Chapter 5 #7
It pulsed inside her dress. Every last simulcra in the Infinitum wanted it. Vigils were different. They’d been criminals whose punishment was the complete loss of their soul. They were vessels programmed to seek out other criminals, no longer even a whisper of who they’d been. Terror by design.
The simulcra, on the other hand, had been robbed of their flame, and were still, to some extent, themselves.
Their affliction was reversible, unlike the vigils’.
The only known antidote was to steal the soul of another, who would take their place, passing the curse down the line.
Vigils were not there to protect her or others from theft though.
One night, she’d heard the proprietor of the cloister in the Seventh telling others that as the numbers in the Infinitum swelled, the need for vigils had as well. They couldn’t make them fast enough.
In the seat of power of the netherworld, there’d be more than ever.
Elloven’s only chance was to hide and pray they’d take pity on her.
Her body moved on its own. Her feet lifted from the ground as she glided, against her will, back the way she’d come.
Even flailing was impossible; her mind seemed the only thing left over which she had any control, though even that was useless if it could not command her body as it traveled through the magical door and back to the lobby, where the steward wore a grating, impatient scowl he seemed to have saved just for her.
“You have dallied,” he gruffed as she glided past, clawing the air for help and trying to speak, to beg him to make it stop. Her flesh crawled with terror as she was dragged toward the looming darkness, unable to do anything to stop it.
“Please,” she managed through her teeth. “Please don’t.”
“You read the signs when you entered.”
“What si—” Her mouth slammed shut, her lips felt sewn together.
The door flung open, and she was hurled out. Before she could even look back, a metal grate clanged over the door.
Whisps of pale forms swept between trees.
.. flitted behind buildings. One vigil appeared, then another, mouths yawning wide and jawing unnaturally, though vigils couldn’t speak.
They had no words of their own anymore, compelled to action by the malignant magic that had made them.
Their eyes were sunken orbs with no life or light.
She’d heard they didn’t need them at all.
Elloven didn’t know if they’d detected her. If they couldn’t see her, could they smell her? Feel her?
She ducked low behind the courtyard sign and scouted for a clearer path. The way back was packed with simulcra, hovering in a haphazard line. She’d never seen them so clearly or up close. They still looked halfway human, but their jerky gait and lifeless gazes removed all doubt.
In every other direction were the trailing white gowns of the vigils, moving in and out of sight like a dance of oversized moths.
Fear would have her believe every fiend in the area knew she was there, and were just waiting for her to make her move so the real hunt could begin, but she couldn’t just crouch under a sign until lightrise and hope for the best.
And what is my move? She couldn’t hear herself think over the shrieks bouncing around the courtyard.
Her face was a pinboard of heat, her eyes swollen and tired.
Silence rang even louder than the screams. There was no one, no one, who could protect her.
Even the idea she could “survive” was as ludicrous as bargaining with the universe for a miracle, just as she’d done as she’d lain dying in the sept.
If she ran back the way she’d come, one of the simulcra would grab her. She couldn’t outrun all of them.
If she traveled farther into the grounds, a vigil would take her in. She’d committed no crime, but her instincts were screaming about the danger the ethereal lawmen posed.
She could lose half of her soul or all of it.
Elloven reached back to wipe the damp heat crawling along her neck and noted the change in energy in the air behind her. She turned and looked straight into the dead eyes of Fabrien Quinlanden.
The horror of him was far worse than her nightmares had guessed.
Most of his hair had fallen out, and it was patchier than it would have been on an old, decaying man.
Half of his flesh was sunken, some completely missing, but around his jaw, it was still just as supple and tight.
His mouth had always been the font of his evil, the place from which the worst of him spilled.
When he grinned, all mouth and melting flesh, nothing could have suppressed her curdling scream.
He pressed a finger to his widening grin. She didn’t need his words; she felt them. He’d always posited the worst of his nature through rhetorical questions. Now, abbess, why would you alert the others to come take what is mine?
Trembling and hyperventilating, she crab-walked into the sign, knocking her head on an arrow.
She crashed onto her ass. Fabrien opened his decaying robe, revealing a body that matched his face.
He’d retained his warrior’s abdomen, but his hips and arms were only half intact.
His knees exposed two grotesque orbs. But none of that was what he wanted her to see.
Between his legs was a swollen organ, just as dangerous as it had been in life.
It glowed with a dark, crimson vim, pulsing as he gathered it into his hand and nodded at her. An offering.
Elloven clasped both hands over her flame, frozen and cowering before her tormentor. As he neared, his hand and organ were nearly level with her face, and she squeezed her amulet tighter, unwilling to surrender regardless of how hopeless a fight would be.
But when Fabrien’s eyes traveled to her chest, his lip turned up in a snicker of disgust. He nodded at his full hand, then back at her.
She was stunned speechless. It wasn’t her flame he’d come for.
A ghastly, rotting hand found her gown. Spindly fingers traveled from just beneath her bosom, downward. Sobbing, she drew into herself, because there was nowhere else to go. Even the vigils and other simulcra had gone quiet.
Suddenly Elloven was no longer huddled under the sign but watching herself from a short distance away.
It was the same as she’d done when in Whitechurch, when the only way to survive the night was to disconnect from it and become someone else, someone it wasn’t happening to.
As the other Elloven’s gown melted away like liquid, Fabrien grinned and narrowed in.
In a last spurt of desperation, she tried to crawl away, but his hand caught her foot, sending her splaying onto her face, giving him the opportunity he’d been after.
He crawled over the back of her, spreading her legs with one cold, rotting hand, organ in the other, and—
Elloven snapped back to herself and did the most dangerous thing she could possibly do.
She screamed and screamed and screamed.
Let them all come and fight over her, but she would never be his plaything ever again.
Fabrien floated back a step as shrieks from vigils and simulcra closed in. They flashed across the dark courtyard in spasmodic, unnatural fits and starts, like they were dancing.
No, not dancing.
Playing with their supper.
Fabrien’s rotted eyes traveled to her chest and the pulsing light there.
Of course he wanted it as well, and of course he would take it, but not before he’d whittled her into nothing.
Whatever remained of his depraved soul, the only thing that sated it was her misery, and he would settle for nothing less than everything she had.
“I will walk into the hands of every vigil here before I let you touch me ever again,” Elloven said.
She used the sign to stand. Now she could see them all, the gathered brutes, their glowing faces filled with unrealized havoc.
There was nothing she could do. Jesstin would say there was always a way out, but Elloven had never had that privilege, had never been able to do anything but retreat into herself until the horrors ended.
If only she could tell him to go home, that there was no longer any Elloven worth finding.
Elloven channeled Jesstin and ran anyway. She didn’t pick a direction. She just went, heading farther into the grounds, farther from any possible safety of the havre, which was now only a dream.
The desperate screeches followed her but at a distance. Even Fabrien held back, which was stranger still, but overthinking would only slow her down, and whatever time she had left, she wouldn’t waste it thinking about him.
Completely lost, Elloven raced past smaller buildings. She smacked into a tree on a blind turn and then found herself staring at a tall brick wall.
Dread choked her. She’d played her part right to the end, another game she hadn’t chosen to participate in but could only lose.
She closed her eyes and prayed to the Guardians in breathless whispers, something she had not done in many years, for when had they ever answered?
But there was no one listening. She was alone, and soon, she wouldn’t even be she. She’d be whatever they were.
The shrieks disappeared in abrupt cessation. The path ahead of her was... clear. It was obviously another tactic of their sordid sport, but she didn’t sense any fiends near either. In fact, she hadn’t sensed them since before she’d nearly knocked herself senseless against the tree.
She squinted, just making out three figures wearing heavy, flowing robes, like crimson waves.
Atop each of their heads was some sort of hat, from which stuck a long, glowing object.
Only as they neared closer did she make it out: the same symbol on the havres and cloisters, except these spun in the air, casting a pale glow in all directions.
They weren’t vigils... or simulcra.
Whoever they were, they’d driven away the fiends, and even if they were another kind of foe, their normal, pale faces were a relief just the same.
“Aelloven of Nightwood, daughter of Laxius of the Twilight Falcons, Progeny of the Forsaken, you will come with us.”
Elloven peeled herself away from the wall. “And who is ‘us’?” Gold shackles materialized around her hands. She tugged, but they were as solid as the brick at her back. “What is this?”
“You are now a hostage of the Imperators, who will determine the manner of your future in the Infinitum.”
“A hostage? Why? What is this about?” she asked, but she may as well have been speaking to the air, for her captors started in the direction they’d materialized from, and she, against her will, moved with them.