The Tangled Tree

by S. K Munt

  ‘As opposed to your perfect sons?’ Amelia-Rose demanded, looking stunned. ‘What are they good for, except for sniffing after this whore? Kohl’s the only one with a backbone, and it sounds like even that had been splintered due to his lust over this trash now!’

  ‘Trash?’ I sprung at Amelia-Rose quickly, shoving her hard backwards so that she fell onto her backside. She tried to get up but I lifted my hand and sent a fireball bursting into the ground between her open knees. She screamed and retracted quickly, fumbling for her sword but I advanced further and she held up her hands. Beside her on the ground, Elijah’s eyes bugged at the sight of the fireball, then swept to me and widened further. ‘I’d like to see that tongue of yours blistered, Amelia-Rose, so if you part your lips on the subject of my character or appearance again, I will stuff it with fire you jealous cow!’

  ‘Stop!’ Amelia sobbed, shaking her head and holding up her hands. ‘I won’t fight a demon, I won’t lower myself to that!’ She bowed her head in another prayer. ‘Oh Lord, please save me from-’

  ‘Oh Christ- if you do that again I will set you on fire, you religious fiend!’ I turned back to Elijah, heart pounding while she spluttered in offence. ‘You swear to God that you gave them that pardon?’

  ‘I swear to God, they have it on them!’ he swallowed hard. ‘The Trevasse’s were obviously disconcerted to wonder why they were suddenly in need of one, but they took it gratefully, embraced me and then they went to wait for you with your other friends, all believing that you were about to join them! I went looking for Karol so that I could rush him back to help you heal, but Ora told me that he’d gone off somewhere to wait for Kohén to retrieve him, and then I heard the people outside and-’ he hiccuped, looking towards the open harem door. Flames taller than me were leaping about in there now. ‘Constance! I have to get to her!’

  I held him down. ‘You cannot! If Kohl has not perished then I fear what he will do to you, Elijah- and you should fear it too! Let T’are salvage her if he can, then take Saint Choir here out to the ballroom and protect your people from those invading the castle! It is the only good you can do, and all that I will allow you to do!’

  ‘I will not fight you, I swear it! And for the millionth time: I did not hurt Martya! I have never taken a human life and until tonight, my sons have never hurt a fly either, so it wasn’t them!’

  ‘That you know of!’ I sneered. ‘But I’ve seen them kill another whore, Elijah and when you bury the bodies of your loved ones in the near future I urge you to bury Kohén and Kohl right beside Kelia! For the three of them belong together!’

  Elijah clutched at his heart as his face constricted. ‘They killed her? My boys?’

  ‘To keep their secrets!’ I shook my head, relieved to have my last secret out at last. Now, I could die unburdened by lies! ‘So forgive me, or don’t- but I’ll not believe you innocent of Martya’s murder until I cross into the afterlife and hear what happened from her with my own ears!’ I sobbed, and my blackened wings shivered. ‘Or would, if my life here hadn’t damned me so!’

  ‘You’ll get into Heaven, Larkin! You have years to purify yourself left ahead of you, I swear it!’ Elijah handed me the handkerchief despite the fact that he was the one weeping brokenly. ‘Dry your eyes child, then tell me everything you want me to do to make amends for all of this and I swear to God that I will make you my daughter to honour my sweet- arggghhh!’ His eyes bugged then and he let rip a scream of agony. I’d been kneeling down to stare him in the face, but now I looked up as I heard Amelia-Rose cry out in triumph as she ran the King through with her sword, which was apparently no more a mere accessory than my wings were.

  ‘Weak piece of FILTH!’ the pious young warrior hissed, eyes gleaming with malice as she withdrew the sword- and then plunged it in again. ‘The lord would be ashamed of you for cowering before a demon so!’

  Elijah’s eyes locked on mine, and despite how much I had hated him for so long, seeing the brightness in those eyes flicker and fade away crushed me. I screamed and sank to my knees, catching his head before his face could hit the ground.

  ‘C-Constance…’ he spluttered, as his eyes rolled to the back of his head. ‘My sweet…Constance...’and then blood dribbled out of the corner of his moth, and his head bowed to me.

  Bowed, and stayed lowered. The king of Arcadia was dead! And damn him and the humanity that Constance’s scream had evoked within me again, but I felt his loss like a punch to the heart. Snarling in outrage, I jerked up my head to glower at Amelia-Rose, and then stiffened when I felt the fire blare from me again, hitting her in the hand and hip and causing her to drop her sword and scream like Satan was after her.

  ‘Help!’ she shrieked, kicking the sword towards me so that it clattered into the wall by my right hand, spraying blood everywhere- including over my right arm, while I panted and tried to wet my mouth with saliva again. ‘Help!’ Amelia-Rose turn on her heel and run out into the ballroom. ‘King Elijah has been slain by that whore! She knocked me down, took my sword and stabbed him! Help!’

  I blinked, rising like a lion about to pounce, floored that she would tell such a lie- and so quickly! This was Calliel’s saint? No wonder we were all fucked!

  ‘Help! The whore has attacked the entire royal family!’ Amelia Rose’s boots squeaked against the floor as she barrelled out of the corridor, leaving me alone with the slain king. ‘She may have killed them all!’

  Amelia-Rose continued to scream as she vanished from sight, but she’d only been gone for a heartbeat before other screams joined her in chorus, and my heart fluttered as I realised that soon I would be hunted again!

  She’s killed the only witness here! I realised, my panic mounting as I looked from the bloody sword, to the fallen king. And if Constance is dead too, then there won’t be a soul in Acadia that will be able to vouch that anything I’ve done was in self defence except for T’are, and he didn’t actually see anything! Oh god! I have to get out of here!

  ‘She is dark Nephilim!’ Amelia-Rose went on, doing a convincing job of acting hysterical. ‘She threw fire at me- the same fire she’s used to burn the harem and all within it, someone help me! She must be stopped! Where is the crowned prince? He is our king now!’

  Those words shocked me into action. I’d gotten out from beneath the king so now I bent down and gently kissed him on the top of his sweaty head, sobbing. My feelings for him were complex at best and loathsome at worst… but some of the good in him had encouraged the growth of some of the good in me, as it had with Kohén, and I would farewell him the way that I had not farewelled his son.

  What are our enemies anyway, if not those who push us harder to be better than anyone that loves us ever could?

  I sniffled again as I knelt awkwardly in my soggy skirts and took his hand in mine, squeezing it gently once before grasping his ring with shivering, heated fingertips and beginning to work it over his pronounced knuckle. Once it was loose enough I pulled it free, grimacing when his limp arm fell back to the ground with a lifeless plop after. Taking his ring was going to make me look even more guilty of his murder if I was caught, but I was already too far beyond help anyway and had no intention of getting caught much less trialled for anything by a shepherd, so I took it, telling myself that if he’d loved Constance as he’d claimed to with his final breath, then he would want me to have it.

  ‘Goodbye, your highness,’ I whispered to the king as I stood and then stepped over him and onto the stairs, headed up towards the monarch’s wing where my contract was supposed to be. ‘Thank you for the garden, if nothing else.’

  And then I began to race up the stairs, no battering ram required.

  29.

  Every step I took up that flight of stairs squelched as the water ran out of my skirts, into my shoes and down the staircase behind me, but I held the railing with a heated hand and the ring in the other as I hurried up them, knowing that I only had seconds to vanish behind the door before people, drawn by Amelia-Rose’s cries, would come fly
ing around the corner and spot me making what would look like a hasty, guilty retreat.

  I will be free soon, free! If only in name, and if only of this world! Just a few steps more, just one goal left to attain...

  I reached the topmost landing, fiddled with the key until the prongs of the wings lines up with the odd little gashes in the steel lock (how did Kohén and Elijah do this so quickly?) and finally heard the lock click and twist. I pushed the door open as gently as I could, closed it behind me and immediately found myself staring into Kohén’s open bedroom doorway. It had been tidy the last time I’d seen it but there were clothes scattered everywhere now, and though I knew I shouldn’t, I hurried in there, scooped them up and walked them over to the laundry chute, bending my head briefly to inhale them, letting his scent tickle my nostrils and fill my being with a bit of light. It was a strange thing to do and I was aware of that, but for better or worse, Kohén had loved me in the best way that he could and I had killed him for it, and I had done so in such a way that I’d deprived myself of any closure on the matter too. But I needed that closure, and desperately. How could I farewell the world without fare-welling my home?

  And yes, the only home I’d ever had, had been in Kohén’s arms.

  It didn’t have to be like this! I thought, pausing briefly to look out the window, down to the roof of the harem burning below me. If he’d seen me as an equal, we would have made memories in here one day, instead of in that harem! Oh Kohén…. if only you’d fought as hard to free me as you had to love me! We could have made Heaven on earth together, instead of raising Hell this night!!

  Suddenly overcome with regret- not for what I had done but for what all of the Barachiel’s had done to bring us to this point- I pressed my face against the warming glass of the window and wept gently. I recalled Kohén’s delight when he’d read my PCE scores, Kohén chasing me into the snow that day and swearing to me that he would never cross the line that would lead to me being trapped, Kohén’s face when he saw me ready for his ball… Kohén’s heart pounding when he slid himself into me the first time...Kohén’s face when he’d begged me in Pacifica to do nothing but return his affections. Kohén Kohén, Kohén… my life was naught but a stream of recollections of him reacting to me, just as his life had ended up being a collection of moments framed on his bedroom wall.

  ‘But I love you so much Larkin- I need to know that we are together on this! I cannot focus on rewriting laws over my conviction alone!’

  Oh, how right he’d been that night on Caldera island, but too late! Even then, it had been too late because I’d already started to fall for the twin that I’d assumed to be his better and why? Because Kohl had never had the chance to prove what kind of royal he would be, and Kohén never the chance to prove how he’d fare with less! Their faces had been so alike so it had been easy to transfer such affection… but I knew now that even though Kohl had always said the right things, Kohén’s eyes had always been brighter with love, darker with lust… and never as hard or soulless as Kohl’s had become that night. And the eyes truly were the windows to the soul.

  I could have stayed there all night crying and raging at them in my mind, but I knew that the time I was wasting could be the difference between the sweet relief of death- and another epoch of imprisonment and torture for me, so with a shuddering sigh, I walked back out into the hall and paused by the mirror there. I raised my eyes to meet my reflection and gasped, taking Elijah’s handkerchief out of my bodice and immediately dabbing at my tears. I looked a fright! My make up was still on but it had become streaked with pink beneath my eyes, so I wiped it gently away, and then firmly smudged the defining line at the bottom of the painted mask right across my face, leaving the upper half of it intact until it looked like it had been made to blend into my cheeks, not scrubbed off to hide the blood. My lips were still stained with colour but the gloss had been licked off my face thanks to Kohl (and the fire-breathing trick probably had not helped), so I wet them to give them a supple appearance again, and then scrubbed at the streaks of blood that had run down the rest of my face until I looked, well, less like a murderer and more like a swan again. A black swan, thanks to the wings, but I didn’t know how to make them go away and wasn’t sure that I wanted to so I shook them off and prayed that they would help me escape, not impede my chances of escaping. When that had been done, I started wiping Elijah’s blood splatters off my arm.

  I’ll get the contracts if they’re in there, tear them all in half, leave half of mine behind so they’ll understand, smash a window and fly out of this place! I vowed. I don’t know how to fly, mind you, and if I’m too wet and heavy to, but if I fall well, that will just be a short cut, won’t it?

  Once that was done I stood up taller, sniffled (thank goodness the blood didn’t run out of my nose too!) and adjusted my corset, glad that it was still wet because it made the stains left by a few stray tears easier to rub into the gauzy, dark gold fabric. My ringlets had been tugged on and sweated beneath so much that they had dropped considerably, but the top of my hair still looked almost as perfectly coiffed as it had before so I ran my fingers through the lengths until they resembled natural waves. Then finally, I lifted my skirts, wringing them out firmly a few times until they stopped dripping so but had left a considerable puddle on the ground. I didn’t look as polished and ethereal as I had in the spa earlier once I’d finished primping, but someone would have to look awfully hard at me under bright lights to realise that I’d been through a branding, an electrical storm, a flash flood AND a flash fire as well as half-stripped and molested while people were stabbed to death around me, and that was all I asked for- the ability to participate in a masquerade should I come upon a crowd on my way out of Eden.

  Certain that I was as presentable as humanly possible under the circumstances (weren’t all the frantic ladies downstairs going to look sweaty, flushed and wild-eyed anyway due to the Banished threat as well?) I closed my eyes, held onto the end table in front of the mirror and took in a deep, full breath before exhaling it slowly, counting to ten as I did. Not only did that give me the chance to slow my breathing and rapidly pounding heart, but it chased a bit of the heat away from my face, staved off my tears and gave me enough time to listen to the rooms around me, ascertaining that I truly was alone up there, and noting that it didn’t sound like anyone was racing up the stairs after me.

  And why would they? What fugitive in their right mind would run upstairs into the devil’s lair, when the exit from the palace had been only five metres away from where I’d stabbed the king? Besides, even if they did come after me they’d need a key to get in, and the only other keys that accessed these rooms were on the hands of the corpses inside the harem, or the cleaning staff who left the castle at two in the afternoon.

  You can do this! I told myself, breathing in deeply again as I reached back and tested that the lock on the front door had slid shut behind me. You’re not here, you’re an insignificant silhouette on the wall. Creep in, creep out, and don’t make a sound!

  Nodding, I opened my eyes, pulled up taller, and gasped when, after a rustle and a surge of warmth, I felt the pressure in my back dissipate. I looked at the mirror again, and was astonished to see just a regular girl standing there again. My wings- they’d vanished! Fearing the worst I twisted and surveyed the floor beneath me, worried that they’d disintegrated the way Satan’s had in the Six Books Of Creation, but to my relief only one stray feather had fallen into the floor. I reached behind me, touched my back and smiled when I felt my skin smooth and even, and now free of that heavy ache. They’d not vanished, they’d withdrawn and now I would be that much less conspicuous for it. I wish I knew how I’d managed it, but I supposed that most of it had been an act of will- flight or fight reflex, perhaps, and I made a mental note to breathe deep and imagine them unfurling or vanishing the next time that I had cause to use them as I walked down the hall, to Karol’s room with a growing sense of intimidation.

  Oh god the last time I sought his room
out, it ruined my life! I thought as I tiptoed down the hall, wincing every time one of my high heels squelched with the water that had soaked into the soles. I must be crazy to be going back in there again!

  But I wasn’t crazy, not anymore. I’d bypassed crazy in that harem when Kohl had branded me, and had moved onto something else entirely. How clear my thoughts were now! How deep and even my breathing, and how composed my nervous system! There were the usual ticks of course: trembling hands and an accelerated heart rate, but releasing that original fiery breath had cleansed me somehow and now everything seemed more vibrant to my suddenly alert mind. I could smell the scent of three separate colognes as I passed the bedrooms: Constance’s, Elijah’s and Karol’s. They’d all sprayed themselves with the doors open and now their scents mingled in the hallway, leading my nose to the right room and confirming what my feet already knew.

  The corridor was long and dark, and passing the living quarters on the way through almost set me off on another crying jag (how lonely this suite would feel tomorrow!) but soon enough I was at Karol’s door and breathing harder. It was slightly ajar, but it was dark and silent beyond that so I exhaled low and slowly again and inched in, thanking Satan for the well-maintained hinges, which did not creak or squeak despite the fact that I knew that this wing of the castle had been built three hundred years before when the castle had gone from being one long, rectangular structure, to a cross. Ironically, the harem had been built before the monarchy had upgraded their own quarters, which gave one pause for thought- and a disgusted shake of the head.

  And now it’s burning! I thought, and my contemptuous expression morphed into a grin as I quietly closed the door behind me. I still didn’t know how I felt about all of the karma that had just backwashed the Barachiel family, but I felt damned good about reducing that harem to coal! Never again would a Companion have to endure a tour of the premises on her thirteenth birthday, and told that by moving in there, she was becoming part of Eden’s long, rich and beautiful history!