The Bridge Beyond Her World (The Boy and the Beast Book 2)

by Brandon Barr

  Just a dream.

  Something about the moment felt hideously cruel. Harsher than her father’s lack of faith in her. Nastier than the derision of Valcere seated on the throne she would never have. Even colder than the wind that had gnawed at her as she dreamt, snatching her from the bliss of being known and cared for. Cherished. Praised. Longed for. The worth she felt, only when she imagined being loved.

  The cruelty was all of these things, but something else, also. Her fate. Her destiny. Having read of so many heroes. Having been certain that she—like all the Luminaries, all the kings and queens, warriors and rogues who were written of in history and scripture—would be able to be a part of that story. To be a vessel for good that would shape Hearth, even if slightly. Wasn’t that the call of the gods?

  Wasn’t that the reason she had been born to a Luminary?

  “Failure,” she whispered to herself. “Weak. Pathetic. What can you accomplish now? The Makers are against you!” A long silence answered.

  “What do you want?” she said to herself, teeth clenched. “You’re so empty. What’s stopping you? You need it. So take it. Taste it.”

  Black envy drizzled down through her veins, dark as the nothingness before her eyes. The dark was not unfamiliar living in the mountain, but those strange words spoken from her own lips awoke something new in her, a thought.

  When the sun dropped and the lightless void of night crept in, it was not unlike a mask. Seeing eyes were made blind. The shadowless dark could swallow what was true and real; it could make possible that which never could be.

  Take it. Taste it.

  Just to lie beside him, to feel his warmth under a shared blanket. Just a taste of what it would be like to be his girl.

  Where had those thoughts come from but some hidden chasm of her mind? Sitting like a seed, stirring within its shell, waiting. The moment was here.

  She rose, clutching the blankets around her and hurried down the hall, navigating by touch and memory. When she arrived in her room, she lit a candle and went to her shelf of oils. She found the vial of her mother’s lilac. She needed only one drop.

  A scent Mica knew well. The scent of Praseme.

  CHAPTER 6

  MELUSCIA

  “I want ten dozen apple muffins made by morning,” said Meluscia, holding a single candle for light as she stood outside Mairena’s doorway.

  The kitchen matron rubbed her eyes. “Yes, My Lady,” she said, then blinked a moment at the candle in Meluscia’s hand. “This is urgent, is it?”

  “I want only you and Praseme making the muffins. Then deliver them to my quarters an hour after sunrise. Have Praseme bring them.”

  “Ten dozen muffins by morning and only two cooks? We haven’t prepared any batter, and we’ve got no apples. They’ll have to be picked from the orchard. And the oven will need to be fired. And with only two, one of us will have to tend the fires the entire time.”

  “Wake a third cook then, but no more,” said Meluscia firmly.

  Mairena bowed her head. “Yes, My Lady.”

  The kitchen matron threw a cloak around her nightgown and shuffled off down the servants’ tunnel with a candle in hand. Meluscia pinched out her own candle and followed at a distance. She watched as Mairena called an older kitchen boy named Prehn from his room. Finally, Mairena stopped at Praseme’s room. Praseme readied herself much faster than the boy, appearing with her hair up, donning a cloak.

  Meluscia watched them leave, following slowly as the light receded further down the grey rock corridor. There was a small hollow in the wall across from the doorway which Praseme had just left…the door, behind which Mica lay alone in bed. Meluscia crouched down and squeezed inside the hollow nook. She sat, knees tucked against her chest and waited. In the long silence, she felt each beat of her heart. Fear seeped into the stillness. With it came a rational voice.

  What was she doing? Sacred passages she’d read in the Scriptorium appeared in her mind like bright lights shining on eyes trying to hide in the dark, stinging and searing her.

  But she was so close to something that had always been far away. Something she’d only felt for the briefest of moments.

  The touch of another.

  She centered her mind on her heart pulsing inside. That steady, quickened rhythm. It thrummed like a drum, relentless, primal.

  It would only be a taste. An hour of real imagining. No one would know. No one would be hurt. She just wanted to lie there, beside him. Feel what it was like to be in his bed. To put her arm over him. Feel his heartbeat through her fingers. That’s all.

  You’ll never be here again…if you don’t do this now—

  She moved. Her heart pounding a triple count with the rhythm of each step.

  She walked across the hall. Felt for the door and found the latch. Quietly she opened it and slipped inside, from one darkness to another.

  The smell of the room was intoxicating. The hint of lilac from Praseme that was now on her, and then another smell. Mica’s. Strong and rich and powerfully male.

  She visualized the room from the spy hole. The bed lay against the far wall. Gingerly she stepped across the open floor. Her foot touched the rug she knew lay at the room’s center. Slowly she moved forward and stretched out her hands.

  Four more small steps and her fingertips touched something solid. She knew it to be the wooden baseboard of the bed. She moved to the right side, felt with her hands the blankets that Praseme had thrown off. She hesitated removing her outer garments, but decided they would be terribly uncomfortable. She kept on her soft silk undergown, then moved delicately to sit upon the bed. Carefully she brought her legs up, slipping them beneath the covers, then eased her head down, finding a soft pillow waiting for her. Relishing the warmth and smells, she drew the blanket over her chest and up to her neck. Her skin was unusually cold and the warmth of the bed tingled over her body.

  She lay there, listening. Mica’s breathing was faint, but she strained to hear it. After a time, when her body had warmed, she lifted her torso and slid a handwidth closer to him, then turned her head and leaned in.

  He was close now. His smell was stronger. She twisted her shoulders gently forward, allowing her head to move closer still. The warmth of his body was close enough that she could feel it on her face. She lay there in quiet, surprised at how unsatisfied she felt just being in bed beside him. Surprised at how badly she now wanted to touch him. She was so close now, and she could hear his breaths well enough to know he was facing away from her.

  She drew her hands up and touched her face. They were warm now from being under the blankets.

  Only a taste. I’ll be careful. Slow.

  Ever so slowly, she moved her hands forward under the covers, until her fingertips touched skin and she glided her hand onto Mica’s bare side. Meluscia was surprised at how warm his skin was. Her hands like ice against his flesh.

  The bed shook as Mica twisted.

  Meluscia drew her hand back and turned away from him, tensed, ready to fly from bed through the door, but then his arm swung around her, wrapping under her right arm and pulling her back against his chest.

  The need to push away and run nearly overpowered her, but when Mica held still, slowly her nerves eased and the urge to flee vanished. Mica had simply turned at her cold touch to hold her. But now she feared he was awake and fully conscious. That he might detect something strange in the woman he held, that somehow she’d used too little of the lilac oil and his awakened senses would smell something different about her. Or worse, that he’d try to talk to Praseme.

  Silence finally slowed the pounding that shook inside her chest. The hand and arm that held her becoming warm and wanted. As her muscles relaxed, she released a long breath.

  Mica was holding her as she’d romanticized in her mind so many times. Jonakin, and Mica’s, imaginary arm around her was no match for reality. The scent of him in the air, his chest against her back, pelvis and legs formed against her own. Her silk gown crushed beneath their warm bod
ies. She could lie like this all night.

  “Praseme,” came Mica’s voice, weak, as if in dream. His hand moved down to rest on her hip. Meluscia’s breath caught in her throat. She held it, until the words spoken beside her ear faded into the darkness and she could hold it in no longer. As quietly as she could, she released a shaky breath. The sound of Mica’s breathing deepened, as if drawn back into sleep.

  The name whispered in her ear unwound something inside her. She tried to relax herself. To slip back into the warm pleasure of Mica holding her. What would it feel like for him to have whispered her own name. Meluscia. A girl with red hair and skin as white as quartz. But his lips had spoken of Praseme, and Meluscia felt an edge of guilt now. Where it came from was just as shadowy as the notion that brought her here, to Mica’s bed.

  Just a taste. A momentary lapse. A small transgression. Why couldn’t she just enjoy this morsel of a moment without any shame? A thief haunted by the stolen fire warming her body.

  The soothing grip of Mica’s hand on her hip tightened. His breathing shallowed. Some instinct in her warned her what was happening. She visualized the placement of the door in the room. Remembered her outer garments on the floor. Knew that if she were going to leave, the time was now.

  She hesitated. Mica’s hand ran down her leg, began to slide up her gown. The sensation was scintillating.

  Was it not too late? In hesitating, hadn’t she decided? In promising herself only a small taste, hadn’t she only deceived herself. Positioned herself. Was this not a secret hunger behind why she came there? That primordial pit in her mind twisting like a maze of tunnels in a mountain. Her lusts and principles had fought through ancient rooms and coiled passageways carved out by night after night of watching this man. Wanting this man. Her principles had been besieged from long ago, her hunger, well fed, had won this battle long before this night.

  The choice was hers. Whether she would embrace it come morning was a question for the daylight. She sensed she would not, but the fire of the present moment was more powerful than thoughts of cost or consequence.

  Mica’s body came atop hers, arms enfolding her.

  No one would know.

  No one would be hurt.

  It would only be a taste.

  She relaxed. Pushed aside the voices, and hungrily invited what was next to come.

  LOAM

  The feed from Loam’s long-range scanners have picked up outside activity in a proximal solar system. Until Loam is chartered, our allotted resources are thin, but I’ve had their signals briefly analyzed, and the results show space travel and inter-solar colonization surrounding that unknown system. As you know, mercenaries and headhunters often exist on the outskirts of upworlds. Be wary, but I see little danger. Loam appears to have been untouched by them, but not so her sister planet, Hearth. The Cultivator there has informed me of space merchant activity on his world. The Praelothian king trades regularly with men from that unknown system.

  Also, let me offer my congratulations to you a week early, Karience! Your first year as Empyrean is almost behind you. Well done.

  -Higelion, Magnus Empyrean,

  (archived transmission to Karience, Empyrean of Loam)

  CHAPTER 7

  WINTER

  “I remember my first flight,” said Rueik staring through the massive curving glass of the pilot window, his young face reflected back at them. “I nearly peed myself it was so amazing.”

  “Please refrain from crass language,” said Arentiss, seated beside Rueik, her voice sharp, as usual. “It’s improper as a Guardian representative.”

  Winter heard Rueik’s voice reply, but the words faded into the background as she stared at Aven’s hand in hers.

  “Is your brain doing what mine is doing?” tapped Winter.

  “Yes…scary.”

  Her head swam with strange information. The VOKK. She felt its presence in her thoughts, as if her inner voice had been accosted by another who spoke through her, and to her.

  She touched the right side of her head where Alael had inserted the device. The change after the procedure had been remarkable. It was as if her mind had come alive. As if before it had been blurry, like an eye bad from birth, but now it saw clearly. Winter knew the names of things without being told. Like the name of the room she and Aven were in now. It was called the bridge. The strange shapes on the panel arrayed before Arentiss and Rueik, they were things you could touch and apply pressure to that would speak to the ship, tell it how to move. She knew this by simply watching what they were doing.

  “We’re like birds,” tapped Winter, then whispered, “I never imagined the land to look like this. Way up high, it looks so different.”

  “There,” said Arentiss, gesturing at the window. “That’s the sea, and, right beside it,” she pointed, “right there, is Anantium, the Royal City.”

  The ship was moving fast, and soon they were flying low over crisp blue water. The sea stretched beyond Winter’s sight, white tipped waves cresting in beautiful patterns against the vast blue.

  She wished they weren’t traveling so fast. Already the city was in sight, and they were coming down quickly upon the sea. The deep blue water was rushing toward them. She had only enough time to squeeze Aven’s hand before the ship slammed into the water.

  Her body felt heavy for a moment as the ship’s gravity sagged. It was strange, this concept of gravity on a ship, but it came clearly to her mind. Examples rushed at her. It was the same force that had held her down upon the ground her entire life, and it was the same force that drew the rain from the clouds.

  “Fish!” tapped Winter fiercely.

  The pilot’s window swarmed with a school of red-finned fish darting away from the glass, their slender bodies flashing silver and gold. Winter could hardly take in what was happening. She had never been to the sea before, but now, she was beneath it, seeing sights that only moments ago would have been impossible for her to ever imagine. The ship was moving down toward the sea floor. The water grew murkier the lower they went, and darker, though she could make out pinpoints of light dotting what looked like large, white bubbles on the ocean floor. Everything felt foreign, and yet words and concepts were forming in her mind. It came to her that the round bubbles were buildings, the pinpoints of light little windows. Portholes.

  It was so much to take in. She felt a rush from all the strange concepts and astonishing sights.

  A hand squeezed lightly on her shoulder. “How beautiful.”

  Winter spun at the familiar voice, as did her brother.

  Pike stood there, eyes locked on the sights outside the pilot’s window, eyes red, as if he’d been crying.

  Winter swung around in front of Aven, shielding him, standing face to face with Pike. She narrowed her eyes at him, balancing herself for a fight, as if he were a wolf in her forest.

  “What?” said Pike, finally. “You look like you want to hurt me.”

  “Just stay away from us,” she said.

  Pike looked horrified. “What did I do?”

  She tried to find a trace of mockery in the shadows of his eyes.

  “Don’t ridicule us,” said Aven.

  Pike put his hands up and took a step back. “What’s happened? I don’t know why you’re—” His voice cut out, as if snatched from his throat. He stared at them, his lips moving but nothing coming out.

  He brought his hands up to his head, “It’s not right,” he finally managed. “I have this horrible—” He broke off and looked just over Winter’s shoulder, at Aven. Then he began to cry. A sharp, naked cry, like a child’s.

  Rueik whispered from behind them in the pilot seat, “Didn’t Karience tell you?”

  Aven didn’t know whether Rueik was speaking to him and Winter, or to Pike.

  “He’s mocking us,” said Winter in a raised voice. “You saw what he did to my brother this morning.”

  Winter shouted over Pike’s sobbing, “Stop it, Pike!” Anger coursed through her as he continued to cry. She swung h
er right fist into the side of Pike’s face.

  “Hold it!” commanded Rueik.

  Arentiss sprang out of her chair. She grabbed Pike by the arm and led him out of the room. Winter could hear Pike’s muted wailing even after the egg shaped door had shut.

  “You didn’t know about his brain wipe?” said Rueik.

  Winter turned and stared at Rueik. Brain wipe? The words took form in her mind, churning into a definition. It was some kind of procedure. Invasive. This new word began to take on shape. Pike’s mind had been intruded upon. Things had been changed, tampered with. Winter slowly began to grasp this.

  “She was in the room with you long enough—I can’t believe she didn’t tell you.” Rueik gave a harsh laugh, which turned into a grin. “The poor guy. I’ve never seen a brain wipe. Thought he was still on the breast, the way you two made him cry.”

  Winter couldn’t remove the pathetic face of Pike from her mind’s eye. “What did you change in him?”

  “Don’t ask me,” said Rueik. “Ask the Empyrean.” His eyes moved to the door. Winter turned to look.

  Karience’s dark features were grim; she stood by the circular opening. “Brain wipe is the slang term,” she said. “Officially, it’s called an MCD. A Mind Control Device. Brain wipe is better, more fitting…it was the only way he could be here. I’ve never seen it used before…until now.”

  Rueik chortled. “I’d say it’s defective.”

  “It’s incomplete. Pike’s memory is still being cleaned. He wasn’t supposed to be out yet. That’s my fault.”

  “What’s happening to him?” asked Aven.

  Karience appeared uneasy with the question. Or maybe just uncertain.

  “According to Alael, the MCD will remove the problem memories. Winter and Aven, you have been factored into the process. Supposedly, when the cleaning process is through, he’ll be as docile as a child. All the choices he made that moved him toward the person you knew will be replaced with new memories. Alael says they will be simple, filler memories.”