The Hanged Maiden: A Reverse Harem Romance (Rise of the Ash Gods Book 1)

by Cara Wylde

  “I... What? No, this is not about me. Why are you making this about...” Val ran her hands through her hair and pulled her loose ponytail over her right shoulder. The girl was weird. And she triggered her. She didn’t have time to be triggered by some chick who happened to have some talent, dressed like a beggar, defied the world, and thought that made her better than everyone else. She turned to Loki: “Are you sure this is the only painter of souls you know?”

  The god shrugged, but Sia herself reacted differently at Val’s words. She stomped her cigarette, shoved her hands in her pockets, and walked out of the inner courtyard, throwing over her shoulder: “I’m not taking commissions at this time. Try somewhere else.”

  “What? No! Where are you going? I need you!” Loki wasn’t going to help her, and Val realized she was about to lose the only pittore di anime she had access to. “Please, come back! I just need to talk to you for a second. Let me explain.” She ran after the girl, and Piper followed, with Magny bouncing on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry I offended you. I didn’t mean to.”

  “You didn’t offend me.”

  Sia was walking fast, but not running. Val caught up with her, Piper was by her side, and Loki was somewhere behind them, watching from a distance. He really wasn’t helping.

  “You can call me cutie if you want to.”

  Sia laughed out loud. “I’m over you already.”

  “Listen, please...” Val grabbed her arm and forced her to stop. The girl still didn’t look at her, but at least she wasn’t making Val run anymore. “I need a painter of souls. Nine paintings, that’s all. Okay, I know it’s a lot, but I will pay you whatever you ask. I have money.”

  The painter finally looked at her. She chuckled at Val’s offer. Clearly, she wasn’t convinced.

  “I don’t need your money. Don’t you get it? You saw my art. I don’t paint people for a reason. I didn’t choose to be a... ugh! A painter of souls.” She said the last words in a barely audible whisper. “But I can choose to not do it. Ever.”

  “Why?” Val couldn’t lose her. She couldn’t afford to. “Tell me why. I’ll make it better. If you need help, I can help you. I’m a witch.”

  Sia laughed bitterly. “Cutie, a god couldn’t help me.” She was referring to Loki. “It’s a curse, but not one that a god or a witch can lift. I’m sorry. You’ll have to look somewhere else.” She pulled her arm free and crossed the street sharply.

  Piper told Val “It’s okay, I got this,” and crossed the street after the redhead. She caught up with her and matched her pace, as Valentina and Loki followed them at a safe distance. The hobgoblin moved from one shoulder to the other to take a better look at Sia.

  “What’s that?”

  “Oh, this is Magnus Luchtar. He’s a hobgoblin.”

  “Why is he sniffing me?”

  “I’m not sniffing you, young lady. I’m trying to catch a scent of your curse. See if there’s anything I can do about it.”

  Sia blinked in confusion.

  Piper smiled and shrugged. “I had no idea he could do that. He’s never sniffed any of us before.”

  Magny stuck his stubby index finger in the air, to make a point. “Because you’re not cursed, Piper Chase. And I don’t think Valentina is cursed, either, although that’s still up for debate. I do get a whiff of something nasty from time to time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why do you think I moved from her shoulder to yours? You smell better. Fresher. Cleaner.”

  “I do shower daily...”

  “That’s not it...” Magny rubbed his wild, coarse beard. “It might have something to do with that other girl in her head.”

  Piper cleared her throat, signaling the hobgoblin to shut the hell up. Sia was already looking at them with more interest, which wouldn’t have bothered Piper if the interest had been in her and not in the crazy things Magny was spilling like the juiciest of gossip.

  “Well, can you smell it?” Sia asked. “The curse?”

  Magny scrunched up his nose. “I’m not sure whether it’s your curse of those disgusting things you’re constantly sucking on...”

  They walked in silence for a while. Seeing how Sia wasn’t rejecting her or trying to run away again, Piper gave her some space. She could see it in her eyes that she was trying to make up her mind about them.

  “Do you think you could better assess my... err... curse, if I show you something?” The painter asked Magny.

  “Lead the way! All I can promise is that I’ll try.”

  Sia gave him a small, sad smile. “You’re not a god, nor a witch. Maybe your hobgoblin magic is what I need.” She turned to Loki and Valentina. “Follow me. I want to show you something first, so you’d understand, and then we’ll talk about your nine paintings.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  What Sia called her place was, in fact, a converted loft that could only be accessed by an outside ladder, and what she called her room was a two square meter space divided from the other improvised living spaces with cheap, plastic panels. Her bed was an old mattress that was currently littered with clothes and painting supplies, which made it obvious that it also acted as her work space. The rest of the floor was covered in ink bottles, gouache paint tubes, watercolor paper and canvases in various sizes. To say that the whole thing was a mess was a huge understatement. As Valentina stepped between scattered brushes and empty soda cans, she understood why Loki had told them he’d rather wait outside. Piper was doing her best to keep a straight face, and for a second, Val asked herself what her friend could possibly see in the crazy, dirty girl who looked like a beggar and painted like an angel.

  “Miss Harlow,” the hobgoblin coughed discreetly, “I’m not sure you understand how my sensitive nose works.”

  “Here it is. Come closer.” She ignored his comment as she pulled an old rag off the only framed painting in the room. “Guys, meet my aunt Liv.”

  Val jumped in surprise. The woman in the painting was moving. Smiling and waiving at her, actually. She had the same red hair as Sia, the same amount of freckles on her face and chest, and the same green eyes.

  “Olivia Harlow,” the woman said, “It’s so nice to finally meet Sia’s friends. She never introduces me to anyone. Well, it’s understandable, of course. Seeing how... I’m trapped in here. And that’s not what people usually do... live inside paintings. I don’t mind it, though. No, no, no! I’m grateful.”

  “Don’t say that, Auntie...”

  The sadness and regret in Sia’s voice didn’t escape Valentina.

  “So, this is how it works,” Piper whispered. “Until now, I just thought... that it was all metaphorical... Painter of souls. A metaphor, right?”

  “Not a metaphor. A curse,” Sia spat through gritted teeth. “Can you help me, hobgoblin?”

  Magny poofed himself in front of the painting and looked up at the woman who was moving in there, breathing, smiling, blinking... doing everything a live person would do. Except, she wasn’t supposed to be alive. He’d lied to Sia before. He couldn’t smell the curse on her because there was no curse. What she had was a gift. The curse, however, was written all over her aunt’s pretty face. And when she said that she was grateful, she was lying to protect her niece. Magny knew that. When he tried hard enough, he could read minds. Human minds were easier to read, and that was another reason why he’d abandoned Valentina’s shoulder for Piper’s. It was no fun when he couldn’t take random peeks into his carrier’s thoughts.

  “How did this happen?” he asked.

  Sia sighed deeply and let herself fall on the mattress. “Six years ago... Aunt Liv was sick. I was still living with my parents, and Aunt Liv was living with us. When we discovered she had cancer and had very little time left, I spent all my waking hours by her side. When they moved her to the hospital, I didn’t leave her for a second. She was... is... the most important person in my life. My only family.”

  “Oh, don’t say that, honey. Your pare
nts will always welcome you with open arms.”

  Sia laughed. “Mom and Dad abandoned you. Left you to die. They could have covered the expenses for the most advanced medical treatments, and they refused. They’re dead to me.”

  “Honey, don’t say that... Oh...”

  “Anyway, I didn’t know back then... I didn’t know what I could do. I’d painted my entire life, but never portraits. I painted her. The night I added the last touches to her hair and eyes, she died. They carried her out of the room, and I just stood there, crying, not knowing what to do, not understanding that it had finally happened, that she was gone. I don’t know how long I stayed like that. Hours, maybe. It was close to dawn. Mom and Dad came to take me home, but I didn’t want to go, so they left me alone. Then I heard her voice... She was calling me. She called me once, twice, and when I looked up at the painting, she was there, inside it, moving around, looking just as young, healthy, and happy as a year before. I couldn’t believe my eyes. And it was her. Not a vision, not an illusion, not a dream. I had trapped her soul in the painting.”

  “Honey, you didn’t trap my soul,” Aunt Liv said. “It was my choice. I didn’t want to leave you, and when I realized I had a chance to stay, I took it.”

  Sia shook her head. She didn’t look like she wanted to continue.

  Valentina stepped closer to the painting. Aunt Liv moved and talked exactly like the people in her Suit of Swords. The Swords were the only ones still active, but she knew that the Pentacles, the Cups, the Wands, and the Major Arcana would look, move, and talk the same. If only she could find them. Wake them up, in the case of the Trionfi Scuri, and recreate them, in the case of the Trionfi Chiari. She had found her pittore di anime. Sia Harlow had to help her, no matter what.

  “How did you find out what you were?” Valentina asked her, gently.

  “Books, obviously. Anything you want to know, you can bet there’s at least a book about it. I couldn’t tell anyone, though. Not even my parents. So, I left, found a place, moved from one rented room to another for a while... I soon understood that even though I had my Auntie with me, and I would never lose her again, it was a curse and not a gift. I had trapped her soul, and in doing that, I had trapped myself. This is the only life I can have now. I must live in the shadows. I never ever painted another portrait again.”

  Valentina knelt in front of Sia and took her hands into hers. She looked up into her eyes, and when Sia finally met her gaze, she said in the most confident, convincing tone she could muster: “Painter of souls, you have to help me. If you don’t, the whole world will suffer. You were born with this wonderful gift for a reason, and this might just be it.”

  “You keep calling it a gift... Ugh. Nevermind. You know what? I will help you. Whatever you need. Nine portraits? Okay. But then, your hobgoblin makes this go away. Poof! Just like he poofs himself from here to there, he will poof my curse into nothingness. Can he do that?”

  Valentina bit the inside of her cheek. She had a strong feeling that what Sia was asking was not possible. Not even for Magnus Luchtar. She looked around for him and found him perched on top of the painting.

  “Magny? What do you say?”

  The hobgoblin furrowed his brows. Valentina De Rossi was a strong witch, which meant that her mind was not easy to hack. He focused and did it anyway. She wanted him to lie. He smirked. Since meeting her and Piper, he’d been playing by the rules and getting more and more bored by the minute. This was a nice breath of fresh air.

  “I can help,” he said.

  That was all Sia needed. She pulled her hands free, wiped off her tears, and stepped away from Valentina. She’d never quite appreciated human contact.

  “Come on, let’s go someplace else. I can see you don’t like it here.”

  Val let out a breath of relief and nodded. Sia covered the painting, changed her hoodie to a black one, and led them outside, where Loki was waiting. He’d convinced a couple of people to stop for his card tricks, and now he had a small crowd around him. He cut the last trick short and followed the girls and the hobgoblin into a dingy bar close to Sia’s loft. As they sat at a sticky table and ordered drinks, Valentina started telling Sia about who she was, why she was there, what the original tarot was and what it could do, and about what had happened to the masculine cards of the Major Arcana. Half an hour later, the painter understood what the Keeper needed from her, but she had no idea how to do it.

  “I can’t control it,” Sia explained. “I mean, I don’t know how I did it the first and only time. It just happened. And you heard Aunt Liv. She chose to move out of her body and into the painting. From what I’ve read, a painter of souls can paint the portrait, but the soul has to choose to inhabit it. And the soul has to be there when the painting is done.”

  “When I find them, the gods will choose to move into the cards,” Val said confidently, although she didn’t quite believe it herself. She looked at Loki. “Just like you.”

  “Me what? I didn’t choose to do anything, and I didn’t promise you anything, love. Speak for yourself.”

  “I can’t... speak for myself. I’m not the one who has to move her ass into the cards to save the Major Arcana and the world.”

  “Then don’t speak at all.”

  Valentina waved him off. He was just being a jerk, as usual. It was like annoying the hell out of her was his special superpower.

  “Anyway,” Sia continued. “It worked with a human, what you witches call an Ordinary. It doesn’t mean it will work the same with a god. I don’t expect it to.”

  Valentina thought for a moment. Sia ordered her third beer, Loki ordered his fifth, and Piper sipped her water. Magny was bouncing on Piper’s shoulder, sighing deeply from time to time to point out just how incredibly bored he was. Sometimes, Val asked herself why the hobgoblin didn’t just poof himself somewhere else if he found his new friends that dull. As she sat there, thinking of what Sia had just said, she realized how good she felt. She was tired, exhausted, actually, and she hadn’t eaten in almost 24 hours, but the voice in her head was gone, and with it, the pain in her ribs. Since she had identified her false Higher Self as Ravenna, the thing had remained quiet. Val wasn’t naïve. She knew the voice wasn’t gone for good. But she quite enjoyed the peace, and even thought she knew it wouldn’t last, she was grateful.

  She pulled I misteri degli Arcani out and placed it on the table. Sia immediately perked up, and Valentina smiled. It was an old, beautiful book filled with colorful pictures and floral ornaments on the edge of every page. Of course an artist would appreciate it.

  “This is how I found out about the pittore di anime,” Val explained. “Maybe there are more instructions...”

  “You can read that?”

  “My family is Italian. They taught me when I was little, but this is pretty old Italian. Most of these words and expression aren’t in use anymore. It’s tedious work, but I can translate parts of the text. What I managed so far was about the Major Arcana.” Val turned the pages to where she’d first read about the painter of souls, then turned a couple more pages. She found a paragraph that looked promising. “Loki, do you happen to know old Italian?”

  The god chuckled. He’d been looking out the window, trying his best to ignore Valentina. He didn’t know how he felt about the witch anymore. One minute, he was impressed with her resilience, the next, he was annoyed at how stubborn she was. At how she thought she could fix everything herself, at how certain she was that if she did exactly what she was supposed to do, if she followed what the book said, everything would fall into place and everyone, – mortals and immortals alike, – would just dance to her tune. She was a control freak. And no matter how cute she was, how bright her blue eyes, how soft her long, raven hair, and how enticing those pouty lips, Loki abhorred control freaks. He was the god of tricks, spontaneity, and joie de vivre. Control freaks were his number one enemy.

  “Why would I know old Italian?”

  “Because you’re a god?
I imagine you’ve been living in this dimension for quite some time, hundreds of years, perhaps. Thousands? And not just in London.”

  Loki rolled his eyes. “Give that to me.” He grabbed the book and took another swig of beer. “I did like Florence in the 14th century.”

  “You were in Florence, Italy when the Renaissance happened?” Piper’s wide eyes had grown even wider.

  Loki smirked. “Dear, sweet Piper... I started the Renaissance.” He read in silence for a while, and then translated out loud: “Something of the old gods and something of the new gods. That’s what you need to recreate the cards. So, the painter of souls would need something that belonged to the old gods, the ones that got burned and all, and then, the Keeper would need to add something of the new gods, when she finds them. Once she does it, they will be absorbed into the cards. Willingly, or unwillingly.” He looked into Valentina’s eyes. “If it were me, I’d go for willingly. Upsetting the gods is the last thing you want to do, Keeper.”

  Valentina cocked an eyebrow. “Of course. It goes without saying.” Why was he suddenly calling her Keeper? So cold and polite. What had happened to “love”? She blushed at her own thought, and distracted herself quickly, before anyone noticed. “If that’s all, then it should be easy.” She pulled out the jar of ashes. These days, she wasn’t leaving the hotel room without her backpack, in which she carefully stuffed everything that was of real importance. “I have the ashes of the cards.” She gave the jar to Sia. “Do you think you can use this?”

  “Sure. I mean, I’ve never painted with ashes before, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.”

  “Great. That settles it. And when I find the gods, I will add the last touches to your paintings. I’m not much of an artist, but I don’t think I’d have to add more than a few brush strokes.”

  “Of what?” Piper asked. “Something of the new gods. What does that mean? Like... blood, tears, saliva?” She laughed.