Curse and Whisper

by A J Gala

  That was a lie too. Her father was dead. He didn’t have the guts to say it.

  Sinisia nodded, then took a deep breath. “Right. I came to talk about Rhett Hallenar.”

  “Further developments?”

  “Not exactly.” She still wouldn’t meet his eyes. “There was something I neglected to mention about my stint with him and the Hunters.”

  Orin raised an eyebrow and folded his arms.

  She continued. “I told you Rhett had answers. That he knew things.”

  “You did.”

  “Well, he had offered to tell me those things. For a price.”

  Orin threw his hands out. “What? And you didn’t take him up on it? Sinisia, whatever the cost, you know Anavelia would have paid it!”

  She exhaled sharply through her nose. “It wasn’t that kind of price.”

  Orin fixed his posture a little and tilted his head. “I don’t follow.”

  Sinisia finally looked him in the eye. “It’s probably better that way.” She ran her tongue over her teeth with a bitter frown. Thick silence separated them and filled every corner of the room. Orin worked through it, trying to wrap his head around her words. She could practically read the thoughts across his face.

  “So, what do we—”

  “Tell Anavelia I’ll do it.” She pulled her lips tight in disgust. “I’ll have the answers when I come back. You don’t need to tell her anything else.”

  She spun on her heel and left. Orin watched her go and scratched his ear.

  “What else could I tell her?” he scoffed.

  Meeka replayed the event in her mind—the one where Rori appeared an hour after she’d been siphoned by the necromancer. She remembered the look on the sister’s face when she laid those green eyes on her.

  “Oh my gods. What happened? What did they do to you?”

  If she’d had the strength to respond, Meeka would have said something scathing. And at first, she imagined she would’ve outed the necromancer. She thought all about how she’d tell them what he did, but after a fitful night’s rest back in the comfort of her cell, she changed her mind. She would give warning to no one. Soon enough, he’d come after them all just as his kind always did, and she would drink up all the chaos with glee for as long as she could before it was her turn to die. She could picture it so clearly, so satisfyingly, but someone kept calling her name.

  “Meeka!”

  She was pulled to the present. She looked over at the cell next to her, at Centa, but he wasn’t the one who had spoken. His much shorter and much less impressive friend Phio stood in the corner.

  “Meeka, you look awful,” he said. “What happened?”

  She was so sick of hearing the question.

  “Allanis questioned her,” Centa answered.

  “No she didn’t.” Her voice was hoarse. She could barely get the words out.

  “But she said—”

  “She wasn’t there.”

  She wouldn’t look at either of them. Instead, she stared at the ground, at the rough fibers of her bedroll, her eyes burning with tears. She was too exhausted to move, and her bones ached. The chill hadn’t left her since she had first laid eyes on the Maw.

  “Are you getting sick?” Phio asked.

  “No.”

  The men hushed themselves and whispered about her. She didn’t care. She went back to the reverie of the rise and fall of House Hallenar.

  Centa leaned against the bars of his own cell. “She’s been like this ever since Rori brought her back last night. Even she was surprised by it.”

  Phio looked at her, holding in a sigh, and frowned. “This shouldn’t have happened. None of this should have happened. We should have just left her there in the stable when we left Barton Hovel.”

  “Bringing her was your idea.”

  “You’re usually the one who talks me out of my ideas!”

  Meeka sniffled, and they went quiet. It didn’t matter how tough of a game she played—in the end, she was still just a young girl with only the shadow of an idea of the world’s depth. She’d still had innocence despite the rough edges of her life. And in seconds, everything had crumbled away beneath her as something cold and unforgiving had swallowed her up.

  As they stared at her, Phio could feel the conversation was about to change. He could see the question burning on Centa’s face and waited for it.

  “How is she?”

  Adeska. “They’re still not sure,” Phio said. “The court doctor was finally able to come in and stitch her up. Any of us could have done it, really. Myself, Rori, even Lazarus—he was almost a doctor himself at one point. But I guess Allanis was just so sick and tired of us making a mess of things that she started yelling and told everyone to back off.”

  “Tell me how a court doctor, a physician to the royal family, is finally able to come in. Isn’t he supposed to be available at all times for things like this?”

  Phio shrugged. “I can’t pretend to know how this stuff works, Centa.”

  “I know.”

  “Someone found the boy and brought him back, though. Alor. So… there’s something looking up. But I’ll let you know as soon as things change with Adeska. I’m sure she’s going to be just fine. And then maybe you two can work on this so it can finally stop happening.”

  “It’s going to stop happening.”

  “That’s what you two told me last time.” Phio huffed. “And, just like last time, here I am in the middle. Hey, who do you think is going to have it worse later on? Mari, having witnessed you and Adeska’s violence in person, or Alor, having your unhinged blood actually running through his veins? Hm? Gods, how did I get stuck between the two of you?”

  “By being the best friend either of us will ever have.”

  Phio crossed his arms. “Don’t ever forget that.”

  He didn’t want to leave. He would have stayed down in the cells with them for as long as they were there, but he needed to go to Adeska and help look after her. He said his goodbyes and tore himself away.

  Centa felt his absence like a hole in his chest. A second hole right next to the one Adeska had made. He turned his attention to Meeka, who sat in a daze. He slipped his arm between the bars and reached for her.

  “Meeka…”

  “Shh!”

  “Come on.” He reached far enough to touch her shoulder. “Come here, Meeka. It’s alright.”

  Everything hit her at once, and she leaned into him and the bars with a wail. She was hollow and worn and weak, and no matter how hard she tried to keep it together, she couldn’t. That ability had been ripped from her. In its place was a gaping hole.

  She felt Centa’s hand on her shoulder, pulling her in as close as he could. Her face twisted up and tears came, shaking her whole body.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered. “We’re gonna be okay.”

  3

  Business

  Vayven 9, 1144

  With a loud bang, Tizzy came to. She rubbed the morning sandiness from her eyes and sat up in bed. There was a second bang from down the hall.

  Tizzy yawned and waited for more clues. She could hear the quadramanus girls snipping at each other as they went door to door collecting laundry.

  “Quit dropping that thing!” she heard Velana hiss.

  “Stop yelling at me, or you’ll make me drop it again!” Mayriel whined back.

  Whatever they were dropping, Tizzy didn’t care. She gazed down at Aleth, who was dead to the world beside her. She envied the deep clutches of slumber he tangled with and the way his chest rose and fell with calm, steady breaths. The longer she stared, the more her grin spread.

  “You always did like to sleep a lot.” She kissed him on the forehead and slipped out of bed.

  It was time to find out what had become of the mess she’d left with Amaranth and Naia. She felt the tiniest bit of guilt for ditching them to check on Aleth, but she knew where her priorities lay and wasn’t ashamed about it. Once upon a time, she might have argued with herself over it,
but that time was long gone. She freshened up and dressed in a warm, heavy wool tunic and leather leggings, then gathered all the room’s dirty laundry and went out to the hall.

  “Hey!” Velana waved one of her four arms. “Look who came back!”

  Tizzy shut the bedroom door behind her. “Yeah. It’s me.”

  Mayriel came skipping over with her basket of dirty laundry, her ponytail of frizzy blonde hair bouncing behind her. She held the basket out for Tizzy’s laundry.

  “Nice to see you again, princess!”

  Tizzy grunted. “Wonderful, that spread. Hey, do either of you know what happened to the woman I came in with yesterday and where I can find her?”

  There was a pause in the girls’ good humor as they exchanged glances. Then, they pointed to the door across from Tizzy’s.

  “Um—” Mayriel scrunched up her face trying to feign a smile, “—well, she’s in there, but—”

  “But you need to talk to Naia,” Velana said. “She’s pissed.”

  “I’ll go down and sort things out with her in a minute.” Tizzy hurried to the door and didn’t return their stares. “Have fun with the laundry.”

  The quadramani decided they were done with her and went about their job, leaving Tizzy with some privacy.

  Gingerly, she knocked. “Amaranth, are you awake?”

  “Yes, my lady.” The reply had come almost immediately. Tizzy wondered how long the bloodslave had been up. She let herself inside.

  Amaranth’s room, like her own, featured the Spire’s gentle green décor and wood paneling, but it was much smaller. And, to Tizzy’s dismay, she was without a prized mineral tub. Behind the tapestry in Amaranth’s room was merely the washing station.

  “I-I’m glad you’ve come, my lady.”

  Amaranth’s strained voice pulled Tizzy’s attention back in. She saw the bloodslave sitting at a small table, wrapped up in a blanket. Her face was pale and tacky with sweat. Wisps of long, wavy brown hair had escaped her bun.

  “Are you alright?” Tizzy took her hand. “Is it your condition?”

  “Yes. Will you please assist me in letting the blood out?”

  Tizzy nodded, though she didn’t want to. But helping Amaranth was the right thing to do. She’d accepted the responsibility. Still, she didn’t think she would ever get used to her relationship with the bloodslave. For most of her life, Tizzy was used to putting up a barrier and keeping everyone but Aleth away.

  “Here, let’s sit on the floor,” Tizzy said. “Less of a fall if you faint. And bring your blanket.”

  Tizzy had come to realize that there was an inherent intimacy in what bloodkin did. Getting close and penetrating soft skin could shatter anyone’s personal boundaries, but she did not feel intimate as she sat beside Amaranth. Draining the woman’s blood—consuming it—was unsettling. Letting Aleth in was one thing, but Amaranth was a stranger who’d been pushed through her walls by force.

  She stared at the thin skin of the woman’s wrist, at blue veins calling out to her. She felt her pulse beneath her thumb, steady and strong.

  “So.” Tizzy wet her lips and swallowed hard. “Tell me about yourself.”

  “I’m afraid there’s not much to tell, my lady.”

  “I doubt that. You can tell me about your home, your family, your friends… anything.” She brought Amaranth’s wrist to her lips. “Anything to make this less awkward.”

  The woman didn’t so much as wince when Tizzy’s fangs pierced the skin.

  “Well… I was a child when I became like this—when the condition developed. So I’ve never really known a different life. From then on, everyone always told me I was just food, and tended to avoid me.”

  “Everyone?” Tizzy broke away for a careful second to speak.

  “My own mother renamed me Amaranth after the grain. It’s pretty, but it’s still just food.” Her gentle smile never faltered, even when she saw Tizzy’s brow furrow. “They separate us from the rest of the tribe for protection. It’s not because they hate us. They weren’t trying to be cruel.”

  Tizzy broke away again, and Amaranth’s blood trickled down the woman’s hand.

  “Trying and doing are two different things.”

  “But it’s dangerous to keep us around,” Amaranth said. “So much blood only ever attracts bloodkin. You heard what those two did to Clan Motshen during the dinner. It was awful.”

  Remembering Torah and Korrena and Louvita’s asinine dinner party at the Convent made Tizzy’s blood boil. The casual way they recounted their massacre of one of Amaranth’s tribes had made her sick with rage.

  She drank until the wound stopped bleeding, then pressed down on it with her fingertips.

  “Despite what I just did, you’re not food, so get that out of your head right now.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  Tizzy breathed in and out with a sigh. “Is there anything I can say to make you quit calling me that?” She stood up and searched through the woman’s bag for a bandage.

  “Even if you were not the Protégé, Lady Tizzy, you are still royalty, aren’t you? You… you’re a princess.”

  “Gods, that word needs to die.” She realized she was sifting through the bag with a little too much force. “Everyone is so quick to throw a title at me, but not at my brother. That’s not fair! Make him uncomfortable too!”

  Amaranth smiled. “Your wish is my command, my lady. How is he?”

  Tizzy shrugged and returned to her with a fresh bandage. “I think he’s okay.” She started to wrap the woman’s wrist, and silence enveloped them. Each pass of the gauzy fabric around the tender skin was deafening.

  Tizzy’s breath shook as she exhaled. “Amaranth.” She ran her tongue along her bottom lip, still tasting rich copper. “Do you like that? Do you like being called that knowing what it’s supposed to imply? Doesn’t it just feel like a shitty title of your own?”

  “I know my place.”

  “That’s not an answer to anything I just asked.”

  Amaranth remained quiet, and Tizzy stopped.

  “If you don’t like it, I’ll call you something else. You’re not food.”

  The woman slipped her hand out of Tizzy’s grasp as she finished the wrapping, then hugged herself.

  “It’s demeaning, but it’s my name. It’s my only connection to my home and my people.”

  Tizzy rose and folded her arms in thought. “Then how about something a little different but still a little—” she tilted her head, “—derivative?”

  “Derivative?” She joined her, standing tall.

  “What kind of name can we get out of Amaranth?” Tizzy started to circle the woman, studying her and the timid but inquisitive faces she made. “You’ll know it’s a nickname. You’ll know where it comes from. But no one else is going to be able to think it’s food.”

  The bloodslave held her breath and clutched at the collar of her dress.

  At last, Tizzy threw her hands up in celebration. “Maran!”

  The bloodslave bit her lip. “Maran.” She expected to hate the idea, expected the new name to feel like being stripped and put into a stranger’s clothes. But instead, it was more like feeling the edges of her favorite garments in a patchwork quilt. “Maran.” It felt pretty and light. “Thank you, my lady.”

  Tizzy smiled. She’d hated the woman at first, but the bloodslave was growing on her. There was a personality under all the fright and submission; she just had to be patient to see it.

  “Alright,” Tizzy said, slapping her thighs and sighing. “Let’s get downstairs and see what kind of shit I’m in.”

  The women left Maran’s room behind. Downstairs, the dining area was in a state of flux as people came and went from the baths. The tables were a mess of patrons coming and going, getting on with their business. But the bar was quiet and empty. A man Tizzy had spotted briefly during her first visit was wiping down wet glassware and dishes when she took a seat. Maran stood behind her.

  “Good morning,” the man said, lookin
g up at them both with a crooked smile for just a minute. Tizzy noted the faint point in the tips of his ears and the way his skin was iridescent blue when it caught the light a certain way. She knew it right away—a nymph.

  “Good morning. Is Naia around?”

  His grin turned sheepish. “Yeah. She’s working in the kitchen. And before she dishes out what you’re gonna get—” he paused and leaned over to shift his gaze to Maran, “—she wants to talk to you. Go ahead and head back.”

  Maran’s cheeks turned scarlet, but she obeyed. Tizzy watched her tiptoe behind the bar and past the kitchen doors, then folded her hands on the bar top and looked away.

  “Is she going to be okay in there?” Tizzy asked.

  “Oh yeah, she’ll be fine. Naia just wants to ask her a few questions and get a little bit of work sorted out for her.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what’s going on, but she said the only way that woman gets to stay here is if she and ‘the rest of you’ work.”

  Tizzy groaned.

  “Can I get you anything?”

  At first, Tizzy wasn’t sure. Tea sounded nice, but as she thought about her options, she realized some very steamy relations with a certain moody male had transpired recently, and she had a quickly closing window in which to address their aftermath.

  A hot, awkward blush crossed her cheeks. She took a deep breath. “Actually, yeah. Ashenlaa’s curse.”

  “Emrin’s blessing!” He completed the common phrase and poured hot water into a mug, then dropped in a satchel of tea. It was the way everyone referred to it—a curse from the Goddess of Love and Romance, or a blessing from the Goddess of Family. “Here you are. You have a tab, yet?”

  “Probably,” she grumbled. “I’d be shocked if Aleth hadn’t started one for me.”

  The man had a light and charismatic chuckle, like music to her ears. “Ah! ‘Put it on the princess’s tab,’ he’s been saying! That must be you. I’m Yasuo.”

  “Tizzy.” She extended her hand, and he shook it. “Have you known Aleth awhile?” She watched the tea turn the water pink.