by Andra Leigh
How could a dying man’s hold be so strong? Hope flared in her chest. He was going to be okay. Neith’s hand squeezed hers. His thin, waxy lips peaked at the corners, crinkling into a smile. He looked happy, Acanthea thought. She couldn’t help but smile with him. Did he too know everything was going to be okay?
His smile parted and he let out a slow, content sigh. With quivering lips he stuttered and rasped a single word.
“Hen…lee.”
His smile eased from his face, leaving behind a slack jaw. As she watched, his eyes turned glassy and she felt his hand go limp in hers.
He was dead.
Neith was dead.
Acanthea couldn’t breathe, grappling desperately at his unresponsive fingers.
Shaking, Laleita pulled her fingers from his temples.
“Thank you,” Cyan whispered.
Laleita inclined her head, her eyes closed tightly, lips trembling. Casamir hurried to her side, gathering her into his arms.
As the grieving family made their way toward Neith to say goodbye, Acanthea left the room. Making it out to the hallway with mismatched doors, she leant against the wall, gasping for breath.
She had attended many executions, watched criminals be put to death. But she had only ever watched one person die before. Her Mother. She too had held Acanthea’s hand as she had closed her eyes and stopped breathing. The sickness that she had suffered had been nothing like Neith’s, yet they had died so alike.
After a moment she realised Jinx had joined her in the hallway.
“What did she…?” Acanthea stumbled for words, not understanding what had just happened.
“Laleita gave him a moment of peace,” Jinx muttered. “Allowed him to pass away without feeling the pain.”
She still didn’t understand. But before she could ask anything more Jinx disappeared down the hallway.
As Acanthea listened to the sobs coming from the med-room she could only think one thing.
Her father was responsible.
●
Neith’s funeral was held the next morning.
Her Mother’s funeral had been a large ceremony; wreaths of flowers; choruses of song and keening mourners.
Neith’s was nothing like that. He wasn’t buried under the open sky, headstone displayed in plain view for all future generations to know the story of.
Acanthea stood in the lowest level of Vance Manor. She’d known the cellar, through the double layered doors in the antechamber, was where Casamir – and Neith she realised with a pang – were kept during a full moon. What she hadn’t been aware of was that first and foremost the rarely visited level served as a graveyard for those rescued from the Clinic.
Stone crypts rose from the hard packed dirt floor. Names adorned the otherwise bare tombs, etched deeply into the rock. Some had dates, others only a first name, but all looked to be carved by different hands. As troubled as they made Acanthea feel, they were nothing compared to what she felt looking over the empty ones that stood in line waiting to be filled. They looked like wide, gaping mouths ready to devour the dead.
It made her nauseous.
There was no Soet-jē. When Acanthea asked about it, Casamir growled low in his throat. Raiden and the brothers shot her dark looks. Jinx turned away from her and Laleita just looked sad.
“A Soet-jē’s purpose is to imprison the magical essence of the Bloods,” Laleita said. “We’re all part Bloods. Tell me, Acanthea, if there is something to be found after life, would you want any part of you that may survive death to be trapped for eternity?” She turned to the familiar body lying within the open stone crypt. “Would you want any remaining part of Neith to be captured and kept for all of time?”
“I never thought of it like that,” Acanthea whispered.
“I don’t suppose you ever had a reason to. Do you have a reason to now?”
Acanthea was spared from answering as at that moment the already hushed room fell into silence. They had unconsciously formed a protective circle around Neith’s tomb. It was broken as Cyan stepped forward. He looked into each solemn face standing around him before turning to the man they were there to say goodbye to.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Home
• Eliscity •
She had no footprints. Where were her footprints? Had she not walked here? Yes, she decided. She had walked. But which way had she come from? Which way was she heading? There! There were her footprints. But was she supposed to follow them or run from them? Her mind was heavy and clouded. She hurt too much to figure out the answer. She’d been hurt in Talcony, she thought suddenly, grappling to keep hold of the coherent moment. And her footsteps led back to Talcony. Back to Harmon. No, she didn’t want that. She needed to walk away from her footprints. That was the direction she needed to go!
●
There was no end to The Horizon.
It simply continued.
●
The whole sky was the sun, ablaze with fire and heat.
●
The sky rose. The stars set.
●
She was dying. That could be the only explanation for her fading consciousness. The only thing confirming she wasn’t already dead was the pain. Oh Bloods, the pain. It didn’t seem to matter how disconnected she became, the searing pain in her side never eased. Eliscity knew it was the only thing keeping her alive. If her body let her lie down and go to sleep, she knew that would be her end. But all she could do was keep walking, tumbling her feet, heavy with sand, ever closer to a horizon she hoped was coming. When her knees sunk into the hot dunes she would crawl, one arm plastered to her ribs, until she found the strength to push to her feet again.
●
The clouds were no longer changing.
A grouping of dark clouds had settled on the base of the horizon before Eliscity some time ago. She had waited for them to dissipate like the clouds that had gotten her hopes up so many times before. But they only grew, solidifying their outline against the sky.
It took half a day for the clouds to turn into low hills. If Eliscity thought the sight of them was beautiful, that was nothing compared to the beauty of the river that flowed along their base. Falling to her knees at its edge, she scooped water into her mouth, swallowing as much as her shrunken stomach would allow and letting the rest drip down her chin. Not even the dried blood and desert that caked her hands could stop her from drinking her fill. She ignored the red tentacles that mixed with her drink. What was another strain of blood being added to her system in the grand scheme of things?
Tearing a strip from her shirt, Eliscity dunked the material in the chilly water and held it against her side. It did little to ease the overall pain but it dulled the sharp burning. She allowed herself a moment of rest before pushing to her feet for what she hoped would be the last time in this unfortunate journey.
She turned to her left, choosing to follow the river downstream. Both directions were bound to hold civilization and medicine, but going with the river, rather than against it, somehow seemed like the easiest option. She contemplated wading into its current and letting it carry her, but she didn’t think she would have the energy to keep herself afloat.
She had not just survived The Horizon to die in the water that had given her new hope and life.
It wasn’t long before trees began to pepper the edge of the river and the worn road she trekked down. The further she walked the thicker they became, until she had entered a forest. The sun was setting, darkening her surroundings quickly, but that didn’t slow her journey. It wasn’t that she was surefooted or blessed with impeccable vision, it was that she seemed to know where she was going.
She recognised these trees.
Their glossy leaves. The weeping branches and pale bark.
She’d seen them before. Not just that, she’d been here before. In her memories.
Light headed, gasping for a fresh breath that dragged her splintered ribs across her lungs, she knew these trees led somewhere important, but she cou
ldn’t recall where. She was too exhausted to figure it out.
Eliscity tripped and stumbled over the forest floor, her mind not used to being in control of her body in this environment.
She was so close. That she was sure of.
But to what?
Everything would be okay if she could just make it through the trees.
The forest floor dipped and dived as she struggled to stay upright. But Eliscity knew that even if she was forced to her knees, she would crawl. Sweat beaded over her skin, wetting more of the dried blood that clung to her, turning it tacky on her flesh. Eliscity knew there was no point in trying to wipe it away, not with the way sticky sap from passing trees was joining with it.
Without warning, she staggered through the line of trees, her knees hitting the mossy grass she’d touched so many times in her dreams.
Her heart pounding against her broken ribcage, she raised her eyes to the clearing and felt her heart momentarily skip a beat.
Eliscity drank in the old oak’s silhouette. Its leaves tickled the moon that had taken its place in the sky. Its branches swayed in the breeze only found at its towering height. But that wasn’t what had caused her pounding heart to jar.
There, at the base of the tree, wrapping around the trunk like a child’s arms around a mother’s waist, was a house.
A house with a light on inside.
Someone was home.
Trying to make the least amount of noise as possible she approached the front door, knowing she was failing miserably.
She knocked on the door without a second thought – she was past thinking things through. Blood from her hand rapped onto the knotted wood. Eliscity rubbed at the stain, desperate to get rid of the ugly mark. But the crimson only smeared further across the panel.
Footsteps.
Eliscity withdrew her hand, clutching her ribs like the pressure would help.
The footsteps approached the other side of the door.
Suddenly she was hit with a shot of panic over who was reaching for the handle. She wasn’t given long to ponder as the door creaked and opened.
Her vision swam.
His face danced like dust in a sunbeam.
Harmon’s sticky blood warmed against her.
Her skin flushed.
Her head spun.
Butterflies.
The pain couldn’t stop the butterflies in her stomach.
The ground seemed to roll beneath her feet.
“Drae.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. A whimper against the pain.
Familiar hands reached for her – like they always did – and finally Eliscity pitched over into the waiting darkness.
●
The entire left side of her body had ice in it, while her right side seemed to lean against a warm stone. Dull stabs prickled at her skin all over.
A confusing sort of sensation.
It wasn’t painful or uncomfortable, but surprisingly pleasant. The ice in her side left behind a numbness, while the light stabs felt like flames licking away the dirt and blood that dressed her naked body.
She was naked.
The moment she realised this she wondered how the Bloods she had managed to undress herself. She didn’t seem to be in a physically able state to do so.
She tried to pry her eyes open, but found them heavy with exhaustion. Slowly the reasons for this returned to her.
Harmon. Her ribs. The Horizon.
The oak. The house. Him.
Remembering this new incentive, she tried again to pull herself out of the darkness that enveloped her. This time her eyes obeyed.
The first thing she discovered was the flames that licked at her skin were not fire, but water. She was in a tub, streams of water being poured over her body. The warm stone she leant against was softer than she’d originally thought and had arms that wrapped gently around her, holding her secure.
Drae.
Eliscity tried to speak his name, but her throat felt caked with dirt, her tongue like sandpaper. Her lips, so dry from her time in The Horizon, split and bled with her excursion. She tasted her blood.
Drae’s thumb lifted to her lip.
Eliscity wanted to protest, tell him not to touch her blood. Her blood was tainted. But she couldn’t make her throat work.
His large hand softly wiped the line of red from her mouth, where he let it wash away with Harmon’s blood and the sweat and dirt of her journey.
“Try not to move,” he said. His voice was beautiful. Low and sweet. “I’ve given you medicine, it should take away some pain, but moving could do more damage.”
That explained the ice that numbed her side.
A wave of tiredness washed over her as the water being poured over her bare skin began to clear of blood and dirt. She rested her heavy head back against Drae’s chest, vaguely aware he was wearing a shirt that was getting drenched in his efforts to wash her.
Closing her eyes she plunged back into unconsciousness.
●
Since when did a room one level underground have owls?
And why was it hooting so loud? Had someone put an owl in her room as a joke? It didn’t seem like the kind of joke the Triplets would pull. Had Jinx decided she wasn’t getting up early enough for practices? When the bird hooted again she finally rolled over. No matter how it had gotten into her room she would have to get the poor creature out. Swinging her legs to the floor she opened her eyes.
This wasn’t her room. Her feet touched wood rather than the carpet of Vance Manor. Across from her was the source of the noise that had woken her. A tawny owl perched dolefully on the open window sill. It was unconcerned with Eliscity’s sudden movement. Behind it a small lake rippled in the starlight.
She was home.
She knew she wasn’t dreaming. The dull tingles in her rib told her that much. She knew they should be hurting more than they were, but remembered the medicine she’d been given. For the first time she paid attention to herself. She was wearing a man’s shirt, long enough to reach her thighs. Twisting as much as her broken body would allow and pulling at the collar, she saw small nicks and cuts painting her back and shoulders. Nothing serious, they would all heal, perhaps without scars. Hitching the hem of the shirt, she took inventory of her side. It was splotchy with black and blue bruises. Strips of fabric stretched around her body, like they were holding her ribcage together – perhaps they were. She guessed Drae had done it. Wondering where he had learnt to bind broken ribs, she felt slightly uncomfortable. Not because he’d seen her naked, but because he would have seen the shadows on her back, the veins on her cuticles. All the deformities the Clinic had given her. When she had dared to daydream about finding him, she’d always pictured breaking those to him slowly. When she knew he could handle them.
She didn’t have to look far to find Drae. He lay on the other side of the bed, unperturbed by the owl’s commentary.
He looked so real. Like she could reach out and touch him.
Shaking her head she told herself he was real and banned herself from prodding him in the face just to make sure.
He’d changed in the years she had been gone. He was no longer the adolescent of her memories. Time had chiselled his features, strengthening his jaw and cheekbones. He hadn’t shaved for a few days, perhaps since she had shown up on his doorstep – another aspect of their re-meeting she had imagined going differently. Even in his slumber, he looked tired. How long had he been taking care of her?
Knowing she wouldn’t be able to just lie down and go back to sleep now that she was awake, Eliscity inched to her feet and carefully left the room. It was a slow progression, not wanting to hurt her body any more than necessary. The house was easy to navigate. There were only three rooms. The bedroom and washroom were offshoots of the largest room. It was a sitting room and kitchen combined. In the centre of the space the oak’s trunk rose from below the floorboards and disappeared through the ceiling. Eliscity approached the massive trunk, brushing her hand along its rippled bark.
Her fingertips stung with the friction. Rubbing them against Drae’s shirt she moved away from the tree. Drae had built a home around the tree of her memories. It was everything she had lost and desperately desired for her life. It was stability, promises and home. It scared her that she could instantly feel so safe in a house she didn’t know with a man she barely remembered. But she did. While it didn’t take away anything the Clinic had done to her, it made it matter a little less. As if she could happily live the remainder of her life here, even if that remainder be cut short by the blood in her veins.
She took a deep breath to steady the surge of emotion that was blossoming inside her. She wasn’t used to being submerged in pleasant feelings and found herself waiting for the crash.
She didn’t have to wait long. The medicine Drae had given her was wearing off. It wasn’t the pain that sank her stomach, but the memory of who had broken her ribs in the first place.
Harmon.
She’d killed him.
Her hands had been covered in the blood of the man she had married and had been washed away by the only man she’d ever loved. It made her want to crawl into the corner and start rocking.
Something nuzzled at her hand and for one absurd moment she thought Harmon’s guard dogs had found her. But it was a different dog.
“Chief!” Eliscity grinned down at the black and white dog who was happy to see her. He had grown into his large ears and paws over the years, yet his lolling tongue still looked far too big for him. It made her giggle.
“Come on, boy. Let’s go outside.”
Wanting to sit under the stars in the clearing of her memories, she headed toward the door but turned back as she heard Chief whine. He looked worried. His head swung between her and the direction of the bedroom.