3
My stomach plummeted along with my gaze as I beheld my friend. He moaned in pain, blood dripping from his face. Bile rose in my throat; Vagach had aimed his rage at Olrus when he returned home and found me gone.
“Vagach, I didn’t know you’d be home so soon,”
I stammered, unsure what else to say.
He lifted a dark brow and looked pointedly at my hand, then the dress. “And where have you been?”
“Oh, in the garden,”
I said, then cursed internally, remembering I had a fresh cut on my finger. I angled myself away so that I could race down the hall and toward a window, where the bushes would save me once again.
His voice sent a chill down my spine. “You have disobeyed my orders by not being ready for me when I arrived home either.”
“I’m sorry,”
I said, voice small and weak as every spark of hope I’d had after learning that Vagach was leaving was doused by the iciness in his tone. “I got caught up in the garden, caring for my roses.”
“You haven’t cared for them in a long time. What changed today?”
he snarled, stepping closer.
I flinched harder than I meant to and Vagach noted it with a look of disdain. Yet again, he was trying to catch me in a lie, and I’d already fucked up. I switched tactics. “What was all the fuss about this morning? I heard voices drifting from the square.”
“Don’t change the subject,”
he snapped, closing the distance between us so he towered over me. I stepped backward, knocking into a crate filled with fruit. “Where were you, really?”
“I just told you I was–”
“Enough!”
he shouted, and I winced, my entire body joining the movement as I shrank away from Vagach’s wrath. “You were not among your roses and you were not in the prayer room. You are up to something, Assyria, and I will not leave Stryi until I have answers.”
“You’re leaving?”
I questioned, feigning ignorance.
“Not until I am certain you are pregnant,”
he snarled, pressing his body against mine. Terror pumped adrenaline through my veins, and without thinking, I shoved at him. Except, one of my hands was not empty, and the knife fisted there sank between his ribs. I sucked in a shocked breath while he grunted, taking a stumbling step back.
“You stabbed me.”
He blinked rapidly as if he couldn’t comprehend that I possessed the propensity for violence.
But it was not a killing blow, and that action would not go unpunished. I had to act fast if I wanted to press my advantage. My entire body protested, from fatigue, to my cracked ribs, to my bruised shoulder, as I snatched the crate at my back and flung it at him. Vagach wasn’t expecting the movement, and the wood shattered against him, sending oranges flying in all directions. I leaped over the rolling fruit and raced to the counter, where a row of knives rested, freshly cleaned. But Vagach was fast despite his overindulgence, and he had me pinned against the stone, digging into my stomach and robbing me of breath.
“You’re not going anywhere, and neither am I, Assyria,”
he snarled, lifting my skirts and using them to pull me away from the knives. Olrus remained curled on the floor, unable to help me.
“No!”
I cried out, grasping for something, anything to protect us both. My fingers brushed against a hard, metallic object, and I snatched it as Vagach continued to maneuver me. With all my strength, I swung it backwards, trying to dislodge him.
My arm reverberated with the impact.
Vagach’s hands loosened of their own accord, and he crumpled to the ground. I whirled, heart leaping into my throat, when I realized what I’d grabbed.
The meat mallet, with a heavy, spiked head.
Blood poured from a caved-in spot on Vagach’s temple. I did not breathe as I waited for a twitch of his lips, the jerk of his head, something, to indicate that he lived.
Had I killed my husband?
I nudged his body with the toe of my boot, and still he did not stir.
Shit, shit, shit.
What was I supposed to do? Vagach was expected to join the army, and besides that, he was a Kormánzó. It wouldn’t be long before he was missed. The way his skull dipped and the knife protruding from his ribs were clear signs of murder. His death was impossible to explain any other way, especially when he’d be burned on a public pyre as a member of one of the Demon noble houses.
Which meant that I would die too—or worse, be sold as a fallen female to some rich or noble male who wanted powerful offspring. My stomach seized at the thought, and bile crept up the back of my throat.
Olrus groaned, long and low, and my dread was forgotten as I raced to the side of my only friend.
“I’m so sorry, this is all my fault,”
I sobbed, a hand hovering over his form.
A cardinal eye cracked open, the other too swollen to move, and through tattered, bloody lips, he managed to grit out, “Get the poppy.”
I nodded, then kicked oranges from my path as I raced to the store room and found the vial of milky liquid. Returning to his side, I uncorked it, then brought it to his mouth. “Slowly,”
I cautioned, then tipped it. He gulped greedily, and after a few moments, I took it away. He sighed, and I squatted there, unsure how to help him or what to do next. One by one, tears tracked down my cheek and dropped onto the floor, sounding like the hoofbeats that had brought on this situation.
“I won’t die, Syr,”
Olrus whispered, his voice so strained that using my full name would have been impossible.
“I won’t let you. I need you.”
The words came out like choked sobs because that’s all I could manage as wave after wave of guilt and grief crashed through me. If I hadn’t snuck out…
“Then you likely would be in my position,”
Olrus grunted, and only then did I realize I’d spoken my thoughts aloud. The poppy seemed to be offering him a modicum of relief, because with a large groan, the old Demon managed to sit upright.
“Careful,”
I breathed, offering him what little strength I could to scoot back against the leg of the dining table.
Sweat beaded his brow. “We need to dispose of his body,”
Olrus commented, flicking his attention to Vagach.
I glanced behind me to my deceased husband, eyes glassy and staring out the garden window. Metallic ruby pooled all around him, tainting the spilled oranges. “What am I going to do? My life is over now.”
My voice broke over those last words, and I hung my head as if an executioner’s blade already hovered there, accepting my destiny.
“No.”
The word slipped out of Olrus with such force that I whipped my head up. “I will say that I killed him.”
“Olrus, I can’t ask you–”
“It’s not up for discussion. You have your whole life ahead of you, while I’ve lived for over twenty seven hundred years. I am ready to move on into the next world.”
The pain etched into the lines of his face made him look every bit of his age, and my heart squeezed in the same way it did when I thought of my parents and sister.
Think, Assyria, think.
Olrus and I could try to hide the body, but when the army came to collect him, we were fucked. Unless…
Unless I used my magic—one that no one knew existed.
“The commotion this morning was from officers of the Demon army arriving to conscript one male from every family to join the war effort,”
I told Olrus, my mind working over the solution to our problem. “Vagach was going to war.”
Olrus sighed, then winced as he squeezed my hand. “I know you would have been better off if he had gone.”
“That’s not what I am getting at.”
I sat on my rear and crossed my legs to face him. “I’ve been keeping a secret from you,”
I admitted, twisting my mother’s ring around my finger. Tapping into the well of shadows, I pulled on the threads of my magic until I formed Vagach’s face, all too clear in my mind’s eye from the times I had lain on this very floor, filled with terror as I stared up at his hate-filled garnet eyes.
When I lifted my head, Olrus stared, slack-jawed.
“I had too much poppy,”
he blinked, rubbing the heel of his palm into his good eye before looking at me again. My form had not changed, and he blanched, turning even paler than he had been before.
Like I was peeling off a layer of skin, I released the magic. “I was never powerless. The Giver blessed me with this unusual magic. It manifested by accident on my one hundred twentieth birthday.
At that time, my mother made me swear never to reveal it to anyone. She worried that with this ability, I’d be sold like chattel to the Kral to be used as a spy, and she never wanted that for me.”
“Your mother was right,”
Olrus said, his tone filled with sympathy and understanding. “In all my life, I’ve never seen an ability like that. Sure, there are those like Incubi and Succubi with powerful persuasion, and even those with enough power over the shadow to render themselves invisible, but to become someone else entirely? That is a rare, powerful gift.”
I straightened, pride blooming in my chest. “So you see, I can pretend to be Vagach and go off to war. You can remain here, safe in the manor. I rarely leave anyway, no one would miss me.”
The plan was utterly insane, but I couldn’t allow myself to question it. It was the only way to keep both of us alive.
Orlus’s hand dropped over mine. “I will miss you.”
Tears burned my eyes as I gazed into Olrus’s. “So you think the plan is good?”
“As much as I don’t want you to go off to war, I don’t see a better option that keeps both you and me from a grave. I will gladly die for you, Assyria. Please don’t make this decision because you think I wouldn’t.”
“I know,”
I choked out around the knot in my throat. “I can’t lose you too, Olrus. Not after everyone else who has died. I’ll find a way to return. Maybe I’ll be able to sneak away in the night and they’ll search for Vagach out there,”
I gestured into the world beyond, “rather than here, at home. Then when they come knocking, we’ll be here and no one will be the wiser.”
Olrus offered me a sad smile. “You are resourceful, Assyria. I have no doubt that you’ll figure out something.”
He braced a hand on the seat of a nearby chair and slid his feet toward his butt. I jumped to my feet and grabbed his other arm to help him stand. The poppy must not have dulled all his pain because he wobbled for a moment before bracing both hands on the table. “Can you use your shadows to help me bury him?”
“You are in no state to use a shovel,”
I protested, but he shook his head.
“I am healing already. We need to take care of this while there is still light to see by. When are the conscripts supposed to leave?”
Olrus asked, straightening at last.
“At first light,”
I replied, glancing again at Vagach.
“You’ll need your rest before then, and I needn’t remind you that magic takes time to replenish. You can’t run out of it while you’re out there, among the rest of the army.”
His tone had taken on a protective fatherly air, and the corner of my mouth twitched in response.
“Tell me what you need me to do.”
“Use your shadows to lift his body. We’ll move it to the back of the garden to bury it,”
Olrus said, taking a staggering step forward. He raised a hand like he was going to use his magic to assist me, but I waved him off.
“I’ve got this. I hardly get to utilize my powers these days anyway, and I could use the practice.”
Olrus grunted in response.
Tendrils of smoky black slithered off my hands and wrapped themselves around Vagach. When I was satisfied with the placement, I twisted my hands and curled my fingers, tightening them down like a rope. Then, I lifted his body off the ground, jumping when the knife clattered to the floor. Blood dripped onto the wood slats like rain, and I glanced at the door that led into the garden.
“Can you open that?”
I gritted out, trying to focus on my magic so Vagach’s body didn’t smack into anything and cause an even worse mess. While the shadows in my chest still swirled a strong black, they’d quickly fade to gray with how much I’d exerted myself already today. Time and sleep were the only ways to restore the power.
Olrus hobbled there, nearly tripping over an orange, before throwing the door open and letting in a blast of evening summer heat. He glanced around to ensure no one had appeared to call on Vagach. “Let’s go,”
he finally said, and I carefully picked my way there, kicking the ruined fruit out of my way. A massive cleanup would be required when we returned from burying his body.
The sun danced over the wild bushes, and after maneuvering down the steps and into the plush grass, Olrus and I cut a path straight to the rear of the estate, leaving a trail of ruby splatter in our wake. By the time we passed through the copse of fruit trees, sweat soaked my hairline. Vagach was heavy, and I was unused to using my magic in this way. Thankfully I was blessed by the Giver with burgundy eyes, otherwise I wasn’t sure Orlus and I could have managed to move him.
“Here is good,”
Orlus said, and I dumped Vagach’s body without a care for the roughness. It wasn’t like he deserved gentle treatment. “I’ll return in a moment with a shovel. I think I left one in the trees earlier.”
I nodded, worrying my fingers while Orlus walked away. His gait had improved, whether from the poppy or our intrinsic healing abilities, I didn’t know. It was one of the reasons we lived for millenia, and it made us harder to kill. Already, the soreness in my ribs was almost gone, despite them being cracked that morning by the male who rested at my feet.
He deserved to be buried rather than burned. Being eternally trapped in this world yet yearning to move on, without a voice to beg for help or mercy, was the perfect fate for him.
No longer would I be a victim of his abuse. This was my opportunity to claim a life of my own, whether I decided to return here to Olrus like I’d offered inside, or whether I’d sneak away at another point along the journey north. With my magic, I could make a life for myself anywhere, claiming that my father had been conscripted and I needed work. I had a few skills I could offer—gardening, sewing, farming. I’d gladly take a position of servitude over the supposed life of luxury I had as the wife of a Kormánzó.
Perhaps I’d even find a fated mate, the greatest love the Fates offered us. As a youngling, I’d dreamed of the moment I locked eyes with him, how our bond would snap in place, and the intensity of our connection. In my fantasy, he’d allow me more freedom than most females were offered simply because he could feel how desperately I wanted autonomy. We’d carve a corner of peace for ourselves on the plains, working the fields for everything we needed and not bothering with the rest of our oppressive society.
I recognized them now as foolish naivety. The world was cruel and no one would ever love me enough to give me what I truly wanted.
Olrus returned with the tool and wasted no time shoving it into the ground and turning over the loamy earth. Out of my shadows, I crafted a large bowl, using it to scoop up piles of dirt and move them out of his way. We worked in silence, though I glanced over my shoulder toward the house far too often, paranoid that we’d be discovered at any moment and the hope fluttering in my chest would be for naught. My muscles ached from the effort, and my hands shook as I continued to twist them to wield my magic.
Evening dipped into dusk by the time the hole was deep enough to bury Vagach. The inky tendrils begged for reprieve, so I crouched alongside Olrus to lift my husband’s body and toss him into the grave. Panting, we stood there, looking down at his blood-soaked form, the unnatural angle at which his neck rested, and the lack of life in his garnet eyes.
Rage bloomed in my chest and I spit on his body before cursing him. “May you never find peace, you abusive fucking bastard. I am worth more than my womb. I will show the world what females are capable of.”
The vehemence of my words surprised Olrus, and the old Demon offered me a sideways glance before grabbing the shovel and tossing dirt over his former employer. I helped him, all the while remembering exactly what Vagach had planned on doing to me earlier that day, and every time he had done it before. Each strike of soil against his body was a soothing balm on my soul, as if I was reclaiming parts of me the fewer parts of him showed to the world.
“We need to return inside and clean up,”
I murmured, pulling myself out of the spiral of rage that seemed to sink its claws deeper into me, as if now that I was free, the emotion wanted to remain unchecked.
“Aye,”
the old Demon muttered, wiping his brow with the back of his sleeve. How he still stood with the extensive injuries he possessed was beyond me, even with the poppy. His face looked much better, at least, his one eye shrunk to a more normal size, and the split in his lip healed over.
We strode in silence toward the house, both trying to regain our breath before the next phase of our cleanup began. As we entered the kitchen, I sniffed, my sensitive nostrils detecting the heavy metallic scent. “Leave the doors open,”
I suggested to Olrus, who nodded and braced it with a rock before doing the same with the opposite one. A cool breeze filled the space, and as I stoked the stove and lit the sconces on the walls, the flames flickered, giving the scene a haunting atmosphere.
Olrus had fetched a bucket and rags and was on his knees, sopping up the garnet liquid, and I joined him. At least my dress was black, otherwise it would have been ruined beyond measure—not that I planned on keeping it anyway. The last rays of the sun died a moment before a boisterous laugh filtered through the open doors and into our ears.
Olrus and I froze, only our eyes moving to meet. Oranges still scattered across the floor, some dotted with blood, though the large spot that had pooled around Vagach’s body was nearly gone. Then, a knock sounded on the front door.
“I’ll get it,”
Orlus said immediately, jumping to his feet.
I reached for his wrist and pulled him to a stop. “No! They’re here looking for Vagach. It should be me.”
He shook his head and dropped his voice to a whisper. “I can say that you two are spending your last hours together and he asked not to be disturbed. You can’t offer an excuse like that.”
Relief exuded from my pores as I released him. “Thank you.”
As he approached the foyer, I brushed as many oranges as I could out of view, then curled around myself with my back against the cabinets.
“Hello, Soli,”
Olrus said, loud enough for me to hear.
Fucking Soli. She was a few years older than me and Priestess Anara’s favorite pupil. All through school, we’d butted heads, and I hated her fake piety. Everyone knew that she’d given herself to a male before she came of age at one hundred and eighty, though the moment her birthday ended, her parents had married her off to Stryi’s wine merchant—an old, creepy male with whom I would have been even more miserable than Vagach.
Still, that she was here wasn’t a good sign.
“Hello, Olrus. Is Kormánzó Vagach available? Priestess Anara and Százados Jaku request his presence,”
her overly sweet voice cloyed down the hall and into my ears.
Olrus released a nervous chuckle. “Kormánzó Vagach asked me to remain this evening and field any visitors as he wants to spend as much time,”
Olrus paused as if he were searching for the right words, “ensuring his legacy with Assyria as possible before he goes.”
“Oh!”
Soli gasped. “Of course, that should be the Kormánzó’s highest priority.”
I rolled my eyes at her breathy tone. Soli had always been jealous of my burgundy eyes. When Vagach and I married, her dagger-like stare speared into me from the back of the temple as she hung on the wine merchant’s arm, belly swollen with his seed.
“If you could be so kind as to pass along the message,”
Olrus offered, a creak following his statement. I pictured him standing firmly in the doorway, attempting to close Soli off as quickly as he could.
“Absolutely. I shall pray to the Fates tonight to bless their coupling,”
she promised with a little giggle.
“I am certain they will appreciate it,”
Orlus responded. “Take care now and send my best to your husband.”
A light pattering of footsteps preceded an, “I will!”
The door closed with a click, and then a clunk as the lock went into place. Olrus returned, looking as weathered as the trees after a hard rain. “I’ll finish up here. You bathe and gather whatever you need to take with you. You need your strength for what lies ahead.”
Taking a small step forward, I wrapped my arms around Olrus, careful with the placement and the strength of my grip so I did not hurt him further. “I will find some way to repay you, Olrus.”
“Repay me by leading a life worth living. Have adventures. Meet new people. Let your strength shine.”
His cardinal eyes shone with fatherly affection again when I stepped back.
“I will.”