52. Aeinya
Chapter 52
The exhaustion hadn’t left since the second day of the pilgrimage. It was the morning after the first night, when I had been forced to sleep alone. There was no Elara to sneak her warm cloak, no sign of the usual warmth that my Catalyst Carry had always brought on so many cold nights in the high desert. There was nothing but cold. The ache that settled into my bones was proof of that. It was more than a cold ache of sleep that I couldn’t shake, however. The exhaustion lingered with each step, it pulled at my mind until everything was foggy, my magic sluggish, and everything ached.
It was when my magic stopped responding to my prods to make the ground softer that I realized exactly what it was, and why the world felt slow and painful. I had never been apart from Carry since the day of our oath when we bound our magic together. She had always been there, the two different parts of our magic needing to be close to the other half. Without her there… I couldn’t even think straight enough to know how I was feeling.
“My darling,” Batian whispered from behind me, his hand soft as it traced over the lines of my back, the billowing wedding dress I still wore barely covering anything anymore. “You seem preoccupied.”
“Yes… I…” The dress swayed as I turned, the sound of the fabric loud in my ears as I tried to think of what to say. We had only arrived in our marital tent moments ago, my hand aching from the cut of the binding, my body sore from consummation.
Batian stood there, dressed head to toe in his white and gold tunic, every inch of him bright and shining, made worse thanks to the golden light of his magic that illuminated the tent and all the furnishings that were just as white, just as gold.
It was too much and was causing a spot above my eye to throb.
“Darling?” He asked again, his voice so soft, so worried. He stepped around to face me, his fingers tracing lines over my shoulder, my neck, over the curves of my breasts.
It was making it infinitely more difficult to concentrate and think of words or anything when he did that.
Thankfully, I was Spryv born, we were fighters, trained on a high desert to protect our lands. I could use those same skills to fight through this fog, to fight through the growing throb of pain. His touch was intoxicating and I wanted it, just as much as I wanted Carry. As I wanted to escape this ache that was taking over everything.
“Everything feels wrong, slow. I need Carry.” My head ached and I pinched the bridge of my nose, as if that would banish the fog that was creeping in again.
“Carry?” He asked, the softness in his voice suddenly sharp as he came round to face me, the brightness of his clothing burning my eyes.
“My Catalyst.” Using the preferred wording instead of her name for someone that meant so much to me was nearly as painful as the drum that was now beating against my skull.
“Ah yes.” His hands were back to tracing my collar bone, making it harder to think. “I think I might have something that can help with that.”
As much as I wanted to get lost in the soft sensation of his fingers against mine, something prickled over my skin, something familiar and needed that was growing closer.
I forced the fog away, pushing myself to focus on Batian, his perfect features revealing every bit of the Ramal he was about to become.
“Consider it a wedding gift.” He stepped to the side, the curious guards that were posted there moving as he did. The white snakes on their tunics seemed to slither over the black fabric as they lifted the heavy fabric of the entrance as another set of snake guards dragged in a hunched and weak body, the figure dressed in red and covered in dirt.
I only recognized who she was from the way the tingling pull of my magic slinked up my spine and yanked me toward her, because of the way all the fog in my mind vanished. Seeing her had chased it all away, only to have it all replaced by pure panic as the guards dropped her to the ground, her whimper sounding more like a scream in my ears as she crumpled. I fell to my knees alongside her.
“Carry! What has happened!” My hands shook as I gripped her head, her skin so cold and damp as though she had been sweating. No, not sweat. Blood. Each touch left bright scarlet streaks over her bruised and swollen face as I tried to push her hair out of the way.
“Carry?” She only moaned in response. “What happened?”
I turned to Batian, already pleading with him for help, for answers. He simply looked down at me in disgust. No, not at me.
At her.
“I wish you would stop calling her that. She’s nothing but a Catalyst, Aeinya. If you call that much of anything.” His lips curled in disgust as he spoke, the furrow burrowing as I pulled her into me.
“She’s more than a Catalyst to me.” Hot tears rolled down my cheeks as I inspected her face, trying to find any cuts or wounds that would be the source of all this blood.
There was so much blood.
“For now anyway.” Any warmth was gone from his voice, the sneer so heavy I could see it without looking. I looked anyway.
“What do you mean, Batian?” I didn’t want to know, but I also wasn’t a fool enough to think I could continue going on oblivious to whatever game I had been thrust into.
I had told my parents on the way to the Runturin that I thought something wicked was brewing there, that I had seen things on my last visit that were not adding up, moments when Batian didn’t look like himself. When he didn’t act like himself.
They told me not to worry. To play the game and take and bed the prince, to become queen and birth princes and princesses and do my part. I had agreed. Besides, I had been betrothed to Batian since I was a child, it wasn’t like I had much of a choice.
Looking at him now, I resented the agreement that had been signed so long ago.
“I mean, you won’t need her much longer, not now that we are bound.” He seemed so proud of himself, so smug. It was making my stomach twist.
Carry made a sound near a sob as I dropped my hands, my entire body shaking as I stood to face Bastian. Even though Carry being there had taken away some of the fog, the bone deep exhaustion still remained as I pulled myself up to stand before him, refusing to look away even as he smiled with a wicked grin was twisting everything the wrong way.
“A binding does not negate my Catalyst, Batian. I will always need her.” The snickering of the guards punctuated my statement in all the wrong ways.
“On normal terms yes,” he gathered my hands in his, his voice suddenly soft. Even through the change I still wanted to shirk away from him, but he held on tightly. “But our binding was special, Aeinya. My mother held the power of the Goddess in her hands as she bound us. When blood is bound like that it creates a soul connection, a connection so deep that I feel every inch of you inside of me now. Every piece. Every speck of your magic. I feel it, I control it.” He flexed his fingers, the ground beneath us trembling as in answer. The shake ran right up my legs, I would have fallen to my knees if he wasn’t holding my hand so tightly.
“Didn’t you feel the ground shake as your power was placed in my hands, when our magic was intertwined?” Batian squeezed my hands again, that twist of power from Carry’s arrival rattling in my bones. He squeezed my hands, as though he was somehow controlling it.
“Batian… I…”
“You don’t need your Catalyst, Aeinya. Not anymore. You never did. They have been stealing our magic for centuries, and it’s time we took it back. It’s time we took control.” Every word was a deeper stab into my belly, a deeper twist of something dark that I didn’t want to be a part of.
Nothing that he was saying made sense, but I didn’t need to understand to see the wickedness that had taken over him.
“It’s my wedding gift to you,” he whispered, clutching both of my hands in one of his as he gestured for one of the guards to come forward.
The sound of Carry’s cries drowned out the rest of the world, each whimper a roar in my ear as the black clad guard stepped forward. A long box held between gloved hands.
“Batian.” I tried to step back, but his hand was hot and tight against my own, that twisted smile making a return as the guard reached us, lifting the lid to reveal a long white knife. It looked more like a snake than it did a blade, but it didn’t matter, I knew what it was regardless. I knew what it was for.
I couldn't breathe, I couldn’t think. Carry’s whimpers turned to sobs as my own joined her. I tried to escape the grip of the man who was now my husband. All my training, all my years of fighting in the deserts and battling the Wyverns that come down to eat our crops and I couldn’t escape him.
I couldn’t escape the hell that I had willingly walked into.
“Batian! No!” The words were more of strangled gasps.
“Take your magic back, Aeinya. As future Queen, you must take your magic. This must be your first right.” The guard still stood there, his expression as twisted and sour as Batian’s. My husband took the knife from the box by the head of the snake, the sharp tail glinting as he held it out to me. “Kill the thief.”
“No!” My voice ripped as the word exploded out of me. The ground rumbled below me as my magic ignited.
“Please!” Carry gasped through her sobs, through her moans, her body trembling as she crawled toward me, those swollen and bruised hands not able to unfurl against the ground.
She didn’t make it more than a single shuffle before one of the guards rushed forward, his foot slamming into her gut and sending her rolling to her back.
“Kill the thief, Aeinya. Kill the dirty little Catalyst.” Batian’s hand jerked me closer, pulling me right into him as he placed the blade against my face, pulling my focus back to him.
“Don’t worry, Darling. It’s easy. A cut, some blood, and then all the magic will be yours. It’s a beautiful feeling, I promise you, you will experience nothing like it. Save to me.” He thrust his groin against me to prove his point, his erection slamming against my navel as that wicked grin contorted his face again. The true reality of what he said hit me.
“You killed… your Catalyst.”
“The night before your walk. A bit of fun, a bit of blood, and that power was mine. As it should have always been.” Light sparked at his fingertips, the power shimmering and illuminating the red eye on the knife of the snake, the glimmering speck like a single drop of blood.
“No,” the word was a sob, the sound mixed with Carry’s cries as his face fell.
“No?”
“I won’t kill her.” I was firm, well as firm as I could be with how my voice shook, with how my soul was screaming in panic as he slammed the knife back into the box, stepping away as he roughly shoved my hands away.
“No?” The heartless laugh that echoed around the tent was almost worse than the gleam in his eye as he turned back to me, his hands pulling at the fasteners of his tunic. “Fine. You won’t kill her, then I will. No reason to get dirty in the process.”
Batian snarled as he ripped the tunic from his body, shredding the undershirt from him in one motion and baring himself to me for the first time in years. The last time I had seen his chest was when we went swimming a few summers ago during one of my visits. Then he had been fun and lighthearted, he had been the man I had fallen in love with, not the monster that stood before me now.
Besides the twist of the hatred on his face he looked exactly the same. Well, except for a small red and black tattoo over his heart the jagged lines of it looking as though it was on fire.
“You can’t kill her!” I rushed him, grabbing his wrists in a move I had done many times before. A spin and a pull and he would go down. Instead, he twisted his hands with more strength than I could counter, sending me around and slamming into his back.
One cold arm seized me, pressing my back against a chest that was as chilled, hard and lifeless as stone. His arm pressed against my abdomen, his hand twisting up to cup my ribcage and my breast. He held me there, his free hand grabbing the knife from the box to hold it between Carry and I. Her bruised face looked up in panic, in pleading.
I couldn’t let this happen. This couldn’t be happening.
“Stop,” I sobbed, trying to fight against his hold, but again he held me tighter, his hand painful as he gripped my breast and I winced.
“Stop?” He laughed, the guards joining as he twisted the blade, pulling it around to run the sharp point over my arm, the sharp edge severing the soft fabric of the wedding dress thread by thread.
“No, darling. There is no stopping. This is my gift. Do you not accept my gift?” More laughter, the sound hard in my ear as the knife traveled up my arm and over my shoulder. The point left a fine line of pink skin behind as it severed the fabric of the dress, dragging that sharp tip over my collar bone and down between my breasts.
“You have two options,” his voice was little more than air as he pressed his cheek to mine, my dress beginning to fall away as he cut it. “You kill her, or I do. But I promise that if you force me to do it, I will kill her slowly. I will cut her skin from her as gently as I am cutting this dress from your pretty little body, and I will make you watch as she screams.”
“No. Please.” Again, I tried to fight him, but all that happened was the tip of the blade cut into my skin right above my hip. The point was sharp, too sharp. I knew without asking he could do what he threatened and he would.
“Please… please…” Carry sobbed, those wide swollen eyes peering into mine as everything around me broke again and again.
“Make your choice,” Batian whispered in my ear, his voice like a lovers lull as he swung the blade down. I flinched as though he would stab me, expecting the blade to plunge deep and true. Instead, he cut through the skirt so that it fell away, leaving me bare before Carry, before all the guards that snickered and sighed.
“Will you kill her, or will you watch?”
“Please… Aeinya…” Carry sobbed from where she curled up on the floor, her wide eyes pleading. But I already knew I couldn’t save her.
She knew too. She was not asking to be saved. She was asking for mercy in a different way.
In a way only I could give her, even if it would rip my soul apart.
“I’ll do it.” I had to force the words out through the pain, through the scream that was so desperate to rip from me.
“Beautiful,” Batian moaned, holding the blade out to me as I stepped out of the remains of the dress, dropping to my knees before the woman who had been there for every minute of my life. Every moment.
Every joy.
And now, the worst sorrow.
For a split second I contemplated running, taking the blade through Batian’s throat and bolting from the tent. I wouldn’t get more than a few steps with the six guards that watched me with hungry eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” I sobbed, letting the knife clatter to the ground as I took her face in my hands. I looked into her eyes, into the face of my best friend.
“Aeinya,” she whispered my name, her forehead pressing against mine as tears that smelled of blood seeped from her eyes.
“I am so sorry,” I said again, as if I could go back in time. As if I could stay in Spryv and never come to this hell. As if I could run with Elara and take every terrible thing away.
But we were all trapped, we were all nothing more than broken pawns in this bloody game.
We would lose.
“Make it quick,” Carry sobbed as she pulled away from me, those inky eyes suddenly serious even through the swollen madness there. “But never forget me. Never forget us. All of us.”
All of us.
There was so much weight in those words that they slammed into me with about as much force as the reality of what I was about to do.
“Carry?” It was a question that could never be answered, she pressed her lips together, the slightest of shakes pressing against my hands as Batian snarled from behind me.
“Oh, get on with it! Or I’ll do it and make you both hurt.”
He would, of that I had no question.
“I love you, Aeinya,” Carry whispered as I grabbed the knife. I held that vile snake head in my hand, the carved teeth digging into my palm.
“I love you, Carry. Always.” The words were lost in the sob. I lifted my hand, never taking my eyes from hers as I slid the blade over her neck, pushing the blade hard and deep.
I didn’t see her fall to the ground through the blood that sprayed over me, through the scream that ripped from my mouth. I didn’t even care about the thrum of power that was everywhere in me now. I didn't want it, not without Carry. I felt nothing through the sobs that racked my body, not the cold hands that gripped me and dragged me toward the bed.
Dragging me away from my last shard of humanity.