by Ward, Tracey
“Keep a sure footing!” I call to Patrick.
As I speak, lightning crashes across the sky. In its illumination I can see a wall of water rushing toward the island, curling, coiling and black.
“Get down! Lie flat!” I scream.
Patrick doesn’t hesitate. He hits the ground as I do, just as the wave crushes against the wall of the cliff. It rolls over the top, making a run across the land as though it grew legs. Patrick and I are hit hard, tumbled across the muddy earth back toward the castle. It dissipates slowly as it spreads over the level ground, lingering and clinging to us. I can feel the pull of it tugging against my clothing as it tries to pull me with it back to the sea.
When I open my eyes to search for Patrick, I find him wrapped around a small tree looking at me with wide eyes.
“We can’t go that way,” he breathes. He coughs harshly and water spews from his mouth. It might be the lighting or the lack of it, but it looks black.
“Are you alright?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”
“Good. And you’re right,” I say, standing on trembling legs. “We can’t go that way. We’ll have to cut inland, up the hill toward the mausoleum.”
“It’ll take longer,” he warns, standing slowly.
“But at least we’ll arrive alive.”
“I’m not so sure,” he mumbles.
We run for all we’re worth up the mud slicked hillside, fighting against the wind and rain. It’s exhausting. It feels utterly futile but it’s the only way. If we tried to keep on the path along the cliff we’d be dead already. Rushed out to sea and swallowed by the demons waiting below. Water and mud cascade down the hill toward us giving us no traction whatsoever. I briefly wonder why the Ila doesn’t help us. Just a little.
When we’re finally standing at the base of the mausoleum, I’m not sure I can take another step. The wind and rain are getting worse. At this point I can’t keep my eyes open long enough against it to get my bearings. Patrick and I feel our way forward toward the smaller crypt farther down the hill. When we find it, we burst inside, tumbling to the ground and lying in wet heaps on the hard, cold floor.
“Well, that was fun,” he wheezes.
I flop over on my back feeling dazed. “Are you tired? I could do this all day.”
“Ah, to be young again.”
“You’re not that old.”
“The very saying of which implies that I am to some degree old.”
“You implied it first, lamenting your lost youth.”
“Eh. To be honest, if I could have it back I’d decline. Age comes with its own problems but I’ll tell you something, they’re far simpler than the problems of my youth.”
I roll my head toward him. “Like being in love with another man’s wife?”
He raises his eyebrows, surprised by my boldness. “You’re hitting rather close to home. Very intuitive. But if I ask what you think it is you know, I promise you that you’ll be wrong.”
“You were in love with Anna’s mother, Evelyn.”
He chuckles and stares up at the ceiling. “You’re wrong.”
It’s only then that I realize we’re in the crypt where she was laid to rest. It’s where Anna will be buried one day as well. One day very soon.
“Then who?” I ask.
“Who what?”
“Who were you in love with? Whose wife did you covet?”
“I didn’t covet anyone. She was mine always. Even when she wasn’t.” He clears his throat. “It was Ellie. Ellie with the beautiful brown eyes.”
I’m about to open my mouth to tell him I don’t know who Ellie is when it hits me. He grew up with Anna’s mother. Anna’s mother was lifelong friends with Queen Elizabeth Anne. Queen Elizabeth Anne gave birth to a son with fierce brown eyes.
“You were in love with the Queen.”
“No, I am in love with Ellie.”
“Even now?”
He looks at me with sharp eyes. “In ten years, if Anna is dead and gone, will you still love her?”
I nod, feeling like an ass for asking the question.
“Speaking of which,” he groans, sitting up slowly. It looks painful. “We need to press on.”
“Wait,” I say, frowning into the darkness. “Do you hear that?”
“No.”
“Me either. The thunder has stopped.”
Patrick pauses to listen. “I don’t hear the wind anymore either.”
We look at each other for a long time, listening to the world. Eventually I shrug at him and head for the door. The outside has changed entirely. The wind has all but stopped, barely a drop of rain is falling and the sound of the sea has hushed to a whisper.
“Something’s happened,” Patrick says darkly.
I nod, scanning the horizon. There in the distance is the shadow of a man walking up the hill toward us, coming from the direction of The Tombs. He’s carrying something. Someone.
“Or it’s about to,” I whisper.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The tattoo on my arm begins to warm my skin. It’s a different sensation than before. That was a buzzing in my blood, in my flesh. A humming, like a song being sung too quietly to understand. This is warmth spreading out from the dark swirls of the ink, slipping over the skin of my arm and down toward the earth. It rolls like a fog on a breeze across the grass where I can feel it seeping into the ground. It’s Anna, it has to be, but it’s coming from everywhere at once. It’s branching out of my skin and looping through the soil. The one place I can’t feel her is with the man walking up the hill.
“It’s Charles. It’s her father.”
I nod in agreement, knowing he’s right. I take a step forward, ready to confront the bastard and pull Anna from his arms, but Patrick stops me.
“Wait. He’s not alone.”
Another figure appears behind him, becoming visible as he steps from the shadows. A cold wind rolls up the hill toward us. I know who it is without asking.
The High Priest.
“Where’s Frederick when you need him?” I mutter.
“Do you think he’s the only one who can kill him?”
“I think he might have had his chance and failed.”
Patrick frowns. “You really think he’s dead?”
“I don’t know. But he’s had plenty of time and he should have had the opportunity. So why is this thing still standing?”
“I suppose we’ll have to kill him ourselves.”
“You’re an expert swordsman, aren’t you?” I ask with a lightness I don’t feel. “Should be no problem.”
“Grand Champion fifteen years in a row. It’s a record. But here’s the rub – I’m terrible at it without an actual sword.”
“Oh,” I look at him as he fans his cloak out, showing his sword-less hips. “Right.”
“Do you still have that knife?”
“Yeah, it’s here.”
“Leave the Priest to me,” Frederick whispers beside my ear.
I spin around, bringing the knife up and out of my boot. I mean to put it to his throat, but he blocks me by pressing his forearm against my own and pulling me close, pinning our arms together between us. I’m up close and personal with his mask and I have to admit, in the darkness after the day I’ve had, it’s slightly horrifying.
I meet his eyes and nod, silently agreeing not to try to kill him again. He releases me, giving me a shove as he does.
“Where have you been?” I ask.
“I went to the castle to take Elaine home and find Annabel, as I’m sure you did. When my father told me the Priest and her father had taken her to The Tombs, I went as quickly as I could. But even arriving there I was too late. I was told she was gone.”
“She was gone from The Tombs but is she dead?”
“I don’t know,” Frederick replies gently. “They said she hadn’t spoken or opened her eyes since arriving.”
“Gentleman!” The Priest calls out, startling us all. His voice is strange. It’s brittle as chipp
ed porcelain, fragile but somehow boisterous and strong. It rings out all around me. “Join us, won’t you? I believe this is something you should all feel a part of.”
“What exactly is it we’ll be participating in?” Frederick demands.
“Recompense.”
“Annabel is going to make the ultimate sacrifice for the people,” her father says reverently. He looks down at her pale, vacant face with a smile of admiration and pride.
“You can’t,” I demand. “She’s not the Queen of the island. She never married Frederick.”
“No,” the Priest agrees, looking at me with hard, black eyes. “But she married you, didn’t she? And I see by your arm that you’ve tied yourself to her. Excellent. The requirements have been fulfilled and then some.”
“What is he talking about?” Patrick asks.
The Priest looks to him. “Your young friend is a descendant of royalty. His great, great, great grandmother was a Princess of the Tem Aedha, one who survived the crash of their ship on this island.”
“Roarke, you’re a Prince?”
“No, I’m not. We don’t use that term,” I protest uselessly, my stomach knotting. “Not anymore. Not here.”
“Blood doesn’t lie,” The Priest says. “You’re of royal descent. Your marriage to Annabel Lee made her a Princess. Not quite a Queen, not as beloved as many have been in the past, but you also tied yourself to her which means when we take her, you’ll belong to us as well. And your people absolutely love you, don’t they?” He smiles with gaping, sharp teeth. “Two birds, one stone.”
“No,” I growl. “No, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to save her!”
“You can’t save her. She is a debt owed. One I wish I could have made an example of considering the increasing lack of attention being shown by the people of this island in recent years. You’re not holding up your end of our bargain, which makes one wonder why I bother holding up mine.”
“Then stop,” Frederick tells him harshly. “Leave Annabel to us and leave this island. We’ll end the agreement today.”
The Priest chuckles. “She is payment for services already rendered. And I assure you, child, I have no intention of ever going anywhere. Now, Charles, show your faith and service. Make the payment.” The Priest looks at me with another wicked grin. “Cast the girl to the sea.”
Charles nods then moves toward the top of the hill.
“No!” I cry, running after him. My feet begin to slip in the mud again. I’m thrown to the ground. Charles walks up the hillside carrying Anna with perfect ease and I have the brief, agonizing realization that the Ila has betrayed us. He’s helping Charles while holding me back. He wants Anna to die.
I feel pure rage boil in my stomach. There’s a warming in my tattoo again. I can feel heat in the ground beneath me as well and I watch as it faintly shimmers and roils across the muddy earth. It’s advancing on Anna’s father.
I try to breathe, to stay calm and think this through. To find a solution to the hopeless situation I’ve brought us all into. But there’s nothing. Nothing but the sight of the only woman I’ve ever loved in the arms of a monster. And I’m helpless. Hopeless.
I cry out in rage and agony, digging my hands into the earth. The rain has turned it to a thick mud, a perfect paste for healing. But I’m all out of goodwill tonight. I bury everything I’ve been taught my entire life deep down in the muck, in the mud, and I pull my hands away holding something else. Something burning. I speak the words I feel like I’ve always known. I sing the song of my people; a song of healing and help, the words infusing into the earth I clench in my fist. I can feel it filling with energy, the familiar feel of restoration in bloom.
Then I change the song. I sing it in a way I’ve never done before, in a way I’ve never known and I feel the energy change. I feel it morph into something new, something dangerous. Something hot and wicked. It’s everything we’re never meant to be but I feel it in my gut rising inside of me and I have to get it out. I have to try this one last thing, no matter how ugly it is or how damned I’ll forever be. I have to try it because I have to save her. And so I do.
I sing the song backwards.
She’s dangling in his arms, lifeless. Dead. Despite all I’ve been taught, all of the healing I and my people can do, I cannot bring her back from this. It leaves me feeling so impotent, so much like I failed her when she put all of her faith in me, that I don’t blink. I don’t hesitate. Instead, I take the ugly darkness building inside my hand and I lash out. I throw it.
It looks like black tar when it lands on her father’s leg. At first he doesn’t even seem to notice it’s there. He carries on, continues his walk up the hill as if it were just any other day. As though he were not carrying the weight of my world in his arms. But then the smoke begins. The tar dissolves through his pant leg, reaches his skin, greedily grabbing onto it and devouring the flesh beneath. He howls in pain, nearly dropping Anna in his desperation to get away from something he can never escape. It’s eating through his skin, his tissue, his blood, his muscle like acid and it will not stop, not even when it reaches the bone. I’ve told it to never stop.
He stumbles as his leg becomes useless. As the muscles disappear into thin air. I struggle to free myself from the mud when he stumbles to his knees. This is my chance. I can reach her now if only the Ila would let me go. But when I put my hands to the earth to push myself up, it takes hold of me. It has me now; feet, knees and hands. I’ll never reach her and I watch in horror as her father’s leg is soaked in healthy, brown earth. His writhing stops as the pain subsides and my work is destroyed.
“Why?!” I cry, struggling to be free. The Ila is not having it and he’s certainly not answering.
“Finish it, Charles!” The Priest cries.
I hear a scuffle behind me, grunts and angry shouts. The howl of the wind picks up again and I watch helplessly as Anna’s father stands shakily, limping on only one leg. Anna’s long, blond hair wisps gently in the wind. It reminds me of when she was a child and she’d laugh when her hair fell out of its pins. Of the day when she lay on the ground in front of me, when I stole her first kiss and gave her mine.
The heat in the ground is back, glistening at Charles’ feet. He pauses for one brief, agonizing moment.
Then he throws Anna over the edge.
“Anna!” I shout, unable to stand.
Her lithe body flies into the air. It hovers for a moment. Her long white dress, her wedding dress, billows in the wind, fluttering around her. The flicker of the coiling heat leaps from the ground to encircle her as she hangs there and my heart nearly bursts with hope.
Then she plummets, dropping from view, and the night falls eerily silent.
The silence, the night; they creep inside of me, dark and deep, until I’m blackness itself. I am the absence of all things. Of color, light and life.
A scream rends the air, cutting the world in two. I cover my ears, see Charles do the same. He leans over the edge of the cliff to look down at what’s happened. It’s a foolish move on any day of the week.
A burst of steam hurtles up into the air, reaching high above the cliff’s edge. It engulfs Charles instantly. I hear a new scream. A human scream. I imagine Frederick, assuming he’s still alive, can sympathize.
“Unhand me, you traitorous bastard!” the Priest cries.
“What’s holding him?” Patrick shouts.
“I don’t know, but pray it doesn’t stop,” Frederick replies.
The steam continues to rise into the air, taking shape.
“Flank him on the left, I’ll take him on the right!” Patrick calls.
“Don’t you kill him. You heard the Ila,” Frederick replies darkly. “He’s mine.”
“You’ve made a deal with Ila?” the Priest laughs. “He’ll betray you as he betrayed me.”
The steam is becoming solid now. A swirling yellow mass of sparks and embers.
“Probably,” Frederick admits grimly, “but at least you’ll b
e dead.”
I hear several cries, the clang of metal against metal and the wind roars to ferocious life. But I don’t look away from the figure forming in front me. I know that shade of yellow.
“He’s down! Frederick, stop, he’s down!” Patrick exclaims.
I can’t help but look behind me to see if they’ve done it. If the Priest is dead. He lies on the ground on his back, his feet firmly planted on the ground and his shin bones visibly cracked and broken from the weight of his fall. The Ila, I imagine, held his feet to the ground to stop his escape. Just as it held me to keep me from saving Anna.
The Priest has to be dead. Frederick has stabbed his body countless times in the chest and neck. But there’s no blood. I wonder why I’m surprised. I knew it was a corpse to begin with. It’s still unnerving, though.
“Is it over?” Patrick pants, his hand resting reassuringly on Frederick’s shoulder. “Is he dead?”
The wind is back in full force, stronger than before. I hear the trees nearby creek and groan under the stress of the gusts. One nearby cracks down the middle and the trunk flies toward us. Frederick and Patrick hit the ground immediately, just as the trunk flies overhead. Were they standing, it would have taken their heads off. I feel heat in the air rising and I look to the yellow figure to find it no longer coming into human form. It’s a large, angry swirling vortex of orange sparks and yellow flame. At the center where it burns hottest I see a deep blue core building and expanding.
The wind blows toward it, moving around its edges. The flames sputter and die. But the blue core grows. There’s a pressure in the air that builds and builds, the heat emanating from the core growing hotter and hotter until I wonder if I’ll be able to breathe much longer.
Then I’m sinking. I hear exclamations from Patrick and Frederick behind me and I know they’re sinking as well. I’m being enveloped in the cold wet mud of the earth like sinking in quicksand. I can’t fight it, I can’t escape and eventually it covers me entirely.