Chapter 43
We eat, we eat, the meat’s so sweet
We swallow and swallow not to feel so hollow
~ “Monsters”
I could hardly make sense of the carvings and paintings that littered the walls of that place.
Every image seemed more abstract than telling.
I moved to stand next to Mullins, who was wiping a finger across the wall as if to see if the paint was still wet, his mouth open like he’d never seen a mural in his life.
“Ehem… cap’n,” he greeted, straightening his posture.
“Can you decipher any of this?” I sighed.
“Not a lick of it. If I were pretending to be smart, I’d confidently say that there is a giant octopus.” He pointed toward a cluster of black tentacles with no particular end or beginning. “And… well… that’s all I know.”
I pressed my lips together, giving him a pat on the shoulder. “Well done.”
“What about you? Any theories about what this all means?”
I surveyed the room, taking in the entire picture as best I could, but they were scribbles by a madman for all I knew.
“I think this god feeds on sound minds. And this room is nothing but images from a very broken one. Or many broken ones. I’m not sure the answers we want are here. At least, not in a way we know how to read.”
He cleared his throat, leaning in close. “Then what we doin’ here?”
I turned, glancing over my shoulder at Dahlia.
She was speaking with Meridan, but the way her hand was rested on the hilt of her blade made me pause.
Realizing I was distracted, Mullins spun to notice the same peculiar interaction and the two of us slowly began to move closer.
The moment Meridan reached toward Dahlia and she recoiled as if bitten by a snake, an alarm bell chimed in my head.
I clutched at Lady Mary as Dahlia turned away, pressing her palms to her eyes, and felt a rush of urgency pour through me.
“Dahlia,” I said.
She shuddered as if my voice had cut her. “It’s not real,” she whispered. “You’re not real.”
Meridan stepped forward, her hand extended again as if to touch her. I reached for her, pulling her away.
“Dahlia, look at me.”
“You can’t hear it?” she whimpered.
“Hear what?”
Mullins and Meridan both took a glance around the room as if searching for the source of her suffering.
“Leave,” she said.
“What?”
“Leave. Leave, all of you. Leave!”
“We’re not leaving you,” Meridan insisted, reaching out again, that time too quickly for me to intercede.
Dahlia grasped at her cutlass, sliding it abruptly from its leather sheath, and spun, swinging the blade toward Meridan’s neck as if to slice her head clean off.
“No!” Mullins shouted.
Meridan was quick enough to evade the blow, but she tripped over Mullin’s foot to do so. He rushed to pull her back to her feet.
“Dahlia, stop!” Meridan said.
Once more, Dahlia’s hand was pressed to her head as if fighting a debilitating headache. Then she clutched her chest, her fingers prodding at the little bronze pendant hanging around her neck as she fell to her knees.
“It’s not working,” she gasped. “Why isn’t it working?”
“Whatever you’re hearing, it’s not real,” I said. “No one else can hear it.”
“Then what good is this! He’s already in my head. It cannot shield me from something only I can hear.”
“Get up,” I said. “We’re leaving.”
The moment I stepped toward her, she raised her blade, cutting the air in front of me. Whether it was a warning or an attempt, I couldn’t tell.
“This is what it felt like, isn’t it,” she said, lurching to her feet, her eyes growing dark. “When Reyna commanded you to kill your father.” She winced, her face screwing up with pain. “Every bone in my body doesn’t want me to do it, but… I can’t…”
“You can fight it. Whatever you’re hearing that we are not, you can fight it.”
“Did you?”
“You’re stronger than me.”
“I’m not. I can’t do this.”
“You can.”
“I can’t!” She swung at me again.
I pulled Lady Mary from my belt. The sound of our blades clashing rang against the walls.
“Go! All of you!” I barked at the others.
“I’m not leaving—” Meridan said.
I shoved Dahlia away from me and gave Mullins a fierce look. With a nod, he grabbed Meridan's arm and dragged her back toward the exit passage with David and James close in tow.
“Dahlia, listen to me. I—”
She gave me no leeway to finish before she was swinging her blade again. I knocked it aside, realizing that had I not, my guts would be on the floor.
“Kill him, kill him, kill him!” she screamed. “It is all I can hear.”
We circled each other, two killers who didn’t want to hurt one another. I knew I was the better swordsman. I knew I could win in that regard. Dahlia had her teeth, but she was at war with herself. I had the upper hand if I wanted it, but never had I dreaded victory so much.
“You don’t want to kill me,” I said.
“You did not want to kill your father. But you know as well as I that free will is the biggest lie of all. Deep down, you know it.”
“Then why are we here if not by our own free will?”
“Because he drew us here.” Her words spilled out of her, pain and regret woven into every syllable. “What if this was his plan from the beginning and I never had a choice? Every dream. Every fear. It was all leading here in the end. I am my mother after all.”
“You are not your mother. I am not my father. Blood does not define us. What we have done—what we have been through—that is what defines us. We have defied every expectation this world thrust upon us. We found each other through all the strife and chaos. We can find each other again. You can come back to me. He can bend your mind, Dahlia, but your heart is mine. And your soul is yours.”
She gritted her teeth, pressing the heels of her palms to her temples as she staggered.
“I brought you all here to die,” she muttered. “I thought I was fighting him, but I’ve just been doing everything he wanted me to do.”
“No.”
“His sons. The Kraal. Why did they not follow us into the temple? They let us come to this place and we ignored that fact. Just like a part of me ignored it in Dornwich. And the Kroans? Since then, they’ve been quiet. Even they are hiding from all this. Don’t you see?”
I moved closer to her and as if that caused her more pain, she screamed like a dying animal.
“I can’t!” she cried, throwing her cutlass across the chamber so hard, it bounced off the opposite wall. “You knew where this could lead. Kill me. You had the strength to do it once.”
“No,” I repeated. “This is not the same.”
“You said you would.” She pointed, her eyes black, all traces of that rich gray color swallowed by shadows. “You promised to protect yourself, even against me. He is ripping my mind apart as we speak. I will be no better than my mother. If you could hear what he wants me to do to you. I…”
Again, the pain seemed to overwhelm her and she bit her tongue, running her hands through her hair and pulling at the strands.
She stumbled like the room was tilting beneath her and nearly toppled over.
I rushed to her side, unable to bear the sight of her misery.
The moment I touched her arms, she righted herself, slowly lifting her head to look at me.
“Why?” she whispered. “Why can we not keep our promises to each other?”
As soon as I heard the question, a sharp and sudden pain struck me like lightning.
My gaze locked onto her dark eyes as I watched the realization wash through her.
Our attention slowly dropped to the bone knife gripped in her fist, the length of which was buried between my ribs.
Hot blood flowered against the fabric of my shirt.
“No,” Dahlia breathed.
Slowly, I took her wrist in my hand, groaning as I pushed it away and the knife with it.
The way the rough edges dislodged from my muscles unveiled a truth I didn’t want to accept.
One I thought I was prepared for until that moment when I felt completely caught off guard.
I pressed my hand to the wound and staggered back.
“No,” Dahlia said again, her shaking hand unfolding until the bloodied bone knife fell to the ground. “No… Vidar, I’m sorry.” She rushed forward, cupping her hand over mine in a panic, her voice cracking. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I—”
“Can’t do anything about it now, love,” I grunted.
“We can leave.” She hoisted my other arm over her shoulders and began to walk me toward the arch. “There is nothing here but pain.”
We descended the stairway into the narrow corridor and found the water had risen to our ankles between then and when we arrived.
Dahlia began to move quickly, supporting as much of my weight as she could.
The truth was, I’d been stabbed worse. I could move just fine, but the amount of blood soaking my shirt was alarming.
I didn’t have a lot of time and I believed she knew it by the way she was rushing us along like we were being chased by hounds.
“Do you still hear him?” I strained.
“A whisper. Vidar, I don’t know what’s happening. I feel… I don’t understand what’s real. Please, if I must leave you—”
“We are leaving together, Dahlia. We will leave this place together or we will leave this world together.”
“You will not leave at all,” said an ominous voice, penetrating my senses like needles piercing flesh.
Dahlia and I slowed, turning to each other as if to wonder if the voice was real, but that time, I heard it, too.
The sense of panic buried under Dahlia’s typically stern and challenging gaze nearly stopped my heart.
It was a strange feeling to know that a monster was afraid and that cold fear gripped me like meat hooks through my mortal skin.