A monster inside, p.19
A Monster Inside, page 19
part #1 of Undying Prince Series
“I know, but that’s all right. All that matters is that you release my husband.”
It will be as it was before. The snake went on, opening its mouth wide enough to encompass Erik’s skull, revealing a flash of color, fiery pink flesh stretching and twisting. You and I together. Forever.
Light flooded down onto Erik from above, a sparkling pool of incandescence. Blinded by the radiance, he blinked, gasped, and shuddered, all the while expecting the worse. He could see again. He was at the bottom of a tall, wide pit, and the snake was gone. Where did it go? I imagined it. I must have.
Something struck the top of his head, and he jerked back, hissing from the pain. A rope ladder dangled in front of his face and at its other end stood Dara, peering down at him, haloed in light. For a second she appeared transparent, her diaphanous quality revealing the fire at her heart, white and cold.
Erik gulped, touching his skull with trembling fingers. His head was sticky with half-dried blood. But, despite the ache, he hardly noticed it. Dara held his full attention. She had never looked prettier.
“Husband,” she said simply.
“Wife.” Though neither one of them smiled, he sensed her . . . not love, but acknowledgment. She could not feel that emotion, he now knew. The information was just there, in his head, a truth gleaned at the bottom of a pit. She took a step back, and the moment was broken.
Erik climbed up the ladder, and the first sight that greeted him was Ebbi’s distorted face. He blinked, and the shimmering in his eyes steadied. The Lightbender still loomed over him, a cruel look frozen on his half-melted face.
“Erik, come here,” said Dara. She held a wool blanket open in her arms.
He stood and allowed her to wrap it around him. He considered sending the Lightbender a smile, but thought better of it and followed Dara out of the village jail. The walls of the two-story building were adorned with instruments of war as decoration, and a broken ax hung above the door.
Outside, Erik released the breath he had been holding, freed from the hostility of Ebbi’s one-eyed glare. Dara took his hand and guided him home. He clenched the blanket and chose his steps with care.
“Ignore them,” Dara said. “They’re all small-minded fools.”
For the first time, Erik noticed the looks they were receiving from the men and women they passed on the street. There was disgust and aversion on their faces. “I’m sorry, I acted without considering my options. I should have made a plan.” He laughed softly. “Or at least put my clothes on.”
“What were you trying to achieve?”
“I think I’m going insane,” Erik said. “Something is happening to me, or maybe it already has. You won’t believe me, but. . . .”
Dara squeezed his hand. “There is only one way to be sure. Start from the beginning.”
Erik sighed and did just that. He told Dara the tale emotionlessly, his face stone and his voice iron, until he came to the dire wolves’ appearance in front of Hanna’s home. That he rendered with burning passion. “I can almost still sense their teeth tearing into my flesh,” he said, touching his unmarked stomach. Unmarked or not, he winced. “I don’t know why I am not dead, or what happened to my memories. I sense them hovering at the edge of my mind, yet somehow barred to me.”
His wife did not speak. For a time, they walked in silence until the itch at the back of his mind made him wonder if Dara thought him crazy. Then they came to a stop in front of the manor, and she turned toward him. “When are the wardstones supposed to fail?”
Erik looked up at the sky and frowned. “Seconds after the Renewal ceremony.”
“So, we don’t have much time.”
“You believe me?” Erik gazed at Dara with wide, incredulous eyes. “Why? I half don’t believe myself.”
Dara fixed his sagging blanket. “We’ve survived this long not because we’re smarter, though we are that, but because we’re more careful than our enemies. The truth will reveal itself in a short while, until then it’s better to err on the side of caution.”
“And if what I saw never comes to pass?”
“Well then, Husband, we will have words,” she said.
“I understand.” Erik made himself meet Dara’s gaze with resolve. It was not easy. There was something in her eyes that made him feel like an insect dangling in a spider’s web. He loomed over her, but at that moment she terrified him. “What now?”
She led him inside the manor. “Now we prepare for war, but first you need a bath.”
“Is that necessary—” Erik began.
“It’s the small things that keep you going at the end of the world.” She picked up a little bell that laid on a table within the front hall and rang it. “Your words, Husband, not mine.”
Kendra rounded the corner slightly out of breath, her face flushed with color. She gave a quick curtsy and smiled at them, a lightness in her eyes. “Mistress,” she said. Her voice was soft. Perhaps too soft for all the red in her cheeks.
Dara’s next few words tore the smile from Kendra’s lips. “There has been a change in plans. Gather the hens, we’ve been surrounded by a mountain of daggers.”
“I-I understand.” Face as white as a sheet of paper, Kendra rushed down the hall almost at a run, and disappeared around the corner.
Dara looked at him with a frown that lasted only an instant, and led him down the hallway. “You really remember nothing, don’t you?” Her voice sank almost to a murmur. “How about the night we first met?”
Erik shook his head.
“How strange this must all seem to you.” She pointed at a painting on the wall, a painting of masked revelers partaking in an orgy. “The night we first met, you were standing in a darkened corner by yourself, a forlorn look in your eyes as you gazed out at the evening sky. . . .”
Unbidden, unasked, memory returned of that night of debauchery where they first met, and images rose within his mind.
A dark-haired woman came to a stop beside him, adorned in a black dress with silver ornamentation and a white spider mask, her green eyes fixed on the world outside the window. Dara. His prey.
The need was in him. Erik could feel it blaze in his blood, the hunger for the chase. He watched the night sky from behind his red fox mask, keeping his eyes from flicking toward her. She had to be the one to speak first; it was part of the game.
“I’ve seen you here before,” Dara said. “More than a few times, but you never partake. Tell me are you afraid of sex or do you just like to watch?” Moans and groans rose and fell behind them.
He drew a circle on the window. “There is no thrill in the hunt when your prey approaches you and places its neck in your maw. Not for me. I’ve grown tired of kittens with pretend claws.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?” Erik turned the circle into a crude rendering of a spider.
“I . . . think I do. You hunt those things that slip through the dark forest. The ones with claws and teeth that stalk you while you seek it.”
“Exactly, I hunt myself. Or something very much like me, a—”
“A predator,” Dara said.
Her words turned the blaze into a furnace. Breathe. Erik had to breathe. His chest rose and fell. His insides burned with need. Can’t let her see! his mind howled. Can’t show weakness, not now! Her eyes peered at him, green sapphires bedazzled by lamplight. Heedless of all thought, he grasped her and pulled her closer. Fire trickled down his throat.
Erik tore himself away from the memory. Though they were just images, his skin burned nonetheless. He blinked and gasped; he was now soaking within the steaming water of the stone bath. The hot water was the reason for the pain.
Dara clutched the back of his head, yanking his attention back onto the present. “That’s when I knew that we were meant for each other. That together we would—”
“Fuck them all,” Erik said, tugging her into the bath. Warm water splashed onto the green-tiled floor as he pulled her into a long, fervent kiss.
Chapter 23
The last remnants of Erik’s bath still glistened on the floor, but his eyes were drawn to a cobweb-like fracture in one of the green tiles at his feet. He sat on a cushioned chair, frozen in the act of putting on a pair of black boots. There was something about the cracks that reminded him of fissures in the earth, of rents that went all the way down to the molten core that slumbered below. They hissed with rage, burned with hatred, called to him with heart-wrenching lamentations.
Destroy it all, they cried. Scour clean the world and start anew.
Erik blinked and lifted his head. “What did you say?”
Dara sat perched on top of a window-seat, sunshine cast through the glass turning her into a shadowy goddess haloed with orange light. A sparkling green stone hung from the silver necklace around her neck, draped over an elegant black and gold gown.
“I said, are you ready?” She studied him with a quizzical stare.
“Yes.” Erik nodded. He forced his hand to unknot and pulled on his last boot. His back ached where Dara’s nails had punctured his flesh, but the pain was a slight irritation compared to the terror flooding his veins. His grip on reality was slipping away from him. First the talking snake, now a seething crack in the floor? I’m slowly going insane.
Dara hopped down from the window-seat and approached Erik. He dragged himself from his chair and ran a hand down his white coat, across his matching breeches, and stopped with it on the hilt of the longsword at his hip.
“Are you well?” She touched his face. “You look pale.”
Erik gave his best imitation of a smile. “We go to war dressed for a ball?” He was not certain that their current garb was suitable for what he feared was to come, but mostly he did not want to talk about what he was feeling. His worries about his sanity were not something he was willing to share, not now. Not when he wanted to be believed. No. Much better to keep his concerns to himself.
“Would you have it any other way?”
“I suppose not.”
Dara led him out of the bath chamber and up a sprawling staircase. They walked in silence, with the sound of boots battering wood and the swooshing of Dara’s dress filling the void. Portraits of themselves hung on the walls, rendered in vivid detail.
Erik was not looking forward to this. His stomach grumbled at him, reminding him he had not eaten all day. He was ready to gnaw at one of his leather boots, raw if need be. He sighed silently and allowed Dara to drag him into a room on the second floor. Elina slept on top of a blue Utrecht velvet sofa, stamped with a phoenix pattern. Her soft snores brought a genuine smile to his face.
He found Kendra looking at him, and shared a smile with her as well. She stood beside the sofa along with ten other women, all of whom wore black dresses with white wimples on their heads. Each woman was armed with a sword at her hip, a bow on her shoulder, and many throwing knives Erik could not see, but somehow knew their clothing hid.
He strolled deeper into the chamber with Dara on his arm, and the maids curtsied as one. They clustered around him, some touching his sleeve as he strode past. He came to a large window that looked onto the street, and stopped. His memories remained fragmented and out of reach, but Dara had coached him on what needed to be said.
“Well, don’t you all look fierce.” Erik paused for the nervous laughter that followed his words. “I know you have questions, but please save them for later. For now, treat this as a training exercise.”
“Erik.” Dara tapped his shoulder and motioned to the window.
He shifted to track the direction of her finger. Hanna stood on the street below, staring up at him with a tightness in her eyes. Streams of happy families parted around her, jostling each other in their rush to reach the center of the village. He met her gaze with one just as level and firm, even though it was difficult. She painted an image of stark loneliness.
“Does she always appear so tragic?” Dara asked.
Erik frowned. “No, not always. Sometimes she forgets that she’s supposed to be sad, and she smiles, but those moments never last long.” He froze. Where did that come from?
“Perhaps we should invite her inside.”
Erik opened his mouth and closed it again when a shout drew his attention to the sofa. Elina tossed and turned on the couch, caught in the grip of a nightmare. Her pale eyelids shook as tears ran down her cheeks. He raced over to her, fear quickening his pace, terror tightening his throat.
“No. No.” She moaned.
“It’s all right. Elina, it’s all right.” Erik took her trembling shoulders in his hands and gently shook them. Her eyes snapped open, and she jerked away. Green eyes looked through him as if he was not there. They blinked slowly, overcome by tears. The moisture made them seem formed from glass, or perhaps crystal, catching the sunlight and splintering it into a hundred glittering flashes.
“Why,” she asked. “Why did you do it?”
“Do what?”
Elina glared at him. “Why did you kill me? I thought you loved me!”
Her words rocked Erik back on his heels. He could only stare at her, uncomprehending. She sat up in her cream-colored dress and balled her little hands into fists.
“How could you!” she screamed.
“It was a night terror, Elina. You were dreaming. I would never hurt you. Never! You’re my everything. You’re the blood in my veins and the hope in my heart. I would rather die than harm a single hair on your beautiful little head.”
“You promise?”
Erik enveloped Elina in his arms and clutched her to his chest. “I promise.”
The clamor of a ringing bell knifed into the room, shattering the silence. Ice slipped into Erik’s blood, clawed along his veins. Elina shuddered against him, and he squeezed her even tighter before letting her go. The original bell ceased its cry, yet its call was soon taken up by its kin’s deafening clangs.
“Da, are we in danger?” Elina whispered. She looked from face to face, her nightmare seemingly forgotten in the fury of the metallic din.
“Hush.” Erik flicked Elina’s forehead and gave Dara nod.
Dara cleared her throat. “Within twenty minutes—”
“Ten,” Erik said.
“Within the next ten minutes,” Dara said, “Wolfville will be attacked by a herd of four-tusked mammoths and a pack of dire wolves. We assume it’s a Two-Stage Beast Swarm, but it may very well be a three or a four.” Surprised mummers rose. “Secure the downstairs windows and doors and return here. Now go.”
Kendra remained still as the other maids rushed out of the room, heeding Dara’s silent motion. “Is there something else?”
“Retrieve the portable wardstones in storage,” Dara said. “They might prove useful.”
Kendra left the room.
“Is it true? Is Ma right?” Elina pulled at Erik’s coat sleeve. “Are the monsters coming?”
“Close your eyes. I’m going to teach you a trick.” Elina did as she was told and Erik sat down beside her. “Inhale. Slowly fill your lungs and sense the air travel down into your chest. Taste the salty ocean air on your tongue, feel it tickle the back of your throat. Now can you sense the sand beneath your toes? It’s warm at first, but the deeper you push, the cooler it becomes.”
“Yes!” Elina said. “I can.”
The floorboards rattled beneath Erik’s boots, and he leaped to his feet, searching for the source. The ceiling tore away from the rest of the manor, launched into the heavens as if by an invisible hand. The building shrieked around Erik. Entire sections of the wall broke apart and hung separated from each other as the wind howled in through the gaps.
Erik threw himself to the floor and landed in sand. He lay on a beach, in front of a placid ocean. The manor was gone, replaced by endless water and the orange sun that hung above it.
He grabbed a handful of pink and white sand and watched the granules slip through the gaps in between his fingers. His heart hammered the inside of his chest. W-What is this?
Elina raced past Erik, her dirty blonde hair whipped by the breeze. She picked up a sparkling seashell and clasped it to her chest, grinning as if she had found a lost aquatic treasure. “How did you do this, Da? It’s amazing! Can you teach me?” She spun toward him. “Where are we exactly?”
“I think we’re on the coast.” Erik stood and approached Elina; the sand shifted beneath him, almost like he was walking on snow. “That’s the Howling Sea.” He stumbled back as if he had run headlong into a stone wall. He did not know how he knew, he just did.
“Really? B-But I thought it was supposed to be scary? Ma told me one of the Four Great Calamities lives in the ocean. Was she wrong?”
“No, she wasn’t wrong,” Erik said, just as curious as Elina to discover what words he might speak next. “Bahamut lives out there, but it migrates. The Howling Sea is only dangerous during certain times of the year, though there are things out there that would prove just as deadly.”
“And is it true that Bahamut is as big as the whole of Daði?”
Erik laughed. “Not quite, but it’s so large you can’t see all of it. Its scope is beyond a man’s field of vision.”
“Da, look!” Elina said, pointing up at the sky. “It’s the Duke.”
Asbjörn strolled over their heads, moving toward the ocean, about a hundred meters off the ground, his crimson robe flapping in the wind. He sipped from a bowl and sang a song that became jumbled by the time it reached their ears.
“How’s he here, too? Did you invite him?” Elina went on. “And how’s he walking in the sky?”
Erik froze with his hand on the hilt of his sword. “I don’t know, and no, I didn’t invite him. Cultivators are like master painters. Think of their swords as paintbrushes, the world as their canvas, and the Four Aspects of the Abyss as the watercolors they use to form their creations. Through their art, they make the concepts in their mind reality.”
Asbjörn danced above the Howling Sea, a longsword whirling in his hand. He slashed down at the water, a lance of fire grew from the end of his blade, and the ocean squealed, a column of thick smoke billowing up into the air.
