Dark Humanity

by Gwynn White

  He struggled beneath the surface, yelling bubbles in the tepid water.

  That way led to death.

  He snapped his mouth closed and forced his way up, only to collide with the slimy underside of the lily pad. Nails scraping against the algae, he pulled himself to the edge of the confounded plant.

  His head broke above the water, and he gasped in a breath. The cloying air settled like lead in his choking lungs.

  Still hanging onto the lily pad, he coughed and spluttered.

  The giant plant dropped the gnarled lily pad Raith had been standing on from its throatless mouth.

  He knew this plant. Or rather, what he thought it was. It should have been the size of a fingernail, designed to trap flies, yet this could hold a fully grown man in its leathery jaws.

  What kind of woman was Aurora to grow something so vile?

  If it had caught him, he could have struggled as much as he liked, but the poison and the strong jaws would have defeated him without fail. Once the plant had sucked him dry, it would have dropped his shriveled corpse with no regard for the man he had been.

  Rather like an incubus with his prey.

  The irony would have made him laugh, if he hadn’t spotted a dozen more of the deadly things, which had risen from the water to crowd the lily pads in the hope of a feast.

  He had to escape them.

  Eyes blurry, he paddled out of reach of the deadly plants. His heavy boots and leather armor dragged him down, making swimming difficult.

  And then his fingers started to tingle. More like stabbing needles.

  He ignored the pain and swam for the opposite bank.

  The stabs spread from his fingers into his hands and then up his arms. No longer able to ignore it, he lifted a hand, kicking furiously to stay afloat—and his blood turned to tar.

  Black slime from the underside of the lily pad clung beneath his fingernails.

  His fingers had doubled in size and were brazen red. The pressure of his forearms and biceps against his clothing suggested that the swelling had spread.

  He had to get out of this lake before the poison swallowed him.

  Arms thrashing, he flailed through the water. He covered no distance in his panic.

  Just swim, he pleaded to his failing arms.

  “Or you could drown,” a singsong voice called out.

  He knew that voice! Had missed it for so many months.

  Trojean.

  Raith’s wild thrashing stopped, and he hung in the water.

  As much as he longed to see his sister, afraid of what he’d see, he didn’t want to look for her.

  A bell-like laugh sang behind him.

  He whipped around. There was no one there.

  “Over here!”

  He spiraled again.

  A flash of dark hair, the color of cinnamon and old gold, swept before his eyes.

  “Trojean!” Raith cried, trying to paddle toward her. “Come back!”

  “I would, dear brother, but the man you share a roof with has turned me to dust.” Trojean laughed like she had when they were children.

  “I’m going to kill him. I’m going to avenge you.”

  Her beautiful head broke the surface of the lake. But no water stirred the flow of her hair or dripped off her pouting lips. Still, she looked as real as the body that had been delivered to him in a wooden box so many months before.

  Her brown eyes, flecked with gold, danced in the darkness. “You’re going to try, dear brother. But beware that you are not deceived. Like the poison that besets you now, your mind is dazed. See the truth before it’s too late.”

  Trojean dipped below the surface.

  Raith dove after her, swimming hard toward the darkness.

  His lungs burned for air, begging for release.

  “You may want to see to that poison.” Her voice rang from everywhere and nowhere. “Don’t let it spread to your lips. I wouldn’t want you to die from a poisoned kiss.”

  Raith’s lungs gave out, and he had to return to the surface. It was a slow crawl across the water to reach the other side. Head as heavy as a bag of rocks—and just as useless—he collapsed on the muddy bank. How long he lay there, he didn’t know, but when he came to, the pain had left him, and although still red, the swelling had left his hands and arms.

  Trojean. He had seen her. Heard her.

  A deep, mournful sigh as he rejected that notion for the truth—he had hallucinated everything.

  Trojean was dead and was never coming back.

  Mirrors creaked above him. From the angle of the sun glinting off them, he was almost out of time. His heart sank.

  Even if he found the flower, he’d be at serious risk of elimination.

  His only hope was not to arrive back last. For all he knew, the others were already waiting for him.

  He looked around to get his bearings.

  A path opened ahead of him. His heart soared—at the end of it, a gate swung open on its hinges to welcome him home.

  He clambered to his feet and was about to race for it—

  “Hey!” a muffled voice called.

  Raith jumped.

  Coven was across the lake, waving at him. His helmet and breastplate were gone, revealing only his off-white undershirt. He hadn’t had time to remove the armor from his legs. It clattered as he moved.

  “Raith, right?” Coven yelled. “You’re the first person I’ve seen in this hellhole all day. Have you had any luck finding the flower?”

  What a stupid man. Even if Raith had, telling Coven was the last thing he’d do.

  “No,” Raith answered truthfully.

  “I’ve found it,” Coven called. He waved a purple flower at Raith. “At least I think I have. Nothing happened to me when I picked it.”

  Déjà vu hit Raith. He’d seen that flower recently, and not in this swamp. Aurora’s dress flashed before his eyes. It had small flowers woven into the silk. He cursed himself for his stupidity and lack of perception.

  “How did you get across the lake?” Coven called.

  Raith’s stomach looped as Carian’s scheme came rushing to mind. If the others had made it back already, there was no way he could let Coven arrive with a flower. He would be booted out for sure, as the dragon had so crassly described.

  This would be his only opportunity to avoid that. If luck were with him, he would be able to steal Coven’s flower, too.

  The weakness in his limbs nixed that idea. Fighting Coven would not go well—for Raith; he would have to sacrifice the flower. It just meant he would have to turn on the charm for the evil-minded princess.

  That didn’t mean he couldn’t use her terrifying creations to his advantage.

  He glanced at the lily pads. Robbed of their prey, the jaw-snapping flowers had sunk below the surface. Coven would never guess they were there. And sending the boy across them could hardly be called murder, not if the flowers did the dastardly deed.

  “I crossed the lily pads,” Raith yelled. He remembered his wet hair and clothing. “Before I slipped and fell in. I swam the rest of the way.”

  Coven eyed the lily pad suspiciously. “Is it safe?”

  Raith chuckled. “Of course. That’s if you don’t fall in.”

  Coven laughed with him.

  “I’ll wait for you here.” Raith plastered on his most alluring incubus smile, sickly and sweet. “Maybe between the two of us we can find the exit.”

  Coven’s smile widened.

  The boy took his first step onto a lily pad. He wobbled slightly, his arms flailing for balance, armor clanking loudly.

  “Don’t worry—they’re pretty sturdy,” Raith called. “Just hop to the next one.”

  Raith was reminded of the spider luring the fly into the web in his father’s bedchamber the day Raith’s life changed forever.

  Come, little darling. I won’t hurt you.

  Coven leaped onto the next pad, steadied himself, and placed his steel-clad foot carefully onto the next one. He hopped again.

&n
bsp; Raith’s heart rate sped. Would the chomping flowers never strike?

  Water sloshed onto the next lily pad Coven stepped onto. Face strained with fright, he looked down at the pad.

  The chomping flower struck.

  Coven tried to jump away but wasn’t quick enough. Thick, leathery jaws clamped down on his midriff.

  Raith looked away as Coven screamed. The terror-filled yelling muffled.

  And then the noise stilled. Just as his father’s gurgles had done.

  Guilt bit Raith as he stepped away from the bank.

  He suppressed it. He had to win this game. Nothing else mattered. He, Carian, and Trojean were more important than all of these people combined.

  And, if he were honest, taking Aurora’s power to appease his never-ending cravings was even more important than his siblings.

  Coven was gone, and so was his flower.

  Raith broke into a run along the path. Perhaps there was still a chance he’d spot another one. He roved over the garden with frantic eyes—bloody-red blooms trailing from the boughs of a gnarled tree, a carpet of sickly yellow flowers, stringy green stalks that reached out to trip him, none of them right. And then—

  Just yards from the gate, a flicker of sunlight illuminated a clump of purple flowers. The same ones on Aurora’s dress. Ginger had obviously planted them here to make it as easy as possible to find them.

  And I missed it! That kind of stupidity will lead to my death.

  He grabbed a handful of them and charged to the gate.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Jorah twirled the stem of the wilting violet between his thumb and forefinger—like he’d been doing for hours. Behind him, beyond a white ribbon strung across the cavern leading into the garden, Artemis and a crowd of courtiers waited.

  Aurora was still to appear.

  He supposed she would make her entrance once all her suitors had gathered.

  Jorah ignored them all.

  Finding the flower had been easy. Aurora must have meant it when she said no one would die needlessly in her trial, because the first clump of violets he’d spotted had been mere steps from the gate into his chosen pathway. He was sure all the other paths had also been spiked with the easy-to-find plants.

  If the meatheads had known what to look for.

  Given that he’d waited alone for hours on the seats provided by a team of musketeers, following obvious clues wasn’t his competitors’ strong point.

  Above him, the mirrors creaked on their mechanical cogs.

  A ripple of comment trilled through the crowd as the last flicker of sunlight on their surfaces died.

  A musketeer lit a wall-mounted torch.

  The trial was over and Jorah had won. That victory moved him inexorably closer to a marriage with Aurora. Hedrus would be pleased. And, if Jorah were honest, being back in Niing’s burrow—the one he had pledged his life to destroy—had increased his will to live for the first time since Lila’s death. That bargain with Sabrisia took on greater import: with things to live for besides just protecting the Magical, he needed to win for himself.

  A thrum of footsteps came from a path leading from the garden.

  Lardel lumbered empty-handed through the gate—if the yellow blisters the size of acorns already covering his hands and arms could still be called empty-handed.

  A titter of delight from the crowd.

  The blisters looked painful; Jorah winced in sympathy for the man.

  Lardel glared at Jorah’s flower.

  He should be glad he made it back alive.

  A nurse stepped over to help Lardel. “My lord,” she asked, “what did the plant that hurt you look like?”

  Lardel glared at her, too. “Huge bush. White flowers. Looked like cow’s parsley gone mad.”

  The nurse’s brows knotted. “Oh, dear. That sounds like hogweed.”

  “I don’t care what it’s called,” Lardel snapped. “Just take the blisters away.”

  The nurse brushed her face with a harried hand. “That’s a problem, my lord. Hogweed’s nasty stuff. I can give you a salve for the burn, but those blisters will be with you for years to come.”

  Lardel’s face blanched. “Years! I’d rather be dead.”

  More commotion from the garden spared the nurse from answering.

  Raith stumbled into the waiting area. The parasite’s clothes were sodden, his eyes bloodshot, and his hands looked sunburnt.

  But he carried a crushed bunch of violets.

  Two musketeers rushed to help him.

  “My lord,” one of them called. “Please, stop. We need to get you out of those wet clothes in case you contaminate anything.” He gestured to a screen. “Princess Aurora feared someone would try swimming across the lake. She provided a change of clothing for everyone just in case.”

  Raith’s face darkened. “I’ve fought for my life against blood-sucking plants, and that is all you can say?” He looked at Jorah and his flower. “So you found one, too?”

  “It was growing next to the entrance.” Jorah twirled his flower. “Seems you lost. Again.”

  “Too soon to say,” Lardel said. “That idiot Mahlon hasn’t come back. Or the boy.”

  Jorah didn’t mention that Lardel had missed the point of the comment completely. But he couldn’t resist a satisfied smirk as Raith was led away to change.

  Once the incubus was back with Jorah and Lardel, a musketeer said, “My lords, we’re sending a search party to find the two missing suitors.”

  “Hopefully they’ll be dead!” someone in the crowd shouted.

  The rest of them buzzed with excitement at the prospect. Only four hours ago, they had been grumbling about the lack of bloodshed.

  Jorah shook his head.

  Humans. He’d never understand them.

  The musketeer ignored the interruption. “When they are found, you will be taken to the arena to present your flowers to Princess Aurora.”

  Jorah had forgotten the crowd in the arena, but it explained the nymph’s absence.

  A group of musketeers, all wearing gloves and masks and covered from head to toe in thick coveralls, marched into the garden.

  Jorah sighed, settling back to wait some more. He used the time to stare at the parasite.

  Raith refused to meet his gaze. Instead, his eyes kept drifting furtively toward the garden as if he had something to hide. Raith and Carian’s whispered conversation rushed back at Jorah.

  A chill of foreboding rippled through him.

  Which of the missing men had the incubus murdered? And how could he use that knowledge to protect Aurora and to destroy Raith?

  Time would tell.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The crowds cheered as Aurora strode up the stairs into the royal box in the arena. The trial was over for the day, and she—and the thousands who had assembled for the victory parade—would be meeting with her suitors in a few minutes.

  No one seeing her straight back or the determined set of her jaw would suspect the turmoil roiling in her.

  Had Raith gotten the clue in her dress?

  She didn’t know if he had returned on time or even if he had a violet.

  All she’d been told was that only one of her suitors had completed the task in the allotted time.

  Two others had followed moments after the sun set. Musketeers had been sent in to search for the missing two. Was Raith one of them? That she had been summoned to the royal box meant that the missing men had been found.

  She had no idea if they were dead or alive. If things had gone her way, the trial would have lasted just minutes, not hours, with each man finding a clump of hastily transplanted violets a few paces from the gate. For the men who missed those flowers, more violets had been planted in safe and accessible places deeper in the garden. No one needed to have suffered if they had taken a moment to look at her—the woman they professed to want to marry.

  By her instruction, the men would enter in order of return, from first to last. Each would carry the plant
they had brought with them.

  Artemis already sat in his seat. He smirked at her as if he held all the answers to her questions—questions she would never ask him.

  He gave a mock bow.

  She ignored him and called out to the musketeers, “Open the portcullis.”

  One of them turned the cog, and the steel gate creaked open.

  Her heart was made of butterflies. She wanted to strain to see who came through first as the winner, but keeping her composure had never been more important.

  Jorah strode in first. The single violet in his hand said he had won.

  She hid her dismay as she stood and, shadowed by Zandor, walked down the stairs into the arena to meet him.

  He held the flower out to her. “It wilted.”

  Even as Aurora gulped down her disappointment, she had to acknowledge that he had been smart enough to see her clue. That had to count for something. She’d wanted a man who took notice, who wasn’t just focusing on what he could gain from Ryferia. And noticing something as trivial as the pattern of a dress had to mean that he saw her as a person, not just as a political and economic asset.

  If only he weren’t so distant. And so attached to someone else.

  “So I see. You found it quickly?” Her fingers touched his as she took the drooping bloom—and a strange zing shot through her.

  She started in surprise.

  Where had that come from? The last time anyone had affected her like that was Zandor, back when she had still ached for him. That had been a long time ago.

  Jorah didn’t seem to feel anything at her touch—at least not that he showed signs of. “Within minutes.” A tiny smile quirked the corner of his mouth. “Maybe next time make your clues less obvious.”

  She found herself grinning back at him. “Maybe next time be less observant.”

  Vivid blue eyes gazed down into hers. “Not possible. Keen eyesight is something I was born with. And I have to congratulate you on the garden. It seems green fingers are your equivalent of my eyes.”

  It was a strange comment, but warmth infused her at his praise. Where had this personable Jorah come from?

  She rose on her toes. “Not many people appreciate my gardens. And certainly not the poison one. So, I thank you for your regard. It means a great deal.” She cleared her throat and gestured at the winner’s wreath. “You have now won two of my wreaths. Do you intend to scoop up the remaining two as well?”