Her Dangerous Visions (The Boy and the Beast Book 1)

by Brandon Barr

  In the pure darkness within, she traversed the wooden staircase that spiraled down into a deep space hollowed out of the boulder. Her feet met the smooth rock floor, and her hands reached up and retrieved two fire stones from a notch above the entrance. Quickly she rubbed them together over a primed twig. Two scrapes, and the sparks brought the twig to a soft glow. Soon, Meluscia had the entire cavern lit with the soft, refracted light of large, red-tinged crystals that jutted down from the rock ceiling. The scribe’s table rested like an altar in the corner before the two stone walls that stretched up to the height of three men and out to the length of five.

  An enchantment of sorts held her feet still for a moment. Each time she beheld the Scriptorium, she experienced a little of the awe from that first day, when Katlel and her father offered her an apprenticeship. She’d felt the holiness of the place. The old stories, the laws, the cherished histories of her ancestors, and the sacred writings that showed the beauty of the gods’ ways.

  Meluscia took the books she borrowed from her bag and began putting them in the fur-lined alcoves. If her father heard tell of the attempted rescue party she’d led ten days prior, he’d be furious but, underneath that, he’d be proud, and her chance for the throne would not be damaged. And yet, she found it ironic that, if he knew which books she spent her time reading, or who she found inspirational in the histories, her chances of attaining the throne would vanish in an instant.

  Monaiella, a Luminess from the Age of Primacy, was counted among the weakest and most unfaithful rulers of the Hold. She was the last to reign while the Star Portal was still part of Blue Mountain’s domain, during the time when the Verdlands helped them defeat Isolaug, the immortal Beast. But then the Verdlands took the portal region as recompense. It would be less than a hundred years after when a schism allowed the people of the Star Portal to declare their own king, and the Star Garden Realm was born.

  It was Monaiella, the very ruler who was ranked amongst the most uninspiring figures in their histories that gave Meluscia hope and strength to be a Luminary, and not forsake her conscience, or the peacemaking spirit within her.

  She replaced a book in her sack with a new one, then reached in for the Book of Intimacy, the last book to return to its place, but her hands held it, clung to it, and to everything it gave rise to in her mind.

  It had become a curse, the passion and love experienced with Jonakin, the lover she had created in her mind. Jonakin had sparked to life out of the boy she’d fallen in love with when she was fourteen. He’d been the son of the blacksmith, and he’d joined the army to fight the Nightmares after his older brother was killed. He kissed her for the first time before he left on the patrol from which he never returned.

  Her first kiss. A kiss from which the burn never fully left her lips or her heart. Over the years, he grew in her imagination, becoming a man, a friend, and a lover, until now, he was so much a part of her that hardly a night went by that she didn’t lay in her bed, try to still her thoughts, try to escape into sleep without thinking of him. Without imagining he was there beside her.

  She knew his mature laugh. The deep timber of his voice when he said her name. He was somewhat rough and untamed, not the skinny young boy of her youth, but a man who knew the suffering in their land intimately, but was not destroyed by it. He could lift her head. Empower her with a look or a word and give her strength to face the challenges of her position.

  Jonakin lived and breathed in her imagination, but he impacted her waking world when she grasped hold of him as if he were truly there. Could his absence ever be sufferable? She needed him emotionally…and physically. It had become the only way to make peace with the sexual being inside her. She wondered if an imaginary husband and lover could ever soothe the missing strength and the loss of intimacy that being a Luminess demanded of her life?

  She closed her eyes, her surroundings fading from existence. If she had to love a ghost in her mind to pacify her greatest weakness, then so be it. She glided her fingers softly over her lips, the warmth of Jonakin’s mouth and the scent of his body becoming reality.

  “Don’t let your father find you like this.”

  Meluscia opened her eyes and spun, her cheeks burning.

  The smell of horse sweat and dust met her. At the bottom of the winding stairs stood Savarah, her father’s mercy child. Her sister, in all practicality. She was a year younger than Meluscia, hair whitish brown, like the Kaolinite mineral, a lithe, muscular body like a boy's, but for her breasts. Her green eyes were alight with the fires of suffering, like many of the older, war ravaged women in the Hold, but her eyes were harder than all. The determination her brow and mouth bore from her inward scars added a grimness to an otherwise delicate face.

  Meluscia knew the girl well, in some regards. Savarah arrived at Blue Mountain Hold in the dead of winter wrapped in blood soaked quilts, a half-mad eleven year old, breathing death threats upon the Beast, Isolaug, and his Nightmares, who had butchered her mother, father, and two younger brothers.

  Savarah had been taken in as a mercy child by Meluscia’s father, and had lived for the last ten years in the chamber across from hers. They considered one another sisters, maybe even friends in an odd sense of the word. For Meluscia, it had been a strange relationship.

  Meluscia tenderly slid the Book of Intimacy in its place. “Father would understand,” said Meluscia. “Even a Luminess’s heart isn’t deadwood. And, besides, there are other books I’m more concerned being found with.”

  Savarah pressed her lips into a rare smile. “Yes my wicked, wicked sister, reader of so many degenerate books. If only you could rid yourself of that gentle spirit and learn to lie, hate, and kill with conviction, then you would be a good Luminess.” Her mouth faded back into a grim line.

  Meluscia bared her teeth in an uneasy smile, a defense against her sister’s dark cynicism. It was hard to tell if she was giving a compliment, or just being scathingly sarcastic. “What news from patrol?”

  “Most of our time was a waste. We camped on the borders of the Verdlands and did nothing. But the return journey was worthwhile. Your father’s ten riders killed twenty Nightmares between them. I outmatched Osiiun for once, killing five to his four. On the return journey, Kaurkim lost his arm to a black tiger. Jardi killed it with an arrow through the eye from nineteen lengths out. Only he could have made that shot. Kaurkim can thank the Makers he’s alive. He might as well have lost his eyes with his arm. An animal that big in a tree right ahead of you—he’s blind as old Coriama.”

  “Ara will suffer greatly. With their twins not yet crawling, and her brother killed only a month ago.”

  “Kaurkim lost just one arm,” said Savarah, “He can still hold a baby and hammer his metals. She’ll suffer less than you imagine.”

  “Still, he will never hold Ara as he used to.”

  “It will bother her less than it would you.”

  Meluscia wondered what Savarah meant by that, but decided not to ask. Savarah could lay out an insult like no other person at the Hold. “Is my father keeping his word to fight only Nightmares?” asked Meluscia. “Or is he still using the patrols to raid the Verdlands’ farms?”

  “Does his ghost haunt you?” asked Savarah, stepping closer, her eyes fixed curiously on her. “I saw you as if his lips were on yours. Is he there, in your mind, or—”

  “Stop. Please.” Meluscia met her sister’s unwavering eyes, half-frightened, but also enchanted.

  “I find it fascinating that you can’t let go of this Jonakin spirit.”

  Meluscia stared at Savarah in sudden horror. “How do you know that name?”

  “It is not the first time, or the tenth, that I’ve found you lost in his presence. On patrol, your father says that when I want to run in silence, I sound like the forest breathing. And when I walk, I’m as quiet as an Aeraphim.” Savarah’s eyes held mischief in them, and a touch of a smile spread her lips. “You are not as quiet as you think when he is with you in your room. You are a rather noisy love
r.”

  Meluscia’s mouth fell open. Embarrassment and anger set her face and arms tingling. In all their years together, Savarah had never once spoken like this. Nothing so personal. Who was this girl before her? Not Savarah—not anymore.

  “Are you putting your ear to my door?” Meluscia snapped.

  “There’s no need. Anyone passing by can hear the muffled sounds coming from your room. You’re fortunate that only I live so high up on the cliff. So tell me about your ghost. Your secret fascinates me.”

  Savarah’s stance was demanding; dirt stained arms crossed over a leather plated shirt, her head tilted to one side. There was an openness in her eyes. And a strange hunger.

  What had happened to her hard-hearted sister?

  Meluscia hesitated to give her an answer, but if there was one person she strangely trusted with this secret, it was Savarah. While most women gossiped and primped, Savarah cut down monstrosities with a sword, savvied herself in politics, and bathed far less than any woman in the realm. And it was only Meluscia that Savarah came to about her horrible vengeance dreams, or with retellings of her family’s bloody murders.

  “Jonakin is a ghost,” said Meluscia, “but one I have conjured up from my own mind…my imagination of a man I do not wish to name.”

  In truth, Jonakin the boy had taken on the attributes of Mica, another man she’d come to fixate on. But Jonakin was a safer and more pious fantasy—if her fantasies could be called pious at all—for Mica was both alive and married. He could only be inspiration for Jonakin, for even if he were unmarried, she could not pursue him. Not if she was to be Luminess.

  Meluscia examined her sister’s face. There was something vigorous and fresh vibrating through the grim exterior.

  “What’s come over you? You never talk like this.”

  “I’ll tell you sometime. Perhaps. A change of heart you might say.” Savarah brushed a stray wisp of white and brown hair back to its place behind her ear.

  For a moment, Meluscia caught a glimpse of a girl that was beautiful, the hard angles of her face smooth and soft.

  Savarah raised an eyebrow. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  Meluscia reined in her curiosity and shook her head.

  Savarah scowled. “You asked me earlier if your father was still raiding the farmlands of King Feaor.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “…Why think he would stop? We always find Nightmares to kill, but food is in short supply, and the Verdlands are rich with crops.”

  “He told me he was considering stopping the raids.”

  “Your father is sensitive to your leanings. He was only pacifying you.”

  Meluscia leaned against the soft furs of the bookcase behind her, finding strength there. “Do you ever feel like killing Nightmares is like shooting arrows at a boulder?”

  “It’s worse,” said Savarah. “We are ramming our heads against a mountain.”

  “We have to unite,” said Meluscia, the books lining the walls at her back confirmed for her the path she must take. “I must unite us. If the Hold can join with King Feaor and the Verdlands, then the Sea Kingdoms would follow us. We could make a stand against Isolaug and take back the Star Garden Realm.”

  A pleased look spread across Savarah’s face. “You are bold, dear sister. And you are not petty. That is your great strength. Isolaug must be brought low. That wicked spirit is far more powerful than any of the kings or luminaries believe. He must be dealt with or his strength will only increase.”

  “Would you keep fighting the Nightmares with patrols?” asked Meluscia.

  “Yes. But purely for the blood. Not for the false hope that one day they’ll stop showing up in our woods to take our resources and pillage our towns. Every Nightmare I drop with an arrow or cut down with a blade restores a drop of life back into my veins. It’s a foretaste of a future I can feel…just as vivid in my mind as Jonakin’s lips were against your own when I first saw you.” Savarah closed her eyes. “My dreams have changed, Meluscia. I relish the day I find the one who made me what I am. I know his face so well. His smell. The look in his inhuman eyes.

  “I dreamt of him again last night. I cut open his stomach and while he was still alive, I pulled out my mother and father, alive inside him. I splayed his underside open like an animal, then skinned him. In my dream, he was writhing when I was finished. I didn’t want it to be a dream, but that’s how I knew. He should have been still. That’s how I knew, and I woke.”

  Savarah opened her eyes. “I haven’t decided how I will kill him. If it can be done at all.”

  Meluscia left the bookcase and went to Savarah, reaching out and embracing her. This was the sister she knew well, and listening and holding her amidst her pain was the greatest bond they shared. Her hatred was slowly whittling away at her mind. Hardly a week went by when Meluscia didn’t hear of a gruesome dream, or the often told story of her family’s murder. She wondered if her sister even knew she was repeating herself, or if she was completely swallowed up by the images in her mind, that constantly releasing them was the only way she experienced peace. But there was a heart beating inside her, and allowing her to show it, as violent as it was, was the only way Meluscia knew how to help her.

  Savarah slid away from Meluscia’s embrace, not unkindly, then walked along the book cases, her fingers brushing lightly along the bindings. “In one of your sacred texts it says that the blood of the innocent cries out for justice. That has become the sound constant in my ears. Vengeance. Justice.”

  Normally, Meluscia would not respond, but something was different now. Savarah’s knowing about Jonakin—about her secret longings—it had laid down a bridge that had never been there before. Meluscia quoted from Ryclid’s Elucidation, “There are other ways to win an enemy. A thousand ways to kill a person without a weapon. One hundred thousand intricacies to change a heart.”

  “Mmm,” hummed Savarah. “A beautiful sound to those words. But you can’t change the heart of a Beast. And its followers, the Shadowmen… they are hardly any better.” Savarah stopped and turned at the end of the stone bookshelves, her face glowed softly red under a backlit crystal. “Meluscia, I hope to see you lead the Hold before I die. Even if your compassion proves suicidal, it would be good for this world to see another Monaiella.”

  Meluscia’s mouth fell open. What was suddenly at her lips felt bizarre, but there was a connection between them that had never been there before, and she released it. “Would you feel much if I died?”

  “I would.” Soundlessly Savarah moved toward the tall staircase, but stopped before ascending and looked at her. “There wouldn’t be tears. But I would feel it. I would kill more than I ever killed before.”

  Savarah disappeared like a phantom into the darkness of the stairs.

  Meluscia’s eyes fixed on the red glimmer of the hanging crystals. The light soothed her as it flickered above. She recited scripture in her mind, longing for the listening ears of the Makers. A sad smile formed on her lips as Savarah’s last words echoed in her heart.

  CHAPTER 6

  MELUSCIA

  She looked out at her father’s throne room anxiously. The vast cavern streamed with sunlight as the twenty jeweled windows stretched up into the vaulted rock arches. The left side of the throne was lit through the dazzling orange of fire opal, and on the sunward side, was the transparent yellow feldspar called orthoclase. The refraction from the cut gems made the light dance like an echo in the room, bouncing and rebounding off the adularescent moonstone that covered the floor.

  The great onyx throne sat at the end of the room, surrounded by jeweled furnishings inlaid with precious stones of every variety known within the kingdom. Lining the long walk to the throne were pillows of black satin for those waiting for a hearing with her father, Trigon, the Luminary of the Blue Mountains.

  If Meluscia became Luminess, she would turn this throne room into a sanctuary for meditation and prayer. It was too magnificent for a Luminary, it should be a place where one cam
e to ponder the Makers, and offer them petition, or sit in quiet reflection. One only had to look around to see the beautiful work of ages that her people had created from the raw materials given them by the gods.

  She would return the throne to the cavern used a millennia ago, a much more modest setting for mere humans.

  Ahead, her father sat slumped upon the throne, a grimace punctuating his lips. No doubt his body was in great pain for having ridden a horse with the patrol. The sunweed blight was eating away at what remained of his strength. He was like a picked white rose, wilting more every day. The malady seemed to be accelerating, as it had with her mother two years ago. Her father was forty-six, but looked like a decrepit seventy-year-old.

  She was prepared for him. If she must, she would match him, stubborn blow to stubborn blow, showing him only unrelenting determination to get what she wanted. That was his language. A language that dominated the rulers since the Dawn of Ages. If she ever became Luminess, she would need to speak it fluently, even if it wasn’t her native tongue.

  Meluscia stepped into the room, passing through the guards and weaving a path through the line of officials and citizens seated on pillows, waiting to be heard.

  Her father’s eyes sparkled and came alive when they caught sight of her.

  “Ah, a beautiful disruption,” said her father, “your red hair glows like a sunset in this room. Just like your mother’s did.”

  She returned her father’s compliment with a smile and leaned against the fur covered arm of the onyx chair.

  The reverberant hum of courtiers had fallen to whispers at the sight of her presence. Her father turned to an attendant. “The singers, please.”

  At once the room was filled with the drawn melodic chant of the two court singers, their voices drowning out any conversations the Luminary wished to keep private.