8. Haze
Haze
T here’s screaming in my mind. Not memories or echoes of pain elsewhere in this shattered world. It’s… me. I am screaming. Always roaring with the fury I am not allowed to show.
On the outside, I am calm. Inside, there is a storm raging.
I am weak. I am a coward. I am wrong.
Here especially.
The den is our home. A vast cavern with intricate tunnels where we live. We are meant to have lives outside of the cullings and rituals, as long as it is contained by the cult. Some even have families.
Inside the den, we are to savor the fruits of our labor—a place of freedom and religious expression. Where the Drak’yn people can smile and reap the rewards of their violence.
Yet, each time I allow the shadow of the mountain to cover me, each time the priestess looks upon our blood-stained hands, new wounds flowing, and bless us for our duty, I am sickened.
We are not human. More than human, the priestesses say.
I understand their justifications, their rationale. No amount of explaining will chase away my distaste for our deeds, though. Humans come to us, begging for aid.
And we give it… to some.
For others, their screams become our strength.
Can it really be a sacred duty if our only claim to power comes from the destruction of another?
I ride Mavros through the massive stone arch that marks our territory, his stomping steps a comforting rhythm. Mikael’s drakai follows closely behind, never wavering. If the beast has a name, I don’t know it, but he obeys nonetheless.
Mavros has dark green scales and towers over the younger beast with orange scales and beady eyes.
The drakai make fantastic war beasts. They are blindly obedient to their chosen rider and the elders of their kind. Since his rider died a few days ago, he is a risk.
There is only one thing stopping him from tearing me apart for entertainment. Drakai do not challenge their elders without cause. While I ride Mavros, I am safe.
We trot together toward the massive mountain, and each new step increases my anxiety. My mind grows more distant.
A set of women carrying buckets of fruit rush off the path as we ride toward them. Their eyes are wide, watching the two drakai with only one rider.
They chatter dramatically the moment we are past. Ahead, the trees clear, revealing stone expertly carved into the visage of a skull.
People selected to worship death.
I hold my head high as I ride beneath the stone and into the dark cave, until Mavros stops in front of the fountain that rains blood each full moon. Right now, the water is crystal clear, but I can see the crimson liquid in my mind’s eye.
My mind floats off to anywhere but here.
Before I dismount, I take a long breath.
I cannot show my shame.
Beneath the mountain, we are free from our duty of violence, but it is here that I am most terrorized. Here, where the world is quiet. Where people are free and alive and happy.
Where children are not only born healthy but with full bellies every day. Where they can laugh and play.
Until they too are forced to kill or be killed.
Maybe it’s a flaw that I feel each ounce of pain I cause so deeply. Or maybe if I had been like these children, raised in the cool shadows of the underground city, around my people, maybe I wouldn’t know to mourn the loss of light that exists outside.
Maybe I would have believed their tales—that we are the sacred people and our god demands the souls of outsiders. Maybe if I hadn’t tasted more than this.
I don’t know if it is because I am half-black magic, half-red, but my soul burns with shame.
I feel the wrongness in my bones, but I am helpless to stop it. I am a coward for continuing on this way, and yet I know my death would only fuel their magic more. There is no way to win in this terrible game.
She is alive. Alive but at risk, and I cannot protect her.
More failure to add to my list.
Not yet. You have not failed her yet.
I shake my head from the shadows pressing in on my mind. I’ve long let them rule me, but I cannot let them win now.
Ivar could cut her down out there just to spite me, but I saw his desire plainly. He intends to bring her here and claim her to taunt me.
I march down the steps toward the sanctum.
The Nihil Priestess, Blythe, is kneeling before the walls of skulls when I approach. She stands slowly then bows her head in greeting.
“You’ve arrived alone,” she says. “Where is your commander?”
I keep my chin up. “Mikael has fallen,” I state plainly. “I was sent ahead to deliver his drakai to the stalls to be prepared for a new binding.”
If this news is surprising, she does not show it. Her eyes remain steady. Her expression bored. “And Ivar?”
“Tracking two humans he believes will make good additions to our community.”
She narrows her eyes, considering this information. It is a strange turn of events. An unbound drakai is useful here, but it is not so urgent that a day or two would be so beneficial. There is a deeper motive that I would arrive alone while Ivar continues a mission, and she knows it.
“Were you not useful in the hunt?”
“Apparently more useful elsewhere. I follow my orders.”
“I see.” She looks me over once but then nods. “We will prepare a ritual for Mikael and add his drakai to the list for the binding. Come, let us fulfill your prayers so you can rejoin the community.”
This is usually my least favorite part of rejoining the den, but today when the red-haired priestess washes my hands of the blood and dirt, I watch closely.
I will never be clean. I will never again be innocent. But that blood does not include hers, the girl who will forever haunt me.
And when the priestess presses obsidian against the center of my forehead and prays to Nihil for a blessing, I close my eyes and chant her name inside my mind.
Over and over.
Punish me, I request of the heavens.
Punish me by never seeing her again. Set her free from my curse.