Hush, the woods are darker still

by L. V Russell

  “A sister for the bastard?” The silver-haired man’s face burned red with fury as he reached out and dragged the young boy up by his hair. “This was suckling at his mother long before I had her. She spat him out and has left me with a girl? What use have I for a girl?”

  “I don’t know, my lord.”

  The grip on the boy’s hair tightened, forcing him up onto his tiptoes, a small whimper slipped from his lips. He looked no older than five, with the tips of his ears peeking up through near-black hair. His eyes shone wide and terrified, not yet the deep purple I had come to love.

  “What of my wife?” The man added, almost as an afterthought, using his free hand to brush his silver hair from his face, revealing bright blue eyes.

  “Dead, my lord.”

  “A disappointing day,” he muttered, releasing his hold with a sneer of disgust. “I will retire to my study. Do not disturb me.”

  The faerie bobbed a curtsy. “Yes, my lord.”

  The silver-haired man walked away without another word, the news of his dead wife seeming to settle over him as an inconvenience rather than a tragedy.

  “Come, boy,” Altha said, outstretching her long fingers. “Come, say your goodbyes.”

  I didn’t want to see anymore. I hated the thought of wallowing through Laphaniel’s memories, especially ones he had never talked about. It felt wrong, a deep intrusion that I couldn’t walk away from…

  I tried.

  But it was like there was a thread pulling at me, and there was nothing I could do but follow it.

  It led me down a wide hallway, light flooding through from the arches on either side. The room I walked into was equally as bright and airy, and it should have been filled with joy. But instead, it hung heavy with the scent of blood and death.

  “Mama?”

  I wanted more than anything to take him into my arms and never let go.

  “Mama?” Standing on tiptoes, he pulled back the covers, revealing the painstakingly beautiful woman beneath.

  She looked so serene; she could have been sleeping. Someone had brushed her hair, so it lay soft over her shoulders, shining jet black against the white of her skin. Her nightgown was clean, as were the bedsheets she lay upon, but there was a stillness to her that forced away any hopes of her waking.

  I watched, unable to touch him, as he crawled beside her, his little legs struggling up against the height of the bed. Then he sobbed and sobbed and sobbed, while my heart broke for him.

  “Come away now, boy,” Altha coaxed, taking his arm to gently pull him away from the bed. “Come meet your new sister.”

  She led him to a cradle by the window and scooped up a bundle into her arms, bending low so he could peek inside.

  He rubbed the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. “I don’t like her.”

  The servant smiled, passing the wiggling infant to him. “Your mother would have loved her as she did you, but now she has no one to love her, just like you. Perhaps you could learn to love her a little?”

  He looked down at the squirming lump in his arms, lip curling. “Maybe.”

  There was a shift to the air, a sudden blackness that sent a wave of dizziness spiralling through my head. The thread tugging from my middle went taut then loose, slamming me into another memory with such force it took my breath away.

  I blinked away the fog, just as another scream sliced through the darkness, a shrill cry filled with terror and panic.

  “Laphaniel!” a voice cried out, young and frightened. “Nell, please!”

  “What have you done?”

  Light filtered through the dark, revealing a vast windowless library, lit only by candle stubs that hung above within dusty chandeliers, the meagre light barely illuminating the maze of bookshelves below.

  “I dropped it...I can’t catch them.” A young girl stood frantic within a flurry of tiny lights, shattered green glass lying scattered around her feet.

  “What are you doing down here?” Laphaniel demanded, grabbing her hand and giving her a shake. He looked a little older, though not much. “Why are you touching his things, Fee?”

  “It was just a game! I was being careful…”

  He shook her again, forcing a startled cry from her lips. “It doesn’t look like it!”

  Both children jumped at the sound of a door crashing open, wide eyes fixing on each other. Laphaniel dragged his sister over the glass, shoving her under a low table before scrambling in after her. He barely managed to tug the cloth down before a furious roar erupted around the dark, unloved room.

  “Keep your mouth shut, understand?” Laphaniel hissed.

  Nefina nodded and squeezed her brother’s hand. Her lovely blue eyes widened as the cloth lifted, and Laphaniel was dragged away.

  “Did you do this?” The silver-haired man snarled, dangling Laphaniel by his wrist so his toes barely scraped the floor. He didn’t answer.

  A crack echoed across the library, and Laphaniel’s head snapped back with the force of the slap.

  “Answer me, boy.”

  “It was an accident.” Laphaniel gave a familiar smirk, red gleaming against his teeth. He grunted with the next blow, the grin fading.

  “Excuse me?”

  “It was an accident,” Laphaniel forced out, red slipping over his chin. “Sir.”

  “I will beat respect into your hide, you miserable bastard,” the silver-haired man snarled. “Did you do this?”

  Laphaniel nodded, wincing.

  “Did you do this, or did your sister?”

  “I…did…”

  Faeries couldn’t lie. To see Laphaniel force the untruth from his lips was awful. Blood bubbled up over his mouth, he twisted against the hold on him, one hand holding his stomach. But yet, I could still see the ghost of a smirk etched upon his face.

  “I should have had you drowned, boy.”

  The smirk bloomed, red and defiant even as he was thrown to the floor. “Run, Nefina!”

  She darted, lightning-quick from her hiding place, another shout from her brother forcing her to flee.

  The silver-haired man watched her go, then lifted a heavy boot and brought it down upon Laphaniel. Bones crunched.

  I turned away, unable to watch, but unable to leave as Laphaniel was dealt blow after blow after blow. He curled into a ball and never uttered a sound.

  The memory flickered, then slumped into a heavy blackness.

  “Wake up, Nell…”

  Everything continued to flicker, shifting between darkness and a too-bright light.

  “Get up.”

  “Did he touch you?”

  Darkness again.

  “Please, wake up.”

  Light filtered slowly through the thick black, tilting…moving.

  “Your hair is all sticky.”

  “Fee? Did he hurt you?”

  “I got away,” she answered, crouching over him, her little hands covered in red. “You need to get up.”

  “Help me up.”

  Nefina pulled Laphaniel to his feet; he leant heavily against one of the bookcases and heaved, a dry hacking retch that brought up nothing but spittle and blood. Nefina patted his back, standing on tiptoes to reach.

  “It should have been me,” Nefina said.

  Laphaniel shook his head, wincing at the movement before pulling his sister into him, kissing her tenderly on top of her head.

  “No, it shouldn’t.”

  The room shifted and faded, the memory slipping into another.

  I stood in a bare room with no furnishings save for a dirty mattress upon the floor and a battered wooden desk and stool. A tiny fire flickered in the grate, its flames not strong enough to push back the creeping chill.

  Laphaniel sat on the stool while Nefina hovered nearby, wringing her hands as she watched him wash dry blood from his mouth. Nefina was still just a little girl, her pale hair falling below her shoulders, her eyes shining with an innocence she had still managed to cling to.

  “We can’t leave…Papa will ki
ll us.”

  “If we stay, Fee, I will end up dead,” Laphaniel said, his voice was a little deeper, a little older. “What do you think will happen to you then? You’re growing up, do you know what that means?”

  She shook her head, and Laphaniel sighed, raking a hand through filthy hair, revealing old bruising to his face.

  “It means you won’t be safe anymore. You’re a pretty girl with no useful talent…”

  “Well, you’re just some worthless merchant’s bastard!” Nefina snapped, though there was no malice behind her words, only fear.

  “Better a bastard than a whore, don’t you think?” he snapped back. “As soon as you are of a certain age, you will be sold off to whatever lord wants you. They will come for you, and I won’t be able to stop them.”

  Tears trickled down Nefina’s cheeks. “And you will keep me safe?”

  “I will always keep you safe, Fee,” he said, dousing the candle beside him. “Go get some sleep, we leave before dawn.”

  Nefina wrung her hands. “I don’t want to be on my own.”

  “Stay here then, but you’ll be cold.”

  “Do you not have another blanket?”

  Laphaniel shook his head but gestured to the bed, tucking Nefina beneath a moth-eaten blanket. He waited until she fell asleep, then leant back against the wall and closed his eyes.

  Brightness took me away from that cold, damp room. The chill around me warming as I found myself in a magnificent circular tent. Silk panels draped down the sides, all in rich hues of red and gold and green. Candlelight danced over the jewels twinkling from the walls, bouncing from a large, gilded chandelier that hung overhead. It had been shaped like a birdcage, filled with tiny shining birds that hopped in and out of the flames without catching alight.

  “I’m hungry,” Nefina said, sitting on the edge of an elegantly carved bed, nervously thumbing the tassels on the velvet throws.

  “I know,” Laphaniel answered, pacing the plush rugs spread over the floor. “I don’t have anything, just keep quiet.”

  “Go ask the pretty lady for something to eat. She seemed really nice.”

  “No.”

  “Shall I go ask?”

  Laphaniel turned on her, the movement so swift it made her yelp. “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I told you no, that’s why. Be quiet.”

  “I’m really hungry,” she persisted, a whine entering her voice. “Why won’t you go ask?”

  “I haven’t paid for the room yet, so just get used to being hungry. You are not to leave this tent without me, do you understand?”

  “Are you cross with me?”

  Laphaniel sighed but didn’t stop moving. “No, Fee.”

  “It smells strange here, doesn’t it?” Nefina said, tugging a thick fur around her shoulders. “I don’t like it. I don’t want to stay long.”

  The tent faded into darkness, taking the memory with it, lurching sickeningly into the next. Nothing focused, a blur of colour spun around and around and around to a melody of a calliope. Fairground horses spun and spun, up and down, mad grins slashed across their equine faces.

  Laughter bubbled up over the music, haunting and lovely. A flash of red drifted by, golden skin dancing upon bare feet. Nothing focused. Nothing stayed still.

  “Come with me.”

  Another tent, perfumed smoke billowing around in coloured clouds. I coughed as the sickly fog filled my lungs. I could taste it on my tongue, heavy with the scent of dreams and despair.

  “Over there.”

  A woman drifted into view, dressed all in red, glistening skin dripping with rubies, black hair adorned with them.

  Everything shifted, disappearing into black.

  “Stay awake.”

  I wanted to tear away from the tent, but I couldn’t move. I wanted to drag the red woman from him, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t help, couldn’t do anything but watch as she climbed on top of him.

  She guided his hands, his mouth, the silk of her clothes sliding with ease from her body. She showed him how to move, how to please her until she was writhing, and I was sobbing.

  She laughed in his face when she was done.

  “I will make my fortune from you,” she panted. “Be my best, and perhaps I will not touch that little sweet thing you brought with you.”

  “If you so much as look at her, I will kill you,” Laphaniel snarled, his words thick and heavy.

  The red woman grinned, her face alight with a poisonous type of beauty. “Oh, I bet you would.”

  The light began to fade, everything blinking in and out, flashes of light eaten up by a foggy dark. The music played on, playful and filled with misplaced joy, a crude decoration within a carnival of whores.

  “Where have you been?” Nefina crouched low, hovering over Laphaniel while he stared up at her. “You’ve been gone for so long.”

  “It’s fine.” He reached out for her and missed, slumping forwards. “It’s all okay…we can stay here…it’s fine…”

  “What have you done?” She tried to pull him up, failed. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Laphaniel smiled, a tiny lift of his lips that was utterly humourless. He lifted a finger to his lips and chuckled.

  “Where did you go?”

  “Nowhere,” he slurred, closing his eyes. “Go away and leave me alone.”

  Everything stayed in a haze, blurring and swaying and never for a moment staying still. Everything remained in darkness, broken now and again with a sudden flash of colour, of bright silks and choking perfume.

  There was the sound of laughter.

  The sound of singing.

  Though it was all forced, all fake. An illusion of happiness. I could hear the music and feel the heat of bodies pressing skin to skin. There was the exchange of gold for a fragment of soul, the stealing of dreams, all beneath an ever-present smog of cloying smoke.

  The smothering fumes of Ember; the drug of whores and gutter-rats.

  Around and around and around, up and down, up and down, up and down and…

  “Where’s my sister?”

  “She grew beautiful,” the red woman smiled, lazing back along a couch draped in furs. She cupped her breast, widening her legs. “Do you want this?”

  “Nefina was never part of our bargain. Where is she?”

  The red woman ignored him, lifting a vial, so the light danced off the glass. “Or do you want this?”

  She rose from the bed, placing the vial into Laphaniel’s hand, folding his fingers around it. I couldn’t ignore the way his hand shook.

  “How much is she worth to you?” Her mouth trailing over his jaw, her hips pressed against his.

  “Tell me where she is,” he demanded, though he didn’t move away from her.

  “Give me back my little potion, and perhaps I will.” She opened her hand, and he dropped it into her palm, his breath catching in his throat. “But there will be no more.”

  She crushed the glass with a quick squeeze of her fingers, revealing ash coloured dust mingling with glass shards and blood. Laphaniel stared, fists clenched at his sides, and I could see him struggling to choose between the bloodied fragments and his sister.

  “Where have you taken her?”

  I gasped at the sudden crack of her hand slapping Laphaniel’s face, striking him with enough force to snap his head back. He staggered, spitting blood.

  “Go find her yourself,” the red woman said, sucking the dust from her fingers.

  “I hope one day you choke on the souls you devour.” Laphaniel wiped the blood from his lip, smearing it across his face. He pushed himself to his feet, and without another word, he fled, shouting his sister’s name.

  The tents were a maze of silk. A colourful warren of nightmares that stretched on and on and on, circling around the twisted carousel in the centre of it all. He yelled for her, clawing back throws and silken sheets, pushing against fey with vacant eyes until at last, he found her.

  Nefina covered h
erself when he walked in, lifting the furs to hide her bare skin and the bruises along her arms. She took a breath and held her chin up, reaching on the nightstand for a hairbrush, which she carefully pulled through her soft, lovely hair.

  “Sixty blood-red rubies,” she said, tossing a bag at her brother, her eyes cold. “What do you think Papa would have got for me?”

  “Nefina.” Laphaniel took a step closer, his eyes falling onto the discarded clothes littered around the floor.

  “Is that a good price for my virginity?” she asked, carefully braiding her hair. “What did you get for yours?”

  “Fee…I’m sorry…I…” He moved again, as broken as she was. “This wasn’t meant to happen.”

  “Pass me some clothes, I’m cold.”

  He handed her a robe, looking away when she stood. The bedcovers fell to the floor in a tangle of rumpled silk and fur. She covered herself, the flash of life in her eyes I had marvelled at…gone.

  “You were meant to be safe here.”

  Something fragile within her snapped, and she launched herself at Laphaniel with her teeth bared, fists colliding with his chest, nails raking across his face.

  “I was never safe here!” she screamed at him. “I was never safe with you. You promised you would keep me safe, and instead, you forgot about me. I loved you, and you have destroyed me.”

  Laphaniel made no move to restrain her, allowing her to beat against him until she let out an agonised howl and sunk to her knees. He dropped with her, and she clung to him like a drowning girl, sobbing against him while he gripped her tight, his knuckles white against her back.

  The threads tugging me from memory to memory snapped, sinking me back into an empty darkness that slowly swallowed up the reds and golds surrounding me. The music faded, the laughter and the weeping too. The lingering haze of Ember was the last to disappear, trailing after me into blackness.

  I heard raised voices,

  My name…

  Again…

  The sound familiar and panicked and mine.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Why isn’t she waking up?”

  “Do not take that tone with me, boy.”

  “She’s been out for hours.” Laphaniel’s raised voice pounded against my head. “She’s fitted twice. What the hell have you done to her?”