“She’s not real. I don’t smell any blood in her.”
“Neither do I!” I agreed, even though I didn’t know what blood smelled like. “But her dark place drips honey, same as mine –“
“Dark place?” he said, eyebrows rising, eyes focusing in on me.
“Be-between her legs. Her pussy.” I used the word that he’d used for it earlier.
“You’ve tasted your own slave?” he asked, his lips quirking up.
I nodded hesitantly.
“But this is the only one you have, right?”
I nodded again, wondering how he knew, as he began to shake his head. “No real woman tastes of sweets. Men only say they do to please them.”
“But she does,” I protested.
Zaan smiled wickedly. “Shall I see?” He sat down on the far end of the couch. “Come here, slavegirl.”
Beza looked from me to him and I didn’t know what to say.
“Your King commands it,” Zaan said, his eyes looking at me. At that, Beza did as she was told, crawling nearer, and Zaan pulled her onto his lap.
I realized his skin was against her back, and he wrapped her with one arm. Since I had released him from the stone, I had only felt one small part of him, no more. I was worried for her, but as he brought his other hand up to brush the fabric covering her breast, I also found myself becoming jealous.
He pushed Beza’s hair out of his way so that he could press his face into her neck. One hand kept stroking her breast, as the other met her thigh. “Are you scared, my darling?”
Beza shook her head, “No, my King.”
Zaan glanced up at me to make sure that I was listening. Then he murmured something just for her and rocked back, pulling her with him, kissing her neck.
I almost said something then, worried that he would bite her – just as I felt my magic stir inside at watching them.
She writhed against him, falling back into him like I had seen her fall back into Joshan a hundred times before, raising her arms up so that she could reach for his face and hair. She ground her body against his, as he kissed and licked and nuzzled her, his hand massaging the weight of her breast, his hand on her thigh ever-rising.
“You are warm, for a demon-puppet,” he said, licking a stripe up her neck to whisper in her ear. His hand on her legs reached her hip and then slid over to dive between her thighs, and she moaned as I could only imagine him pushing a finger inside. Her eyes closed and I watched his arm move as he stirred himself into her, feeling her slick heat. And when he pulled his hand out he brought his fingers to his lips and tasted her with a cruel smile.
“Honey indeed.”
He stood, pushing her roughly aside, walking across the room to me. I held my ground. I could smell her scent on him – I’d been intoxicated by it before.
“Be honest -- does the same drip from between your legs? Or do you own the wetness of a real woman?” He stood an arm’s length away and then reached over to smear her juices on my cheek. I stood there, furious at him. If Beza wasn’t real, then what else about my life was a lie? What, if anything, was truth?
Zaan pressed on. “Did you slick honey on my cock? Are you made of candy, girl?”
I shook my head, staring hate at him. “No.”
He nodded his head with a tilt. “Because no woman alive tastes like that.” He cast a glance back to Beza who was innocently looking from him to me. “Shall I wrench her arm off to prove to you she’s not real?”
“No!” I ran across the room and grabbed Beza’s wrist and hauled her to me. Even if she wasn’t real – she was still my servant. “You are my King. If there is to be – fucking – then it should be with me.”
Zaan crossed the distance between us and I fought not to shrink back. “Trust that there will be,” he said, burning me with his gaze, his eyes running over me like hands. “But not tonight. Leave me. Have the male bring me beer if the world still has it.”
He took a step back and I hauled Beza out of the room behind me.
I pulled Beza all the way back to my own sleeping chamber. I had never needed doors before, but now I wished I had them, so I could close them and bar the path. I did not want the Zaibann startling me in the middle of the night.
I sat on the edge of my bed, hands in impotent fists. “He is awful,” I told Beza. Staring into her eyes now, though, I knew what Zaan had said was true. She was kind and loyal, but not any more human than the zoomers that smoothed the rugs at night.
“He is your King, my Queen,” Beza said innocently.
“Leave me,” I said, and she turned to do as I commanded. “But do not go to him, nor let him touch you.”
“My Queen,” she said nodding, then left.
#
I watched her go, pulling the Rix-abomination behind her. What had happened to this world in my long absence?
I had to admit that it was long, now. Unless this entire palace was some sort of elaborate trap.
But if so – why that girl?
She was a pale shadow of Airelle and I was bound to her by blood. She clearly didn’t know what the binding was – I needed more power over her before she did. Something to trade.
I needed a way out.
One of the accursed metal creatures raced by me on all eight legs, and I turned to follow it.
It walked down endless halls, through open doors, past others of its kind, scrubbing things clean, trimming living branches, grooming caged beasts, until it reached a wall with a handspan gap at the bottom. I watched in amazement as it folded itself down, lowering until it could slide sideways and duck underneath, like an insect scurrying from a sudden light.
Well, well.
I sat down. Airelle and the pathetic impostor weren’t the only ones with powers. I placed my hands in my lap and called on my magic, speaking the meditative words in the old tongue.
“Zaibann are creatures of the wind. We come and go as we please, and no man can halt our passage.”
I felt the pieces of myself lighten and pull apart. I occupied the same space that I had before, but I was as air now, a cloud-like consciousness controlled only through sheer force of mind.
I sank, collapsing in on myself in a smoke, and followed the metal-thing out.
The tunnels I was in as a mist were as extensive as the ones I had walked in earlier. The metal – how I hated being encased in it! – threaded through the walls so that the Rix-creatures could bring in supplies and haul out waste. I knew the Chamber of the Sun my men and I had dug was set inside deep stone, so any time a tunnel branched, I lifted up. The entire system couldn’t be perfectly sealed – if it was, that sad girl and her machinated friends would have suffocated, not to mention all the animals.
I rose, conscious of how much time it was taking me, and how much of my strength I was using, knowing I would need enough strength to go back – and I cursed myself for waking with such ravenous need, never thinking that I might be tricked. My anger made me vibrate, so much so that I almost missed it – the waft of a faint breeze.
I pushed myself toward it and hovered right in front of the draft. There was always the chance I could be dissipated so much that I could never reassemble, so I waited, testing cautiously, until I found a gap between the metal panels and leaked ever so slowly outside.
I reassembled my form on the edge of a metal shell – there was no need to waste my powers more than I had, not when my body could heal quickly – and I slid down down, tumbling along the shell’s edge for what seemed like miles before I dropped to the ground.
The fall was long enough that even I was stunned upon landing, and when I caught my breath the air tasted like ash. Like after the battle of Hotalle, when Airelle lit up the city’s walls and the fires smoked for weeks.
Draugulos indeed.
I looked around. It was night, but the area around me was lit with an unearthly glow. Whose magic was this that illuminated me? Surely not hers. I saw lights that weren’t flames atop poles -- more Rix-made abominations.
Th
en I heard a sound from behind. I turned as a loud creature raced straight at me on two wheels, ridden by a hidden man in armor. He shouted something, muffled by his helmet, and veered around. I stood there, feeling the wind from his passage.
The things we had fought – the things my men died for – they were everywhere.
Was our entire war for nothing? Had my slumber been in vain?
I stalked away from the palace’s metal wall, looking for darkness to hide in.
I walked down long alleys that stank of refuse and defecation. There were no pictures of this place on the palace’s screens – was all Aranda like this, now? I passed doors that held back sounds of people and music like I had never heard, walked over men sleeping in small groups wearing shreds of clothing, too inebriated to feel rats nipping at their fingers.
Lights flickered on a wider boulevard ahead – as much as I hated Rixan objects, I flew towards them like a moth.
What had happened to the world? And why didn’t that girl inside the palace know? What was the point of keeping her so innocent – and who gained from keeping her trapped there?
I looked up and couldn’t see any stars. Had the world lost those, too, while I slept?
I heard a sound from close behind me – scurrying feet. Like a rat, but man-sized. I turned.
“Give me all your money.”
I had no idea what he was saying, but he brandished what I was sure was a weapon. Twenty-thousand years and some things will never change.
“Come on! Give me all your money!” he said. I stepped closer to him and he stepped back, holding the weapon up higher. “I mean it – I’ll cut you – I’ll –“
“I am Zaan the Fearless and you will regret this decision.”
A second later he was slashing his knife through the air where I used to be. He shouted, more words, it didn’t matter – I reached in and grabbed hold of his shoulder, while he tried to slash me through. I made the parts of myself in his path smoke and so he stabbed nothing. Avoiding his blows was second-nature – my scars were from training, not battle. I hoisted him up, and his shouts turned to screams as his weapon clattered to the ground.
I held him there as he howled. If I spoke his language, I knew I could have asked him anything – but where would I even begin? How much time has passed? Have you heard of a Zaibann? The name Airelle, is it familiar to you? I clenched his shoulder tighter and tighter, hearing bones pop, the unanswered fury of twenty-thousand years pouring out of me, until urine trickled down his leg. I set him down in disgust, and his hand found something in a pocket and threw it at me. I caught it, releasing him, and he ran off cursing.
The thing he’d thrown – I opened it up. Inside were cards I didn’t recognize the use for – and one piece of paper that I did. I smeared it with some of his blood in pulling it out.
It had her face on it. Ilylle’s.
The sky was getting lighter – dawn was coming. While the world would be less frightening in daylight to the people that lived here, I would become moreso. I walked back to the palace wall, changed into smoke again, and wafted the piece of paper back up with me on the wind.
#
I tossed and turned that night. Nightmares about creatures of stone, and people in the screens, beating on the glass, trying to get out – it was a good thing I wasn’t in the dream cradle, or I might have poisoned my people. When I woke, Joshan was there.
“Queen Ilylle, your King appears to have left.”
I lay back exhaustedly. Did I have to tell anyone? Perhaps the celestitians could choose another Zaibann for me – but what if all of them were like him?
“Is there anything I can do for you, my Queen?” Joshan asked, worry creasing his brow.
I looked up at him. He, like Beza, was just an elaborate zoomer – four limbs, instead of eight. No wonder he always knew the time – or when the Council called. He was a lie. Everything in the palace a lie except for me.
No, not even except for me. I was a lie too – ruling a people I never saw, lands I’d never walked. There was no proof that I was a Queen. For all I knew, the palace and everything in it could be a dream. And one of my titles was Queen of Dreams, wasn’t it?
I felt like I had dove too deeply into my pool and stayed down too long, like I was running out of air. I felt my throat close, my heart race, no matter that I was lying in my bed. I had never felt this way before – it felt like I was dying and I looked to Joshan.
“Come here and hold me,” I commanded, and when he was prone beside me, I looped my arms around his neck and cried.
I must have fallen asleep again – I didn’t remember, but when I woke up the pulsing lights of the dream cradle were all around me. I stayed inside it, curled up, unwilling to face the rest of the palace again – until I heard the sound of someone pacing back and forth outside. I pushed the lid open and the pacing stopped – I saw black leather boots leading to black pants and armor and finally Zaan, staring down inquisitively.
“Your servant told me waking you would be harmful,” he said, pushing the door up, squatting on his heels. “What is this contraption?”
“It harvests my dreams. It is how I help keep Aranda safe and well,” I told him, even as the words tasted bitter on my tongue.
He looked at me and one of his eyebrows rose. I avoided his gaze and he snorted softly. “You do not believe in yourself as much as you did yesterday, do you.”
I swallowed and didn’t answer him.
“I have good news for you then,” he said, rocking back up. “You actually are a Queen.”
“Of course I am,” I said, with more conviction than I felt. “But –“
He held up a piece of paper – and I realized with awe that it had my likeness on it. “What is that? Is that…currency?”
His dark eyes studied me. “You have never seen its like before?”
“Never.”
I gathered myself up inside the cradle and stood, stepping out of it. But between my weariness and my skirt catching, I tripped. He caught me effortlessly, then picked me up out of the chamber and set me down.
“Do you have your footing?” he said, without kindness.
“Yes,” I said, as he released me. I carefully walked over to my bed and prayed he wouldn’t follow too closely. “The paper – please –“
He handed it over to me and it was my face. The same one I saw in the mirror each morning when Beza dressed me. I was printed in a shining blue and there was a smudged thumbprint on the corner – the same color as blood.
“Did you steal this?”
Zaan shrugged. “I wasn’t injured. He survived.”
“You –“ I looked from the paper to him. “You injured one of my people?”
“Do you care so strongly about a public you have never met?”
“Of course I do! I’m their Queen!” I showed him the paper as though it were proof. “They rely on me!”
“For what, precisely?” he asked, his tone cold.
I gathered myself and swallowed before answering. “I dream their dreams. And – Railan has me read things, sometimes, so that they can hear my voice. And,” I waved the paper in front of him, “this is currency. They honor me. They value me. Should I not do the same for them?”
I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at my picture on the paper -- and then realized the question I should have asked all along.
“How did you get out?”
Instead of answering me, Zaan asked another question. “In your stories, what happens to your Kings?”
“It is as I told you – King and Queen rule side by side.”
He shook his head once. “No man could be content to be so trapped here.”
I looked up at him, fury burning inside. “What about Queens? Do I seem content to you?” I rose to standing and willed my magic to catch him alight, only it wouldn’t answer me. “How did you get out? Tell me. I want to see the land I rule – I want to meet my people.”
He leaned back, the corners of his lips subtly rising. “Make
me tell you.”
Chapter Seven
I knew from my brief time outside why they kept her in here like a songbird. She wouldn’t last a minute outside in the brutal world I’d seen. And her powers – if she could be said to have any – were so weak as to be almost useless.
Which was perfect for me.
I could take all the blood from her I wanted, and no one would ever find out. I imagined myself swelling up like a tick – until she died and I died with her.
Bloodbinding was inherently unfair.
I rocked back in the chair I sat in, waiting for her to do something foolish to attempt to seduce me, to use her ‘magic’ to bend me to her will. Instead she sat back on the bed and looked at me hard, as though she were memorizing my face and said, “Tell me about Airelle.”
I stared back at her, challengingly.
“The book is all I know of her,” she pressed.
I shook my head. Airelle was mine – she was still alive for me, not just words inside some book. And if I deigned to tell her, where would I begin? How the dawn looked, reflected in Airelle’s eyes? The way she could best a man in battle? How the ozri drifted down to sing for her? How when she swam a river, scaled garmanders swam at her side?
A thousand-thousand memories rushed to the surface for my attention, as the little impostor stood.
“I know I am but a poor copy of her – a copy of a copy of a copy. But something in me is still the same. I do have power. And I know from reading that book the lengths she would go to for her people. I would do the same for mine.”
Her hands went to the fastens on the front of her dress and unclasped them. It fell from her in a rush of blue – how had the printers of her currency known that that was her best shade? – and she stepped out of it like a phine leaping out of ocean foam.
And for a moment, she looked like her, truly -- her skin shining white, her straight blonde hair falling to lap around all her curves and edges. A creature of will and desire -- and power. I felt it pull at me, like a whispered word, like a gentle hand. Nothing like Airelle’s commanding presence, but -- I closed my eyes to shut her out.
The Hated (Sleeping With Monsters Book 3) Page 6