Bittersouls, p.21
Bittersouls, page 21
“That’s everything, then?” Dela stared at the floor, rubbing her hands against her temples. “You just want to know…?”
“Everything.” A companionable smile spread across her face. As if this madwoman thought they could be friends. As if anything at all could be shared between them after all the queen had done. It was ludicrous. “Yes. I just want to know everything.”
* * *
Dela stayed in the queen’s chambers for hours. Question after question, inference after inference, conclusion after conclusion. Most of it meant nothing. She was asked about her childhood. The circumstances of her birth. Her first experience with a Jackal. She supposed the queen was trying to discern if there were commonalities between them. Perhaps there was something there in their young lives that could serve as a useful indicator for someone who might become a wispmother. But if she found anything, she didn’t share it. While they’d both grown up in congregations—and, it seemed, the queen’s had been one of the five with which they’d shared the Footprint—they had little else in common.
She moved on to more recent events, asking after her interactions with Shades. Asking what she knew about them. She wondered how long Dela had known she was different. How long her wisp had been white—before it had been robbed from her. About the sensations of her connection to her wisp. The madness, as the queen kept calling it, was the influence of a wisp’s mind on its host. It seemed that all Bittersouls were mad with fear of Shades. If the two of them were indicators, wispmothers were mad with the lack of it. Her experience splitting a Shade had been very much like Dela’s. Traumatic. Painful. Transformative. The queen had apparently even considered changing her name again, but had decided against it. She was still a Bittersoul, she thought. She was just a better one.
Maybe that was why Dela hadn’t given herself a name. Somewhere deep down, she still thought of herself as the girl in her congregation. The strong one. The confident one. That was who she’d been, and it was still who she wanted to be, though her circumstances had obviously changed. It had all changed when she’d lost her wisp. Now all she wanted was to get out of here. To run away, even if it meant freezing to death somewhere out there in the Bitters. She didn’t want to be kept alive. She wanted to live or die trying.
“And your friend.” Queen Greywater moved forward, clearly bored with the previous subject. “The Bittersoul with the red wisp. What can you tell me about him?”
Dela shook her head. She’d already decided about this. “Nothing. He’s not my friend. You can ask him your questions yourself.”
“Not his friend, yet you try to protect his secrets?” The queen pursed her lips, her wispy amber eyebrows furrowing.
“Not his friend, so I don’t know anything,” Dela said. She could put her foot down on this. She could afford that. Questions about herself? Her own past? Her childhood? Those couldn’t hurt anyone. Those couldn’t come back to haunt her. But Talon? Talon was a man who kept secrets. And if she told the queen something and then Talon told it differently, she could put his life at risk.
The queen shook her head. “This will not change the way I treat him.” She tapped her index finger against her cheek, as if trying to decide how to make Dela see reason. “I know he was loyal to you. That you were his queen, for a time. Perhaps he really did want to join me. Perhaps he wanted to be rid of you all along. But perhaps he was simply forced into it, having stepped into the trap that my Souls left for him. He’s been hunting my Souls for years, you know. Not because he knew they were mine, necessarily, but on account of the number of Souls that I have under my… direction.”
“You knew he was a red wisp?”
Greywater shook her head. “No. That was just a pleasant surprise. I have heard of them, of course. A few of my Souls got in over their head with one… five years ago? Incredible fighter, she was. Killed four of mine before they overwhelmed her.”
Dela froze. Tash. The queen’s people… they’d killed her, too. Had Talon been there? Had he seen it happen? Was that why he was so obsessed with hunting after a group of Bittersouls traveling together? He’d said she’d been lost to madness. But madness could have simply been overconfidence. From what the queen had just said, her overconfidence may have almost been justified.
“Hmm.” The queen studied her again.
Dela scowled. How much had she just read on her face?
And then the queen yawned. Hugely. Unapologetically. Perhaps she expressed all her emotions that way. There wasn’t anyone here who would raise a hand to stop her. She didn’t have to worry about looking ridiculous. She blinked sleepily, a contented smile on her face. “I think we did well today, you and I.”
Dela didn’t answer. How could she act like that? As if they were partners? As if Dela wanted to help her? She felt sick.
“Suppose we start here again tomorrow?” Greywater nodded to herself. “I can have Retch here with us. Might smooth along some of the… bumps in the conversation.”
Bumps. Like her not talking. This was the part of the information she really wanted. The part that was sensitive and important to the way she made decisions right now. Decisions like whether to let Talon live.
What was Dela supposed to do? The only secret she’d ever kept was her own. Even when the secret was simple, like Nolam’s, she hadn’t been able to protect him. Not even from the Ministers, who’d never gone so far as to lay a hand on her to make her speak. But here? With the queen? With Retch? She wasn’t sure how long she could resist. She wouldn’t tell them anything; she could promise herself that. But if they asked enough questions… if they made enough guesses… they might learn what they wanted to know, even if she kept her mouth shut.
“Retch!” the queen called, and was immediately answered by the door opening behind Dela.
It was happening again. Everything Dela had lost, she’d found again in Talon. He was her hope. Her companion. Her… love. How could she be here, on the brink of losing it all again?
How could she even ask that? She was a dead woman walking. She had no wisp. No hope of escape. Everything that happened between now and Retch unceremoniously shoving her out a window to the rocks below might as well be a formality.
A wave of nausea struck her as the Bittersoul hauled her to her feet. They still hadn’t fed her. If they intended to keep her alive, they’d have to change that before too long.
“Easy.” Retch snickered. “I haven’t even hit you yet.”
Perhaps it was a mercy, though. She didn’t want to be here. Starving to death wasn’t her idea of the perfect way to die, but it would serve as well as any other. Maybe she could refuse to eat even if they tried to feed her. If she could keep it up for long enough, they might not get her to talk before…
Well.
Retch hauled her out of the room, kicking the door shut behind them with a surprising amount of grace. She wasn’t even watching as the long hallway to the throne room passed them by. She didn’t have to study the halls. Knowing the layout of this place would do her no good. She was going to die here. She already had died here.
Sunset shone in through the broad throne room windows. This time, the room was empty. As soon as they entered, crossing the breadth of the room toward the narrow corridors that would lead back to her cell, another figure entered from an adjoining hall.
“Retch! Good, I found you.” The other Soul nodded a greeting.
“What do you want, Fish?” The maniac scowled. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”
Fish glanced at her, but she didn’t return the look. She kept staring at the floor. She didn’t care who he was. Didn’t care what he wanted.
“Just returning her to the holding?” the other Bittersoul asked. “I’m sure I can handle that. But there’s another issue upstairs that requires your… particular talents.”
She could almost feel the grin paint itself all over Retch’s face. “Ah. Well.” He chuckled. “I better tend to that.”
“They’re waiting for you.”
“That’s what they all tell me,” Retch called back before disappearing down another hall.
Then she was alone with him. She didn’t recognize his voice as one of the ones who’d ambushed them at the Footprint, though she supposed she hadn’t heard them all. Daylight was fading fast outside, her outlook growing bleaker along with it. She hated Retch, but she at least knew what to expect from him. These Bittersouls… they were all the same in their vileness, but differed in what sort of vileness they preferred. This new one… he might—
“It really is you, then.” The man’s voice seemed suddenly softer. Kinder. “I wondered if you’d be exiled.”
Did she recognize it?
She looked up at him, puzzling over the lines of his face. For the longest time, she thought she was staring at a ghost. Someone long lost. Departed. She couldn’t even recognize him anymore, but she knew him. She’d known him for as long as he’d lived. Somehow, he’d ended up here.
“Nolam,” she whispered. She wasn’t prepared for the tears that burst from her eyes. They came even though she didn’t have the water to spare. She tried to embrace him, but he held her back.
“There isn’t time,” he whispered. “This room is the only way out aside from the front entrance, and it isn’t exactly untraveled.”
He was still so young. Fourteen now? But how he’d grown. And his face… there were lines there that a man of thirty might have. Sorrow. Strain. But strength, too. He’d seen much since her people had left him behind.
“I can’t leave.” Dela shook her head. “I don’t have a wisp. Even if I could get out somehow. Even if I somehow wandered out the front door… I wouldn’t make it a mile.”
He motioned her toward the front of the room, behind the throne, just below the windows. Was that what he meant by a way out? The plunge was so far… and into the freezing ocean. At night.
“Listen, Dela,” Nolam—Fish—muttered. “It’s worse than you think. Everything about this place. These Souls? The queen? It’s sick. The things they’re doing… the things they’re planning. They’re going to kill congregations, Dela.”
Dela gasped, feeling for a moment that the room had run out of air. Her tears were fresh in her eyes as she looked into his. She shook her head. “They… they already…”
Nolam blinked away a tear, clearly trying to be stronger than he felt. “You mean…? And Freja?” Only then did he look at Dela properly. She was still wearing his sister’s roughcloak. Her clothes. The too-soft gloves Jathym had made for her.
“I’m sorry, Nolam. I tried. I really…” She shook her head again. She had no idea what he’d been through over the past few months. Terrible things, but she could only guess. To be reunited with him here under these dire circumstances and have nothing to tell him but that? She was the worst friend who had ever lived.
He shook his head, gritting his teeth. “There’s no time for that.” He glanced around the room, making sure they were still alone. “Fix this, Dela. These Souls… many of them don’t want to be here. They’re not all like Retch. They don’t all feed on the insanity. But the queen is the queen, and she has the power to protect and punish any of them.” His eyes wandered. “Any of us.”
He was delusional if he thought she could help. She couldn’t do anything. “I don’t have a wisp, Nolam. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t challenge her. Even if every single Soul here was on my side. I’m going to die, Nolam. You should just forget about me.”
He snorted. She’d forgotten that he did that. “Not getting off the hook that easily.” He pressed something into her palm.
She looked down. A wispknife? “Nolam, I don’t—”
He looked her straight in the eyes. The absolute conviction in his face stunned her to silence. “You’re going to take mine.”
“What? No!” She recoiled, but she didn’t drop the knife. Was that even possible? She knew how wisps were born. She knew people weren’t born with them. If a free wisp found a human without one… was it really that easy?
As easy as killing her friend, that is.
“We don’t have time for this.” Nolam’s eyes darted around the room again. He was dead serious. “High tide won’t last forever. If you don’t want to do it, I’ll make you do it. But I’ll be wasting Warmth if I do, so please don’t make me do that.”
“Make me?” Dela quivered. Why was this happening? Why did everything keep going from bad to worse?
“I’ll slit my throat,” he said. “My wisp can’t stop that bleeding. It’ll burn Warmth until it’s all gone. I’ll die, and then you will, too—if you don’t take my wisp before it’s over.”
“Nolam, stop!” Dela cried. “You can’t… I can’t… What am I even supposed to do?”
The boy—man?—shrugged. Like it was no big deal. Like it wasn’t his responsibility. “You were always the smart one, Dela. You can figure this out. But it has to be you. There isn’t another wispmother alive who I think can take her down. It has to…” He paused, cocking his head as though he’d heard a sound. She heard nothing. “It has to be you. And it has to be right now.”
He shucked his roughcloak sharply, grabbing tools and weapons from his clothes underneath and handing them to Dela. She took them dutifully, one by one, but couldn’t stop staring at the wispknife in her other hand. Was she really that sort of person? A person who would do anything—anything—to survive? Was this even about survival anymore? The queen had done terrible things, and she would do even more terrible things. She had to be stopped, didn’t she? Someone had to stop her.
But did that someone really have to be Dela?
Nolam turned and kneeled, exposing the bright orange wisp at his back to her.
What if this didn’t work? What if they both died anyway? What if she could take his wisp but she couldn’t become a wispmother again? The queen had mentioned that not a few hours before. Was it the wisp that was the mother, or the woman? If she did this, she was gambling that Nolam’s sacrifice wouldn’t go to waste. Gambling that she could somehow come back here and knock down a regime that had ruled the area for what might have been as long as she’d been alive. And, before all that, gambling that she wouldn’t simply smash herself to a paste on the rocks at the bottom of the fjord.
It was all so impossible. But she’d thought that before. She’d seen the impossible. She’d done the impossible. She’d made it this far, hadn’t she?
And what had it cost her? Nolam was the last person from her congregation who was still alive. The very last piece of her home. Her people. The woman she had been. Talon was so much to her, but he could never be that. Even if she returned and he was alive—even if she somehow saved him and made it out alive herself—he was only the future, not the past. If she killed Nolam now, part of her would die so the rest of her could live.
It wasn’t about her. It wasn’t about survival. It wasn’t about the past or future or anything else. She had to do this, like Nolam said. She had to put an end to this madness. No one should have to suffer the way she had. She’d promised herself the day her mother had died that she would exact vengeance. That she would make this right. No more congregations should have to die. She might be dead either way, but if she could do this… if she alone could make a difference… she had to try.
She looked away as she did it. She didn’t listen to his screams. She didn’t think about the wisp that wasn’t hers, floating through the air and then alighting on her back, bound to her from then forward. She didn’t think about the clambering in the halls nearby, rushing toward the sounds of screams. She didn’t look back as she climbed up into the wide threshold that served as the throne room’s windows.
There was nothing but night before her. The Flame Above was dead alongside the last piece of herself she thought she might ever be able to forgive.
She heard shouts. People running. Weapons being drawn.
And then she jumped.
Chapter 15
Dela hit the water with a crash, engulfed by the waves in the barest fraction of a second. The night’s sea was mercifully calm—otherwise she would have drowned long before she reached a friendly shore. The tide retreated dutifully, pulling her to safety along with it. Her new wisp burned brighter than she’d ever seen, surely visible for miles, but she didn’t have time to care about that. She had to get as far away as she could. Had to swim.
There was no time to despair. She gasped in air every chance she got, thanking the current for carrying her as fast as it did out to sea. It would be a struggle to make it back to shore, but for now she needed distance. The Bittersouls would surely try to follow her along the cliffs. Somehow, none of them had been mad enough to leap in after her. Maybe there was no escape, no matter what she did. But she had to try.
She floundered for a while, watching the cliffs shrink behind her before the riptide caught her and pulled her steadily northward into colder waters. She resolved only to stay afloat, letting the current carry her as swiftly as it deigned to. The salt water and the calmness of the night made that easy enough, at least.
How far would she have to go? How long would she have to wait? For a little while, she saw the shimmering light of a half-dozen wisps on the bluffs above. But as the hours passed, she lost sight of them. Maybe they’d lost sight of her, too. Though they were probably skilled trackers like Talon was, she doubted they would know where the sea would take her or where she might choose to emerge from it.
She hoped she could make it until dawn. With daylight her wisp would be much harder to see, hopefully mitigating the greatest risk: that they would see her as she climbed out from the water. But she still hadn’t eaten in days, and the seawater had left her parched. Drained. She had to get out soon or she wouldn’t be able to make the swim to shore. There wasn’t any more time to debate with herself.
