The Soulstoy Inheritance

by Jane Washington

  I thought about that, and wondered why my gut twisted at his answer. When I had kissed him, he had kissed me back, but that didn’t mean I was anything more than his duty right now. I chased the thought away before he could see it, and leaned back on the chaise to look at him. His hair, a shade darker than burgundy, wasn’t quite tame, and there was something in his expression, a shadow in his eye that didn’t entirely allow him to be beautiful. He was raw, powerful, frightening—though the look he was giving me now had me convinced that the latter was a rare occurrence, though it was in fact the other way around.

  “It seems I lead people to trouble, no matter what I do,” I thought aloud, my eyes trailing across his features. “Hazen and Rose have lost their father, my own father was killed just to spite me, and you have tumbled from your solitary tower, straight into the synfee kingdom, which has lost it’s King—also because of me.”

  “There are forces at work that you can’t control, Bea.”

  I blinked; it was the first time he had called me that instead of Harrow.

  “I need to do something. I need to find who did this.”

  He nodded. “Whatever we can do from here, we will do. I promise.”

  Something occurred to me then, and I stood, looking over Harbringer’s clothes. He was dressed similarly to me, in plain, combative clothing, and the thought made me smile faintly.

  “I think there is something I can do today. How do you feel about a ride? It might take a while.”

  “Sounds better than sitting in here.”

  “I’ll wait for Gretal to wake up—I don’t want to leave without telling her—and then I’ll meet you by the stables.”

  He nodded and I moved for the door, feeling a little less defeated now that I had a clear purpose in my mind. I knocked again on Gretal’s door and this time she called for me to enter. She was dressed in the same clothes as the day before, staring at the new clothes that had been laid out on the bed for her.

  “This isn’t me,” she said, turning to me. “I’m just a servant. I should have insisted you send me to the kitchens.”

  I bit my lip, unsure how to respond. I wanted to tell her that she was no longer a servant, but was unwilling to possibly insult her. Besides, I had a feeling that the more out of her depth I put her, the worse-off she would be.

  “What would you like to do?” I asked her instead.

  “Let me be your handmaiden, I’d rather not serve anyone else.”

  I opened my mouth to say that I didn’t need a handmaiden, but then closed it again, seeing the pleading look on her face.

  “Sure.” I nodded. “Thanks, Gretal. I would love that.”

  She seemed to relax a little then. “Good, now if you just point me in the direction of the housekeeper, I’ll get different chambers set up.”

  “Different chambers?”

  “These are only temporary, visitors chambers. I suspect they are waiting for you to chose which you want.”

  “Oh. Ah, I have no idea.”

  She smiled then, and I realised I had made the right choice. She would be much better in her own element, even though she was in an alien land.

  “Leave it to me,” she said.

  “I need you and Harbringer close.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m riding out with Harbringer for the day to see what good I can do here, would you like to come with us?”

  “I can take care of myself Miss Harrow, I had a bit of a shock yesterday, that’s all.”

  “Bea, Gretal. Call me Bea.”

  She managed a semblance of a smile, and I squeezed her arm before turning to retreat into the hallway. I had no idea how to find the housekeeper, but as we descended to the lower part of the castle, I had a feeling that I wouldn’t have found her, even if I had recognised her. People still scrambled away at the sight of me.

  “Lady Beatrice.” A soldier stepped forth as we neared the bottom of the final staircase, and I immediately recognised him.

  “Benjamin.” I had put him under my compulsion only the day before.

  He smiled, apparently delighted that I remembered his name, and swept into a low bow.

  “I offer you my services, Lady.”

  Unsure how else to respond, I looked around, and then remembered what I had been in the process of doing. “Can you take my handmaiden to the housekeeper?”

  His eyes slid to Gretal. “Handmaiden to the Lady Queen, a great honor indeed. The other maids will be very keen to meet you—very keen.”

  Gretal seemed to swell at the compliment, though I found it a little harder to believe, and caught Benjamin’s arm just before he turned to lead her away.

  “If any harm comes to her…”

  His eyes widened, and he stumbled to assure me, cutting off my threat, which was a good thing, as I had nothing to threaten.

  “Oh no, I will step in to protect her myself, if I must, Your High—Lady. But it will not come to that.” He shook his head seriously. “A new ruler is such a rare occurrence in our land, it often ends in a complete upheaval of castle personnel. Many of those who remain here are waiting to see if they will lose their positions.”

  “They will not lose their positions,” I assured him, and then watched as he ushered Gretal away, wanting to also add that I was not their Queen, and that they may as well just assume that nothing had changed at all.

  But that wouldn’t do any good.

  I was proud to see Gretal walk away with squared shoulders. She, like me, had undergone a drastic transformation. We were both steel butterflies, emerging from our cocoons in spiked armour, ready to tackle the skies. I moved to the back of the castle, where I remembered the stables to be, and was waylaid once again, as a plump woman stepped into my path. She was still beautiful, the way every synfee was, but there was considerably more of her. There was simply something warming about her vastness, something almost maternal, or comforting.

  “Lady Beatrice.” She swept into a curtsey, and I wondered if I was going to have to put a ban on those too. “I am the cook, Marlean, if I may beg a moment of your time?”

  Nobody had ever begged a moment of my time before, so I just stood there stupidly, until I realised that she actually required a response.

  “Oh, ah sure.”

  “I sent trays up to your rooms, I didn’t realise you had already awoken. Will you be here for dinner?”

  “No, we’re riding to the damaged town—what is it called?”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Red Ridge. Will you be taking any of the men with you, Lady?”

  “No, just Harbringer.”

  She looked like she wanted to argue, I could see how she pursed her lips, but instead she nodded. “Will you allow me to put together a hamper of food, and fetch you a map?”

  “Actually I would really appreciate that.”

  She hurried off, and as I watched her go, I wondered if I should bring some of the men with me after all. The Read soldiers weren’t the only ones who wanted to do us harm, there were also the disbanded synfee attackers and whoever had been draining Hazen’s life away. I waited until Marlean returned, and then thanked her for the hampers, trying not to be suspicious of her kindness, before heading out to the stables. Harbringer was already there, with Grenlow and another man and woman that I didn’t recognise.

  Grenlow led a brown gelding over to me, and handed me the reins. “Good morning, Lady Beatrice, how did you sleep?”

  “Surprisingly well. Will you be coming with us?” I didn’t bother asking how he had caught wind of my movements so quickly.

  “Yes, this is Rohan.” He gestured to the man. “And Cereen. I’ve assigned them to your protection detail while you’re here.”

  I smiled at both of them as I tossed one of the hampers to Harbringer. The man was huge, with pale features beneath his golden mask, and a hint of light blue eyes. He returned my smile easily, and gave a short bow, but the woman didn’t. She was the darkness to his light, with long, raven hair and hard green eyes, her golden hue more m
uted than any I had seen before. I got the feeling that she didn’t like me at all.

  “You ready?” Harbringer asked, tearing my gaze away from the woman.

  “Yeah.” I jumped up into the saddle, and pulled up beside him, lowering my voice so that the others dismounting behind us might not be able to hear.

  “Are their minds protected?”

  “They’ll be no danger to you,” he assured.

  I let out a breath, and spread the map across my lap, searching for Red Ridge. It marked the last township to the north, with mostly plantations and farms stretching out behind it, and I searched for the path to the west of each of the towns we would have to pass. Nareon had steered us that way to avoid them. Once I had the route memorised, I tucked the map away and kicked the horse into action. Harbringer rode beside me, the fruit and scones piled into his hamper quickly disappearing, and the other three rode a short distance behind us. I ate only one of the scones and an apple, and then passed the hamper back to Grenlow, who divided it up between himself and Rohan. Cereen didn’t take anything.

  Chapter Three

  Harrowing the Line

  We were almost at Red Ridge when Grenlow insisted we pull into Flintwood and stop for the night. The moon had taken the place of the sun, and nobody else seemed to be comfortable travelling the fields that stretched between the western mountains and the townships at night. Even though I wanted to push on, I had started second-guessing every shadow that sprang up before us over an hour ago, so I conceded, and followed Grenlow into the town, leaving the howling of wolves behind us. It didn’t quite seem a city, but was too vast to be considered a village; though the wagon-rutted roads and small, wooden cabins gave it that effect.

  It might have been an enchanting place at another time, with squirrels bounding out from behind one house to another, or the far-off twinkling of fireflies. But the place seemed to be hanging on by the faintest of threads. I couldn’t see much of the vegetation, but I could make out the scraggly, leafless branches that clawed into the sky, framed by moonlight. Most of the houses were in various states of disrepair, and all of them appeared to be empty so far.

  The closer we drew to the center of town, the more signs of life I began to spot. A small, dirty face peeking out from behind a ragged blanket hanging in a window, eyes illuminated by candlelight, another child even began to run aside our horses, until Grenlow threw her one of our leftover scones.

  “This is terrible,” I whispered to no one in particular, realising that the state of the place hadn’t improved at all since my last visit.

  “They have no water, no food,” Grenlow said. “The wells have dried up, and the further downstream the Raven River flows, the more poisonous the water becomes. By the time it reaches Flintwood, it is deadly. The crops refuse to grow… everything refuses to grow. The animals are just as desperate as the people; wild dogs and wolves have been attacking for weeks now. That’s why no one lives on the border anymore. It’s Red Ridge all over again.”

  We had reached the center of the town by then, where a huge bonfire blazed in a stone pit almost ten feet long, and where a good portion of the township had gathered. There was a large slab of meat rotating at the edges of the fire pit, and skinny children crouched around it, holding clay bowls and plates, eyes riveted to the turning meat. I slid off my horse as people began to notice us, and a hushed whispering spread through them. Some of the people dropped to their knees, some simply stared, but my attention had been captured by the edge of the fire pit.

  A sick, horrible feeling began to tense in the muscles of my stomach. I moved closer and closer to the fire, paying no heed to the children that scrambled away from me, until I was standing directly before the turning meat.

  “What is this?” I asked, pointing to it.

  I had directed the question at no one in particular, but now I looked at the only person who would meet my eye. He was a hardened man, synfee-handsome, but with a ragged edge and elongated, pointed features. His clothes were stained and torn, and his eyes were a focused red-gold.

  “Fleshmeat.” He seemed to smile as he answered, though I was too distracted by his sharpened teeth to take much notice of the sentiment behind the baring of them.

  A shudder ran down my spine, and I looked to Harbringer. His face was hard, his black eyes cavernous and hollow with some wild ferocity of emotion. I had seen that look before, and I found myself once again glad that it was not aimed at me, yet just the presence of it confirmed my fear about the ‘fleshmeat’. But what could I do? These people were starving; the children were so skinny that their bones poked through their skin. With a hardening resolve, I turned from the pit and walked back to Grenlow.

  “If I push that carcass into the fire, will they attack me?”

  He looked horrified. “No Lady, they know better. The synfees are not a heedless race, and a monarch’s decision is always final, no matter the… decision. But are you sure that this is wise? These people cannot afford to waste food.”

  “I will find other food.” I wanted to add make sure this doesn’t happen again, but I decided that this particular part of the synfee lifestyle might be a bit harder to stamp out than simply issuing another empty threat.

  I walked back to the fire and saw the glint of Harbringer’s smile as I stretched out a leg, anchored my riding boot against the oily surface and kicked the carcass all the way into the fire. It wasn’t a dignified burial, but cremation was still better than consumption. An outcry rose among the gathered people as the flames swallowed their meal, but when I turned, none of them would meet my eye. I felt a pang of guilt, and for a moment, Nareon’s face flashed before my eyes, but I pushed it aside.

  “Let’s go hunting,” I said to Harbringer. “Grenlow, stay here and make sure nobody takes the place of that last unfortunate soul.”

  The man nodded, though I thought for a moment that he would argue. Was it the assumption that their dinner was one of their own that he thought to counter?

  I pushed that aside too, and waited until Grenlow, Rohan and Cereen had moved to stand in a semi-circle around the pit. Cereen’s mouth was set, but she didn’t look at me as I passed, so I couldn’t tell how angry she was with my actions. I climbed back atop my gelding, and turned it around. If the border was where the residents were being attacked, that was where I would do my hunting.

  Once we were out of the circle of light spreading from the center of town, Harbringer shot me a look.

  “You’ve changed, Harrow.”

  “It’s strange. Hazen told me once that I was lost. I don’t think I’m lost anymore, yet everything that makes me who I am has been torn away.”

  He didn’t reply to that, and as we broke free of the township and spilled back into the neighboring field, we both paused, looking out to the darkness.

  “You should be back at the Academy,” I said finally, “teaching the kids to defend themselves.”

  “I will return—” he slipped from his horse and looped its reigns around a crumbling fence post—“and so will you.”

  I slid from my own saddle, and tied my horse up with his.

  “I don’t actually know how to hunt,” I admitted.

  “It’s easy with Force. Just close your eyes, open the connection, and search for a sizeable energy source.”

  I did as he told me, but while it may have been easy for him, it certainly wasn’t for me. It took me minutes to even locate him, and he was standing right beside me.

  “I’m not very good at this,” I muttered, stepping further out into the field, my eyes screwed closed.

  I felt his fingers slide through mine, and for a moment, my heart thudded painfully, my breath catching on a quiet gasp, but he was only pulling me further into the field.

  “Your heart rate just sped up.”

  I pulled my hand out of his. “No it didn’t.”

  He laughed, and I felt his hand on my jaw. “Open your eyes, Bea.”

  My heart was threatening to jump out of my chest, and when I op
ened my eyes to find him standing so close to me that we were almost touching, the nervous twisting that seized my stomach increased. He wasn’t laughing anymore, and his eyes flickered with that black heat that I remembered from the last time I had kissed him. He took my hand and placed it across his chest, where his heart seemed to be beating almost as fast as mine.

  “That’s what you’re looking for,” he said. “The rush of blood, the beating of a heart. It’s how you distinguish the plants from the living creatures.”

  I could only stare at him, my hand flattened to the plane of his chest, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breathing. But then his grip moved from my jaw, passing over my eyes, closing them again.

  “Hunt, Siren.”

  I smiled, amused despite myself at the name, and his heartbeat thudded in response. I spread my awareness out as far as I could, using the plants to guide myself, and then I did as he said. I searched for a heartbeat.

  It was only a short time in coming, and maybe that had something to do with the adrenaline already coursing through my system at Harbringer’s simple touch.

  “I think I found something,” I whispered. “Across the field, nine feet deep past the first ridge. Whatever it is, it’s big. It’s also higher up, atop one of the peaks.”

  “Well done. But that’s a wolf. You should probably pick something a little easier for your first time hunting.”

  “I’m going for the wolf, and you’re going to let me go alone.”

  He chuckled. “Nice try. I’m coming, but I’ll let you do all the work, if you insist.”

  I smiled again, and in that moment, I didn’t want to go anywhere. I wanted to stand there in the dark with Harbringer’s touch on the side of my face, his fingers linked gently through mine. I wanted to forget about the entire synfee kingdom, Nareon and Fenrel. I wanted to ignore the weight of the dagger tied to my belt, and the image of my father’s pale face. I wanted to ease the pang of loneliness and guilt now that I was separated from Rose, Hazen and Cale, and I wanted to smile and laugh again, as I only seemed to do in these rare moments alone with Harbringer.