by Jane M. R.
I hear Corden protest further. He must have moved closer to me because a scurry if feet in the rocks and shouts commanded for someone to, “Get back!”
The clink of my amulet against stone somewhere in front of me shrills like a last scream. My heart pulses in my throat; ragged breathing building to such a crescendo I wilt burst. Is this what my father felt? Or was he calm and handled this with honor and peace? I can’t do that. I chomp madly on the gag, tasting blood. Hot tears slid into my nostrils. If they could hear me speak like a human, look at me like I’m human, surely they would see I am only human not swept away by a demon. But they didn’t. They stuffed a cloth in my mouth so they wouldn’t hear me shout. Put a bag over my head so they could pretend it’s not human they would kill.
The priest has stopped talking. Is he going to break my amulet? The silence is too loud. I can’t see anything.
I’m not evil! I’m not evil! The Faewraith will kill everyone! I’m trying to save you! Let me prove I can save you! But no one hears my thoughts. I never told Brine I loved her.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
JAICOM
Despite the threat of infection, my father released himself from the hospital though with enough bandages all over his body to wrap a mummy. I’ve never seen him so silent and frozen, standing next to me as lifeless and cold as the stone angel weeping above the wizard who thinks it’s still worth it to fight. I know my father would have put a bullet in the priest’s chest about now if it weren’t for about one hundred witnesses in the church yard.
A flash of movement to my left alerts me to Brinella busting through the people ringed around the priest, the weeping angel, and the wizard. I don’t look away in time. The priest’s swift hand drives the metal pike through the center of the wizard’s amulet.
The wizard’s head snaps back as if struck in the forehead. The two constables release him, dropping his body to the cobblestone.
Brinella isn’t the only one who screams, though she is the loudest and continues after the initial shock passes over everyone else. The empty space around the priest and weeping angel cave in like a swirling river, agitating sudden energy so peoples’ voices begin to rise as they move around in brief disjointed confusion and fear, heightened by Brinella’s screaming. I feel the moment my father’s eyes slid to her. He starts toward her and I do too but we both stop when Mr. Frondaren scoops his daughter into his arms, though it becomes quite the victorious feat because her arms and legs are swinging and kicking like a person taken by insanity.
The priest jumps onto the weeping angel’s foundation, the busted amulet splashing blood onto the ground. He points at Brinella.
“That is what happens when men are taken by demons. They spell other people and…” His voice is drowned out amid the shouts of the crowd and more screaming.
A constable swoops in to Mr. Frondaren’s rescue, assisting in holding Brinella still as the doctor wearing his night robe presses a white cloth to her face. Chloroform.
She goes blessedly limp in under a minute, Mr. Frondaren picking her up, her head falling back over his arm and she’s carried away. Now that the fire is removed from the pot of water, things cool down rapidly and people shuffle away, murmuring about demons and the wrath of God.
I still haven’t moved. Now I’m watching with bloodless lips as the wizard’s busted amulet is handled by one constable while two more pick up the wizard’s body and all three carry their loads into the parish.
My father spins on me, clenching a fist into my shirt, and slams me into the dirt. His knee presses into my sternum.
“She knew…” his dark voice shreds the words. “Brinella knew about the wizard. Joseara only said what she did to protect her.”
I rack my fingers down my father’s bandage arm. He releases me as if burned again and I kick him off, scrambling backward until I rise to my feet.
“We were never going to harness the power in the amulet!” I snarl, my limbs riddled with the dregs of the last ten minutes. I’ve put Brine in danger for making her bear the entire brunt of the wizard’s rescue. A fail because now the wizard is dead.
The wizard is dead. But the demon still lives.
“We might have.” His voice is ragged as if his lungs are charred as badly as his skin. “But we will never know because Brinella had him killed!”
“You won’t kill her.” I see the intent in his eyes. “She’s still my fiancé.”
“She’s not your wife yet.” He turns from me, citizens and constables filling in the space between us.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
BRINELLA
A yellow knife cuts through my headache. I open my eyes to the sunlight laughing at me through the window. Drool dampens my cheek and I don’t know where I am or how I came to be here.
My heart begins racing before I even remember why, and all at once it’s as if last night was only a moment ago.
What a clever plan of Zadicayn’s. Pretend to die so people will think he’s dead and when no one is looking, he’ll sneak away.
There are people around me. The tall ceiling and wide expanse of the room might be the hospital.
“She’s awake. How are you feeling, sweetie?”
“From what we’ve determined, is he spelled her so strongly that the spell broke upon his death and she is still repairing back to a normal state.”
“When do you think it will finally wear off?”
“It’s hard to tell – I’ve never had to treat someone whose been spelled before, but the church assures us that since he his dead, his magic has lost his hold on her.”
“Magic… to think that people still make deals with the devil for it!”
They must have put Zadicayn beneath the church like they did his father. He’s probably waiting for me to help him escape. I need to go help him escape.
I swing my legs off the bed.
“Sweetie, lay down. You’re not well yet.”
“I’m fine. I have to go check on something.”
“What do you have to go check on?”
I start to move. My mother reaches for me but my father stops her. “I’ll go with her, Janella.”
I walk between the rows of beds on either side of me. Barefoot. I don’t know where my slippers went but my feet are bandaged. I go outside. I’m still wearing my pink untiable dress. No bonnet. No shoes. No gloves. People might think me a whore for being so undressed but Zadicayn doesn’t care.
People eye me as I walk down the street. I might as well be in my nightdress for how they are reacting.
The dark wood doors to the parish warm my cold fingers. I push it open. The first time I’ve ever been inside when it wasn’t Sunday. I like it even less when it is empty as it is now.
I walk down the aisle to the very back, to the door that will take me to the undercroft where Zadicayn is pretending to be dead. Clever, clever Zadicayn.
I touch the brass knob as a hand touches me.
“Brine.” My father’s voice has lost all disbelief that had mirrored my mothers. It is actually tinged with sympathy. “He’s down there.”
“I know.” That is good my father sounds sympathetic. It means he believes the ruse that Zadicayn is dead. “I just need to check on something. I’ll… I’ll be okay on my own. I just… I just need to do something. I…” A steady tremble is working its way up from my knees. “I won’t be long. I just need to do something. And… and I’ll be okay on – on my own. I’ve always been okay on my own. I really just need to go down there and… and… and do s-something r-ight… right… q-uick a-nd I d-on’t w-ant a-ny h-elp. I c-an d-o t-his b-ecause I-ve a-lways d-one –”
My father encompasses me in his arms. I’m shaking so badly I can’t stand anymore. My lungs are no longer flexing. They are made of steel so I have to gasp to breath, clutching my father’s shirt so hard I think I’m clutching his skin.
“I – I – I – I… I… I … I can…” My lungs aren’t working. “I can… nary…” My thoughts won’t connect. I forget what dial
ect I’m supposed to be using. My lungs only know how to push air out and not accept any. “I can nary…”
It enters quietly. Like the Black Plague. Like Cholera. Like it crept upon Zadicayn as I held him when he first left the vault. I never understood how people could drown inside themselves, like all the blood in their body pools around their faces so they can’t breathe, thrashing around trying to find the surface to breath or at least to scream. The brain becomes an endless expanse, so where once you were confined into skin and skull you have a universe to spin around in, pleas and prayers swallowed up because you are even too far for God to hear.
Now I know. And I know it is even possible to eventually run out of tears.
The tide draws back, leaving me half drowned and barely alive on the beach. I don’t know how long my father held me through it all. As if washed inside and out, I’m able to finally focus. Connect thought. Get back on the road where everything will all be well in the end.
“Father, the Faewraith will come tomorrow. We all need to start running for Zadicayn’s castle. I don’t know if it will protect us from the Faewraith, but we have to try.”
My father pulls me in tighter. His shirt is damp where they caught all my tears. “You can’t let the church believe you are still spelled by the wizard. They’ve warned me what will happen if they think a demon has infect you, too.”
“I’m not spelled. The Faewraith are real. It’s the creature the priest showed everyone in the undercroft last Sunday, remember? They eat people. Zadicayn was the only thing keeping them out of the Human Realm and now that he’s gone they are going –”
“The wizard spelled you. You are not in your right mind right now, so you’ll have to rely on myself and your mother to help you –”
“I am not spelled!” I shriek the words. Why does he think that? He’s always believed everything I have said. Why isn’t he believing me?
Holding onto me, he begins to walk out of the parish. “Father? Did you hear me?”
Out of the parish we are met with the doctor, my mother, Brick Face, and another constable I don’t recognize.
And Jaicom.
“Jaicom?” My heart beats waves of panic through my body. I forgot until just now I was supposed to marry him in a week.
“Miss Frondaren,” Jaicom says. “I think we should move the wedding up to today. Right now.”
“What?”
“They tell me you are spelled and I think… and I think with consummation it will chase the lingering demon out of you.”
No. Way. God Almighty. Have mercy on me.
“No!” My knees give out from beneath me and my hands catch me on the street. It is too much, too much to carry anymore without having to marry a man I do not love at the dawn of a racial slaughter in the morning after dusk fell on the man I wanted. “No.” I drag the word out of me. “I – I am spelled. It… comes and goes. It is hard for me to see reality. I do need to get married. I think that will help. I… believe I can make it for one more week. I’m already feeling better the longer I’ve been awake. I would like to have time to send invitations, invite people –”
“We can’t risk it, dear,” my mother says. “It was Jaicom’s idea and all of us think it is sound. It’s for your own good. Do you trust that?”
I fly to my feet, back away from my father before he can grab me, but I have gained enough distance to where I can run, run to Zadicayn’s castle if I have to. Even barefoot.
“NO! You don’t love me, Jaicom.” I thrust a finger at him. He won’t hold my gaze. “You know what? I’ve had formal sleepovers with Zadicayn. Several times. I’ve embraced him. Kissed him. I went around untied for much longer than I should have. I am untied right now. I would use a bloodstone Zadicayn gave me to leave my room unawares and relocate to the Fae Gate which would then take me to his castle. I did that while wearing an untiable dress. I did it last night. I am tainted. You don’t want me.”
“Brinella!” My mother covers her eyes as if she didn’t want to see the words leaving my mouth. “That is not true. His spell is making you say these things.”
“Brinella…” Jaicom takes a step toward me, a strange pleading reaching out of his eyes. “I want to marry you. Something horrible has happened to you and I can help you get over the shock –”
I run. Heavy grunting falls in behind me and I look over my shoulder to see Brick Face running after. Fast.
He captures me with a giant scoop of his arm. I fight but he holds.
He carries me to the coach, the door open for me with one more constable, my father, and the priest inside.
I don’t stop fighting the whole way to my house. All the way up the stairs. Into my room.
They usher me inside, followed by the priest and Jaicom. Brick Face has not loosened his grip on me. I only hear snippets of the vows through my vicious energy to break away.
“…to be wed…” I kick Brick Face in the shin. “… om Whaerin…” I get an arm free and rack my short nails down his arm. He grabs my wrist. “…Brinella Frondaren Whaerin…” Jaicom can’t consummate the marriage if he sees how violent I’m acting. “Amen.”
Everyone but Jaicom and Brick Faced file out of the room. No! No! Don’t touch me! The priest leaves. My father remains. I don’t relax until Jaicom closes the door behind him as he leaves.
“William will stay posted outside your bedroom door,” my father says. I don’t know who William is. “And Robert will be posted outside below your window. Varseena will sleep in here and food will be brought to you. Tomorrow, Jaicom will relocate you to a secure location only he knows about. Funny. I thought he’d want you in the security of his father’s house.”
I can’t stay here! The Faewraith are coming!
Someone else comes into the room. The… doctor?
I tense, looking at my father who maintains a steady expression of grim necessity. “We,” he stops, composes himself, and continues, “we fear that the wizard’s spell might cause you to… to have magic, too, with the possibility to use it…” He chokes on his words and takes a deep breath.
“No, father.” Scared and angry, the truth of my marriage two minutes ago have not sunk into my personal pit of horror yet. “I am no longer spelled. The wizard is… gone, and with it went his magic. I’m fine.”
“We have to make sure. The priest wanted to… to…”
“The priest wanted to kill you too,” finishes the doctor.
“What?”
“No one knows anything about the evil, so the priest thought it best to treat it like a disease. We all spoke on your behalf, saying that surely consummating a marriage would fix you, and the priest relented, though demanded we take certain precautions until then. Jaicom fears your current wildness will prohibit the consummation at this time so he will wait until you are calm.” From within the pocket of his black coat, the doctor pulls out a syringe, the needle capped with a small metal tube.
Brick Face readjusts his hold on me. “What is that?”
“A sedative. It will put you to sleep,” he says harmlessly, though it is offset by the syringe in his hand. “Until morning. That way the demon in you can’t do evil things.”
“I’m fine. Don’t – DON’T!”
I jerk and twist but Brick Face holds on. A second constable rushes into the room.
“That’s the demon inside her fighting.” The doctor has to raise his voice to be heard over my protests. “The priest warned it would. Hold her still.”
Brick Face covers my mouth with a giant, sweaty hand. I try to bit it. Both men lay their weight on me on the bed. My arm is stretched out toward the doctor.
I scream beneath the hand and pound my heels against my mattress. The Faewraith are coming in the morning. No one will listen to me.
Just before the needle pricks my vein, hopelessness and rage and every level of agonizing sadness swallows me, the weight so heavy it crushes out my consciousness and I black out before the needle touches me.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
&n
bsp; BRINELLA
My dreams whisper away like the drawing of a tide.
Sunlight.
My head heavy with fog blurs the thoughts creeping back to me. Something is wrong with the sunlight. I’m still alive.
The Faewraith did not come.
On the skirt of this revelation slams every moment from yesterday back into me. But I am a dry, empty husk with nothing left to give. My emotions have fled to another host since they can’t feed off me anymore.
The Faewraith did not come. It’s been longer than two days and the Faewraith had not come.
It means I am alive but it fills me with wrenching grief because that means that… he lied to me. Or was he mistaken? Now I’m going to live with this sucking void in my chest. I shove Zadicayn down deep, deep within me so I can take it out in pieces and deal with his loss a sliver at a time.
Varseena and my mother enter the room. “How you feeling?”
What a stupid question. “Fine.” What a stupid answer.
“You are now a Whaerin!” My mother’s misplaced gaiety sends me hiding under the covers. “Do you think the spell has worn off yet, sweetie?”
“Yes.” I don’t want to be drugged again. Unreasonable fears about Jaicom consummating our marriage while I’m drugged makes my bones shake. “Yes now… now I’m just…” Zadicayn’s vault is too small to contain everything inside me. “Now I’m just tired. And exhausted.”
“I’ll bet. You fought like a hellion during the whole wedding ceremony. You may not remember, of course.”
“Did I really?” I’m two separate people: one who knows the truth and one who just wants to play dead to escape more pain.
“Yes. Jaicom is ready outside to take you on your reception to the Ballroom and then on to your honeymoon! Isn’t that wonderful?”