Eldritch, p.26
Eldritch, page 26
Like a frozen corpse, the village slumbered in perpetual darkness.
Zevander finally set me down on my feet, and I stepped cautiously toward Aleysia, who stood staring at the abandonment.
“I’ve never seen it so quiet,” she whispered.
“It’s eerie.”
“Where do we find Moros?” Zevander asked from behind.
I took the lead, turning down an alleyway that let out onto a stretch of road just behind the village. It was along that path of wrought iron fences and dead vines of wisteria that we came upon the ominous mansion. Dark and dilapidated. Dormant.
Zevander slipped past me, leading the way across the snowy, unkempt yard, toward the front entrance that stood half-cocked on its hinges.
The heat Zevander had given us began to wear off, when we finally stepped inside. Or perhaps it was a shudder of memories from the last time I’d set foot there.
The grand foyer stood dark and quiet, the cold chilling my bones. A soft glow bloomed overhead, and I turned to see Zevander casting a flame toward the chandelier. The flame quickly weakened and fizzled out of his palm, but the candles of the chandelier, once lit, offered just enough glow for me to spot extra candelabras on a nearby console.
“Stay here.” Zevander lit one of them for each of us, then swiped one for himself and jogged up the staircase, where he disappeared down one of the shadowy corridors. Minutes later, he passed by the staircase again to the other side. Seemingly satisfied, he descended the stairs. “Nothing up there,” he said, and strode toward what looked to be an office, brimming with shelves of books. He didn’t hesitate to begin his rifling through drawers and cupboards there.
Aleysia headed for the staircase, and frustrated, I followed her, still keeping my eyes peeled for any sign of monstrous spiders, in spite of Zevander’s sweep. She hustled toward the bedroom Moros had locked me inside, the night of her banishing, and the candle flickered, threatening to fizzle with her hasty steps.
Inside the room, she scampered toward the armoire, throwing the doors open on a selection of dresses.
“I believe he had all of these dresses made for you.” She yanked one of them from a hanger and immediately began stripping off her clothes. Desperate for warmth, I dug through the drawers in search of any trousers and tunics, but found nothing more than stockings and undergarments.
I lifted a lace cammyck from the drawer, frowning at the lack of a crotch. “This is unsettling.”
“Or he just wanted you to be comfortable. I don’t know why you’d wear those damned things, anyway. It’s so much more comfortable without them.”
“Because some women prefer not to walk around without undergarments. It’s a bit too breezy for my taste.” I lifted another cammyck, and like the first, it was crotchless.
Groaning, I opted for it, anyway, and yanked one of the warmer looking black dresses off its hanger, quickly changing out of my damp trousers and shirt. Fresh stockings, boots and a warm cape tempered the cold bite, but the open cammyck felt strange, further unnerving me when it brought to mind thoughts of why Moros would’ve had them made that way.
“The boots are a little big, but it’s better than nothing, at all,” Aleysia said, twisting to admire the black dress and cape she’d donned. She chuckled, “Goodness, I look like you. We look like good and evil personified.”
“Which is good, and which is evil?”
She twisted around, wearing a knowing smile. “That remains to be seen, I suppose.”
I glanced around the room, the sight of it stirring those feelings of dread from before. “I want to check on something.” Quickly exiting, I took the staircase to the first floor, with Aleysia following close behind.
“Where are we going?” she asked, trailing after me.
“To the cellar.”
In my periphery, I saw her skid to a halt, as we passed Zevander still searching the office. “What’s in the cellar?”
“Have you not seen what he kept down there?”
Aleysia shook her head.
“Wait here a moment.” I hurried toward the kitchen, and a distant memory of conversation echoed in my head, from the day I’d come for brunch and met the Lyverian server, the one who’d spilled a drink on my dress. As I searched the drawers, I could almost hear her voice, pleading with me not to press her for information about Moros. How he had abused her so horrifically. I threw open one of the drawers, causing a clatter from the knives held within. Grabbing two of the sharpest, I rushed back to Aleysia and handed one to her. “Kill first, ask questions later.”
“I’ve never actually stabbed someone before. I’m a little nervous.”
“Try not to think about it too much.” Without further discussion, I opened the door to the cellar and scampered down the stony staircase, past the wall of grotesque curiosities, until I rounded the corner to where the enormous tank resided.
Aleysia let out a gasp from behind.
The once-clear tank water had turned green, and two bodies floated prone on the surface, their faces still covered in the breathing masks. Glancing around, I searched for something strong enough to break the barrier. An iron garden chair off in the corner caught my eye, and I dragged the heavy piece of furniture toward the tank. Gripping the back of it, I let out a deep breath and hurled the chair into the glass. The tank shattered on impact, spilling small shards of glass and filthy water onto the floor. The mermaids inside tumbled out on a wave of tank water that stank like rot and mold. Landing on the floor, they lay motionless, their skin peeling and dangling from their bodies in spots.
I knelt alongside the one nearest to me and carefully tugged on her mask. The barrier resisted at first, but I yanked a bit harder, and the mask sucked away from her face, taking a small bit of skin with it. The girl didn’t move. Didn’t so much as flinch, even though the raw patch of skin showed where the mask had fused to her cheek at some point. I ran my finger over her forehead and tucked the hair behind her ear.
The sound of grunts and moaning drew my attention toward where Aleysia sat over the second girl.
The young woman flopped and gasped, her body seizing as she seemed to struggle for breath. Alive!
“Remove her mask!” Before I could scramble across the floor toward her, Aleysia set her knife to the woman’s throat. I froze, my limbs locked. “Aleysia, what are you doing?”
She dragged the blade across her neck, and a spray of fresh blood splashed in Aleysia’s face.
A dark, unsettling fear threaded itself through my ribs, squeezing my chest. I lifted my blade toward my own sister, the one I’d been determined to save, my hand trembling. Cold shock gripped my muscles as I stared down at the other woman’s gaping wound, and the blood that mingled with the dirty water across the ground toward me. My mind fought to grasp what had just happened, trying to reconcile how my sister could be capable of such a thing.
I looked back to Aleysia whose eyes held a wild glint as she turned her palm over for the blood across her fingers.
After moments of violent twitching and sputtering, the young woman stilled.
“What did you do?” My voice rasped with the tightening of my throat. “Why would you do that!” The knife shook in my grasp.
“What kind of life would she have lived in such a condition? I showed her mercy.” Aleysia’s words made the conversation I’d had with Zevander spring to mind. Had she heard us talking back at the cottage? Her gaze dipped to my outstretched blade and back. “What are you going to do? Kill me for sparing her a life of utter misery?”
A sickening dread twisted in my stomach as I glimpsed the blade in my hand. “Kill her,” Morsana’s voice chimed in my thoughts. “Do it.”
Shaking my head, I lowered the blade. Keeping my eyes on my sister, I cautiously slid closer to the woman she’d killed.
“Please don’t look at me like that,” she said through a shine of tears. “Like you loathe me.”
I lowered my gaze from hers. “You didn’t have to kill her. Not that way.”
“And what way would’ve been better, Maeve? At least I was quick about it.”
Ignoring her, I brushed the girl’s hair from her face, tears wavering in my eyes, and two small spiders scampered across the ground toward me. Before they could reach me, Aleysia skewered both of them with her knife.
The ease and proximity that she’d wielded the blade set my teeth on edge, the hesitation in her no longer there.
Frantic, I twisted around, gaze darting in all directions in search of more spiders. Only dusty cobwebs and shadows decorated the dank walls. Perhaps just simple house spiders.
A shadowy figure strode toward us, and I looked past my sister to see Zevander, his brows tightening as he approached.
“They were left here to die.” My voice cracked on the last word. I didn’t know what it was that troubled me about them so much. From the moment Moros had shown them to me, I’d remained haunted by them. Even if Aleysia was right, even if the young girl would’ve struggled to survive in her state, I hated that she hadn’t been given the choice of whether to live or die. I hated that she’d been robbed of so many choices.
And I hated that my sister had been the one to end her life that way.
I couldn’t help but glare at Aleysia. “I can’t just leave them this way.”
“We don’t exactly have time to hold a service and bury them, Maevyth. I’m sorry I did what I did. But imagine her out in that world, trying to escape those creatures. Imagine what they’d have done to her. I gave her mercy. Far more than she’d been given elsewhere.”
Tears wobbled in my eyes, and I turned toward Zevander. “What about bloodstones? I could bury those easily.”
“Bloodstones?” Aleysia asked, but I didn’t bother to answer her.
Zevander gave a nod, his hands flexing and curling. “Step back.”
I stole the opportunity to push Aleysia backward, gleaning a small bit of pleasure when she tumbled onto her backside with an indignant expression on her face.
Zevander opened his hands, producing a faint flicker of black flame, which he held over the girl’s body. The flame shot from his palm, catching onto her flesh, and within seconds, the fire engulfed her, before fading quickly to a single stone.
He did the same for the second Lyverian woman, until only two small bloodstones remained in a tiny pile of black ash. Lifting the one closest to him off the ground, he frowned, examining the surface of it.
I scooped up the second, holding the stone up to the light. A silvery glint on the surface drew my attention to strange, skinny veins running across it.
“Silver. Just like yours,” Zevander remarked.
“Like mine?”
“When I first arrived in Mortasia months ago, I stumbled upon your blood at the archway. It held the same silvery streaks.”
“Is that a unique trait?”
“Yes. As far as I know, it’s a Corvikae trait.”
“But they were Lyverian.”
“I’m not entirely certain of how. I only know what Dolion told me.” He carefully placed the other stone in my hand. “We should probably plan to settle in soon. It’ll be dark.”
“Did you find the vivicantem?”
“No. Nothing.” He tugged a rolled-up scroll from where he’d tucked it into his belt. “Found a basic map of the mountains, but nothing that specifically details where the vein might be.” He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Given the size of the mountain range, it would take weeks to find that vein blindly.”
“The Red Men were sent to the mountains on behalf of the church.” Aleysia sat twisting the tip of the blade onto her fingertip, and I flicked my fingers for it.
“She’s right,” I agreed, snatching the knife away from her. “They journeyed frequently to the mountains. And to be honest, I’d prefer not to stay here for the evening. I find this place suffocating. We can search the temple and perhaps stay there for the night. I suspect it’ll be safer. It was designed to protect the villagers in the event of a siege, or attack.”
“Very well. We’ll head to the temple for the night. But let’s go now. It’ll be dark soon.”
Nodding, I deposited the bloodstones into the pocket of my cape and pushed to my feet. As Zevander and Aleysia headed toward the staircase, I veered in the opposite direction in a need to see if the grotesquely deformed captain was still chained to the wall.
Nothing more than two gnawed limbs, still cuffed in manacles, lay on the floor.
A chill coiled down the back of my neck as I stared down at the bloody hunks of meat.
“You remember the good captain who sat next to you at brunch?”
As the memory slipped through my thoughts, the visual of the deformed man dashing out of the shadows toward me turned my blood cold.
“I may be a monster, but I can also be quite protective of you…Miss Bronwick.”
My name arrived as a whisper that sounded far too close, and heart pounding, my eyes flicked through the darkness for the source.
Two glowing eyes seemed to watch me from the shadowed corner, and still holding my knife, I inched backward, away from it, watching Moros’s stocky form emerge from the darkness.
“Miss Bronwick,” he whispered in a ghostly voice.
Something gripped me from behind, and I spun around on a scream, my blade pressed to Zevander’s chest.
Wearing a guarded expression, he froze. “Easy there, Cutthroat.”
I craned my neck back toward where I’d seen Moros just moments before, only to find empty shadows. Not real. Exhaling a forced breath, I lowered the blade, muscles sagging. “Sorry. This place sets my nerves on edge.”
“Did he harm you, this Moros? Touch you, at all?”
I shook my head. “I escaped before he inflicted any harm. I don’t even like to imagine what my fate might’ve been, had I not run into those woods that night.”
“Don’t think about it.” He dragged his thumb down my temple, and God, the relief of him, of having him near when I was scared, was a balm to my soul. “C’mon. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
ZEVANDER
Past …
Zevander swallowed back the revulsion rising to his throat as two female servants rubbed gold clay over his body, covering his fresh scars with a metallic sheen in preparation for the Golden Bacchanal. All he’d gleaned about the event was that it centered around some kind of tournament and drew in a number of nobles and dignitaries. A few other slaves stood about the room, like him, servants covering their naked bodies in gold shimmer.
Arms outstretched and shackled, he shuttered his eyes to the unnerving strokes of the servant’s hands that left him wanting to crawl right out of his own skin. Touch, no matter how gentle, had become a defilement, an unwanted feeling he equated with the general’s abuses. A discomfort more consuming than the hunger that clawed at his stomach right then.
“Look how your body responds to my touch.” The general’s words echoed in his head, and Zevander grimaced, turning away.
Still, those words lingered, along with the memories of bites and tugs, clawing and punching, when he’d refused to comply with her demands.
One of the servants spread the clay down his back, reminding him too much of his last whipping. The way excruciating pain always followed the general’s soft caresses, a deception of her otherwise gentle hands. He’d become proficient in anticipating the first strike by reading her cues. A brief pause. The curl of her fingers and shift of her grip. The change of her breath and mocking tone of her words.
It’d become ingrained in his mind to expect the same from any form of touch.
Violent thoughts clouded his mind, while the servants’ palms glided across his body, everywhere, and all at once. As they kept on, he closed his eyes, and a visual of General Loyce with eight arms sprang to mind, touching and groping him, slowly making her way lower, down his hips to his thighs. His pulse hastened, his body tense, breaths shallow. Stomach constricted, he let out a grunt, digging small crescents into his palms with a tight fist. Even if there was no malicious intent from those touching him right then, he couldn’t tear his thoughts from the nightmarish things he’d endured, the times when he hadn’t managed to escape to Caligorya for unknown reasons. When he’d been forced to suffer her breathy moans and naked body pressed against his.
He opened his eyes to banish the general’s face from his mind.
One of the servants—a Solassion woman with long blonde locks and dark sepia-toned skin—who he’d come to know as Vaelora, smeared the clay over his chest, but he caught the few lingering glances from her.
His mind hooked itself into the distraction of it, and focused on her, his curiosity took root, pulling him away from the panic churning in his muscles. Each time their gazes met, she quickly looked away.
“If you’ve something to say, say it,” he finally said.
She turned to the other three servants, giving them a nod that they somehow understood to be a dismissal, and the trio immediately removed their hands from his thighs and back, to Zevander’s utter relief, and sauntered away.
Once they were out of earshot, she turned to face him. “This is your first Golden Bacchanal.”
“It is.”
“Are you aware of what it is?” she prodded.
“Only vaguely. Enlighten me.”
“You’ll be taken to the general’s rotunda room. They say it was where the pantheon—all the higher and lesser gods—would meet in ancient times. These days, the general uses it to host highbloods.” Her brows came together as she rubbed clay over one of the more gruesome scars on his abdomen. “There will be other servants there, who will feed you wine and food laced with potent elixirs, but do not consume them. It’s important that you stay alert.”
“Why?”
“Because I need you to pass on a message for me.”
“Why would I do that?” A deep ache of hunger churned in his stomach; he hadn’t eaten since earlier that morning, and the portions had been exceptionally smaller than the usual abundance of food.
