by Blooding, SM
I shot to my feet and headed toward the door.
The air shimmered in front of me with golden heat.
I stopped, my hands raised. I didn’t even know how to use my own Mark to defend myself, and she knew that.
“Synn,” she said, her voice crackling with age. “You cannot run or hide. Your issues are inside of you.”
I spun on her. “I need to get over this compulsion. Nothing more.”
“You gave her the power,” she said with a vehemence her frail body disguised. “Only you can take back what you gave away.”
“I didn’t give her anything!” I shouted.
She leveled a hard look at me, shuffling from the small table in the middle of her room to the larger one along the side wall that housed an odd array of shells, cups and other things. It looked like clutter to me, but I’m sure that they all made perfect sense to her. She was the Family witch after all.
“Isn’t there an herb I can take that will make this go away?”
“Do you want an herb you can take that will make it all go away?”
I nodded, my hand flopping to my side. “Yes, actually, I do.”
“Fine,” she said with a sigh that I couldn’t see from her hunched back. “I will make you a brew, you will drink it and you will be cured.”
I rolled my eyes and walked back into her room. “There is no brew that will cure me.”
“That is what I said, I think.”
I raked my fingers along my scalp, pulling my hair out of my ponytail. Walking to her window, I looked over the glowing, pulsing city. “What am I supposed to do? Just talk about it?”
She snorted and ambled back to the table in the middle of the room. “Talk. No. But I do need to know what you gave to her so that I can help you figure out how to take it back.”
I knew the moment we were talking about. I was fairly certain I’d figured it out. But I didn’t know her, didn’t trust her.
“Trust is a luxury,” she said with a low cackle. “One that you no longer have, young El’Asim.”
What was she doing? Reading my mind?
She cackled again, showing how many teeth she’d lost. “Not quite reading your mind, young man, but your expressions.”
I flung my arm to the window. “I should be out there, helping, not in here talking.”
“Ah, that sounds like a fantastic excuse to continue hiding.” She picked up a wooden plate and scraped something off of it with a spoon. I was afraid to ask what it was. “And what will you do when hiding is no longer an option, when the Hands have found you, cornered you and are ready to take you away with them?”
“If there are too many casualties, I’ll leave with them.”
“So you have the solution already.” She clattered the spoon to the plate. “What do you need me for?”
That was a very good question. I turned and glared at the cityscape. We were deep in the ocean now. There were no more blues in the deeper waters, just black like night, but without our moons, our planet or our stars. I missed my sky.
“Do you want to escape?”
“Where?”
“From here,” she said simply. “Do you want to escape from here and go back to the Hands, back to your queen?”
I spat on the floor. “She was never my queen.”
“And yet she is the one you are hoping to escape to.”
I shook my head. “I am conflicted. I’m—” This was stupid, talking to an old woman. What would she know? How could she possibly help?
She waited expectantly.
I ran my hand through my hair. I had to obtain control, which meant I had to be honest. “I’m at war with myself.”
“Ah, finally, a truth. What parts of you are at war?”
The words choked in my throat, but I needed to start my training, and Mother wouldn’t release me until Ino Kilak approved it. “My mind and my heart. My heart wishes to remain free.”
“And your mind?”
“Is seeking the reasons to return.” I closed my eyes and leaned against the brick wall. “There are too many casualties, there’s too much at stake, too much to lose.”
“At least you are seeing this now. If you survive, you might become a wise leader.”
I snorted.
“But you’re also full of shit.”
I turned on her, indignant. “I am not.”
She waved the spoon at me. “Your mind is using that as an excuse, finding logic in your honor to obey her will, her command, her control. You need to find the source of compulsion so that your logic is yours and yours alone.”
“Do you think it’s okay for me to accept people dying because I’m hiding? Because I’m a coward?”
She threw the spoon at me.
She hit me, too. I batted at it after it hit me in the head and fell to the floor. I stared at her.
She stared back. “What are you going to do, Synn? The longer you hide from what you gave up, the more you become a Primus.”
That was probably the last straw. I had no wish to become a Primus, to turn into Varik, to lose my entire existence. Who would think that by destroying an entire city to obtain one person, they could achieve anything worth keeping?
She saw it in my face. She hobbled over to me, her pink embroidered robe swaying with the movement of her walk. She couldn’t bend her neck to look up at me, so she tipped it, watching me through the corner of her eye. “What did she do to you, Synn?”
The images battled to overtake my mind. My heart raced, my breathing labored. My mouth dried as I beat the images back. My gaze fell to the floor as shame filled me.
She nodded. “She used your body against you.”
I didn’t want to admit it, to say it out loud, or to hear it spoken.
Her gray eyebrows rose and dropped as she turned away. “Effective. You’re a man. You feel powerless because she was able to turn on your natural instinct to reproduce.”
Sky-felled mind reader.
She waved me off. “I say get over it. You get to be as old as I am, and you wish you could have some stupid bitch rake her nails across your chest and make your Mr. Happy happy.”
That was just creepy and brought on visuals I really didn’t need.
“I heard that.” She sat down with an oomph. “You need to figure out how to get over it. This is how she has control over you, how her man is tracking you. She has bound you to her.”
How far away could I get from her and still be on a Sky forsaken leash?
She looked me in the eye. “You would know since you’re the one who volunteered to be on the leash.”
I walked to the table in three strides and sat down in the other chair, careful not to touch any of her stuff. There was a shriveled head at my elbow. Gross. “How do I take it back?”
She sighed and crossed her gnarled hands one over the other. “You gave up something; power. She asked for it and you gave it to her. You need to take it back.”
I swallowed and took in a quick breath. Did I have the nerve to say it out loud?
She didn’t save me by saying it for me.
“I—”My jaw so tight I thought it might snap. “I told her I was hers.”
She nodded. “And are you?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
I slammed my fist against the table. “Yes!”
“And if she were to walk in this room right now?”
I shook my head. “But she wouldn’t.”
Kilak’s clouded eyes flared and focused on something behind me.
I turned—
—and came out of my chair, grasping the table behind me and scrambling around it. “Nix.”
She sauntered into the room, running one black gloved hand along the table. Her ruby lips turned up with distaste. “Ah, Ino Kilak. You’re looking spry today.”
Kilak didn’t respond. Her eyes went blank and a golden light surrounded her.
Nix sighed and walked toward me, one long supple leg peeking through the opening in her long bla
ck skirt. “Primus, why do you hide from me?”
I held my hands out in front of me. “You’re not real.”
“I assure you that I am.” Her hard heeled shoes clanked on the tile floor as she stalked me. “Would you like me to prove it to you?”
“This is an illusion. Kilak is making me believe that you’re here.”
She was so close. “Are you trying to fight me?”
Dear Sky, yes!
She leaned in and chuckled. “Is that why I’m here?” Her breath feathered along my cheek.
I stumbled backward, tripping on all kinds of things the old bat had laying around. “You’re not here. Ino Nami would never let you pass into her city.”
“So that is where you are. Varik was correct.” She raised her chin and followed my progress, her hips swaying, the leather refusing to reflect any of the false light in the room. “The witch made a connection for a reason. Are you trying to take back what you gave me?”
I glanced at her. The old woman seemed to be comatose. Seriously? This couldn’t be good, couldn’t be allowed. I brought my gaze back to Nix. “My queen—”
“Yes,” she said fiercely, closing the gap between us, raising her hand to my face.
My heart pounded in my chest. I had to fight back!
“Your queen.” Her gloved finger trailed along my jaw.
She couldn’t win. I had to get her out of my head!
“Always your queen.”
Revulsion pulsed in my gut even as my body stirred. I ground my jaw and jerked away from her. “No.”
Surprise splashed across her face. “No?”
I scurried out of her reach. “I am not your pet.”
“You swore to me. You made the oath.”
I backed away, putting some sort of chair between us. “I swore whatever I had to in order to get you away from me.”
She followed. “Do not say such things. You know you want me.”
“Oh, sure,” I said with a smile. “You’ve got this body fooled, but not my spirit.”
Surprise lit her dark eyes.
I shook my head and continued to back away, putting whatever obstacles I could between us. “I don’t want you in my life.”
A cold smile slithered across her lips. “The bond we share has nothing to do with your body, you insolent worm. Your heart is mine.”
I shook my head, my hand going from my chest and out. “Never. I would never allow you into my heart. You don’t belong here.”
She reached down, picked up the miniature rocking chair and threw it across the room. “Do you honestly think it will be that simple?”
I flinched as the chair shattered.
Rage flew across her features, turning her beauty into cold stone. “Do you honestly think that telling me you don’t want me will solve your problem?”
“I gave you the power over me!” I continued to back up. “I’m taking it back! I want to be free of you!”
“I will not—” She picked something off of one of the many tables and threw it at me. “—allow it!”
I raised my arm to shield my face as the bird cage splintered around me. I stared at her in disbelief. She was real? How could she be real? It was impossible. I knew this wasn’t real. It was just a fantastic illusion. But it felt real.
“I brought you in.” She threw something else at me. “I nursed you back to health.”
Something wet rained down on me.
“I cared for you! Clothed you. Fed you.” She offered a hand. “Loved you.”
I let out a roar, picked up whatever was closest to me and threw it at her. “You set me on fire! You tried to kill me! You killed my father! I don’t care that you nursed me back to health.”
Cold ice settled over her expression.
I picked something, not caring what it was, and threw it at her. The glass jar smashed against her head, cutting her forehead, and crashed to the floor around her. “You drugged me, beat me, starved me.”
She simply watched me, waiting.
I shook with rage, smoke rising from me in waves. “You manipulative, lying cow! I was never yours!” I picked threw a rock, missing her by several centimeters. “I want you gone!”
She blinked in surprise and took a stumbling step back. “No.”
I took a step forward, my fists clenched. “Yes. Do you remember what Dyna told you that first day you brought me to your rooms? She told you to be careful. Well, guess what?”
She blinked.
I advanced another step. “You should have been more careful.”
“Enough!” the old woman barked.
Nix disappeared as though she’d never been there.
My clothes were smoldering, and there was the scent of something burned or burning lingering in the air. I couldn’t control my rage. The room was silent. I closed my eyes and let the quiet absorb into my mind, still my nerves, dampen my anger.
The room was a disaster. The jar I’d thrown at Nix was still scattered all over the middle of the room. The bird cage was in pieces where I’d stood against the wall.
I blinked at Kilak, fighting to release my fists, to allow calm to fill me. “How did you do that?”
She shrugged, remaining where she sat, working on a large shallow bowl. “It’s my gift.”
I tried to wrap my head around what I thought had just happened. “Was that real?”
“Oh yes,” Kilak said. “It was real, and I can tell you that Nix is very upset, too. She’ll—”
I didn’t hear what she said because my head exploded in pain. I crumpled to the ground, holding my head, curling on the floor, trying to make the pain go away.
You are mine, Primus. You will always be mine.
My fingers clawed at my skull, my back arching, my legs kicking feebly, unsettling a table. Father Sky, just make it stop!
Kilak continued to talk. I couldn’t hear anything she said, but a few words stuck through the surge of pain. “Leash.” Yeah. That got my attention.
I’m not yours, I repeated in my mind. I’m not yours. I’m not yours. I’m not yours.
The pain slowly subsided, leaving me sweaty and exhausted, but it didn’t go away. It was still there, taunting me.
I lay on Ino Kilak’s dirty floor and calmed my breathing, the pain a dull throb, almost like fists to the wall inside my brain. After a while I pulled myself off the floor and sagged in place, leaning on one arm. “It’s not going to be that easy, is it?”
The old witch shook her head. “She won’t give up without a fight, but at least you’re on the right track now. That’s a step in the right direction.”
It didn’t feel like it.
She stood up and pushed me out of the room with her foot. “Now get out of here. You and your mistress have created quite a mess that I now have to clean up.”
I crawled to the door, using a table to pull myself to my feet. “How can she make my head split open?”
Kilak sighed heavily and turned to me, one hand on the large table. “Inside here—” she pointed to her chest, “—you let her in, started liking her, found something redeeming that you wanted to keep. And then you bound yourself to her.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Never.”
“It happens all the time,” she said in her raspy cackle, puttering around her room. “Happens all the time. You’ll get to where you need to be. You will. Have no fear.”
I limped out of her room and leaned against the wall, exhausted. What had I done?
And why the hell would I have done it?
CHAPTER 24
WE’RE ALL SCARED
I was shaken. I hadn’t fully understood what being compulsed really meant. Sure, I’d seen what it did to me when we were trying to escape, but I thought it was just a switch, a command I could simply ignore.
I’d been lying to myself.
I walked to the other side of the empty, wide corridor and leaned against the wall. What was I going to do? What could I do? Nix could reach me anywhere, any time, and she knew it.
Someone sank to the floor beside me.
I looked over, peeking under my hand.
Yvette. She looked pretty shell shocked.
I returned my head to my hands and leaned into them, the pressure of my palms soothing the pounding in my temples. “Are you okay?”
She murmured something that sounded like a yes.
“How’s it going with your mother?”
Silence.
I was okay with that. I could use a little of that myself.
After several long moments, she finally said something. “She didn’t die.”
“I kinda noticed.”
“I watched her die, Synn.”
Images of my father burning in that fire flashed across my mind’s eye. “How did they kill her?”
“Drowning.”
My eyebrows rose and I turned to her. “You obviously didn’t see what I saw, Yvie. The woman had fins and a fish tail. There was no way she could drown.” I shook my head. “No way.”
She stared at me, her eyes lost. “How could I have missed that?”
I shrugged. “I volunteered to be bound to a psychopath without my knowledge.”
Her bottom lip tucked in and she nodded. “Do you think your father died?”
I let one hand fall. “The Hands used your Family’s Mark sign to kill your mother.” I shook my head. “Maybe they were trying to make a point, prove to the Families that they weren’t as strong as they thought.”
“I’ve hated my Mark for so long,” she whispered. “How could I wear the Mark that killed my mother?”
“That’s probably why they did it, to keep you from learning to use it.”
“They burned your father, though.” She turned to me, her violet eyes bright. “Maybe he lived.”
I shook my head. “Fire wasn’t his Mark element.”
“But you’re El’Asim.”
“I get the Mark of fire from my mother’s people, the Ino.”
Her mouth formed an ‘o’ as she turned her gaze back to the corridor. “What was his Mark?”
“Storm.” I stared out the window on the other side, but only saw darkness and the occasional flicker of lethara light. “You should have seen him harvest lightning.”