CHILD OF DECEIT
Saél's depthless, black-grey eyes stilled on the twirling smoke dancing its way out of the mug and into the clean, fresh air. Then, they slid to us, running from my face to his, twice.
She pressed the rim to her blood-colored lips, their tincture natural and vivid. Her breaths made the smoke swirl before she took a sip. She knew what our intention was, I saw it in her eyes and mind. I smirked, pointing at the teacup in her hand. I flicked my index and she drank once more, gulp after gulp until her cup was almost empty.
I took my share from the tray.
"I like you," I said as I tasted the steaming beverage, the tinge of sugar faint against its strong bitterness. "I never thought I would see someone with such acting skills beside my mate and myself."
"What do you mean?"
She stared at me with the perfect portrait of cluelessness inked on her face. I barked out a laugh, twirling my tea to cool it a bit.
"Aren't you so sweet and innocent?" I stood, not minding the mud sticking to my clothes all the way from my back to my legs. I raised an eyebrow and cocked my head as she met my stare. "Acting like an obedient slave to your mother. I give you this: you almost fooled me. But I can see the steal you are forged from under the soft skin. I can see how cunning and sly you are under those broken stares. You aren't a puppet, you are the mistress of strings."
I jerked my chin back to the cottage.
"She is the marionette swaying to your tunes, isn't she? The mighty, powerful witch fooled by her own daughter." I laughed again, roaming around her. She could have all the powers in the world, in that very moment, I was the snarling wolf and she, the small, fragile deer. "I wonder how she never picked on your magic."
I gripped her arm tight enough her cloak tore and blood peaked from where my nails--half normal, half claws--pierced. Her face was harder than stone, neutral and impenetrable. But I knew that I got deep under her skin, pushing at her secret.
"A witch born in a dark clan, daughter to a woman excelling in dark sorcery, yet wielding pure magic, the kind Lysithea would slit your throat and carve your eyes out if she ever knew you owned."
"I don't know what you are talking about."
"Of course you don't," hissed Aedis, body appearing next to mine in a dance of shadows. "You never discovered your abilities. Never felt the magic thrumming in your blood that can heal armies and mend flesh so badly deteriorated it falls of bones. Do you take us for fools?"
His hand fell on her shoulder, fingers digging hard. This was all it took us to have her magic surge out of its cage, trashing under her skin, looking for a way out to protect its owner. It rippled faintly in the air, the healing abilities stronger than anyone I'd seen or heard about. The type that felt so powerful, even when hidden, it could reinforce and heal armies in seconds on a battlefield. Even the blood vessels on her wrists flickered with soft, honeydew light as her powers roared inside her.
If Blake and Lysithea ever got their hands on her, if they made her serve in the upcoming war against us, they would become unstoppable. And us, brutally dead.
Saél didn't try denying her strength, raising her palm high enough so we could see the light swelling in its midst, the confirmation to what we said, and suppressed it all. It was like a presence vanishes from the air, like an invisible volume dissolved to nothing, like the only track to her was erased from the world. I grinned, and for the first time, not in a feral way.
She reminded me of how I used to suppress my mark, hide deep, deep down my magic in the darkest pit of my soul.
"You talked about your acting skills," the young woman—perhaps a few years older than me—pointed. "What did you mean?"
I stared at her, then at the direwolf next to me, hand absentmindedly reaching to brush the spot behind its ear, and back to her. "Answer my questions, and if I find you worthy enough, I'll tell you."
"I asked first."
"This is our game, witch." Aedis crossed his arms, claws dancing as he rolled his wrist. "And you play it by our rules."
Saél's iron spine took over her mask, the weakness she'd painted drifting with the wind, leaving a strong willed soul behind. She dared saying, "And if I don't want to answer?"
"We'll make you sing the words in our special ways."
There was a long moment of idle silence, even the rushing winds between the branches seeming to stop. Saél made her way to the chopped trunk, trailing her cloak behind her, the fabric now sticky with mud and small splinters of wood and grass. She sat, rested her head in her hands, and gazed at us with eyes that were still broken and empty.
"What do you want to know?"
"What happened."
She understood my words, knew exactly what I hinted to. And there was the ghost of a years-old ache veiling her eyes, falling like mist and fog in her daunting irises. Her aura stilled, its colors fading slowly into cold shades, the threads woven into the world frail and dark. Pain--it was pain spreading through her at the memory caressing her mind.
I sat in my place, crossing my legs and leaning against the direwolf, its pelage velvet on my skin. Aedis returned to his previous spot, leaning against the external wooden wall, legs spread, ankle above ankle. Saél's face didn't ease as her lips opened, her words hollow.
"It all happened four years ago, starting from the first night in my sixteenth year," she began. "There is a trial, a mission of some sort for all Souleaters witches to accomplish so they prove they are worth their gifts and the name of the clan they claim."
She rubbed at her knees, her face still hanging low, eyes unfocused on her fingers. "At sixteen, every rising witch has to bed a man, be it poor or rich, the stronger he is, the more praised she was." I met the glance she gave, felt the intensity in it. It was directed to me solely, her soul open like a book. "And then, she has to kill him."
Silence fell after her last sentence and I started to see the blurry edges of memories dancing their way around us. Her emotions were hurling beneath the mask she wore like skin, seeping out in waves, carrying with them scenes and words and cries.
"You failed?" asked Aedis, though there was no mockery in it, no mischief or threat. Just curiosity.
Saél shook her head. "I killed him with blood colder than ice, a Nevorian Trooper with warm, dark eyes and what would have been a prominent future. I slit his throat through his sleep, carved out his ribs and lungs, and plucked out his heart." She held her hands in front of her face, her arms ever so slightly trembling. "I carried it all the way from the inn in these hands, three days from here, wrapped in the man's shirt. I didn't wash the blood soaking me all that while, leaving the long streaks trailing down my dress."
Her hands dropped back to her lap, falling numbly as though she lost control over that very piece of her. "I shredded his heart, burned it until it was ash. And swallowed it with poison mixed with his blood. My mother was delighted, singing and laughing through the night as she made the ceremony, asking Apocalys to grant me a darkness wickeder than anything this world has known. She always said I was gifted, bearing the two colors of witches in my eyes, the feature so rare and meaning of power. Back then, she used to stare at me with pride "
I leaned more against the wolf, its head heavy as it fell on my shoulder. "What changed, then?"
There was something other than pain unfurling in Saél's soul, something dark and wicked and hateful.
"I got pregnant; the Trooper's child was growing in my womb, my bump appearing around two weeks after that night." There was an edge to her voice, a bitterness curled with her words. Not remorse, I realized, but dread.
And then, the world blurred around me. The air didn't run anymore, the trees didn't sway, the breathing of the direwolf didn't hit my skin. Everything stopped and I found myself staring into Saél's eyes, memory after memory seeping out of her mind and brushing mine.
Everything she had lived through, every flicker of emotion she felt, every second of the life she lived was within my reach, curled around my fingers to command. She knew it. She knew I could destroy her with my thoughts, knew I could tear her mind apart and render her slave to my wills. She knew the eyes staring back at her were enough to shatter her soul.
She didn't lock her mind.
She didn't push me away as I slid in her heart and soul, didn't jerk from the faint, breeze-like caress of my mental hands gingerly tugging at the threads of her memory, pulling them out to display. She only let them flow, images replacing unspoken words.
The forest blurred. The sky rained with glorious, fat drops falling to the earth, leaving dancing mist and haze in their wake. Petrichor filled the air howling through the small canals leading inside the house, past the enchantment blocking the light to fill in.
Even in the underground, seated in a rocking chair next to a burning fireplace, Saél could smell the rain, her body longing for the feeling of falling water running down her skin. The sensation of clothes sticking to her like a second skin. The grass bending under her bare feet. Once, she preferred dryness over a walk under the rain. But that night, her lungs craved the cool air, and she didn't quite know if those whims were hers or the baby's.
She smiled, even if she couldn't get out in that foul weather, and placed her hands on her bump, feeling every kick, every movement of her month and half, unborn child. Her bedroom door cracked, the hinges moaning as her mother stepped in, the fireplace reflecting its light on her pale face. Ûzan stepped in with light feet, the scenery shifting with every step, the world blurring and darkening, erasing all that had once existed.
Time spun, day after day fading into streaks of memories, the calmness remaining, as strong at night then at day. It was a different sort of life, one where Saél was not broken, one where her mother didn't wish her dead.
The young witch's mind darkened, dread seeping from her heart to mine the same way it had done at the edge of the volcano when Leon had showed me his past. I was a ghost drifting through memories, tied by the chains of her feelings.
The living room appeared, the space less crowded with trinkets and artifacts, the fireplace in the end lit instead of housing mice. Screams rang, bouncing from one wall to the other, tearing Saél's throat harder than a knife through her flesh. Sweat trickled down her flushed face, tears stung her eyes, her nails dug into the armrests of her seat.
I felt it from her, the burning anticipation, the furious pain, the severe pounding of her heart in her ribcage. Her infant was coming, tearing her apart. And she felt an unspoken sort of joy, a silent exhilaration that pumped her blood harder. Even through the agony, she felt alive.
Gasps evaded her lips in short, fast breaths before another scream ripped her, her voice raw and hoarse as she dug her nails deeper. She waited for her mother, kneeling and helping her deliver, to pull her child out. Waited for the little cries to come out.
They didn't.
"I had a girl." The memory broke and I found myself back in the forest, the connection between our minds still existing. I gave Aedis a flicker of a glance, knowing he had seen it all through the bridge I had kept since leaving the Ether Castle.
I shifted my attention back to the red-haired woman, at the paleness of her face, the endless darkness of her eyes.
"She was a stillborn." It was the last word that hung heavily in the air, hardly slipping from her mouth. "For Souleaters, stillborns are a symbol of weakness. A symbol of shame. When she pulled my daughter out, when she held her wrinkled, flushed body, there was a rage that was strong enough to burn a continent."
I could almost see the edges of that memory, could almost sense the suffocating air that wrapped around the young mother.
"Even when my daughter was dead in her arms, she still opened her eyes, searching for the witches' colors in them." Saél paused, chest heaving, muscles clenching as she gripped the cloak gathered in her lap. Her shoulders quivered the moment she forced her eyes to meet ours, drifting from face to face, begging us to understand how it felt. How lost she was.
We did. Through her words and memories, we felt every single bit of it.
"There was nothing," she said at last. "No black, no grey. Only warm, brown eyes just like her father's. Ûzan went furious, so furious because her kin was weak and a shame to her name, that she dropped her to the ground, her small head hitting the ground. I cried then, even before she reached to batter my weary body. I couldn't care about the hatred swelling in her or the blood running down my body from the wounds she left. I could only stare at the small babe I had carried for two months and half laying face down and unmoving."
Saél lifted her sleeves, exposing forearms that were scarred and injured so badly I wondered how her flesh still clung together.
"She whipped, hit, and tortured me right there on that couch, my bones shaking from the extracting pain. And when I managed to leap from her grip, to fall on the ground, I crawled on bleeding elbows and knees"--she pointed to her wounds, to the long half-healed scars marring her skin--"just so I could reach my girl. I barely had time to grab her, couldn't even fully press her against my chest, when she snatched her from me."
She shifted in her seat, her knees piled to her chest, her elbows wrapped around them. "Mother," she continued, the word bitter and dark. Ûzan was not a mother, she was a monster. A horrible monster that should rot in the deepest pits of hell. Even my curse felt little to punish her now as we heard this side of the story. "Didn't beat me anymore. She snatched my daughter from her hair--her strands thin and scarce—and tore it out. She dug her nails in her face, pierced them in her arms—"
The steel Saél was made from shattered. There was only a heart of stone that would not shed a tear if placed in what she lived. And in her curled position, the witch was sobbing her ache out, freeing the emotions that welled in her for four years. But her wounds, the injuries lining her flesh...four years.
Holy Aether above. With all the healing magic growing in her, her bruises should have been erased the same day, leaving not even scars and reminders. But they were still there, only half way healed. My stomach turned. What had Ûzan done to her?
Hiccups broke between words as the young mother continued, "She conjured a cauldron, a massive piece of iron painted black that appeared near the door frame where the floor is battered. She dragged it with her magic, making sure it ran over my legs, breaking them before it reached the fireplace. She turned it over, the flat bottom facing upward, its metal soon hissing with the hotness of the fire. She still had my babe in her hand, carried as though she was a stack of dirt when she poured oils and potions on the cauldron, the liquids sizzling as they came in contact with the burning iron."
The forest vanished, the three of us plunging back into the past, standing and unmoving in the middle of the room. It was worse than I'd imagined, Saél bleeding so hard there was a pool of blood beneath her. Her lips were swollen, her face ruined, her legs limp, her chest whipped.
And then, Ûzan made the fire burn harder, amber flickers tacking a sickening green shade as they licked the cauldron. The oils were boiling and bubbling, streaks running down the side and dying with a hiss upon meeting the hungry fire.
And I wondered then, as Ûzan placed her granddaughter on the cauldron, if she ever had a heart beating in her chest. If she was not like the rest, made of flesh and bones but forged of darkness wrapped in skin. Because there was no mother who would do this to her daughter, no living being that would put them through this.
The babe's skin melted, turning red and merging with the sticky substances glued to her skin. Her hair turned to cinders, her blood vessels were filled with coursing fire, her nails fell from their places.
Her eyes opened.
Everything froze.
And the Saél crushed on the ground yelled.
Even the real one—the one standing next to me in this memory—was a mirror to the one back then. The only difference was the missing blood. But it was the same paleness, the same hollowness in her soul, the same hatred fueling her magic.
When she turned to us, both Aedis and I saw the reflection of flames in her irises, saw the wrath building lividly under her skin.
Fire. The man she bedded was Nevorian with fire in his blood. And so did his daughter. And she needed this fire, needed the bit of connection with her late father, so her soul could awaken.
Ûzan didn't remove her, not when there was not a drop of witch blood in her. Not when she was a shame to her family. The babe cried harder, small, high-pitched sounds echoing along the crackling of flames. Her body was burning, her skin so hot even the tears sliding down her face evaporated.
The Saél lying on the ground might have as well died from terror in that very moment, her heart shaking so terribly in her chest it was a miracle it was still beating. And a curse. Death would have been merciful upon seeing this happen to her minutes old child.
She tried getting up, tried fighting. But that godsdamned witch had her magic keeping her still, pressing her face down, adding to the wounds. The infant girl cried and shrieked and screamed.
And then she went silent.
I sensed it, even through a memory, how her bounder broke. How her heart stopped beating. How her magic stopped pulsing.
She was gone.
The world might have stopped along the sharp screech that slit Saél's lungs, it might have cleaved and rattled because of the torment and despair saturating it. Even the stars could have trembled in their far sky. It was that deadly ache that stripped her soul and tore her to threads that made my heart stop. It was that reminder of my father, of the hollow and broken form he had been that night after the council.
She was the mirror to what he would become after war. Because he, too, was watching his daughter slip from his arms, unable to do a thing to save her.
Perhaps it was even harder for him than it was to the red-haired woman, having to endure his torture for days and weeks and months, not knowing when the moment that would part us would land.
The fire kept hissing, the small body atop the cauldron still burning. We stood there, three phantoms staring at what remained of an infant tortured since birth. I didn't know how long the memory was until Saél's daughter was nothing more than a body burned so bad even her bones were cinders and ashes. Her eyeballs had melted under the magic and fire, her heart nothing but a pile of black dust lost among the rest of her body.
But the way in which Ûzan turned to her daughter, to the woman she had brought to this world from her very flesh, made ice coat my veins. The evilness in them made my bones go weak.
She was not done yet.