Curse and Whisper

by A J Gala

  “I don’t have ingredients for half this stuff!” She rubbed her face and let out a deep breath. “I’ll just have to try the same thing again. It has to work. He gets any sicker, he could die down there.” She closed her books and set them back on the shelf. “Here I am, talking to myself, just like old times. I guess I really do have the Hallenar crazy.”

  The kitchen was unusually quiet when she entered. Lora sat in a chair with knitting needles and a tangled mess of yarn, barely overseeing a pot on the hearth. Rori regarded her with a nod and a mumbled “hello,” then prepared a kettle with water and added it to the fire.

  It took ages to come to a boil. Rori expected Lora to make conversation or question her about something, but words never came. Lora didn’t spare even the tiniest bit of attention for her. They both sat through the crackling flames and clicking needles as if they were alone.

  The kettle finally whistled, and Rori poured the piping hot water into a tall mug, then dropped a satchel of fresh herbs and roots in. It steeped as she made her way to the cells.

  Titha was on watch. She said nothing as Rori slipped past her and descended into the corridor. No one else had been down. She would be the first one of the day, so she lit the lantern with a new wick and fresh oil. Peyrs was still deep asleep, curled up with his blanket as tight as he could get. He never heard her walk by. Down at the end, Rhett was awake, leaning against the bars with an arm hanging out.

  She gathered her courage. There wasn’t much. “I-I brought tea,” she mumbled. “For your fever.”

  “I don’t have a fever.” His face was pale.

  “You’re sweating. You have a fever.”

  “The mirror. Did you break the mirror?”

  She grunted and slammed the mug on the ground. “Really? You’re still on about that? Rhett, you’re delusional! I am not breaking that mirror. I don’t even want to touch it! You’re either trying to trick me or you’re hallucinating, and neither of those things will get me to do something so awful!”

  “It’s just a mirror, Rori. It’s just a fucking mirror!”

  “Drink the damn tea and quit talking!”

  He reached for the mug and brought it to his lips. “I can hear someone. They keep talking to me. They want the mirror broken.” He sipped.

  “So why would you listen? You’re smarter than that!”

  “It sounds like her.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Like Mother, you mean?”

  “I know it’s not her.” He put the mug down and rubbed his eyes. “She’s dead. You’re right. But I can’t keep doing it. I can’t keep listening to it. And if I close my eyes, I fall asleep, and if I fall asleep, I have nightmares. About the gods damned mirror.”

  “Oh don’t tell me—” she stood and dusted herself off, “—after all these terrible things you’ve done, you can’t sleep soundly anymore? Goodness, I can hardly believe it.”

  He turned away from her, and she knew that was the end of the conversation. She’d wounded him, and she couldn’t find it in her heart to care. Without so much as a “goodbye,” she left the cells and headed for her room to sulk for an hour before she was expected at the knight’s barracks.

  But as she made her way there, she passed the grand staircase. Just one story up was Tizzy’s room. Rori clenched her fists as she stared at it. She couldn’t get Rhett’s words out of her head. Once again, just like when they were younger, she was wrapped around his finger. He’d managed to twist her courage into guilt. Like always.

  “Fine, Rhett. You want this so badly?” She took a deep breath. “You can fucking have it.”

  She marched up the stairs, each step raising her fury. She would make him regret asking her to do something so stupid. She would make him regret acting like an idiot. Her nostrils flared as she stormed down the hallway, thinking of more things she’d make him pay for. Her fists shook as she tore open Tizzy’s bedroom door.

  The room was cold and dark, closed in by harsh stone walls. Tizzy’s rough lavender blanket draped across her bed and wooly yellow curtains drawn over the window pulled at Rori’s memories, but her anger was a barrier against the threat of hollow emptiness. She was here with a purpose. She would not get dragged down into the depths of missing her sister.

  Her eyes found the mirror, and she grabbed it off Tizzy’s desk. As soon as her fingers touched it, her vision lit up with a flash of light, and the mirror slipped from her hands. It crashed to the ground, and the last thing she saw before her world vanished was her reflection staring back through the slivers of a spiderweb-like crack.

  She recognized the leaden sensation in her head right away. She had fainted. She should have eaten something before engaging in something as taxing as a conversation with Rhett, she realized.

  When she opened her eyes, she was not in Tizzy’s room. A dream. She pushed herself up and frilly black lace and velvet sleeves slid down her arms. They were not her arms. She stood and looked around the room, at the sullen gray brick and all the light-colored tapestries desperate to cover it. There was a quaint vanity, silvery like driftwood, with a circular mirror decorated with pearls and sea glass. Rori’s reflection stunned her.

  She was Tizzy, except for one striking detail. Tizzy’s eyes were not rust-brown. She leaned in close to the mirror, pulling down one of her eyelids. Tizzy’s eyes were pale blue like a sky dappled with clouds.

  As soon as Rori tried to speak, she woke up. The mirror was scattered in pieces all around her, gleaming in the dim shred of light peeking through the curtains.

  Thousands of whispers filled the cells. The flame in the lantern died, and the smoke curled into faces speaking all at once. Then they vanished, sucked in by something unseen. Rhett felt the sensation of nails on his skin, on his neck, down his shoulders, even on his scalp, as he stared down the pitch-black corridor.

  Someone was here for him.

  Sweat trickled down his temple as the temperature soared. Smoke seeped from the cracks in the dirt and clung to the ground like a nightmare fog trying to choke him.

  “Peyrs?” No one answered him. The air felt like the Hell Planes had opened up right in front of him, but there was no signature kaleidoscopic tear. Daemons were nonetheless in the air. He knew. It was so strong his own stomach turned.

  Scraping. Cracking. Shattering. Shards of the mirror glittered like tiny black gems as they fell from the ceiling out of nowhere. A kaleidoscopic red flame lit up in the lantern and several more sprang up from the carpet of smoke, hovering about like an excited audience.

  Two tall black shadows appeared at the end of the corridor. They marched to him, impossibly slow, and then, he saw who had come for him. They ushered her in. A tall, slender woman in a bright red robe with the hood up. Long, curly, blood-red hair as he had remembered it, the color fading in patches to orange and white. Skinny, spidery fingers laced together in front of her as she strode forward.

  “No.” He swallowed hard and shook his head. “No, it isn’t you.” His chest hurt as if his heart was being torn right out of his ribcage. “How dare you take her shape.”

  She held up her hand, and the two shadows stopped and opened their bright red eyes. She approached without them.

  “Oh, darling, are you unwell?”

  “Show yourself!” Rhett shouted. “Your true self! Don’t come to me in my mother’s guise!”

  “Rhett, darling.” She crept forward and reached through the bars. “It is me. I’m here. This is no trick.”

  “My mother is dead!”

  “Yes,” she said with a little laugh. “I am. I’ve been stuck in that mirror, waiting and waiting. For you! Goodness, every other time you’re here, you’re so drunk I can’t get to you.”

  “Whoever you really are, what do you want with me?”

  “Oh, Rhett.” Her red lips bent up into a sinister grin. “Let’s catch up first. You still don’t believe it’s really me. You’re smart. I raised you to pursue such critical thinking, and I am pleased it has stuck with you.”

  He
bent over and held his head in his hands. “No, you’re in my head. You’re leeching off my mind, telling me what I want to hear. You aren’t her. You aren’t her!”

  “You followed in my footsteps, didn’t you?” She was proud when she said it. “I shouldn’t have wanted such a path for any of you, but I knew you’d be the one.” She phased through the bars and brushed his cheek, her nails scraping his skin. Her touch stung like fire and sickness. “How are the others? How are your brothers and sisters? This is an awfully nice place. Not this place, of course. You’ll have to tell me how you ended up in a dungeon.”

  He snapped his head up and bared his teeth. “I’m here for trying to do your work! Allanis is queen, and she threw me in here for trying to do your work!”

  She started to circle him. “Whatever do you mean, darling? Your brothers and sisters love you. Why would they do this?”

  “I’m doing the dirty work.” His voice was a growl. “They don’t think it needs to be done, but it does.”

  “And what is that, hm?” She caressed his face, and he jerked away.

  “Tizzy and Aleth aren’t on our side anymore. They can’t be. They’re dangerous, they’ll kill any of us if they want to.”

  “You’re all dangerous.” Mother Hallenar’s wicked grin returned. “That is the way I raised you. Give it time.”

  “I am in control of this! Of what I do!” Rhett stood and balled his fists. “I may decide to hurt someone, but it is my choice. I am no slave to instinct! Not like they are. They’re bloodkin. Nightwalkers.”

  “My sweet boy, what have you done?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” He leaned on the bars and ran his fingers through his hair, weaving them together at the nape of his neck. “You’re not my mother. You’re just a construct of my mind. Your judgment means nothing.”

  “Of course, of course.” She toyed with a curl. “If I am a construct of your mind, then I would only know what you know. But what about something you don’t know? Surely there’s something you’ve always wanted to ask me.”

  He said nothing. He was done entertaining her. Perhaps if he ignored her, she would get bored and haunt someone else in the manor.

  Then a wistful sigh left her lips. “Gods, it hurts to look sometimes. You look just like your father.”

  “Why would you say that?” he yelled.

  “Do you still hate him?” She pouted. “Come on now, darling. Can’t you put that behind you? Your father was a good man. I wanted nothing less. Are you insulting my taste?”

  “Father had an incredible ability.” Rhett could feel his fire returning. Anger was burning in him like a disease. “He could see the future. He could see everything! I bet he saw it when Tizzy died—”

  “Tizzy’s dead?”

  “She’s a nightwalker, Mother! Like I said! Father had to have known everything! He saw her fall, he saw you get sick, he saw you die!” His hands trembled, and he held them out. “He didn’t do anything! He didn’t try to stop anything. And then you died, and he couldn’t even be there for us. Eleven months. He made it eleven months before he left us for good too. His heart gave out.” He glared at her, his blue eyes suddenly glassy. “So don’t you fucking tell me what a good man my father was.”

  Her red robe dragged along the ground as she continued to circle him like a shark.

  “Your father had the power to see, not to change. More of a curse, really. Don’t fault him for that, darling. You don’t know the years he spent trying and trying. Before I came along, he was in the militia. Did you know that?”

  “I’d seen chainmail and a sword in our old shed on the farm…”

  “He knew he’d meet me. He’d known it for years. A vision told him he’d save me from a notorious criminal on a training day. A vision told him we’d fall in love.” She reached out and held Rhett’s face with both hands. “And a vision told him all the agony my blood would bring.” She cackled, and he writhed to break free, but there was an unnatural strength in her bones. “What a perfect, gentle soul he was. No, you are all the way you are because of me. My blood twisted every last one of you, and he knew it.”

  She let him go, and he stumbled back. The heat made him dizzy. Sweat rolled down his forehead.

  “You did everything to protect us,” he said. “To exact revenge on those who had wronged us and disrespected us. You did it, even though your methods were Forbidden. That never mattered. It was an effective tool, and you used it well. I loved you for that.”

  She chuckled and pointed a slender finger at him. “You were just drawn to it, that’s all. And, darling, I would still do everything I could to protect you. But I’m not able to. I’m dead.”

  “You wouldn’t for them. Not now. Not Tizzy and Aleth! They—”

  “Sweetheart, please. Please don’t say something like that.”

  His chest hurt again. “You’re dead. Don’t tell me I can’t—you’re dead! Because Aleth—” He stopped. He had never dared to say the next words out loud. None of them ever had. But he had thought them a thousand times, over and over again. “Aleth got you sick. And then he got better, and you didn’t!” His stomach was cold, everything was cold, everything except for the stabbing in his chest.

  “I always thought I got him sick.” She shrugged. “We were sick at the same time. Hard to tell who did it. Darling, is that why you feel this way? What have you done to your brother?” She came close and put her hands on his shoulders. “Rhett? What have you done?”

  “I tried to kill him.” His throat burned with the threat of tears. She was supposed to understand. “More than once. It’s what you would have done…”

  “Darling, no.” She pulled him in close. Her embrace was molten. “No. You are all sacred to me. I must protect all of you, no matter how difficult a task. They’re Hallenars, just like you. Besides—” she parted and smiled, “—if they really are bloodthirsty killers as you fear, trust me—those are people you want on your side. Not the other way around.”

  One single tear slipped down his cheek. “Why are you here?”

  “Because, my sweet boy. You’re a Hallenar like the others, but you are special.” She paced around the cell again and traced a circle in the ground. A kaleidoscopic fissure erupted from the marking, opening a perfect hole into the Hell Planes. The energy was purer and more sickening than anything he had ever worked with.

  A creature rose from the portal, a beast with skin like dried lava. Every time it moved, the surface cracked, and vivid orange and yellow energy seeped out and spouted steam. Its legs were talons, black and oozing. Onyx eyes stared at the wall, soulless and black. Two horns spiraled from its brow and tapered off down his neck.

  “You’re special,” Mother Hallenar said, “because unlike the others, I had you to serve a purpose.” She clapped her hands together and gazed up at the daemon. “You see, my darling, this is Enesod, the Greater Daemon that did my bidding in life.”

  Rhett stared up at the daemon with her. Enesod was impressive, but he couldn’t reach a sense of awe. Something wasn’t right.

  “But you know how daemons work, Rhett. Nothing is for free. That’s why I had you.”

  “Mother, no…”

  “I had you to repay Enesod for his deeds, Rhett. When you die, he is to get your body and live upon this Realm.”

  “You had me…” his head was spinning, “… to give away? To him?”

  “Yes!” Her smile was as cheerful as he remembered. “It’s an honor, Rhett. And now that the mirror has been broken, I am finally free, and this debt can be paid. Don’t worry, you will still get to live your life to the point it is meant to reach. It may be a little different, though. That’s all.” She waved her hand through the air and laughed. “Oh, listen to me talk to you like you’re stupid. Forgive me, darling. You work with daemons. You know what to expect.”

  “Mother, please! I don’t want this!”

  Enesod stepped forward with footsteps that shook the ground. Mother Hallenar sighed and caressed Rhett’s cheek as the
daemon trapped him in a corner.

  “Darling, Rhett, I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me.” She materialized a wooden staff with a rabbit skull on the top. On the other end was an obsidian knife that she plunged into Rhett’s chest.

  Enesod dissolved into a swirling mass of black and orange, laced with sparks of yellow. The energy stormed around Rhett for a moment before diving into his wound.

  A pain in his chest startled Rhett awake. He rolled onto his back, still on his bedroll. The flame in the lantern was the warm glowing hue it was supposed to be. Rhett panted, clutching the phantom wound.

  “Hey!” Peyrs waved from his cell. “What the hell is going on down there? Are you having a heart attack?”

  Tell him you’re fine.

  Enesod’s gravelly voice in his mind chilled Rhett’s spine to ice. It had not been a dream.

  Late in the evening, Adeska had retreated into her room. The oil lamp burning away on her nightstand filled it with a dim, inviting glow, but it didn’t reach far enough into the room to illuminate the walls. Her pretty hanging silks and tapestries remained in the shadows.

  She’d also moved Alor’s small bed into the room, where he currently slept. She looked over him, kneeling in close, and then pressed the inside of her wrist to his forehead.

  “Your fever is down. Thank the gods.” She smiled and brushed her fingers through his wispy brown hair. Then, she checked his other ailment, peeking underneath the back of his soft sleeping shirt.

  The black veins from the Malauris were still there. They hadn’t changed one bit. Adeska swallowed hard and sank down to the floor, sitting and resting her head on the blankets.

  Her own wounds were recovering well, which meant that she was able to take over caring for Alor since Rori had started spreading her time between the infirmary and the barracks. It felt good to be spending more time with her son, but she knew he missed Rori. He hadn’t had the energy to say as much, but he gazed to the door often, as if hoping she would walk in.