But then those beryl-bright eyes shrank me where I stood.
When he began speaking, it wasn’t the voice of a captor. It was the honey-silken croon of a lover, rolling over on the sheets to tuck a spare lock of hair behind my ear.
“Are you afraid of your intended?” he teased. “Is there anything wrong with giving your betrothed a kiss?”
No. There was nothing wrong with that at all. Especially with a pale, moon-draped body such as his, or the promise of the curve of his lips.
His breath touched my ear, inhaling my fragrance. I felt as if I’d sunk into a bucket of ice-chilled water. When his fingers crept up my bare shoulder, unexpected shivers rippled down to my navel. A trace of sweet pain. His touch was so cold, it felt like icicles were burrowing deep into my skin. But I couldn’t move. I could only watch him, poised on the brink of quivering eagerness. His finger traced a small circle on the slope of my neck. And then his mouth closed around it.
I gasped as I felt my skin break. Warm blood burst free, and the pressure blossomed scarlet in the middle of my forehead. I collapsed against him. He held me, folding his black wings around my shoulders. The jagged feathers teased my arm. I felt like my body was sliding sideways, half-seizing in pleasure, half-balled up with pain. A cry tore through my lips.
His fangs finally withdrew with a soft click. He hesitated, and then kissed the spot in a manner that seemed uncharacteristically quick and awkward.
“I thought you said you would hurt me,” I said, fingers drifting up to my damp neck.
Khyber watched me. His eyes glowed incandescent, their rocky depths paved over with smooth silver. He sighed, almost in disappointment, as I reeled over from the abrupt head rush.
“I have. More than you know.”
***
We’d been walking for some time now. I was in a euphoric mood, full of bubbles and laughter as I ran my fingers over moonflower petals and balanced on walls overgrown with ivy. Khyber pushed aside a curtain of moss and led me to a small koi pond tucked away beneath a willow. The willow’s knotted branches scraped the surface of the water like longing fingers. In the pond, three koi chased each other around and around, in a perfectly symmetrical circle.
Normally I loved the water. But tonight it was no more than an anxious presence lapping at the back of my mind.
“Look closely,” Khyber said, crouching by the pool’s edge. “I can trust you now, so you must know some things.”
I knelt down, but I looked at him, looked at the way he gazed into the water with such revulsion at his reflection. I couldn’t understand why everyone called him ugly. They must all be blind. The man beside me was a carved masterpiece, the way time whittles the river, and his crooked nose lent personality to his face. Intensity, dark and ferocious, scowled from his eyes and curled back his lips.
Khyber cleared his throat impatiently. “Raina. Look at the water. Not me.”
Biting my lower lip for having displeased him, I obediently looked toward the beckoning waters. The fish were swimming faster now. One koi was white-scaled with patches of black, red, and blue, like the Korean flag. Another was a blur of orange, like liquid fire. The last glowed a pale, sickly white.
They swirled faster until color leaped off their scales, distorting the water. I peered closer. “What is this place?”
“A memory well.”
“Like the one on Mt. Halla? The Madame of Memories sold Colleen a picture of Duck Young’s son. She said she’d found it in the memory well on top of Mt. Halla on Jeju Island.”
Khyber’s eyes gleamed keenly. “Yes, I have no doubt she claimed it was from there. The crater of Mt. Halla holds the biggest memory well. But there are smaller ones tucked away in all corners of Eve. Places memories go to be found. Or to be left behind.”
“Whose memories are these?”
“Maya’s.”
It was the first time he’d spoken of his maker, the Vampyre Queen, without titles. Just a woman. Just Maya.
The fish whipped around so fast that ripples broke the surface. I felt the cool drops splatter across my fingers. And I was sucked in.
Chapter 3: Maya
Sunshine played over the water, soft and glittering. It was a far cry from the intense light glaring down on the Negev Desert, licking bones clean and leaving no crevice in shadow. This light laughed and played across my blistered face, as I scoured the abandoned coastline for any sign of aid. I only had seconds. My throat rattled like sandpaper as I scraped for one more breath. Then the waves tossed me under again.
I churned around on the bottom before the sea finally spit me out, broken, on a spit of gravely sand. My eyes slowly roved up the carpeting foot of forest to the chain of jagged granite peaks looming above, bucking up and down like a beast’s backbone.
“Seorak San.” The name escaped my parched lips. The mountains that touched the sea. So. It was no myth. I had found it. I had found it!
I staggered to my feet and gave a wordless shriek of ecstasy. My callused feet stumbled on limpets and oyster shells, but I stayed standing.
“What now, Princess Maya? Have you gone mad?”
It appeared that at least one other had survived the shipwreck. Captain Abijah, who had sworn to protect me, limped out of the sea, his gray eyes numb with pain.
I combed my fingers through my tumbling, thick black hair. “The Land of Morning Calm. Don’t you understand, you old fool? I’ve navigated the route to the East, where the secret of immortality rests. I’ve done it!”
He shook a finger at me and tried to speak, but only succeeded in coughing up more saltwater. “You? You did it, Princess? What about the oarsmen who paddled thousands of leagues without one complaint? What about those two astronomers who came along to read the skies, even though they were terrified of the sea? What about the crew and my men, who endured your endless rants about finding the secret to immortality? We could have been at home with our wives and children!”
“You should be honored,” I told him. “You’re nothing but a stupid soldier, but I chose you to be part of something greater. When I discover the secret to immortality, your blisters will be mere scratches and your hungry stomach a distant memory. My father will be so proud. Our kingdom will be mightier than Alexander the Great’s and wealthier than the Persians’! The Hebrew name shall be revered as it was intended, not a nation obsessed with messiahs and afterlives. We will establish the Kingdom of Heaven today, not generations from now.”
Abijah buried his face in his hands, and when he looked up, I saw tears smearing his filthy cheeks. “You are insane,” he declared. “All those lives. Lost in the shipwreck. You don’t even mourn. You don’t even understand that you are marooned, ten thousand leagues from home. Don’t you understand, Princess Maya? Your father approved your voyage so he could get rid of you.”
“Shut up, old man.” I pulled the scraps of my dress tighter together, ignoring the unpleasant feeling of chilly air nipping at my bare skin. “Then I shall claim the secret of immortality for myself.”
“Still with your mad rants!” Abijah rasped. He tore at his hair, and I noted more froth dripping from his mouth. “Dear Yahweh, what did I ever do to earn your displeasure? Why have you banished me here, to die in the company of this Jezebel? I shall not have it!”
“Calm down,” I admonished. “You’re sick from the sea. It’s all right. I forgive you your ill-tempered words.”
“I don’t forgive you!” he screamed. “I may die in a strange land far from home, but at least I can avenge all of those poor souls lost at sea on the whim of an insane princess!”
He staggered toward me, thick arms dripping with salt water. I tried to run, but my legs buckled like rubber.
“Captain Abijah. Captain Abijah! In the name of my father, the King of Judea, I order you to stand down!”
“That’s right. Run, coward.” The light left his eyes. I knew Abijah was gone, then. I wasn’t seeing him. This is how Death comes, slipping into susceptible minds, seizing control of their bo
dies, and raising their hands to do His bidding.
He grabbed a loop of my hair and forced my head down upon a limpet-encrusted stone. I could hear nothing but the rise and surrender of the sea. His shadow fell over me, and the rock he held blocked out the sun.
A growl split the air, reverberating over the thunderous toll of the ocean. A blur of white streaked past, and then Abijah flew off of me. The sea dragged him away.
I slipped off the rock, suddenly frightened, suddenly truly alone. Except for the beast.
The white tiger padded toward me, light refracting in azure eyes so wise and sad at the same time. I had never felt a gaze that held so much weight. Inky black stripes painted its face, rippled down the ruff collar at its neck, and looped around its tail.
I ducked, but the white tiger leaped over me in a graceful bound and disappeared into the bush. I hurried to follow. My limbs had begun to twitch uncontrollably, and the sea didn’t glisten as bright.
I knocked against someone.
“Khyber?” I whispered. “I want to escape. I don’t like this place.”
“Ssh,” he hushed me. “There’s still more you need to see.”
It was too dark here. The shadows hid everything. Sometimes they emerged as people—faceless, but bent on murdering me. I ran a different way until I couldn’t run. I walked until I couldn’t walk. I crawled until I couldn’t crawl.
A string of autumn leaves rattled over my head, and they sounded like my shuddering breaths.
The white tiger slipped out of a thicket of bamboo saplings, ruff rising as she circled me.
–Poor child– she said suddenly. –Too have come so far only to die here–
“You!” I raised a blood-encrusted finger. “You speak!”
–I speak because you are entering my world: Eve. The spirit realm. This is where all spirits come as twilight draws to a close, when it’s time for them to pass on–
“Impossible. I’m not dying.”
The white tiger regarded me. –You are. And your spirit is aggravated, trying desperately to hold on. You must reconcile with yourself if you ever wish to pass on in peace–
“But I can’t be dying! I came here to discover the secret to immortality! To live forever!” I was truly panicking now. “What will happen to him without it?”
–Who is ‘him’?–
“My son.” I placed a hand on my stomach. “My illegitimate child. Who has carried a death sentence on his head even before his birth.”
The white tiger edged closer, and I buried my face in her white coat, the guard hairs scratching my face.
–We are all dying– she told me. –Even something of the immortal will die–
“What?”
–Meaning–
***
The white tiger received me graciously into her spirit kingdom. I wandered after her, helpless. We scrambled up the craggy slopes of Ulsanbawi, prowled beneath ice-crystal waterfalls, and prayed with the monks in cliff temples. I saw many lion-dog and horse statues perched on the sloped roofs of temples, and I asked the white tiger what they were.
–Demons converted by Confucius– she said. –Now they protect us from the Dark Spirits–
And all around us, the leaves spun golden and rosy, the embers of a dying fire. I shuddered every time one fell. Winter was almost upon us. When it came, I would not be around to see it.
“Why do you know our kind so well?” I asked the white tiger one day.
The Lady of Eve turned to me with those sad, teardrops eyes, knowing regrets only a human could.
–A long time ago, when animals still spoke and the gods listened, my friend Bear and I thought how wonderful it would be to be human. We prayed–
“What happened?”
–We were told to stay in a cave for one hundred days and eat only the sacred garlic and mugwort. When next we emerged in the sunlight, we would be human–
The white tiger paused, staring up toward the lofty reaches of Geumganggul Cave high above us. Her clear eyes reflected the sky. –I couldn’t stay. I was too hungry. All of my instincts over-powered me, urged me to hunt. So, after twenty days, I left. When next I saw my friend the Bear, she walked on two legs and was wife to the god of our people–
I winced. “Ouch.”
–Yes. Ouch– This time when she stalked ahead of me, there was a restless twitch in her tail.
One day, I scampered ahead of the white tiger, up a cliff face only a human could climb. She stopped at the bottom and waited. I yanked myself up on azalea shrubs and sticker branches, pulling myself higher and higher. Light mist touched my cheeks, warning of a coming storm. I brushed it aside. Another reminder of winter. I wouldn’t have it. It couldn’t take me. Not yet. Not now.
The clouds moved in so fast that by the time I reached the top, the world was shrouded in white. I scoured around vainly for a safe path down the mountain and tripped. My hands grabbed wildly for a handhold, but in the rain-mist, the rocks were too slippery. I tumbled down the slope, landing heavily on a pile of rocks. Red pain blossomed in my stomach. No, not my pain. Another’s. I tried to keep all of the blood in, even cupped it with my hands, but it leaked out anyway: my son’s life, seeping away through my fingers. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted.
I couldn’t move. A soundless scream gathered in my throat, even though there would be no one around to hear it. I thought I saw the ghost of a sleeping infant, a blissful smile on his face, drift away in a cradle of clouds.
I tarried on the mountain top too long, alone in the rain and my tears. Finally, I heard heavy, dragging footsteps behind me.
It didn’t sound like the nimble gait of the white tiger. I hid.
It was a Dark Spirit, attracted by the scent of blood. It beckoned for me to have a drink with it.
“How dare you?” I shrieked. “Don’t touch his blood!”
It backed away from me. The rain battered its pale, sunken chest. Its black hair fanned around its naked shoulders, and when it looked at me, I couldn’t stop staring at its black lips and the holes where its eyes should be, half in fascination, half in horror.
“You’re hideous.”
–I am immortal–
“No. An immortal would never look like this—a monstrous demon.”
–I will be beautiful. I will wait–
“Wait for what?”
–For you to die. Then I will drink your blood and be beautiful again– The hollow eyes stared at a spot over my head. I suddenly didn’t want it to look at me. It was very important that it never looked directly at me. But then it did.
–Tell me. Why doesn’t your friend, the white tiger, tell you how to save yourself?–
“I must reconcile with myself.”
The thing’s black lips stretched in silent laugher. It laughed so hard that its skin split apart at the seams.
–The last steps the dying take. She is showing you how to die–
“No. She wouldn’t do that. Unless”—my heart thudded—“there was no other way.”
–There is another way. Become immortal. That is the reason you came here, am I right–
I looked up quickly. The Dark Spirit was laughing again. Without ever making a sound.
A curtain of rain hid them from view.
I buried my face in Khyber’s arms.
“What are the Dark Spirits?”
“Spirits of sin and ruin. While the white tiger lived, they were kept at bay.”
“Now?”
Khyber didn’t answer for a second.
“Now they own this world.”
There was a way. I slipped and slid my way through the rocks. Water dribbled from the cliff’s crinkly cheeks above, running cold down my forehead. Through the shifting mists, I saw the tail of the white tiger below. She’d curled up for a nap while waiting, in a dry patch of cave.
As soon as she smelled the smoke, she bolted upright. I watched the intelligence in her eyes fade and be replaced by something animalistic and feral. She’d failed to become h
uman, unlike her friend, the Bear. She still feared fire.
But there was nowhere for her to go. The wormwood of the Dark Spirits burned when I told it to burn, spread when I told it to spread, and steered her into the very back of the cave so I wouldn’t have to see the look in her eyes.
A while later, when the last of the smoke hissed into the skies, I told the wood to stop. I could see her now: mighty head drooped, white paws stiff and curled into her chest. I entered the cave and beheaded and donned the skull of the white tiger.
The soul fled like They’d told me it would, but I trapped it with a leash of red ribbon. I watched the white tiger cub buck and mewl, but I felt no pity for it. There had been a way to save my son, and the white tiger had kept it from me.
“You should have left me to die on the beach,” I told the cub. It looked at me with wide blue eyes. And then it bit me.
“How dare you!” I hissed. Something collapsed inside me, and my whole world slid toward a drain. Just as it reached that bottomless drop, everything righted, and I could see normally again.
“Nice try,” I said, panting, “but you’re the prisoner now.”
It strained and clawed at the red collar, whining piteously.
I smiled and turned to survey my rain-shrouded kingdom. There was work to be done. Winter’s chill had closed in around my numbered heartbeats.
Chapter 4: Revelations
The quiet of the night was unsettling after the downpour of unceasing rain in the memory well. Khyber kept an icy arm around my shoulder as we strode through the long halls of the palace, as if worried something might jump out and grab me. Memories were indeed powerful. I was no longer uncertain that I’d bought Khyber the wrong wedding gift.
“You’ve said nothing about what you saw.”
“Why did the white tiger ever help her?” I exploded bitterly. “Why couldn’t she see what a delusional, back-stabbing bitch Maya was?”
Year of the Tiger (Changeling Sisters) Page 2