Chapter 6
Soren was wearing nothing but a thin, white sleeping gown, her now faded brown hair drifting behind her as she walked down the city watch’s dimly lit hallway. She was barefoot, and the wood plank flooring felt rough on the soles of her feet.
All the doors in the hallway were closed, apart from the one leading to the cold cellar. That was where they kept the bodies. She had been here before, the day they had asked her to retrieve Tarak Nightsong’s body for the undertaker.
Soren hesitated momentarily at the doorway. A draft floated up the stairwell, carrying with it the stench of death. She covered her mouth with her sleeve, offended by the smell, though it did little to save her nostrils from their plight. Then she took the stairs one at a time, each step bringing her closer to the pinnacle of her nightmare.
The space opened up into a rectangular room. There were no windows, no place for the acrid stench of rotting flesh to escape.
Eight, long wooden tables were laid out in a grid-like formation across the stone floor. On each table lay a body, all different shapes and sizes, covered in thin, white sheets. Wooden buckets lined the wall on the far end, filled with red liquid and indecipherable shapes. Soren knew better than to look at what they might contain.
One of the sheets to her right shifted, and her breath caught in her throat. Eyes wide, she stared at the white cloth, waiting for it to move again. She sighed in relief when the body remained still, though the more she looked, the more the shape became one she recognized.
She moved closer to the table on silent feet, her heart hammering as though it were trying to forge a blade to protect her from what lay beneath. She reached forward with a shaking hand, her legs prepared to run, and slid the sheet off.
Her hand slammed to her mouth as she stifled a cry, not wanting to wake the dead. The fabric pooled at her feet like a pond of melted moonlight.
On the wooden slab, in nothing but a singular garment for modesty, was her father’s body.
Tarak Nightsong looked as he had the last time she had seen him—brown hair, glistening against golden skin, and the mustache he’d favored in his older years peppered with specks of white. He looked peaceful, a serene image of how he should have been laid to rest.
Tears welled in her eyes as Soren reached forward to brush a lock of his hair when his golden-brown eyes suddenly opened.
The movement caused her to jump back, but then her heart rate slowed as her father sat up and gave her a lazy smile.
“Come here, my sweet girl,” he said, swinging his legs to the floor and holding his hand out.
“Daddy?” The word snagged on the lump in her throat.
Though every sane part of her knew it was a bad idea, she couldn’t stop herself from running into his arms. He felt the same as he always had—strong and sure. He smelled of spice, and parchment, and home. She wanted to nestle herself in the safety and warmth of his arms and never wake up.
They separated, and he squeezed her shoulders, giving her a smile.
“Daddy?” she said again as he wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“I hope you know how proud of you I am,” he said.
“I just wish you would have told me,” was her reply.
He gave her a sad smile and nodded. “There are so many things I would have done differently. I’m so sorry, my sweet girl.”
She hugged him again, not caring about the mistakes of the past. “I love you tons, Daddy.”
“I love you tons, too.”
She took a step back to look at him again, wanting to soak in every last line of his face. However, something was wrong. His skin had gone pale and sickly. Then she watched in horror as his hair began to fall out in dark chunks and talon marks oozing black ichor appeared all over his body. He tried to speak again, but coagulated blood and black foam choked out his sentiment.
She stepped back, but her bare feet caught in the fabric of the sheet, causing her to crash to the floor. She landed hard on her tail bone, pain screeching up her spine as she looked up at her father’s decaying body.
He was reaching out for her, and she gagged as his skin started to rot and putrefy. She pushed up off the ground, backing away as the dead skin, muscle, and sinew sloughed off in pieces to the floor. Soon, there would be nothing left.
A scream ripped from her throat as strange hands grabbed her shoulders from behind.
Her horror mounted when she turned to see a sheet-covered body at her back. She batted away the hands and ducked out of its grip, now noticing that the rest of the bodies were standing at attention.
The remaining sheets fell one by one to reveal the decaying bodies of her friends and loved ones. Baz, Enara, Celandine, Alondra, Laraline, and even Jai reached out to her with gnarled fingers. She shook her head, inching along the wall to the doorway, not able to take her eyes off of them.
A voice broke from the body to her right. It was larger than the rest, and she cowered against the stone as the sheet fell.
Adriel stood in all his perfected glory, a satisfied smirk on his face. “This is what will become of your heroics,” he said. “Everyone you know and love will be dead, and the fault will be none but your own.”
Soren shook her head, panic rising in her already clogged throat. She didn’t know if she was going to sob or vomit. Before he could say anything more, she turned and ran up the stairs.
Her tears blinded her as she ran down the hall, toward the city watch’s front door. She could still taste the decay, and bile rose in her throat. She dared a look back to see if the corpses had followed her, but the hallway remained empty. However, she could hear Adriel’s sick laughter rise through the floorboards.
She was nearly knocked out when she ran into another body, this one blocking her exit. She screamed, and punched, and kicked as hard as she could, but the arms held fast. She could feel its breath hot on her ear as she tried to push out of its grasp.
“Breathe, Soren.”
Her whole body stiffened as the grip loosened enough for her to look up into Rook’s sapphire gaze.
A smirk pulled up the corners of his lips. “Hello, little bird.”
Soren’s shock at hearing his voice was short-lived as images of her father’s body ripped through her vision. The fear that, moments ago, had threatened to take over her entire being was quickly replaced with searing hot rage for her father’s killer. She cursed herself for dreaming up such useless attire.
A quick glance around showed little for a way of escape.
Before he could spew more lies from those all-too-familiar lips, she twisted from his grasp and grabbed the nearest oil lamp. She used the glass encasement to knock him out cold before holding her open palm to the flame to rouse herself from the nightmarish hellscape her mind had created.
* * *
Soren’s eyes flicked open.She could not yet move. The sleep hormones that usually failed her had decided to do their job for once, rendering her immobile.
Enara had rolled over, stealing her cloak and the warmth that came along with it, but another jacket had taken its place. It smelled of wood and tobacco, smoky and mysterious, much like its owner.
The tracker was attractive, Soren had to admit, but he was hung up on another woman. Too bad, she thought. He could have been a fun distraction.
Her body still refused to grant her motion, so she resigned to settling her mind to hopefully rest for at least another hour or so. But then her father’s decomposed body flashed across her eyelids the moment she closed them, and the fist around her heart tightened.
Panic in the form of darkness settled over her. A distorted figure of no discernible age or sex sat on her breastbone, crushing her below its impossible weight. It would suffocate her if she didn’t do something.
She wanted to scream, but no sound came out. It was as though her lips had been sewn shut. She wracked her brain for anything that could save her, and the image of Rook standing over the beheaded kestrel came to the forefront of her mind.
He was a light amongst the shadows, cutting down the creature that had tormented her. She focused on the memory, and the black beast slowly slunk back to the dark corner of her mind that stemmed all panic and fear. The pressure on her chest eased, and oxygen returned to her lungs.
Her thoughts were still filled with images of Rook, and she cursed herself. She had been furious when he’d appeared in her dream like some white knight from one of her stories. She had wanted to douse him in the oil from the rest of the lamps and set his body aflame in the hopes he would never wake up again.
However, as before, in the mansion, something inside her broken heart had stilled her hand. The anger never retreated, and neither did her feelings for him, but she would not think of that now. Now, she would name all the constellations, mapping each star point as she created a galaxy in her mind. Here was where she could lay her head without the fear of bodies or betrayals. Here, she was safe.