly
what I expected to find: The rippling purple wall and door. My fingers curl and uncurl into my palms over and over. What will I find this time? Am I hoping to find something?
No thought is stronger in my brain than what happened in the seraglio, so I open the door if only to take my mind off it. All the tension in my body releases.
It’s not the cathedral.
The dim, golden library with the fur rug and the inscription on the wall greets me instead. I immediately go to work to find its translation, if only to relieve my mind. Ducking in between the rows of books, more at ease this time, I check my surroundings until it’s apparent no one else is here. Recalling where everything was before, I meander to the spot where I found the gilded book, The Setting Sun. It feels heavier somehow in my right arm as I take it to sit along the far wall. My cheek hurts, and my knuckles are bruised from when I hit Anaya square in the face, but I try my best to ignore it.
I open the book and skim past the first pages that are nothing but dates and acknowledgements. The table of contents isn’t too far in, but the book is bound to have the inscription in Acclevin before anything else. Two pages more and there it is.
The Setting Sun
This world giveth and taketh away,
Hope’s light stripped from malice, virality, hate,
Grace subdued on the Sun’s brightest day.
Jerusalem’s tempest, a century reborn,
Again, and Again,
Forevermore.
Sacrifice for sacrifice, thousands spared, thousands torn.
The damned will claw and forever warn,
The heir apparent, the violet judgment,
Unleashing the wrath of the angels forlorn.
Jerusalem’s tempest unleashed,
Again, and Again,
Forevermore.
Well, that fell short of my somewhat high expectations.
I do a flip through of the glossy pages before standing to return the brick to its shelf. Wherever this place is, it must be linked to some sort of temple. Jerusalem, angels, grace. Words that were used fairly often back in Avignon during prayers and gatherings. The corner of the room catches my eye again, where the case of invaluable trinkets rest. Except this time, there’s a violet glow around one of them. I clear the floor in seconds, and press my hands to the glass. The blue and gold brooch stops glowing behind its encasing, almost as soon as I pinpoint it. For a second, it seems different. It’s more familiar. I go to reach for it only for the entire display to melt right in front of my eyes. The rest of the room is melting too, into golden tar—blacksmith sludge. As I turn toward the violet door, everything around me shatters, literal shards of reality falling and breaking apart in front of me! All that’s left is the dark, empty hallway from before. Except not quite as empty as I thought.
Clawed hands grab me by the neck and hoist me off the ground. I gag, coughing, scraping and throwing fists at my unidentified attacker. My brain channels its focus to my sight, where I can make out the blond hair.
“I knew it.” Seriesa snarls at me. “I needed confirmation, but I knew it all along.”
I can’t breathe. Oh god, I really can’t breathe.
“No normal supply unit could do what you did and still receive the Laisse, except...”
I don’t know if she throws me into the wall or if bricks hit me out of nowhere, but all of a sudden, I’m lying on the ground, everything threatening to give out. Shock. I’m in shock.
Seriesa pulls out a knife from her black sash and glides toward me. All I can focus on is how she nears on her tiptoes, my face level with her tattooed feet.
“Indeed, you found Zein’s favor, didn’t you? You deserved far worse for your outbursts against Lord Giomar.”
Giomar?
I recall his voice in the dining hall.
“My little birdies don’t lie.”
Adrenaline soars through my veins at the realization. I sit up and back myself into the wall, pulling out my own wooden knife I finished carving weeks ago. The scrap metal piece that is looped around the handle is cool to the touch, the edge—sharp as it could ever reasonably be. But what can I hope to achieve when something as flimsy as wood can’t even cut her skin?
She giggles. “You are a born fighter, no doubt. Unfortunately, I cannot allow your continued existence to demoralize what’s left of our honorable council.”
Her orchid-blue lips slither into a sinister smirk as she pins my hand to the wall, rendering my knife useless. She kneels down to me and presses her own knife to my neck.
“What are you—”
“Today your blood will pool and stain the floor. I must set this example, if not for Lord Giomar then for the continued respect of the vampire race. Elders, please forgive me.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, tears lingering in the crevices. The pressure intensifies.
Zein, please help me.
The thought doesn’t even have the time to transfer into speech. In an instant, the pressure releases and the knife drops to the ground. Seriesa’s eyes widen horrifically, her veins popping through her skin with intensifying pulses—imploding with blood. It coats her mouth, floods her eyes, seeps out of her ears and nostrils. Every part of her begins to bruise, each greenish-purple affliction connecting and spreading to the others like a disease. She falls over, and there, far behind her fallen form, is Zein.
He’s standing tall in full armor, expressionless. He has a fist raised and clenched, and his eyes, coated with tar; blacker than night. In this moment, he is the epitome of murderous. That’s when it hits me. Zein did this. Every blood vessel within Seriesa’s body was ravaged, torn apart by him. And he did all of it without touching her. This is the result of that power he bragged about the first night I arrived. He could have done that to me. He still can. Little by little, bile rises into my throat the more my gaze lingers on his ferocity.
“Wavorly, darling?” A calm, fluttery voice reaches my ears. A woman rushes my way from behind Zein. Madam Ceti.
“Are you alright? Are you hurt?” she asks.
“I smell her blood.” Zein’s voice. Except it sounds strained, like he’s a hair trigger away from destroying his own castle.
“I-I fought with Anaya earlier.” I barely manage to say, pointing to the cut on my cheek as Ceti rushes over to me.
Blankly, I focus on the mangled heap that is Seriesa before me as my feet shy away from the ever-growing pool of blood.
Was she the one sending information to Giomar? Where does her allegiance lie?
I turn past Ceti who now has a hand on my shoulder, toward Zein.
“Th-thank you. I’m so…” I’m shaking so bad I can barely speak. “...thank you.”
“Some psychological trauma,” Ceti assures as she strokes my head lightly. “That’s it.”
Zein relaxes somewhat but makes no move, his eyes return to their mysterious gray and appear to be lost in a sea I can’t even begin to navigate.
“My lord,” Ceti says, “perhaps, to keep your treasured supply unit safe, you should start ridding the castle of any more potential issues.”
Zein approaches, cutting my thoughts short. I drop the knife.
“As far as I know, she’s the only one,” he replies, motioning for Ceti to get out of the way while curiously eyeing my feeble weapon.
“She was a gift from Giomar, was she not?” Ceti asks, her eyes meeting mine for a brief moment. “When you were first appointed?”
He solemnly nods. “I should have taken her true allegiance into harsher consideration, especially in these times of political unrest.”
Zein kneels down to my level, although he is still fearsomely tall. The silver fronds of his hair sway in front of his ivory jawline as he analyzes me, focusing on my cheek.
“Are you sure you are all right?”
“Yes, it’s just a cut. My head kind of hurts. But I’m okay.”
Zein rises to his feet and holds out his arm. “Can you stand?”
I reluctantly grab his hand and allow him to help
me up. He pulls on my arm and my feet fumble beneath me until they plant firmly on the sandstone floor. “I think I can manage,” I say.
“Good. Come with me.”
“Thank you, Madam Ceti.” I whisper to her as I pass, leaving her standing concerned in the hallway.
Everything grows quiet save the echoes of our joint footsteps, mine having fallen in time with his. Reel after reel of burning images fill every empty port of my mind. Blood spewing out of every orifice of Seriesa, of her tanned skin turning unnaturally violaceous and green from the unstoppable bruising. The fact that Zein is the one who did something so vile. How many others have succumbed to the same fate? A harnessing chill makes its way down my arms, the hairs along them standing from terror.
When he turns his face slightly to study me with his peripherals, I fight down my emotions, including the burrowing fear. No doubt my scent is fluctuating uneasily with everything I am thinking, and I don’t want Zein to ask me about it. The sandstone hallways give way to marble once we are out from underground. Rows of tiles display individual lines, each of them weaving and cascading across beige and silver tones. I allow them to command my focus even though they have no value. It’s all I can do to not think about death, blood, and the very raw essence that is me and everyone else in this world. Every living thing is so fragile, a series of busted blood vessels away from eternal darkness. Everything aside from things like Zein. For once it’s obvious where I am in comparison to him, to Giomar—to vampires. I am nothing. Humans are nothing.
We ascend the intricate staircase in the middle of the grand hall, the one I’ve grown used to seeing up until a couple months ago. Uneasy nostalgia trickles through my mind. I kind of missed it—him. I wonder if he did, too.
We reach the end of the large hallway where the guards wait, restless, outside Zein’s doors. They open them while staring at me, their eyes distrusting and full of bloodlust. I must be quite the attraction right now, given the open wound on my cheek.
The pitch-black darkness of the room welcomes us until the hanging lanterns alight dimly from above. After the doors shut, Zein positions me in front of him—mere centimeters away—his face so close to mine that his breath sends goosebumps along my cheek. While I stand frozen with shock, he secures an arument bandage over my wound.