Chapter Six
Azazel
“Grandfather died today. I always knew Father didn’t get along with him, but I can’t say I wasn’t surprised when he called me into his office and had me drink whiskey with him to celebrate the news. I guess it’s normal to hate your parents.”
When I was nine, my favorite servant, Martha, died. Well, she didn’t die. I killed her.
I thought a lot about that night as Tershetta cooked a foul-smelling stew from the chicken I had left over in the icebox. She was like a tornado, tugging open every cabinet, pulling out every herb, and talking to herself randomly.
Nothing like Martha, who was soft, kind, and organized beyond belief.
She always sang bright lullabies and cleaned my cuts when I fell.
She was the opposite of Tershetta in many ways; however, she was the same in one crucial aspect.
Martha, like Tershetta, was not subject to the sway and demand of society.
They did not subscribe to the status quo that everyone else desperately clung to.
They were not affected by gravity, because they were gravity.
I had known it the first time I met Little Void.
She studied the world and saw it for what it was.
She didn’t care about money, power, or notoriety.
Martha hadn’t either. She used to tell me she loved me more than every piece of gold on Dajahim.
She’d tell me of all the dreams she had for me—how she pictured my future self shining brighter than the stars above.
She didn’t believe that we were ruled by anything but ourselves.
And, just like Tershetta, Father wanted me to strike her down for the audacity.
I wished I had found a way out of it like I had with the woman in front of me.
Sometimes I still had nightmares of Martha’s writhing body as I squeezed her neck, sobs leaking from my mouth in time with the snot pouring from my nose.
Father had beaten me after for feeling remorse.
Or was it sadness? Perhaps both. He so despised all feelings other than anger.
I sat at my table, feigning reading a book when really I was watching Tershetta.
She’d been pretending not to have a plot brewing in her mind, acting as if she was suddenly hungry and wanted to cook.
Please. I wasn’t stupid. I saw the way she hung a second, smaller pot on the hearth.
Watched curiously as she slyly shoved some of her newly acquired plants into it.
Tershetta was brewing something.
Martha would have liked her, I thought. She enjoyed annoying and persistent people. She liked me, after all.
Tershetta brewed differently than Cal, who was more contained and clean. Cal used to call Alchemy an art. He would tell me that I was too stupid to understand as he stirred whatever new concoction he was crafting in his family’s lab.
I missed him. All of them. Every time I snuck into Castle Altair and found more of their letters upon my bed, I nearly caved and responded.
I had to keep them in the dark though, even if their devastating words threatened to strike me down from the pain of their abandonment and fear.
Even worse, I thought of the two people who weren’t sending me letters.
The one lost and the one dead. Dove would have figured out that it wasn’t me, not even bothering to accept the false narrative.
She was too keen, too loving, too kind. For all the hatred that we cores stored away in our hearts, she still somehow managed to find it in herself to be tender. Talon had once been the same.
It felt as if my entire life had imploded. Like I was lost at sea, treading water and fighting off my inevitable, slow death by drowning. Martha would have held me. Sang to me. And I had killed her.
“Okay, food’s ready!” Tershetta shouted the words, rushing them out of her mouth as she dashed towards me. She was borderline frantic, her eyes darting to the front door and then back to me. What was she plotting?
Sloppily, she slammed a bowl in front of me at the table, the stew almost looking muddy. Would Tershetta kill me? Was it poison she made?
I could hear that voice in my head, the one that sounded so much like Father, hissing at me.
You can’t trust an of eadi. They’ll take any chance they can to kill you. They’ll rip apart everything you hold dear and then burn the world to the ground. All they do is poison everything they touch.
I took a bite of the stew.
Tershetta watched me with keen eyes, the barest hint of a smirk raising the left corner of her mouth. I chewed slowly, hating how it was simultaneously thick and slimy.
“Let me guess, you think I poisoned you?” she asked, letting her chin fall into her hands.
Swallowing, I said, “No, of course not.”
“Maybe you should be more afraid of me, Altair.”
That had me pausing, a chunk of too-tough meat sticking to my teeth, stabbing me in the gums when I tried to chomp down on it. “Well, I’m definitely terrified you’ll kill me with your poor cooking.”
Crossing her arms, she sat back. I watched with fascination as she tugged her lip into her mouth, the graze of her teeth against it making my stomach stir. It wasn’t even a particularly alluring act. Her lip split from the effort, bleeding and forcing her tongue to dart out and soothe it.
I want to do that.
The thought was there and gone, a startling force of desire landing in my gut, so heavy I had to acknowledge it.
I hadn’t felt like that since before…Benadell Zade.
Yes, it had been that long. Even when I had previously seen Tershetta, she hadn’t elicited such emotions from me.
Not really. Or, perhaps she had, but I always hated her too much to see it.
Now, though, it was impossible to ignore.
Just like the lust, I couldn’t ignore the shame, even if I knew it wasn’t necessarily something I should have felt.
“That’s rich coming from someone who burned pancakes of all things.” Her lip was still bleeding. Did she know that?
“Maybe if you weren’t so focused on brewing whatever is in the vial in your pocket then you would have made a decent meal.
” Immediately, Tershetta’s entire demeanor changed.
I watched as she stiffened, her back straightening as she lifted her chin and ceased chewing.
She was a statue, firm and unmoving. A soldier, strong and unrelenting. A vision.
No, she was a mess and a pain in my ass. That was what she was.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Almost convincing, if it weren’t for the way that she allowed her eyes to flick to the hearth where her smaller pot still hung.
I shouldn’t have admitted I knew what she was doing.
Anyone with half a brain would know that it would have been better to act as if I was oblivious so I could see her plans play out for myself rather than beg her for answers.
But that was the problem with Tershetta.
She broke my mind when I was near her. I used to liken it to poison, but now I wondered if it was more like the first sunny day after a season of storms. Something bright and consuming.
Something that stopped you from being able to do anything other than bask.
“Oh, my mistake. I thought I saw you put something in there.”
It was far too late to take back what I said. Unlike me, Tershetta grew more keen when we were near one another. She stared at me openly, her eyes squinting and her nose scrunching.
Now that I was looking at her, I realized that all of her features almost seemed too big for her face.
Large eyes, nose, and mouth. Her body was also odd, as if still underfed but simultaneously strong.
Her skin wasn’t as deep as before, almost as if she’d kept herself indoors more than she should have, but I could still see that perpetual glow of hers.
Somehow, it all fit, despite the imbalance.
But it was glaring, wasn’t it? Something obvious that I should’ve noticed already?
I had always known her top lip was fuller than her bottom one, could still recall the almost honey tone of her eyes. But…this was different.
Maybe I’m just seeing her as she is for the first time.
“I better go check on my garden again, I think I messed up one of the wards.” No, she hadn’t. Tershetta was excellent at warding. How, I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure how Tershetta knew how to do half of the things she did.
“I think your wards are fine.” Tershetta ignored me, pushing her palms against the table as she stood, causing my spoon to rattle against my bowl.
Without another word, she turned and darted for the door, throwing it open to reveal a downpour of thick snowflakes.
Not bothering to grab a cloak or even put on shoes, she practically leapt into the cold.
Well, damn.
The only option was to follow her, though I really didn’t want to be inconvenienced and cold. Really, why did she insist on being out there? Throwing my head back, I let out a gut-deep groan. “Impossible woman.”
Then I was shoving my feet into my boots, grabbing her dingy, worn pair she’d pulled out of her bag and snagging two of my cloaks off the hooks on my way.
I chased her out, seeing that she had, in fact, not gone to her garden.
Instead, I caught sight of her running in the distance, heading the opposite way of the cliffs towards the ruins.
“You can’t be running barefoot like that! Do you want to get sick?” I screamed as loud as I could, the thick snowflakes and dark clouds muffling my voice. I ran for a few seconds before finding myself too annoyed to continue. “Fuck this.”
Shadow walking, I landed just ahead of her, staring her down with what I hoped was an exhausted expression. She was so dramatic.
“Twice you’ve run away from my cottage like a petulant child. Are you done with the theatrics or should I get comfortable for another show?” My drawl was slow, though I had to shout it to make sure she heard it. And, oh, did she hear it.