Chapter 8 #2
“Indeed. I have not asked for gold, nor am I a whore. I didn’t come to your castle and beg your aid for my own sake, but for that of the missing.
” She took a deep breath, the fire glittering in her eyes like an accusation.
“Yet, only moments ago, you applied ‘irrational’ to me, as though you know anything about me at all! Who are you to say my dislike of your kind is irrational, when your contempt for all women is equally ridiculous?”
I sat quiet, claws curled against my thighs.
“I will give it to you,” fel Arron said bitterly. “I didn’t listen at first, but now I’ve learned and I will not make the same mistake. Who knows whether you will do the same?”
A long, terrible silence stretched between us, and after a moment her eyes widened as she realized she’d just chastised the one man who held her life in his hands.
She ducked her head. “You are the Lord of the Rivers, and it’s not my place to speak to you like that. Once again, I apologize—”
“No,” I said, the word exploding out against my will. “Do not apologize for this. I would rather hear your true thoughts.”
“Would you really?” She eyed me again, untrusting, a fawn sensing danger and yet unable to stop herself from stepping into the clearing. “At this moment, they’re not very flattering towards you.”
I stared into the fire, wondering what had caused her discomfort—no, her well-hidden hatred, for that was what it was—for my kind, or rather…the who.
“I have lived nearly fifty years of lies,” I finally said, not daring to look at her.
“Fifty years of hatred pelted at me every moment of the day. Fifty years with a woman who breathed vitriol like air. I am sure you have heard the whispers, and they are all true. I…no longer quite know what honesty is. I don’t know what… understanding is.”
I felt her eyes on me, as hot as burning brands, as icy as fallen stars.
“Inside me there is a chasm, and all that lives within is bitterness. I know, somewhere in there, that my hatred poisons all. And even when I come across those rare few who defy my expectations…I almost want to crush them, for daring to be other than what I have come to expect.”
I heard the breath catch in her throat, a faint click as she swallowed.
“But in this case, you are right. I am the one who owes the apology to you, fel Arron. You have defied my expectations, and your worth is made clear to me.”
She said nothing for a long time, huddled there in her cloak, but she didn’t get up and move away.
Whatever brief companionship might’ve sprung up between us, I had destroyed it thoroughly.
I shifted to leave her, but fel Arron’s hand shot out, two fingers on my wrist holding me in place.
My entire body froze, bending to her demand.
“It was the Scarlet Lottery,” she said in a near-whisper. “I gave him…everything I was, all my promises. But his name was drawn. He didn’t even tell me he had entered.”
I did not move a single muscle, pinned by that touch and the raw hurt in her voice.
The Scarlet Lottery was held only when enough vampires had fallen—to war, murder, thirst, or punishment for breaking the laws—to need to replenish our population.
Only willing, healthy humans could enter the lottery, and if their name was drawn, they were drained of blood as they slept under a bloodwitch’s care, and revived from the veins of a vampire sire.
Usually the honor was given only to those without families—it was too much to expect a human to be granted immortality while leaving a spouse or children behind.
“He came to tell me after he’d been…reborn.
” Fel Arron didn’t look at me as she spoke, her eyes still on the crackling flames.
“And I didn’t know anything was wrong until he asked for his ring back.
He had an eternity to explore the world, to explore new women.
Tractable women. What allure could I possibly hold compared to that?
What is love to you when you live forever?
There’s always another to look forward to. ”
The bitterness in her words made something tighten in my chest. It was too familiar, a pain I felt like a fresh wound every day.
But the corner of her mouth lifted in a sour smile.
“So my dreams were broken. My plans for the future were destroyed. And my good virtue was compromised, which everyone knows. I’m ruined for a good match now.
But at least I spent my dowry on something useful.
” She waved a hand at her golem, watching her with that expressionless mask.
“What is his name?” My voice came out as a guttural snarl, but she didn’t shy away. Instead, rather surprisingly, she gave me a tight smile, but there was a shine to her eyes that belied her calm expression.
“No, Lord Wroth. I won’t share it.”
I poured her a fresh cup of tea, dropping in two lumps of sugar from the tea tin by her bedroll. “I can easily search the records for the latest inductees.”
“You could,” she said, accepting the cup with a more genuine smile, and her fingers brushed mine.
A shiver ran down my spine at the warmth in her small, callused hands.
“But I ask you not to. The only revenge I want is my own: to live as well as I can, for as long as I can, and never think of him again if I can help it.”
I drew my hands back, wishing I could clasp her hands in mine as I promised to visit torments upon this unknown vampire’s head that would make him wish he’d never been reborn.
Which was utterly irrational of me. I hardly knew her.
So she was right—I was a damned hypocrite.
“Fine,” I grumbled. “Since we are acquaintances willing to learn new things, I will respect your wishes.”
Fel Arron laughed, that throaty laugh that made my heart beat faster in a pleasant way. “I’ve bared my heart to you. I would think that makes us friends, at least.”
I stared at her, unable to decipher what I was feeling. Horror? Trepidation? Elation?
“Or…never mind. That was a silly thing to say,” she said hastily, holding her tea cup before her like a shield. A blush mantled her cheeks, and under the scent of sweat and the earthy Below, her own scent of milk-and-honey soap and fiery blood scorched my throat.
I looked at her, and remembered that when I returned from the Below, it would be Esteri waiting for me in that castle.
Esteri and her cold eyes, her unblushing face, her cloying perfume.
Esteri and her golem formed of vivisected butterflies.
Esteri and her demands, the voice she used as though talking to a simple child.
Esteri, who looked so much like Kajarin fifty years ago, history coming around in a full circle.
“Friends,” I said, throwing myself fully into the danger and holding out a hand. “For you have seen my heart laid bare as well, and besides that…you spoke the truth. I was the irrational one.”
If I could not have my freedom, I would have one friend. One person who knew the truth of me, who saw it and accepted it, and didn’t turn her back on me for it.
One person whose heart was as rotten and aching a wound as mine.
Fel Arron reached out and firmly shook on it. She didn’t shudder or shy away from the soft touch of my claws on the back of her tiny human hand.
“Look at that,” she said, smiling shyly. “He can learn.”
“He will also keep his mouth shut about assumptions until he knows more about certain women.”
“Certain women would appreciate that, and would make an effort to question their own disdain towards those who don’t deserve it.” She squeezed my hand as much as she could, considering how minuscule it was compared to mine, despite the strength in her fingers.
Her eyes were so large, dark velvet pools that drew me in like a moth to a flame. What thoughts swirled behind those eyes? Did she feel what I felt—the tingling in the palms, the blissful shiver of anticipation down her spine?
“Wroth,” she murmured. How could human lips be so perfectly shaped?
“Yes?”
Fel Arron’s smile had taken on an embarrassed tinge. “Although my reputation is quite ruined already, and thus I have nothing more to fear…you are still holding my hand, and the others are staring.”
I tore my gaze from her face, and both Erland and Aleyn shifted as I looked at them, clearly turning back toward their own fire.
I stared long and hard, enough to ensure they felt my eyes boring into their backs, marking them, and reluctantly released fel Arron’s hand.
Vampires certainly didn’t care about the prudish conventions of Rivers nobles, but at least she had found a polite way to tell me she no longer wished to touch me.
Her face was pink again, and the lush scent of blood pumping under her skin was stronger than ever. “So. Er. Shall we look at the map together now?”
There was something falsely cheerful in her voice, and a choking mixture of regret and irritation swept over me. “Yes,” I almost groaned, just managing to hide whatever this horrible emotion was.
The maps themselves were in a waterproofed leather tube on my belt, sealed with sigils. I unfolded the scrolls, pressing them flat to the ground before us.
Fel Arron leaned forward eagerly, pushing her spectacles up her nose, but after a moment of confused perusal, her expression folded into a scowl. “What in the Lady’s name is this?”
“I did try to tell you the maps would not be of much use.”
She turned her head to glare at me. “You could’ve just said it was pure gibberish!”
I couldn’t stop the laughter that rumbled out of me. “Oh, no, it’s as clear as we could make it. See, we are right here.”
I pointed to the tiny inked icon of this bastion, and moved my finger down to the waving lines of the Chamber of Song.
“First of all, you see that this ink is black. We are less than a quarter of a league below the earth. These are the highest levels of the Below—if you are in the black levels, you will eventually come across one of the thousands of paths to the world above. This is where we lived, as going deeper generally meant death. Now this,” I pulled the top scroll aside, revealing the one below in blue ink, “is roughly the next level. Perhaps half a league Below. See this symbol here? It is a water source. The runes on the current map denote safety, but you must never rely on the map alone. Things have certainly changed since the exile ended.”
Fel Arron shook her head slowly. “There are no paths marked.”
I placed the black map back on top. “Because the paths are not always the same. As I said, your senses will be your best compass. Every time you follow a known path, it is best to assume something has changed, and not for the better.”
She closed her eyes briefly and muttered what sounded like, “Lady preserve us,” under her breath.
“Look. This is the entrance we took, the old watchtower.” I pointed.
“Here, here, and here…you see all the points of ingress? These are the ones that are watched and guarded, and there are plenty more unmarked, but they will all eventually filter down onto the black map. If there are humans moving in the Below, we will find signs of their passage somewhere in here.”
Despite her disgruntlement, she leaned in again, studying the map and twitching it aside to look at the blue, then she moved them both and found the level in green ink. “What’s this?”
I looked at her finger, stabbing at a pointed sigil.
“Do not drink the water there. It’ll have strong metamorphic properties.
The blue map is where you begin to feel the true weight of the place.
When we reach the levels of the green map, a full league below, you will find that the air and water, even the earth itself, are hostile to you. ”
Fel Arron glanced at me, and moved the green map aside to reveal one in red.
“If we must descend to the depths depicted on the red map, it is possible many of us will die, for that is the land of Liuridar, with all the entities it contains.” She looked alarmed at that, and I took a breath.
“Come now, fel Arron, no human could last long in that city. It’s likely Alvar stole the Artifice and fled to the surface levels.
I anticipate we’ll descend no further than a league at the very worst.”
She raised a finger, waggling it. “Oh no, Wroth, do not say things like that. Everyone knows it’s asking for bad luck. But…what’s below the red, if anything?”
My tail twitched involuntarily, betraying my disquiet. “Violet.”
Fel Arron gazed at me silently.
“We do not go into the violet. There is nothing marked on that map whatsoever, but for the Gates barred with cold iron and spelled blood since the old days. If anyone should ever breach those doors, they would find nothing but despair within.”
“Is that…where…” She trailed off.
“That is where the true Fae made their homes. Not the leftover relics, not their toys and creations and suffering pets, but the Fae themselves. The ones who made…who warped—” I raised a hand, gesturing towards the Chamber of Song and the entry hall.
“All of this. It is their grave now, but their hate still lives on, undying and eternal.”
She stared at me for a moment, her skin gone sickly pale, but then she slapped my shoulder gently. “That’s enough of that. I bet you’re just a bundle of laughs at parties.”
I thought glumly of all the parties I’d had to attend as the Lord of the Rivers, and concurred. “I’ve been told I light up a room, in the same way lightning brightens the night before it strikes your home and burns down everything you knew and loved.”
The woman at my side blinked, then cracked a brilliant smile that made a warm, unfamiliar feeling bubble inside me.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not nearly that bad. I think that’s enough of the maps for tonight. Talos, did you get a good look?”
I glanced over my shoulder; the golem was nodding solemnly at fel Arron, the glass plate now dim, though polished to a high shine.
Within it, the cogs and gears of his clockwork innards whirled and clicked around that seed of lightning, and I thought again of the wonder that had struck me when she confessed to her creation.
She was unlike any woman I’d ever met. She was dangerous to my peace of mind.
And—far from the first time since I’d met her—I cursed the damned Blood Accords, and the expectations of my people.