Chapter Seven #2
Finally, I opened my eyes, gaze immediately locking with Altair’s.
He was already staring at me, his pale grey eyes wide and his light brows furrowed.
He had tugged his bottom lip into his mouth and crossed his arms, the faint sound of his expensive boot tapping against the mud at our feet echoing in the alleyway.
I could hear no one nearby, which was odd.
People were always roaming during the day.
Many were worse off than my family and I had been.
Even more desperate for coin. No one ever skipped work.
Even though I knew he’d refuse, I still ripped the vial from my pocket and reached up to grip Altair’s neck. His hand darted to mine, fingers wrapping around my wrist.
“What are you doing?”
“We don’t have time, drink this.” Lifting the vial, I tugged the small cork loose with my teeth, noting how keenly Altair watched, how he stared openly at my movements. Distrusting until the end. That was good. He shouldn’t trust me.
“No!” He swatted my hand and the vial away, but didn’t attempt to move my other hand from his neck. His breath danced in the air, the cold turning each exhale into clouds that mingled with mine.
“Yes!” I was growing even more irritated, my cheeks burning.
“What is it?”
“Just fucking drink it!” I shoved it against his lips, watching as the deep red liquid pooled at the seam of his full mouth.
Despite my low thoughts of him, Altair opened his mouth and drank.
I watched his throat bob, the prominent bump of cartilage on his neck moving in time with his swallow.
When it was fully gone, I shoved the vial back into my pocket and lifted onto my toes, placing my other hand around his neck as well.
I didn’t have time for him to think of a new appearance, so mine would have to suffice.
“Now look at me, Altair.” Surprisingly, he did as he was told, his eyes unblinking as they stared into my own.
“Think of my eyes as they were. Think of the exact color. Look at my nose, how it’s prominent like my eyebrows.
Study my hair. Look at the exact curls. The uneven rings and the way small strands escape.
” His eyes followed my guidance, his breathing speeding up.
Against my skin, I sensed the rise in his magic, the way it began working in tandem with the shift in his system.
I watched as his eyes deepened, the color almost an exact match to the deep honey mine had been for so long.
“Can you count my freckles? Picture each of them and then see them as a whole. Look at my lips. The curve, the color. Do you see the way the top is fuller? How it’s unbalanced? ”
Before long, Altair’s entire appearance shifted.
Suddenly, his almost silver hair began to burn, as if the strands were being cooked over a fire.
The sections coiled and grew slightly, becoming a sea of ribbons.
Even then, they remained tame, as if his subconscious couldn’t allow his hair to be a mess.
Freckles dotted across his still pale skin, his top lip growing in time with his nose.
And then there he was, a version of me that I feared.
The me I’d have become if I continued on as an elite.
“Little Void,” he whispered, his body sinking in on itself, his face moving towards mine. His eyes hadn’t left my mouth, the golden shade unsettling.
Releasing my hold on him, I backed away, needing fresh air. The shift had worked, so he didn’t need to study me anymore. I could breathe, could think clearly, could escape the odd weight of his stare.
“You just took shift. It’s a transformative potion.” Altair’s hand that had been wrapped around my wrist fell to his side, stretching out before going slack. I watched as he seemed to catch his breath, his freckled ivory cheeks turning a deep shade of pink.
“I…I what?” The curls atop his head shook with his movement, one of them falling over his forehead. It was then that Altair finally caught up.
He stilled, reaching up to grab the dark ribbon and tug it low enough to study.
A gasp slipped from between his unbalanced lips, his frown showing that he did still have his dimples.
He had listened so well that he hadn’t taken on my skin tone, my large ears, or my smaller frame.
Really, he had barely changed beyond the hair, though I noticed each oddity as if I’d long since studied his face.
Altair dipped his head, staring at his reflection in a small puddle that soaked the mud in the alleyway.
He gawked, touching his new features, his fingers shaking.
I hated watching him grip the curls, how he pressed onto his top lip with his thumb.
Everywhere he touched his face, I swore I could feel the pressure on myself.
“Great, now let’s go.” I didn’t give him time to do anything other than follow, his rare silence unsettling as his pounding steps sloshed through the mud behind me, no one around us.
I was suddenly reminded of that night when he was drunk and I’d taken him to Artie’s.
Of the terror and distaste on Artie’s face when he realized who Altair was.
And then, as if the stars were playing a cosmic joke on me, I caught sight of Artie’s shop. I stopped in my tracks, my heart beating so quickly I wondered how it didn’t pound straight out of my chest.
Altair halted behind me, a sharp intake of breath sucking into his lungs.
All I could do was fall to my knees, a violent scream barreling out of my throat, burning it on the way out.
Arms encircled me, his chest against my back as he attempted to tug me into the shadows.
But I couldn’t move. I could do nothing but stare at the way blood dripped slowly from Artie’s forehead, how his body hung limp and lifeless.
I sobbed at the oversized nails that pierced his skin.
I screamed for the dignity stripped from him as his beaten body lay perched against the front of his shop.
More importantly, I raged at the parchment that slightly fluttered in the wind, the words unreadable from the distance.
Shoving against Altair, I freed myself from his grip and ran to Artie, my tears nearly freezing against my face from my speed.
My trembling hands reached out to him as I grew near, eventually meeting his cold, greying skin and his crisp pale hair.
I couldn’t tell how long he’d been gone, because the nearly freezing temperatures would have slowed the decomposition.
I knew that much from my time practicing forbidden magic.
How odd that I was once a grave robber, desperate to save my family at the cost of my morality, but now it was those I loved who’d take to the dirt in penance.
“Tershetta, we have to go. People will come find us! If your friend was killed, it was with the hopes of drawing you—” Altair cut himself off, likely reading over my shoulder as I gripped the bottom corner of the pale parchment to still it.
Nova Tershetta, did you think you could take the stars from me once more with no punishment? Know that every eadi death is on your conscience. That their blood soaks your hands. Come back or watch them all die in your place.
I couldn’t help it, I lost my cool. I yelled, punching my fist into the glass on the door to the right of Artie’s body. My knuckles met the window and shattered it, the smell of smoke from his still burning fire wafting my way. Not dead long then.
I was a mess of blood and bones and thin moral lines. I was a compilation of all things awful in the world. I was horror and fear and pure evil. I was death, and I was coming for Iblis Altair.
The snake held me tighter, his large hands gripping onto my blades beneath my layers as a gasp left his mouth.
Shoving him with my shoulder, I ripped off his cloak, tossing it his way.
Then I gripped the hem of the shirt, tugged it off and threw it to the ground, cutting off the trousers with one of my knives.
Altair was up and ready, his hands reaching towards me with his palms facing my way.
“Tershetta, don’t do something hasty right now.” Surprisingly, Altair knew me well. Not well enough, though.
I summoned the fire from Artie’s hearth, willing it to spread across his shop, letting it overtake the building and watching as it burst across the walls.
Altair watched in what could’ve been called awe, his golden eyes wide and his full lips parted.
I took his moment of distraction and capitalized on it, darting around him and heading for the shops center. For the gallows.
Altair wasn’t stupid, and perhaps that was the problem with him beyond the purity and the hatred.
He was on me in moments, the slosh of each barreling step proving how much faster he was than me.
The shops were eerily silent, candlelight gone in place of odd shadows.
It was the middle of the day, and yet the place was a wasteland.
And I couldn’t deny that I knew in my heart why.
As I skidded to a stop, I dared to truly look at the doors to each shop.
And there, nailed to every single one, were the owners.
Notes fluttered in the wind, rain beginning to fall from above as I took in the bloody and mutilated bodies surrounding me.
The sweets shop. The fruit stand. Tea. Cloth. Pottery. Fortunes. Butcher.
The stars hissed in my mind, abruptly angry as I lost every ounce of sanity I possessed. I screamed again, this time sending sparks of silver and black into the air.
“You want me so badly? You want the stars? Then come and get me you filthy core bastard! Come find me you weak and pathetic fucking man! Iblis Altair, you worthless excuse of a human! Of a shaytan! Come and fucking get me!”
Altair suddenly slammed into my back, tackling me to the damp cobblestone littered with mud and rain. I rolled, shoving my palm into his face, but he held firm. That was when the shouts came. When the officials came.