TERMINAL
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Saya Claymore
The doors of the carriage clank open, but I don’t dare leave. There is movement in the darkness outside, but no sound hints at what it could be.
For a time, I will have to consider this my home. A place infested with nightwalkers, and with it, I may have to accept that I am one of them.
“Nervous?” Serun steps beside me, his knuckles brushing mine.
I shake my head. “Afraid of what I will become being around monsters that look like me.”
As cautious as a rabbit in the presence of a fox, Serun’s clawed hand closes around mine. “No matter what it is you become—or if you don’t change at all—I will be here, beside you.”
Pressing my lips inwards, I say nothing.
The thousands of emotions swirling in my heart are telling enough.
Instead, I let his hand squeeze mine and guide me out of the carriage and into a pitch-black tunnel.
My fingernails dig into Serun’s flesh at the many pairs of glowing red eyes looking at us, and the whispered conversations that cause my ears to twitch.
“Here.” Serun presses a cold metal object into my hand. An oil lantern. He lights it, casting a circle of light around me. “Your eyes will adjust to the night in time. Until then, use this to see.”
“You don’t have lights in the Undercity?”
“Why would we need lights when we can see in the dark? Only humans use them.”
Carriage doors open behind us. The flame flickers chaotically as I lift the lantern towards the sound. Olivia steps out cautiously, eyes darting left to right before settling on me. A wash of relief settles my spasming heart when she joins us.
Serun’s hand squeezes mine once, a reminder of how Cole would ground me when I was lost in thought, as we make our way down the tunnel. My breathing is loud, my footsteps even louder. I assume I’m the only one making any noise, because I can only hear myself.
We reach the stairs, and as we climb, nightwalkers come into view. One leans against the wall ahead of us, and as we pass, he crouches—submissive—with a low hiss before he bleeds back into the darkness.
Approaching a group of nightwalkers, Serun pulls me into his side. His shadows curl tenderly around me, soft, as if delicate fingers graze against my flesh. The group stops talking, glowing red eyes appraising me as if I’m a foreign specimen—a stranger in their home.
They don’t curl their lips. There is no disgust. Just…
coolness as they look me up and down. Serun packed lots of clothing options for me from the closet in the Sunken City, but tonight, I’ve once again reached for white.
Maybe because it’s what I have always worn.
Simple white dresses, a comfort in a world so unfamiliar to me.
They, though, wear lavish clothing. The men wear ruffled jackets, long coats, and jewels on their fingers and around their necks. The women wear silk slip dresses, thigh-high boots, and long feathered scarves draped across their shoulders.
Oil sloshes in the lantern when I direct it away from the group to illuminate the steps ahead. Metal, brick, steam, and rust tickle my nostrils, suffocating my senses.
Once we reach the top, he guides us to the right.
Another light is coming towards us, swaying on creaking hinges.
My ears bend back at the sight of someone following two nightwalkers.
They draw closer, and when they do, I see her bite marks and black, mismatched ink running up her neck and dotting across her jaw.
I try to step towards her, but Serun’s hand is iron, stubborn as he continues ahead.
The glow of her lantern catches on a structure, revealing a shop, with metal sheeting covering the top and sides.
Through the large front windows, a nightwalker is holding up blood in small tubes as a crowd forms around him.
“She is a Feeder, kamai,” he says, voice low enough for me to hear.
“I was a Feeder.”
“Yes. Darkovish Feeding Ground was tainted. Feeders aren’t supposed to be controlled as you were. The fact that the slayers didn’t alert me to this, bothers me.”
“They were afraid that if it wasn’t true, you would punish them.”
Serun breathes a dark laugh. “Would I now?”
“You wouldn’t have?”
“I have not punished anyone for false information before.” A cruel glint reaches his eyes. “But if that is what they believe, perhaps I will.”
This nightwalker is what Emily would call a red flag.
With a shake of my head, I say, “Regardless, nightwalkers have the power to keep a human subdued. They can paralyse them, like the one in Darkovish did to me.” I blink slowly to conceal the reminder of his disgusting hand in my hair. “How are you so sure her words are her own?”
Serun’s clawed hand slackens, and the silence around us fills with hushed conversations, making me hyperaware that we aren’t alone. Nightwalkers still watch us, curious. “Talk to her. I’ll wait.”
I can’t comprehend his expression. Shadows wrap so tightly around him that all I see is the deep darkness and red eyes. Still, I take the bait. I take it because Serun, so far, has been compliant when it comes to my demands—as far as I know.
This could all be a ploy. He might agree now and deny it later, but a strong part of me doubts that. For some unfathomable reason, he wants me. And he knows he isn’t in a position to break trust and keep me.
That is my power, and I will wield it to ensure humans are no longer cattle, and to get my brother back.
I break away from Serun, and Olivia follows close behind. “As your servant, Lord Serun would cut my head off if I don’t come too,” she says icily.
“He won’t. You are my servant, not his, as much as I abhor the notion,” I say, my voice growing smaller with every word. “You listen to me, not him.”
“Do you want me to die?”
I smile at her incredulity. Her dramatics amuse me.
I follow the Feeder into the shop they just entered.
The glow of my lantern and theirs combined catches the walls, bathing the shop in a dusky orange.
There are three aisles of frosty fridges, the chill in the air covering my ankles in clouds.
The male nightwalker at the register stands abruptly.
He goes rigid at the sight of me, and he speaks in Daryun, but it’s nothing I can comprehend.
Which reminds me… “Do you know what kamai means, Olivia?”
“No?” she says, confused, more like she is asking a question than anything else.
With a tight smile, I make my way to the back of the shop. The Feeder is with the two nightwalkers, examining a fridge lined with bulging blood bags. The hairs on my arms stand as I walk past all this chilled crimson.
I’d never seen where the blood went after the Bleeders drained us. I never really pictured how the rest of the process went. In my mind, blood bags went to the Undercity, where there would be a monstrous frenzy…not…this. In a store, echoing life before Mother left.
The nightwalkers notice me first, straightening from their stooped postures. Sickly smiles click into place, and intense, shimmering eyes burrow into my flesh. The man crouches lower, panicked eyes darting around the room, probably expecting Serun to appear.
The woman, however, keeps her tight smile. “Lady Consort, how were your travels?” she says in a strained voice.
Now I wonder if Serun has compelled everyone in the Undercity.
The Feeder woman—with a working heart and flushed cheeks—turns, slowly and moving with…flaws. Flaws I shouldn’t be noticing, but I do.
After a slow blink, digesting everything, she takes a cautious step back from me. “Is this Lord Serun’s consort?” she asks the nightwalkers.
The man grabs a blood bag from the fridge and hands it to the Feeder. His fear, or whatever his reaction was, subsides, and he straightens up enough that it doesn’t look too awkward. “Yes. Thanks to her white hair, we will all recognise her anywhere.”
Ignoring their obvious attempt to remind me that I wouldn’t be able to take two steps without being hunted down, I step towards the human, only for her to stumble away from me. “Do you like it here in the Undercity? Is this your home?” I ask her.
All three of them furrow their brows. I try to see signs of robotic speech, jaded eyes, or stiff, awkward movements. Even if her words are normal, if her eyes beg me to help her, I will.
And I will leave without looking back on the complicated feelings I have for Serun.
The hazel-eyed woman furrows her brow and says, “I don’t understand the question.”
The nightwalker woman gestures to the Feeder. “She wants to know if you were forced to be here, sweet.” Red eyes linger on the Feeder’s neck. “She worries you’re under our spell.”
“But Serun’s Law!” the man says dismissively.
The Feeder’s eyes crinkle, and she bursts out laughing. This time, I am the one who takes a step back, guardedness turning my face to stone.
“No, Lady Consort. I came here of my own free will after I entered the private room of a feeding ground,” she says.
I don’t believe her. I can’t believe someone would willingly choose to live with nightwalkers. Even I can’t accept it when it’s half of who I am.
“Why?” I say, raising the oil lantern higher, exposing the age lines on her face instead of the lies I had hoped for. “Why here and not in a settlement topside?”
She winces slightly, taking another cautious step away from me.
“Nyun puhn we aheruni,” the man says, and the Feeder nods.
The two nightwalkers step away and head down another aisle. Olivia takes a few steps back, giving us privacy. Comical, considering nightwalkers have impeccable hearing. An aisle away does nothing to ease the already uncomfortable tension in my chest.
“Aren’t you afraid for your life surrounded by nightwalkers who want to eat you?”
She cocks her head to the side, and a wave of dark hair spills down her shoulder. Bite marks dot her exposed neck. So many of them…
“No,” she says with pursed lips, a shake of her head and a shrug of one shoulder. “We have an understanding. They feed me. Shelter me. Dress me nicely and give me the freedom to roam the city without fear. In return, I offer them my blood.”
“But if you didn’t have to do that to gain these things, would you still let them bite you?
” I step closer, my grip tightening on the handle of the oil lantern while my other hand desperately clutches her arm.
Her whole body stiffens at my touch, and wide, frightened eyes dart to the nightwalkers, but their attention is on the exit.
“What if there were no such thing as nightwalkers?”
Drawing her focus back to me, she gives two heavy-lidded blinks before saying, “Then who would protect us from the slayers?”