by C. M. Lind
“No,” he gasped. “No.”
She nodded, and she smiled again, showing her still bloodied teeth. “Yes.”
She thought about her escape from The Cliffs, and she swore for a second that she could hear the sound of waves and gulls. She closed her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she smelled salt on the air.
She jerked the wire tight, and he whined under it digging into him. It was always the landing, she remembered, that was the problem—never falling.
She scooched over to the edge, and she simply let herself fall out the side of the solarium.
There were three jerks and two thuds.
The first stop was when Jae’s body slid out after her but quickly snagged on a loose bar of iron. It impaled his abdomen, piercing his intestines and catching on his pelvis. This he felt in glorious depth.
The second snap Vitoria felt was when the wire sliced into Jae’s throat as easily as it would have done with a block of soft cheese, but it caught on his spine. This, Jae did not feel.
The last stop for Vitoria, and the first thud she heard, was the ground as the wire snapped, and she fell, legs first, among the topiaries below.
Looking up, the light of the stars seemed to bleed into each other, causing a massive, twinkling, throbbing blanket. She still smelled salt, and she felt as if she was being washed over with cold seawater.
The last thud she heard, and what looked like a falling black hole among the starlight, was Jae’s head, landing a foot away from hers.
Chapter 72
Once Saemund had heard shattering glass, he opened the door, just an inch to watch.
Through the ferns, he could barely see, but it looked like the lordling was winning—an inconceivable thought, he told himself. His new master, he had decided, was strong, and, no doubt, she would prevail. But watching from the door, hearing grunts, gasps, groans, and shuffling of feet, hands, and glass while they were on the floor filled him with pinpricks. His muscles itched at the smell of blood, and his feet jittered, wanting nothing more than to run ahead and strangle the man attacking his master.
But Saemund obeyed.
He stood, his fingers clutched around the edge of the door, waiting for her victory or at least for her to call him in. She overthrew him. He was gushing blood, and Saemund could smell it was enough to end his life.
But she never called him.
Instead, he watched her pull him to the window, to dangle him out perhaps, he thought. The lordling still fought, and his master looked barely able to move let alone wrestle with his weight.
As he watched her fall out the window, his hands clenched the door, and his nails gouged into the wood.
The man’s body flew forward into the remains of the broken glass dome, but Saemund didn’t stay to watch. He reeled around, tearing through the hall and back down the stairs.
Chapter 73
Soli watched what she could, and when the two left her eyesight, she listened. She heard the thrashing, groaning, crashing, even their exhausted voices, but what they were saying she couldn’t make out.
After it was over, she found that the silence was the worst part. Who had won, she wasn’t sure. She couldn’t see, but there was such sudden pervading silence—until the door opposite of her slammed open.
She recognized him by the sound of his steps before she ever saw his face. It was Etienne. His eyes were wide, and his fingertips touched his open lips. She watched him run from her sight, over to where it sounded the fight had concluded, and she heard crunching glass under his boot.
He did not cry, weep, or call out. His voice was muted, and the room continued to be filled with a tormenting quiet for a few more moments.
Soli stayed still, worried even her breath or heart would give her away in the stillness. Her eyes kept fluttering closed; her body felt heavy and tired, and her mind cried out for sleep. But she couldn’t sleep, and she tried to force her eyes to stay open—even though they burned and protested.
A string of wailing, undulating screeches woke her up with a jump, her whole body clenching in alarm. How long she had been out for, she had no idea, but she had not won the fight against sleep.
She turned her head. Through the foliage she could see that it was Lilane with Etienne’s arm wrapped around her shoulders. He held her as her body trembled, and broken, gasping, cries erupted from her in feral barks.
Lilane tried to pull away from Etienne, but he held her tight. She screamed she wanted to see her boy, but Etienne said no—that she shouldn’t look at him. She let him hold her for a few minutes until she turned her face up to his, shrieking that it should have been him, that Etienne should be dead and not her angel. She spat at him as he held her, repeating over and over again how much she wished Etienne was dead instead of Jae, and Etienne stood like a stone, not moving except to blink as her spit hit his eyes.
Soli could barely watch the display, and, for a brief second, she had forgotten her fear of Etienne she had felt earlier that night—but only briefly.
After a few more curses and screams spouted at Etienne, he finally spoke to her. “I know,” he said squeezing her closer to him. “I know.”
“I will never be with my boy again!” she cried out. “I am left alone with you!”
“I know,” he said, monotone. “I know.”
His agreement only made her angrier, and she began to jab him with her boney fingers to punctuate the point: that Etienne should be dead.
He allowed her to poke him, nodding his head and repeating that he knew, as he drew her tighter to him. She tried to push him away, but he did not budge, and Lilane had no hope of moving the young, strong man.
His arm went from her shoulder to her neck, and he squeezed her frail, chicken-like throat within the elbow of his arm, all the while muttering that he knew.
Lilane’s hands went to his arm, and she futilely pried at him. Her peach colored, fake nails began to pop off as she dragged them over his arm, clattering to the ground.
She began to falter, and Etienne allowed her to fall, slipping his strangling arm away from her. Her body slammed into the stone floor, and Soli heard something snap as she cried out in pain.
Etienne was completely on her, straddling her to keep her from crawling away. She wailed, his weight pressing against whatever had broken in her. Her cries were cut off by his hands, wrapped around her throat, as he shushed her as if he was merely putting her to bed at night.
Soli saw Lilane’s right foot thrash about. The left barely moved, probably from her injury. Then they merely trembled for a few seconds, like a frightened and injured rabbit. After that, they fell apart, limply, and her hands slumped down onto the floor.
Etienne continued to shush Lilane, every so often muttering that he knew, as his hands were still wrapped around her throat. After a few moments he sat back, still upon her, letting his head fall backwards and taking a deep breath.
He laughed, a gasping, broken thing before he pushed himself off of her. “I suppose.” He stooped down to grab her by her wrist. “That after so many years of kindness,” he slowly said the word with hot spit as he began to pull her along the floor out of Soli’s sight. “That the least I could do for you…”
Soli heard glass scraping against the floor as he dragged her to the edge of the room—where she had heard the fight between the red woman and Jae end.
“Is to make sure you joined your son.”
Chapter 74
Randolph pounded on Soli’s door again, and then he pressed his ear against the wood. No sound stirred from within. He jiggled the handle again, calling out to her. As his brow wrinkled, he bit his lower lip. If she was in there, she couldn’t hear him.
He took a step back from the door. Standing sideways, he slammed the sole of his foot directly over the keyhole. The lock cracked in one strike. The door snapped open, and his foot, falling forward in the momentum, landed inside of her room.
From where he stood, it looked as though the room was as it always was. He could see her bags under
her tidied bed. A stack of books was on her nightstand next to a few burned down candle stubs. If she was hiding in there, then she had become a master illusionist.
Randolph ran out of her room, into the hallway. The bathroom next door was open, and he did a quick scan—still he could find no trace of Soli.
Ety had told him she had too much to drink. If that was the case, he reasoned, she would have gone to her room, locked the door, and fallen asleep. There was no other place she would have gone.
But Ety had also told him that Soli had gone to talk to Jae, which he knew was a bold-faced lie—unless it was the other way around. His face went slack as he skipped a breath. He had to find Jae, he thought, and he cursed himself under his breath for not doing so earlier.
Jae could have been anywhere, and he wasn’t sure where to start first, so he just ran down the hall, opening all the guest room doors as he did so. They were all empty and dark inside.
After briefly inspecting several, he heard someone.
A woman was crying, not loudly or hysterically, but a steady sniffle accompanied by muttering was down the hall.
“Soli?” Randolph yelled as he ran towards the noise. He rounded a corner and took a few more paces. Light, and the sobs, were coming from another guestroom. The door was slightly ajar, and Randolph slammed it open. It wasn’t Soli who was crying, but Marguerite, having taken refuge in a place she thought no one would look for her. She was sitting on the edge of a bed with one small candle for company.
Randolph slowed his frantic steps when he saw the young kitchen lass who had always been kind to him. “Are you alright?”
She shook her head. “I have to leave.”
Randolph nodded. He had heard the rumors, and he was always amazed she had stayed as long as she had.
“But I promised my mother I wouldn’t, at least not yet.” She wiped her red, wet eyes with her sleeve. “But I can’t stay. I can’t count on Soli to help me again,” she flung her hands to her stomach, “the way she did before.”
“Soli!” said Randolph. “I need to find her!”
Marguerite nodded. “She didn’t look good at all.”
“Where?”
“The solarium.” Marguerite sniffled. “I know that look. Promise me you’ll find her before anyone else.”
Randolph nodded. “Something weird is going on. She has to get out of here—just like you.” Randolph jumped back into the hall, but he stopped as he heard her cry out to him.
She jumped off the bed and ran out behind him. “She’s hiding. I’ll show you where.”
Chapter 75
Vitoria’s eyes opened. She found herself back in the inner ward of the temple. A light haze of rain was falling. She was naked, and the ground under her was cold and wet.
The moon was gone, and only starlight trickled through the branches of the mourning tree above her. There was no noise—no wind blew. No branches rustled. Even the rain seemed to fall mutely against the wet soil. The voices in her mind that had called out before seemed like a faint memory, and she heard nothing in her head but her own true thoughts. Even though she heard no one else was about, she did not feel alone. A throng of glinting eyes in the branches watched her: a horde of crows. Turning her head, she saw they were everywhere. Their glassy eyes flashed on the walls, the earth, and even flying through the sky.
Her muscles were stiff, but she pulled herself onto her elbows. She felt as cold as the dead, but she did not shiver. At her stirring the crows cawed a deafening cacophony. With their eyes turned to her, they screamed and shouted, each seeming to be louder than the others.
A few on the ground nearby approached her. While still on her back, and without thinking, she pushed away from them, drawing closer to the trunk of the tree, entering further in the darkest of shadows under the branches where no starlight came through.
The crows did not follow her there, and they seemed content to shrilly caw at her, their wings outstretched as far as they could.
She pulled up as close as she could to the base of the tree, fearing to touch it, and her hand splattered into what seemed like a cold puddle—but it wasn’t watery. It was much thicker than water, and it felt like a cold, runny pudding. She snapped her hand away, but it was already coated in the stuff. Bringing it to her nose, she knew the coppery, pungent smell: old, syrupy blood. She flung her hand, but the ichor wouldn’t leave her flesh. It clung to it like paste.
She rolled away, back toward the light, but her hip sank several inches. It was as if the soil underneath her had turned into a soaked sponge. More of the thick blood rushed up to her flesh as the ground fell away. Slapping her hands around her to pull herself up did nothing, and she sank further. She grabbed clumps of soil, and it dissolved in her hands, running down her arms like mud.
The crows around her became louder, but the discord shifted, and their calls started to sync together until they were time with the other, as if they were singing her a song—or perhaps calling out to something else.
She grabbed more soil, but it continued to fall away. She thrashed her feet, but the more she moved them, the more blood floated upward, rushing from the soil.
Something grabbed her shoulder. A man must have been in the shadows where she could not see, and, in the darkness, she could not even see the hand that she felt.
Vitoria grabbed anew to escape her wet earthy grave, and she finally felt her hand catch something solid and smooth. She pulled and it broke from the soil: a long femur. Casting it aside, she tried again. Her fingers hit something solid, and out she pulled a jawbone missing half of its teeth.
The hand squeezed her shoulder, and she immediately felt a rock in her throat. She couldn’t breathe, and she coughed hard. Her chest burned, and she felt a little movement in her throat.
The hand upon her pulled, trying to drag her further into the darkness.
The crows called out, and their caws began to sound like voices, each singing its own section like a well-practiced choir.
Vitoria shoved her sticky, foul, wet fingers into her mouth, shoving them into the back where they found a soft lump. She sunk her nails into it. It oozed sweetness.
She pulled it out, collapsing forward further into the muck as she took a few large breaths. She sunk deeper, and her legs were completely submerged.
She held the thing out as far as she could so it could have the most light. In her hand was, except for her nail marks, a pristine fruit of the mourning tree. She spat, but the juice, like the muck upon her fingers, had already seeped inside her.
The man behind her pulled and she slipped further back and down, feeling the sludge up to her nipples.
She squeezed the fruit in her hand, and its red juice ran down her arm, joining the muck below. She felt hardness within it, and when she opened her palm, she saw two teeth among the pulp of the fruit. Her hand felt numb; she turned it over, and she dropped the teeth into the sludge below.
They landed and sank like cannonballs in the ocean.
The crows continued their songs, and she realized they were singing words. Their voices sounded familiar, and she swore she had heard some of them before in her head.
Back when she was fighting Jae Reinout.
Back when she killed him.
Back when she killed herself.
The hand behind her pulled again, and she fought it. She flailed, fighting for every inch, but he was stronger, and the more she fought the more she sank. The more she sank the more numb she felt. The more numb she felt the darker it became. As she went further back, another hand joined in, wrapping around her shoulders, and she felt a face next to hers.
It whispered only one word to her: “Fall.”
She stopped fighting, knowing whatever was there was going to catch her. She did not have to fear the landing. She dropped her hands into mud around her, and they passed by countless bones that had come before her. As her neck sank deeper, she felt the presence’s face still next to hers.
She did not feel alone. She did not feel frigh
tened.
There was a loud splash in the mud next to her, but she did not open her eyes. She only did so when she felt another hand, a warm one, grab her shoulder.
It was Ulrich.
He pulled her, and as he did so the presence behind her retreated into the shadows, and as it left Vitoria felt true panic, ultimate fear, and complete loneliness.
She tried to call out no, but no words came from her mouth.
She tried to push Ulrich away, but she couldn’t move her arms.
He pulled her out of the mud. Holding her tightly to his breast, he carried her away from the darkness.
Chapter 76
Randolph, with Marguerite in tow, burst through the doors of the solarium. He expected to see Soli. He didn’t expect to see Lilane dead and Jae decapitated. He reeled around; trying to stop Marguerite, but it was too late. She saw them too.
Her hand went to her mouth, and she would have fallen had it not been for Randolph’s steadying hand. She trembled, her eyes undecided about whether or not to cry.
“Don’t look at them,” said Randolph, turning her head away.
She nodded.
“I know,” he said with a sigh, “that they were real bastards, but you shouldn’t have to see this.”
She nodded again.
Randolph turned back to the sight. It seemed the assassin had made it in after all, but he was still alive. Perhaps she had been wounded. He noted the amount of blood, and he didn’t know of too many assassins that would have been so messy. He understood the anger she would have had for Jae, but why would she have killed Lilane? True enough the old bat was an annoying bitch, but he couldn’t figure out why. Maybe she had walked in on it and had to be dealt with. Perhaps, with two deaths, she had her fill of revenge, he hoped for a brief second. He ran into the center of the room; the assassin could still be there—and where was Soli?