Chapter 20 Neirin
NEIRIN
“What are you doing here?” I stepped forward, closing the short distance between us, and grasped the messenger by the collar of his shirt.
Calix’s body shuddered, his eyes flickered, and the charge in the air intensified. Dammit.
Releasing my hold on him, I let him fall to the ground and turned my back.
The child made a faint sound as he fell, and the charge held.
Nothing I was not accustomed to. Gazing up and down the nearby path to assure no one was coming or going, I huffed a breath and drew back my hood, letting the smoke-tainted breeze ruffle my hair.
At the dip of the valley along the river’s edge, the buildings continued to burn. The routiers and soldiers who had come with intentions of fighting off raiders had since turned to aiding the farmers with their buckets of water, having found no enemy to wield their swords against.
“Why did you start the fires?” I asked, tone level, as I turned back to the boy.
Calix stood and shuddered again. The cobalt of his eyes flickered black, and static crackled, but it was clear the boy was restraining himself.
And, in truth, he was doing a fairly decent job of it for a child of his age who had likely not been fed in nearly a fortnight.
It was harder the younger they were. They needed the blood more frequently to sustain control.
“It was meant to draw you out,” Calix replied, his tone listless. Though usually composed, the boy made no attempt to straighten his shirt or dust the debris of dirt and dried grasses from his pants. Dark shadows beneath his eyes told of his state. He would not last much longer.
“The others, do they fare worse than you?”
“The two new boys are probably both dead, taken out into the woods. We have not seen them since. They were unstable.” Calix spoke with his typical trained detachment.
It was not a surprise. Their control was weak, and their need was high and frequent. The newest of the children could sometimes feed as often as twice a day in the early weeks, as they adjusted.
“The others?” I asked.
Sucking in one of his cheeks and chewing it, Calix cast his eyes down. “Astraea has us contained in the cellar room where we will not be of danger to anyone aside from each other. Two days after the festival, she selected those of us who were faring the best and sent us out to find you.”
“Why did you think a fire would draw me out?”
He raised his eyes again, and the displaced coolness returned to them.
The boy looked beyond me to the burning farmsteads.
“It was the Queen’s orders. Create a scene without causing lasting damage to anything vital.
She believed your training as a guard would be too strong to allow you to resist engaging on some level. ”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I released a breath. Through my worries over Harlan and the threat that lay within the castle walls, I’d given little thought to Astraea or her messengers, to the effects my absence would have on them. “Does Rion know of the Queen’s actions?”
Furrowing his brows faintly, Calix shook his head. “I do not believe so.”
“She needs me to return,” I stated, my mind beginning to work around how I could use this to my advantage. “What does she offer?”
Without further response, Calix held out a package wrapped with thick paper and tied. The lack of a wax seal was a statement. The faith Astraea held in her messengers was absolute, for they relied on her, and she used this as a method to control them.
Untying the bindings, I opened the package.
Within I found a letter and two silver canins.
The letter, written in rich black ink, bore the Queen’s signature at the bottom.
As I read, Calix sat again, and I eyed him briefly over the paper.
The boy’s dark lashes fluttered as he struggled to keep his eyes open; he was using all his energy to control his magic.
I swallowed and returned my attention to the note.
“I will not return for this,” I said, pocketing the coins and tossing the letter back to Calix.
Despite his apparent weariness, the boy caught and folded it. Tucking it into his shirt, he sighed, the sound heavy. A muscle at his jaw flexed. Shaking my head, I turned my attention to the mare and drew up my hood.
“What did the letter say?”
Looking over my shoulder to the boy, I narrowed my eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to keep your questions to yourself?”
“My friends will die,” he said, voice meeker than before.
Of course, the runt would choose this moment to show he had a soul. Huffing an exhale, I turned back to him. “She proposes safe passage to her country house and a life lived out there where I can continue to offer—”
The boy’s eyes flickered with hunger.
“This is not a life,” I said. “It is cushioned imprisonment.”
“Please.” Desperation crackled in the air alongside the static of barely restrained magic.
“I have a task I must fulfill.” I turned back to the mare and mounted.
The boy stood on wobbling legs, then fell once more.
The mare stepped in place, clearly sensing the charge in the air as well.
Despite her unsettled state, she didn’t spook or flee to the stables.
I found myself surprised by her courage—or foolishness.
The boy looked up at me from his hands and knees, the colors of his eyes shifting, his chest heaving.
A knot formed in my throat to see him struggling, fighting to control the magic that swirled within him.
Though he and I were not the same, I empathized with his pain.
He had not asked for this life. A quick death when he first showed signs would have been more a gift than what the Queen offered—the false hope for a life impossible to sustain forever.
She had to see that. Even before I left.
What was such a life truly worth when it came with the expectation of fulfilling any task, delivering any message, without question?
When rebellion or the slip of control led to repercussions, led to her thrice-cursed lessons?
“Your hand.” I held my own out to the child, and he quivered at my closeness, teeth rolling his bottom lip. “Do not make me regret this,” I warned on a snarl.
His eyes flickered again, and he pushed himself to his feet and took my hand.
Effortlessly, I pulled him to sit in front of me.
The child was light, perhaps lighter than a boy his age should be.
Whether that was due to this stress on his body from not feeding for so long and his fight to suppress his magic, or simply a lack of nutrition, I was uncertain.
As the charge grew, the mare stepped in place again, her ears pinning back.
Drawing my borrowed sword somewhat awkwardly with the boy in front of me, I held it before us a moment.
To slice his throat, to release him from this life, would in truth be a kindness.
I could free him from his inevitable suffering should Astraea learn he’d failed in his task to deliver me to her.
Yet as he trembled in my grasp, my heart betrayed me.
Cursing, I used the sword to create a shallow slit on the inside of my arm.
Not at the wrist, for even with my hastened healing, I could not expect the child to restrain himself in this state.
A slower, more controlled bleed was safer.
The body in my arms jerked, but I restrained him long enough to sheathe my blade. That done, I released my hold on him, and he took my left arm greedily with both hands, drawing the wound to his lips.
Cool ice spanned from his clasp through my body, but I resisted the shudder. The boy’s thirst was desperate, lacking any semblance of control he previously showed. I could not fault him for that, though.
“Easy,” I said, and the pull lessened, if only slightly.
The static in the air settled, and the mare settled, though her ears remained back.
While the boy fed on my blood, I watched the road, assuring no one was coming. The fire still held the attention of those in the field, and we were far enough from the fray that should anyone glance in our direction, they would suspect nothing out of place.
Thoughts of the old man, Evera’s mentor, came to me.
Though he knew much about me that I did not know about myself, I did not believe he knew the full extent of my blood’s capabilities.
It was an ancient and well-kept secret that the Alidian fed on us, that the blood of the gods sated them, gave them control over their magic.
Witches, blood drainers, the soulless. The Alidian had several names, or condemnations—slurs cast as a way to conceal the insecurities of those who feared them or didn’t understand them. It was ironic, for the blood of the general public held no value to the Alidian
Tales were told around hearths of a time when corpses were found in the streets, drained of their blood. The bodies of my kind. Though that part of the story had been either forgotten to time or never known by those who were not a part of the fragile system to begin with.
The boy in my lap settled, his muscles relaxing, his eager draining settling into the sleepy tug of a babe close to dozing off. The mare, too, had settled.
Why was it that people presumed only women could be Alidian, could be witches?
Was it only because male Alidian were so uncommon?
In all my years, I’d come across many females in the streets of the capital.
Once every fortnight or two, a girl would lose control, and guards or soldiers would be sent to handle the situation. To put an end to the threat.
Calix’s lips broke from my arm, and he mumbled incoherently, his head swaying.
There was no use musing on such things. It did not matter what was true, only what people perceived as the truth.
Still, it pulled the corners of my lips down.
Evera suffered from such rumors when she had done nothing wrong, when she had no connection to the Alidian and wanted only to practice her trade, her skills, and to aid others.
In my grasp, Calix swayed. The wait to feed had been too much for him, and now that he was sated, his body would need time to recover.
Tightening my grip around him with my right arm so that when he fainted, he did not fall from the back of the mare, I examined the cut.
It still bled, but not seriously enough to draw attention.
Clicking, I urged the mare down the hillside and to the path that would lead us back to the stables, unsure how to handle the new burden I bore. I knew the boy would not leave me to return to the Queen—that was nothing short of a death sentence for him. He was my responsibility now.