30. Chapter Twenty-Nine
30
Charmaine
C harmaine faded in and out of consciousness. She spied on the world in intervals, observing a dank cave and rusting metal. Violet eyes peered down at her. A blinding light burned her irises. Pain surged in her arm, then she fell into nothing. She hovered within an inky night, where she stuttered through every breath.
Was this death? Had the Broken Soul judged her impure, and she was cursed to drown in the waters of Elysium? She couldn’t see or hear anything. The world became a vast void. She thought of home, of her mother, of the future she had wanted and how it faded from her view.
Whimpering, her eyes opened. She inhaled a long breath, realizing she had not died, but the pain echoing through her limbs made her wish for death. She took in the unfamiliar room that settled a biting fear at the base of her spine. Ancient chains, thick as her wrists, hung from the ceiling. Their sharp hooks held dissected bodies up by their torn muscles. Blood stained the floor, discoloring the rock a dull red. Everything had a metallic scent and a sticky surface. Along the opposite wall, broken jars containing peculiar green liquid lined the shelves alongside preserved limbs and medical supplies.
She dared not to speak, even as she gazed at the unfamiliar writing scratched into the walls. Considering what little she remembered—the military encampment and hurting soldiers—she theorized where she was; Fearworn had her. She hadn’t died. Yet. The future she wanted still had a chance.
Fearworn wasn’t in the room. She wished to avoid his presence for as long as possible, potentially long enough to escape. The room had a single exit, a metal door to her left. A desk cluttered with papers sat nearby. Books towered on the desk and along the shelves secured to the wall. The chair had fallen to the floor by an aged grate covered in grime and a peculiar wet substance.
Groaning, Charmaine pressed her hands to the wall and pushed herself onto throbbing feet. That’s when she looked at herself. She gaped at the sight of her clawed hands. Thick nails pierced the tip of her fingers, making the skin raw and bloody. Strange scales ruptured through the shedding skin of her arms. She tugged at her clothes in search of more, finding the scales along her sides, thighs, then beneath her eyes. The infection, whatever Fearworn did, changed her. She did not know when she would lose herself again. Right now, her mind felt like her own, but she sensed another voice squirm in the back of her head. This voice, this creature, craved to take hold.
If she escaped, she may hurt the people she cares about most. There was no telling if this monster forming within her had her memories or not. What if it returned to her homeland and attacked her mother? She wouldn’t be able to live with herself, so rather than running to the door, she searched for the cure they hoped Fearworn had.
Charmaine ripped through the papers along Fearworn’s desk. He wrote in the language of fae. Not understanding a word, she snarled and threw her attention to the shelves. Her shaking hands flicked through them, longing for a sign while knowing she had no clue what to look for.
Please, don’t let me die here like this, she pleaded to the Holy Soul, or any deity willing to listen. She would give anything to be given a chance at a better life, to be happy, and not feel as if the world tormented her for its own amusement.
“My pet, you are awake.”
Charmaine froze. Slow steps approached her, then a gentle hand fell on her shoulder. Every instinct told her to run, yet her legs refused to budge.
“Look at me,” Fearworn ordered, and she obeyed. Somehow, his voice commanded her. The last time she saw Fearworn, he had nearly killed them. He was exactly as she remembered, pale skinned and donned in fine silks. The bloodied floor stained the trail of his blue robes. He paid the mess no mind. His inquisitive attention inspected her thoroughly, excited. His cool hand moved from her shoulder to her neck. Fearworn pressed the sharp nail of his thumb against her chin to push her head from side to side.
“I am surprised you are of sound mind, that you are so inquisitive of your surroundings,” Fearworn spoke with the awe of a child, one whose mind finally tasted their own thoughts. “My creations often suffer from a great deal of ailments to the mind.”
Charmaine was uncertain whether he wanted her to speak. His eyes narrowed, and she took a chance, asking, “That is not your intention?”
“Of course not. I want them to be real and grand and strong. This,” he gestured to the laboratory as if it were a glistening gem rather than a festering hole of gore. “This is my dream, creation.”
“And destruction.”
“Life comes from death, does it not? A fire scorches the forest and the forest regrows. Nature is a powerful and merciless thing.”
Fearworn shuffled to his desk where he scribbled notes, muttering softly to himself. Watching Fearworn tug the chair up to take a seat felt odd. For the monster that had been tormenting so many lives to perform mundane tasks, like sitting at a desk looking through papers, was a peculiar sight. If one ignored the chaotic room, he appeared normal, little more than a man hard at work. She wondered when his life changed. If he was ever someone others conversed with and asked questions without worrying about losing a limb.
“You are staring,” Fearworn said.
“Sorry… sir,” she muttered.
“Do you have questions for me, my pet?”
She clasped her hands behind her back to pinch her fingers together. She disliked being referred to as a pet, though she disliked everything about the situation at hand. A sickness grew, knotted by fear and pointless hope that William and Nicholas would show up, that they would save her and she’d leave this damned place.
“I, uh, I know little about shades, sir, so it’s curious to see you work,” she replied. If a miracle happened, if she survived, she could bring information back, so she may as well take advantage of speaking with Fearworn. She didn’t know of anyone to have done so and live to tell the tale.
“Shades.” He chuckled. “What do you know of them, then? I haven’t met many mortals to ask.”
“We know very little. Shades appear among rare fae children, and they are stronger than most.”
“Stronger is a stretch. There are many High Fae capable of winning against a shade. We are not invincible. We’re not what you mortals may call gods. We are no different from a volcanic eruption relieving pressure or an avalanche whisking away snow. We are born when magic grows too heavy for the world. That magic must go somewhere, so it goes to us,” he said, as if the answer should have been obvious.
“If that is the case, why are there no shades among mortals?”
“Because this realm has little magic as is and I want to know why. I want to see what the other realms offer, the ones I have found and those that remain. Would you like to hear of them?” Fearworn lurched out of his chair. It toppled to the floor while he grabbed books upon books to throw at Charmaine’s feet, uncaring of the blood seeping across the covers. He fell to his knees, hands twitching in the air like he clung to the fabric of the world and wished to show her all of it.
“I have already proven there is another realm and I will prove there are more. Each differs from the last, but there are similarities, strings that connect us all, magic and life and death. It’s all there at the tip of my fingers,” his voice abruptly fell to a low growl. “But these bastards continue to halt my plans. They stand in my way, in the way of grand discoveries. They do not understand. They don’t see what’s out there.”
Fearworn waved his hand, and the books opened. Their pages fluttered to unveil scribbled images in frantic charcoal. Charmaine’s curiosity got the better of her. She fell to a knee and ran a hand over the drawing of a humanoid creature constructed of water surrounded by Fearworn’s unreadable ramblings.
“Beautiful,” Fearworn whispered while tracing the art. “I have seen glimpses through the Scars of these other worlds. They’re in reach and we should try to find them.”
“Why? What if there is something out there that can hurt us?” she asked, choosing not to mention how he brought plenty of monsters to hurt them already.
“To discover it, of course. Don’t you understand?”
She feared what he would do if she said no, fearful of the storm raging in Fearworn’s violet eyes. So close, she saw the purple hued tendrils worming beneath his skin. They sunk under his eyes and slithered around his neck. As if the magic within him became a web, it crisscrossed over his body, and undoubtedly into his rotting mind.
She dared to pity him. The magic coming so naturally to fae betrayed him, eating him away from within. Nicholas could follow in those footsteps. Shades were sad, in a way she hadn’t thought of until she sat before one. Fearworn could have been a brilliant researcher, potentially one to discover other realms and travel them safely. His work may have helped the world, if only he had a grasp on himself, on the curiosity and power battling inside of him.
“I understand,” she whispered, and he smiled.
“Good, good, you see.” He gripped her chin, then ran a finger along the scales on her cheek. “Now, tell me how all of this feels. What changes have you noticed? Give me every little detail.”
He spoke as if she should be excited to share. When she hesitated to respond, the room darkened. His brows furrowed, creating deep lines in his forehead, and a vicious sneer spread over his features. She sensed if she did not share these details, he would force them out of her in any way necessary.
Charmaine shared anything that came to mind. The more she spoke, the wider Fearworn’s smile became until the expression was painful to gaze upon. What he had in mind couldn’t be good and all she could do was hope she lost herself to the monster before Fearworn’s more physical experiments began.