by Jadie Jones
“Having a little fun, huh?” one guard smirks at Lucas.
“You know how she is, Calen. She was being difficult.”
“That one doesn’t like to follow the rules. But I bet she’s all talk,” Calen gives Lucas a nudge with his elbow.
“She’ll be the first to die once the battles begin,” another guard chimes in. Their exchange makes me bristle. I cross my arms in front of my chest, tempted to test just how invisible I am by socking them both. In a cage a little farther down, a candidate giggles to herself as she licks a bone clean.
“Spera,” she calls in a sing-song voice and drags the bone along the bars of her cage. “Spera. Can you hear me? I’m coming for you.” A delirious grin cuts her face in half. She narrows her almond eyes to slits and lets out a challenging hiss. Her black hair falls across her gaunt face, leaving only her teeth exposed. The shape of them draws my eye, her incisors longer, sharper than a person’s should be.
“Are we ready to begin?” The sound of Asher’s voice makes everyone go silent, the girl taunting Spera forgotten. He glides toward us, and for a brief, horrifying second I forget that he can’t see me. I scan for a place to hide, but his white eyes root me to the mud. He casts a smirk at the line of cages, and the dizzying fear leaves me. He can’t see you. He can’t see you.
“Are you all right?” my guide asks. Her voice does not have a hint of concern, but for the first time since we met it isn’t laced with disdain either. I nod without taking my eyes off Asher. Five pairs of hands reach out for him as he strides past his candidates. But Spera glowers at him from the back corner of her cell. A low growl rumbles in her throat. I resist the instinct to do the same.
“Won’t you be a willing recipient this time, Spera?” Asher says, genuine concern in his voice. “I told your mother I’d take good care of you. But you’re making it difficult.”
Her dark stare does not waver. His face twists in frustration and he slaps a hand against the front of her cage. “Are the blood transfusions prepared?” he snaps as he moves away from Spera. I force my lungs to slow their pace, only allowing air in and out in measured, steady breaths.
“Almost, Asher,” Calen says with a bow of his chin.
“What’s taking you so long?” Asher barks.
“My deepest apologies—”
“Your apology is of no value to me. Just get it done.”
“We will need your help with Spera. She’s difficult,” one of the guards adds, which makes the others wince. Asher lets out a bark of a laugh.
“She’s a girl. She hasn’t accepted a drop of her match’s blood, and she hasn’t eaten in weeks. She shouldn’t be alive, much less stronger than you, and she has no access to her precious sky. Figure it out,” Asher snarls without turning around as he storms back through the stone archway. The guards look hesitantly at each other. The fact that Spera can make six giant men this nervous makes me flush with pride.
“I’ll see if the transfusions are done,” Calen says and then steps into another room. I study Lucas’s profile while they wait. As if sensing my gaze, he turns to me. But the sight of his face snatches the measured breath right out of my mouth; his eyes blaze pure white as they wander the dank hall.
“But?” I gasp and stare at my guide. Her eyes soften as she gazes down at me, but she doesn’t offer an explanation. I want to shake her. To shake him. But mostly, I just want to wake up.
“It’s ready. We’ll dose the first five and then help you with your brat. Or we could do ourselves a favor and just let her die,” Calen jokes from the side room. Lucas manages a short laugh, ducking away so they can’t see the pain on his face. But I can see it, and for the first time in this life, he looks like I remember. Like my Lucas. He moves to stand guard by Spera’s cage as the others file into the side room.
“Why are his eyes like that?” I ask as we wait for whatever happens next. “They’re not like that now. Does that mean he’s like them?”
“Lucas is an Unseen, as are the rest of them. And as am I.”
“Are all Unseens . . . evil?” I have to ask, even if it means upsetting her.
“No, we’re not all evil,” she reassures me. “But Asher and his guards, they are what we call the Tenix because it’s how they draw their power. And yes, the Tenix mean harm to all they encounter. Particularly in your world.” She lowers her eyes at them. “And your Lucas used to be one of the worst of all, one of the most savage creatures on both sides of the veil. His atrocities are how he found favor with Asher.”
My throat constricts as I absorb her words. Lucas, a savage. Atrocities. Harm to all they encounter. “What changed?” I whisper, watching Lucas watch Spera.
“Spera,” she says. “He put eyes on Spera and something inside of him changed. It came as a shock to us all, most of all Lucas. No one knows why it happened, or how it is possible. But he hasn’t fed on live Tenix since.”
A sudden commotion in the side room draws our attention, ending the conversation before I can ask her more about Lucas or Tenix. The guards come back out one by one, each carefully holding a leather pouch. One container is so full of blood that the liquid sloshes over the narrow lip and dribbles down the side. It’s ruby red in color, and so hot that it literally glows in the musty dark.
“How does it work?” I ask as my eyes follow the rivet of red that makes a break for the meager creek.
“Asher has discovered a way to cure the blood so that the human body accepts it orally. In fact, the body prefers it to its own blood. As the transfusions are absorbed through the lining of the stomach, they use the body’s own red blood cells to replicate themselves over and over. Since the body prefers animal blood, it begins to filter out its own blood to make room for the thicker and stronger transfusions,” she explains as she glances at a large metal bowl barely visible through the doorway.
A new round of snarls builds in the tunnel. Spera curls herself into a ball in the far corner as the other five candidates lunge at their cage doors.
“Are they trying to scare off the guards?” I ask, my eyes again finding the candidate who called out for Spera. She reaches between the front bars and makes a swipe at the girl next to her. For the first time since seeing the cages, I’m glad the walls between the girls are solid stone. They’d certainly tear each other to pieces given the chance.
“That’s not resistance you’re seeing. It’s impatience. The strength of the new blood is like a high for them. They become addicted to it.” A dark thought brews in my mind, a wish I can’t admit out loud. I want Spera to drink every last drop. I need her to be strong.
“Why doesn’t Spera want it?” I ask as casually as I can.
“Because nothing comes without a cost. As the blood takes over, so does its nature. Asher is not only trying to rid the candidates of their weaker blood, he’s trying to rid them of their humanity.”
“And she knows that?” I ask, guilt seeping out of my skin in a sudden sweat.
“No one knows why she refuses the transfusions. In the centuries that Asher has done this, she has been the only one to refuse.” The cavern becomes eerily quiet as the other candidates receive their transfusions.
“Then why doesn’t he just let her go?”
“Her choice to refuse him has had the opposite effect. It makes her all the more special to him.”
“But he’s still willing to let her die?”
“Of course he is. Asher has existed since the very beginning of this world, as have all Unseen things. When you live as long as we have, you have no choice but to see a bigger picture. If he can’t convince her in this life, he will let her die, which will release her soul for reentry in another form. Asher will take the gamble that her soul will return with a more cooperative personality in the future.”
“Me?” I whisper, the pieces sliding into place.
“You.”
20 Run
Each guard watches over his candidate as she drinks her transfusion. They study every movement and wince at each grumble of d
iscomfort. One guard even pets his candidate on the crown of her head as she finishes her transfusion. But the girls hardly notice them. They only acknowledge the blood.
“Why are they staring at the girls like that?” I whisper, unwilling to create a louder sound in the uneasy quiet.
“Each guard hopes that his candidate will succeed. Her guard is certain to find favor with Asher.”
“How do they succeed? What happens?”
“Asher is searching for a queen to rule at his side.”
“That’s what this is about? Asher wants a wife?”
“That will be her title, but it is much more than that. Countless queens have sat by his side, but he has yet to discover the one who can open the veil.”
“Why does he care so much about opening the veil? You guys come and go whenever you want, right?”
“We cannot cross in our true forms. Opening the veil will allow us to cross over exactly as we are. If the Tenix can ever cross over in full form, your world would not survive,” she explains, her face clouding over with a thought she doesn’t share. She firmly grips my arm and points at Spera’s cage front. “Watch, now. See for yourself how much Lucas has changed. Keep this memory with you in the days to come.”
Calen and four of the other guards move back toward the main archway, but Lucas does not leave Spera’s door. He leans with his back to the bars of her cage and carefully slides his thumb across the face of the lock. As he watches the guards file through the wide door, my eyes move to the lock. A tiny sliver of air is visible between the body of the lock and the latch. I turn my gaze to Spera, willing her eyes to follow mine to the little gap—to what’s probably her best, her only chance to get out of here.
She peers at the door from her tangle of black hair and then creeps silently across the wet straw floor. She rocks back on her heels. She is so close to the bars that her breath leaves a film of vapor when she exhales. Lucas gives her a faint nod over his shoulder as he slips his heel between the edge of the door and the barred wall. The opening is impossibly narrow, but she is bone thin. It is enough.
She slides through without making a sound. Suddenly, Calen’s voice returns to the cavernous chamber as he ambles toward them. Spera freezes, her body rigid with indecision, but Lucas grabs her hand, curls his fingers around hers and slashes them across his own face before shoving her down the hall. He stumbles, blood gushing through his fingers, as he bellows in pain.
“Calen!” Lucas shouts as he moves his body to block their view of her escape.
“Brother! What happened?” Calen snarls as he lunges for Lucas.
“Spera. She took me by surprise,” he seethes, pulling his hand away from his face. I gasp in horror, his teeth visible through the tears in his cheek. Even Calen seems distracted by the extent of Lucas’s injury.
“She asked for her transfusion. I thought at last my luck had turned. But when I opened her door, she struck me through the bars and then slipped out,” Lucas grimaces, retrieving a piece of cloth from his thick leather belt and pressing it to his face. It is completely saturated within seconds. With a start, I realize what I’ve just seen: how Lucas got those scars. He’d done them to himself. He’d done them for me.
“Good riddance, if you ask me. She’s been the most difficult by far. But Asher thinks she could be the one. You know he’ll have your head for this, Lucas,” Calen says.
“Then we must give chase,” Lucas says in a low growl. “I owe him every effort.”
The others roar in agreement and they take off after her. But a sudden chill floods the cavern. Even before I turn around I know exactly what could make the air change like this. Asher. His taunt face twists in fury as he assesses the open cage door and the frantic guards.
“What has happened here?” The guards stop mid-stride and turn to face him. Their instant fear and shame make the air hot. “How could you have let Spera escape? Do you have any idea how important she is? In thousands of years we have never seen a candidate like her. Find her. Your lives depend on it,” he snarls, and his guards move to the armory room in a charged silence.
“Do their lives really depend on it? You said that Unseens have been around since the beginning. Can you actually die?”
“We can only perish on your side of the veil. On our side of the veil there is no beginning and no ending. No death, no birth.”
“So why do their lives depend on it?”
“This is still your side of the veil. Extreme physical force can kill the guards. And as their leader, Asher can demand that a guard forfeits his life.”
“What happens then? Do Unseen souls reenter, too?”
“No. We are immortal, but we are only immortal once. We are given everlasting life or we are given no life at all.” So if Lucas dies, it’s forever.
“Are you as slow as you are foolish? Must I do this myself?” Asher’s voice splits the thick air like thunder. Fissures glow across his broad body. I flatten myself against Spera’s cage as his flesh rips apart. He springs forward and lands on all fours. Standing just a few feet from me is the creature that chased me through the pasture at Wildwood. Run, my mind begs. But I will my body to stay in place.
Asher’s new form takes off downstream, swinging his yellow-eyed, saber head from side to side to pick up any traces of her scent. The only thing that scares me more than Asher is the horror on Lucas’s face. Spera doesn’t stand a chance. No sooner has the thought echoed across my brain than the underground cellar instantaneously falls away.
The void of transition is over quickly. Wherever we are now is so bright that I instinctively close my eyes against the burn. The dry air that fills my lungs leaves familiar grit in my throat. We’re back in the desert.
“Where’s Spera?” I ask as I shield my eyes with my hand. My guide points in the opposite direction. The instant I see her, I wish she’d died in the cellar. Then she’d be at peace, resting. Free. But instead, she drags herself across the sand, her movements so weak that no dust rises from what little progress she’s making. The memory of questioning her will to live burns in my mind like a branding iron. She crawls a few feet more and then collapses.
I move hesitantly closer. Her lips are cracked and bleeding. She brings a clenched fist to her face. Her fingers shake as she opens them. The silver horseshoe gleams in her dirty palm. She squeezes her hand shut as a cry of pure desperation sounds from her peeling mouth. I close the distance between us, reaching out for her skeletal shoulder when I hear the sudden muffled crunch of paws on sand.
Spera barely stirs as Asher’s panther-like form approaches. His lips pull back in a victorious grin as he stalks closer. I take a defiant, futile step between them. You might not be able to see me, but you’re going to have to go through me first.
Without warning, the ground quakes beneath my feet, and I brace myself for the transition. But the barren surroundings do not fall away. A familiar rhythm in the rumble makes my heart pound in my chest: one-two three, one-two three. Horses. And from the incredible sound of it, there must be hundreds. Their approaching forms shimmer on the horizon, distorting in the heat that radiates from the ground. Asher pauses, baring his teeth at the coming herd. He flattens his black body against the ground and waits, his long tail swishing in agitation.
“Is Asher afraid?” I whisper as I watch his body language.
“As afraid as an Unseen can be,” she says, clearly amused.
“Why?”
“Horses are unconquerable by any power, Seen or Unseen. You of all people should understand that. And they are the only mortal creatures that can cross to our side of the veil,” she says, entirely unaffected as they roar toward us without a hint of slowing down.
This feels familiar. They gallop in tight formation and make an impenetrable circle around us. As soon as the circle is sealed, they slow to a walk and then turn in to face the center.
A black horse steps out from the solid wall and takes a guarding position between Asher and Spera’s failing body. He unknowingly stands
so close to me that I can hear his heartbeat. A dry wind whips his wild mane across my face. He smells like the ocean: salty and powerful. I’ve seen thousands of horses in my lifetime, and none compare to the majesty of this creature.
His deep eyes lock on Asher. His muscled body quivers with readiness, and he issues a shrill challenge. Asher’s saber disguise dissolves and he climbs to his human feet. As if testing the horse’s commitment, he takes a quick step toward Spera. But the horse strikes his perfect head like a snake at Asher. To my surprise, Asher jumps back. The horse moves toward Spera and lowers his muzzle to the ground, pawing at the sand by her face.
“What does that mean?” I ask, filled with dread by the utter satisfaction the horse’s actions bring to Asher’s face.
“The leader of the herd is giving his life for Spera. He is presenting himself to Asher for capture.” My eyes move back to the black horse in disbelief, certain I’ll still see the earlier fight in his movement. But she’s right. His eyes still smolder with freedom, but his tail has dropped from its arched, defiant display and his weight is evenly distributed between his four legs, no longer coiled in his hindquarters like a loaded gun.
“How does that help Spera?” I spit out the words, bitter and sharp. The thought of watching Asher kill the horse is almost as gut-wrenching as the idea of Spera’s inevitable death.
“Only a horse’s blood is strong enough to save her now. It is the strongest kind of mortal blood. And he is willing to let Asher use it to save Spera.”
“But why would the horse offer his life to save Spera?” I ask, glancing at her ethereal face.
“Have you already forgotten? Spera laid down her life for him and some of his herd when the farmers tried to drive them off a cliff. There is only one way to repay that kind of gift.” A life for a life—a cycle that can’t possibly save anyone at all. Spera wouldn’t have wanted this. I wave my arms and jump up and down in hopes to scare the black horse away. But he stands like a stone.
Like a statue.
The thought makes the desert fall away as my mind races a thousand years into the future—into Vanessa’s monstrous home, where the statue of a black horse stands in her office, his mane still blowing in the desert wind. How is that possible? But if it is true, if that’s really him, then he’s safe and protected. Vanessa adores that statue. She’d never let anyone take it. She wouldn’t even let me touch it.