Chapter Fifty Five #2
Kyra peered out of the dirty window. ‘Ousca is one province away from a town called Taru.’ Her throat constricted but she forced herself to carry on. ‘Rose was there. My brother was supposed to be there too. After he left Avaldale, I told him to find Rosary. I have to see if he’s still there.’
Gedeon was quiet for a moment. Then he said, ‘We will leave at first light.’
She looked at him, his agreement surprising her. The scratches her nails had left on his neck had almost disappeared. She felt no remorse, and no thank you came to her lips. Instead, she just nodded.
A sleepless night followed. The insides of her eyelids were a deep black each time she closed them, and though her body was wrought with exhaustion still, she would not let herself drift off. Her dreams would be lawless and bloody if she did.
She was unsure if Gedeon slept. From his makeshift mattress of blankets on the floor beside her, he barely moved.
His breath was steady, as though sleep did grip him.
But when they silently got dressed before the cockerel cawed in the morning, his eyes bore no puffy semblance of a well-rested night.
Taru held much of the same of Ousca’s idyllic seatown appearance, if not a little rougher around the edges.
They arrived sometime in the mid-morning, bundled in the back of a transit carriage that Gedeon’s darkness had allowed them to successfully stowaway on.
For a solid three hours, the clashing harmony of copious bottles of Sarlal’s finest wines clinking against each other was torture.
Kyra’s fingernail beds were raw by the time they arrived; she’d been picking and ripping at the skin the whole time.
Everywhere she looked, she saw the life that had been taken from her. A phantom Kyra and Rosary laughed on every street corner, their hands never without a goblet of wine, their faces never without the joy of their newfound freedom.
They worked honest jobs, and sat by the waters edge every night, watching the sunset with their arms slung around the other’s shoulders, grateful that they had each other, grateful that they had the privilege of living, grateful that they’d taken their destiny into their own hands.
A life in an alternate reality.
A life that would never be hers.
Hood up, Kyra led Gedeon down a busy, slanted street. Canopies jutted out from the side of buildings, each housing stalls of varying wares beneath. In front of a shop of strange perfumes and potions proclaiming to win the heart of whomever you may desire, Kyra halted.
The seller, an older, promiscuous looking woman draped in red glossier with lips stained dark as blood, said in a floating voice, ‘Come, child, peruse at your leisure. Is it an unrequited love that needs attention?’ She picked up a small bottle of what looked like cranberry juice.
Then she noticed Gedeon. ‘Or perhaps you seek an aid to keep things… sturdy?’ She motioned to another bottle, long and girthy.
‘Certainly not,’ Gedeon said.
‘No,’ Kyra said hastily, hating the heat that rose in her cheeks. ‘I’m not here to shop.’
The seller’s gaze turned cold. The ethereal accent dropped almost instantly. ‘Then don’t waste my time. Move along.’
‘Wait,’ Kyra said. Though reluctantly, the woman did. ‘I’m looking for someone. A fae male. Skin of my colouring. Dark hair and eyes. Tall and wide.’ She swallowed. ‘You may have seen him with a woman? They both came from the capital. She first, then he followed.’
‘You know that brute?’ the woman asked, eyebrows shooting into her wispy hairline. She shook her head darkly. ‘Caused quite a bit of trouble, he has. Not here now, mind. Neither is she.’
Kyra’s pulse was a trapped moth. ‘Where did he go?’
‘How should I know? We don’t quite hate the fae like they do in Avaldale, but if they’re all like him, maybe we should.’
‘Why?’ Kyra’s heart jolted. ‘What did he do?’
She let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Go investigate for yourself, if you’ve got the balls for it.
Down in the cove, the third building on the right.
Inn on the Waves, it used to be. The slaughterhouse, people are calling it now.
’ She shooed them away with a hand. ‘Now, go away, I’m done being interrogated. ’
Kyra glanced at Gedeon. Then started toward the seafront.
At the cove the fraudulent potion seller told them about, salty water lapped against a wooden boardwalk. Kyra took to it, beelining for the third building on the right, nefarious against the others for its lack of life within.
She scented the blood before she saw it. And she didn’t need Gedeon’s grasp of her arm to come to a halt.
He moved in front of her, blocking the inn from view with his tall frame. ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’
Shivers began through her body. She ignored them. Rather than give him an answer, she brushed past him and continued on.
Kyra gingerly pushed open the broken door to the inn, Gedeon in pursuit with cautionary flames dancing in his palm. The place was deserted. What was once sure to have been a merry establishment of ale and wine and laughter, was now a desolate space devoid of soul.
Reeking of death.
Glasses lay smashed and discarded on the floor. In the fireplace, ash was cold and dead. Blood was smeared and splattered everywhere. On chairs. On the bar. On the walls. On torch brackets. Now she looked, it was on the doorframe. Printed in the shape of fingers scraping for their life.
Kyra’s head spun. That last one was Rosary’s blood. Amidst the reek of tens of others, but she would never forget the scent of it, even dried and old as it was now.
Gedeon was at her side. His arm brushed hers. ‘It won’t do to linger here, Kyra. There is nothing but pain.’
‘I have to see,’ she insisted. He wouldn’t know what she meant, but she didn’t care. ‘I have to see.’
Kneeling on the cold slabs, Kyra pressed her hands to the ground. Blots of blood framed them like stars. ‘Show me,’ she willed the earth. ‘Show me what happened.’
The Earth surged to obey.
Rosary serving drinks behind the bar, flicking her hair and laughing and dazzling all in the near vicinity.
Oslan walking in. Rosary pouring him an ale.
Oslan revealing who he was. Rosary smiling as though she already knew.
Nights of endless talking. Sharing wine and talking about Kyra and their lives.
Oslan dancing with Rosary. His fuller frame, his happy smile.
Them laughing together. Another night of wine ending with Oslan in Rosary’s bed. Tender touches.
Oslan pinning her down whilst she slept, as he seamlessly sliced a knife down the side of her head.
A severed ear.
Blood painting the white sheets red.
Rosary screaming.
Oslan dragging her out of the room.
Oslan slaying everyone who got in his way.
Bodies littering the taproom.
A woman draped in black standing in the threshold.
Rosary’s screams becoming distant.
A silent room of the dead.
Senseless. The entire world had become senseless.
Kyra heaved up the contents of her stomach. Her eyes streamed, her throat stung. Drunk on grief, she stumbled to the sea, and in the watery, tidal shallows, she knelt. The guttural scream she unleashed spooked a flock of gulls into taking flight.
Through blurred eyes, she watched them fly against the darkening sky. A sky void of stars.