Her Dangerous Visions (The Boy and the Beast Book 1) (18 page)

“Was there something else you wanted to ask me, My Lady?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, her face flushed. “I get lost in my mind sometimes.”

She grasped for another question.

“What do you think about the Hold?” Meluscia finally asked. “And please, I don’t want placating answers. If I am made Luminess, I need to know how the people of the realm feel. And that includes you. What can I do to serve you, Mica?”

His surprise at her words delighted her. He took in a deep breath, his gaze drifting up over her head.

“Just peace in the land,” said Mica finally. “Why fight with the Verdlands when Nightmares roam our borders? If we had peace with our neighbors, we would have all that we need.”

His words silenced her. They were the very words of her soul! Curses on Praseme! Why hadn’t Meluscia found this man before her? He’d married a peasant when he could have had a—she stopped herself.

It wasn’t possible…not if she was to be Luminess. But then…

Adulyyn’s words echoed in her ears.

A secret lover
.

And yet, all that she’d learned under Katlel in the Scriptorium, the plainness of the sacred writings, these fought against her teasing desires.

A small burn of anger stirred in her chest. It was new, for it was directed at the gods. Where was their help? Why should she sacrifice so much—her devotion, her intimacy, when they remained silent in the grand scheme of a realm suffering.

Her people were struggling…so where were the good Makers? If they were callous to the cries of her people, what did they care about the principals of customs and the scriptures?

Still, she had cherished these ideals for so long. It would take more than a day to tear them from her heart.

She turned from her thoughts and looked deeply into Mica’s eyes.

There were other ways. If she was so taken with this man, she could willingly pass her throne to him. Pass it on, and let him lead. That had been done before. The thought of it clashed within her. Truly, she wanted to be the one to lead her people.

But even if she were willing to pass on the throne to Mica, that too was beyond her reach.

He already had Praseme.

CHAPTER 17

SAVARAH

Savarah crouched behind the last large tangle of ferns between her and the line of trees separating forest from wasteland. A group of Nightmares—four goatthroats and a razor arm—were grunting and whining as they worked to rebuild the mine entrance she and Trigon’s patrol had destroyed. Beyond the small troop of Nightmares, at the edge of ancient oak and pine, was the abrupt desolation of encroaching desert. From her vantage point, it looked like an endless sea of poxed land, the hewn stumps protruding from the dirt like boils on skin that had once been fair. The trees had been felled and carried across rocky desert wilderness to the sweet grasslands of Praelothia, the vast city of the Star Garden Realm. It was the only remaining city, the rest laid long abandoned, ruins haunted by her master’s creations. The Praelothians were safely sheltered away from the outside, their immense city surrounded by walls that grew taller and thicker as each year passed.

For the first time in her life, she felt a small measure of pity for the Praelothian people. They were like an orchard of fruit trees, and Isolaug, her master, was their cultivator. Their blind, controlled lives created the illusion of a beautiful culture and a rich religion when they were no more than an ornamental garden covering her master’s powerful secrets.

Deep beneath the garden lay chambers where an army of creatures grew in sunless dark, waiting for night to come. The Praelothians were food, shelter, and seed for her master and his army.

Savarah herself was born of a Praelothian mother and father, but she had been raised a Shadowman, and she had dominated the other seedlings, maiming and killing her way to the top under the eye of her master. In a way, she was no different than the Praelothians, except that she and the other seedlings were willing tools of Isolaug, conditioned and trained to hunger for his ends.

Her master’s desires could be as small as pushing the human kingdoms of Hearth to become enemies with each other, or as large as ruling every world in their galaxy and then turning his eye toward the other six. In the six hundred years of Isolaug’s rule over the Star Garden Realm, the portal at the center of Praelothia had returned high dividends, bringing her master’s influence far beyond their own world.

With each competitor she slew, her master told her more secrets, gave her more power.

More praise.

How her soul devoured his praise. It was not love. She’d been warned about love. But praise and position, her master had taught her to yearn for them. Every silver spiked
Quahi
one attained unlocked more knowledge, opened more doors, and bent more knees at your feet. Envy drove one to greatness. It was the anthem of the Shadowmen. It had been her anthem until a week ago, when her meticulously deadened heart finally snapped while out on patrol, and she could no longer deny the beautiful weakness constantly assaulting her eyes and ears.

Love.

It was power. Seductive in its foolishness, pathetic in its sacrificial care for the other, just as she’d been warned under her master’s teaching. Love made its exhibitors weak and vulnerable.

When a black tiger took Kaurkim by the arm and Jardi shot it through the eye, it was such a pithy act of extravagance, saving a foolish man’s life, but for her, it was the last breath of a girl drowning in a strange sea, her master’s teachings slipping from her outstretched fingers as she sank beneath the warm exotic waters. She’d witnessed a hundred other more loving acts that were far more stupid and vulnerable, but this simple killing of an animal to save a foolish man’s life was the slash that opened her soul. Jardi should have let Kaurkim die. The people she had been trained to betray were bleeding hearts. Weakened by sympathy. Susceptible.

How else could she explain what happened ten years ago? She, an eleven year old girl crawling out of the forest, met by Trigon’s patrol. They drank up her story like ale. And to her amazement, the Luminar had been so moved, she’d found herself brought in as his mercy child. And Meluscia and her mother Rhissa took to her as if she were a true sister and daughter. Perhaps that monumental idiocy and openness was what pushed her so far so fast. Even three years ago, as she’d poisoned the Luminar and his wife with the sunweed blight, she’d had to fight off powerful emotions that threatened to weaken her resolve.

As strange and petty as it was, watching the men rush to Kaurkim’s side broke her. How they had comforted him as if he deserved to live.

He didn’t deserve life. He was weak. Unskilled.

Even though she would never make such a shit-brained mistake to warrant such pathetic sympathy, deep down, she envied the pity shown to the man. And that envy had pressed like a dagger through her well-armored heart.

Her eyes had stung as she clutched the reins of her patrol horse. Her chest crashed with waves of warmth. The emotion was delicious. The weakness intoxicating.

It drove her now. This love. This weakness.

And she was going to kill for it. Strategically, one by one, kill every key game piece that her master had in place.

If she survived killing her fellow Shadowmen, then she could turn her eyes to Praelothia, and upon her master. In his animal form, Isolaug was mortal. At least, his body was.

It could be killed, and his plans destroyed.

She stood, bow in hand, and walked steadily forward. As of yet, the Nightmares had not seen her. She loosed two arrows in quick succession, and skewered the two goatthroats through the eye, killing them instantly. One of them fell back onto the much larger razor arm. The freakish creature, half-clothed in rags held loosely by ropes, turned and saw her. The lips of its vermin-like mouth drew back, its snout wrinkling with skin. A warning squeal gargled from its throat, and the two remaining goatthroats jerked in startled alarm.

Two more arrows and all four goatthroats lay still or twitching in the dirt. The razor arm looked at her with something like rage and fear. It backed away, waving the long serrated bone that protruded from its right elbow. Its other hand, a hairy rat paw, clawed the air as if trying to keep her at bay.

Savarah continued to storm forward, attaching her bow to her quiver and drawing a knife. Her left shoulder ached horribly from the black tiger’s claw, but even so, she was not worried.

The razor arm stopped, seeing the impossibility of escape. It hissed, then tried to speak with its rat-mouth. The only comprehensible words Savarah caught were, “away” and “rock.”

It crouched as she approached, but even in a crouch it was a head above her. It’s skinny, malnourished legs bowed out like a spider’s. The serrated bone extending from its elbow was drawn back, ready to fly forward at her if she came any closer.

“Isolaug will not give you sugars if you lose,” said Savarah, her words confusing the creature. She sprang forward, her knife meeting the razor arm’s thrust and glancing it harmlessly past her. Inside the creature’s guard, she plunged her knife into its right shoulder. The creature squealed in pain then its teeth came down at her. She lifted her forearm and it bit with all its strength.

Its mouth struck the forged iron arm bracer beneath her cloak, and its rotting teeth exploded and sprayed.

Savarah drew the knife out of the dazed creature’s shoulder and drove the small pommel of the end into the side of its stunted ear. The blow sent the creature backward onto the ground. It fumbled half conscious to right itself.

She pounced on it, quickly using the rope that held its clothes to bind its serrated arm. Finished, she stood and observed her catch. It was a larger razor arm, but weak and frail from its trip across the desert. She needed to feed it well, strengthen its muscles, and hastily attend to the stab wound she’d given it. If she hoped to be back at the Hold by sundown tomorrow, she would need the creature to travel all night and day, and with speed.

If the razor arm wasn’t strong and healthy, it would be useless to her. It could rest when she reached Hearth’s Scat, the volcanic spew plain covered in porous black rock.

She waved a large piece of dried meat before its mouth. The sunken, half-human eyes looked at her. Slowly, it opened its mouth and drew the meat in with its bloodied gums.

CHAPTER 18

MELUSCIA

Meluscia knocked on the wooden door of her sister’s room, hoping she had returned in the night from wherever it was she’d disappeared to. Meluscia was eager to see her unruly face—and to talk with her, especially now, after their last encounter over a week ago. She truly wanted to find out what had caused the change in her sister, but even more than that, she wanted to confide in her. The turmoil in her head was in desperate need of a listening ear.

When there was no answer to her knocking, she opened the door and peered inside. The wall hook where Savarah hung her bow and quiver was empty. She was gone into the forest, and that meant there was no telling when she’d be back.

Years ago, Meluscia’s mother and father had been forced to grow accustomed to Savarah’s strange tendency to disappear, and so had she. At first when her sister was only eleven and twelve, her father had sent search parties out, but they never found her. Days or weeks would pass and inevitably, Savarah would return from the forest in good health. When asked why she had gone and what she was doing, her answer was always the same. She was out hunting for her parents’ murderers. And her wild, abrasive nature left even her father inept at how to respond other than to set rules for her.

But when it came to rules, Savarah could not be handled like a child, nor as a rational adult. She was a wild enigma with a will as hard as stone.

In the end, Meluscia’s mother and father had simply let her loose, like an animal that couldn’t be fenced in.

Meluscia stared at the piles of pelts upon the floor and the claws, hooves and antlers piled messily on every furnishing the room had.

The memory of her and Savarah’s last conversation made her head simmer for more, but her curiosity and need for a listening ear would have to wait.

She turned and left, descending the tower stairs, the shaft light dull from the dark thick clouds overhead. A light summer rain to wet the mountain and turn the rocks a regal grey. Wetness brought the beautiful colors out of every vein and mixed aggregate stone. She passed the darkened orifice at the bottom of the stairs without a glance, keeping a determined pace. Her heart churned with want and frustration, and a half dozen other chaotic emotions. She could hear Jonakin’s voice speaking faintly to her.
“You’re alright…You have me…You don’t need anyone else…You don’t need the real thing.”

The comfort felt hollow. Not because of the words alone, but because the words spoken by Jonakin’s rich voice were so clearly her own. She needed him to spring from someplace pure and genuine—to feel independent of her, as he normally did.

Right now, he simply felt like a tool in her hand.

She gritted her teeth and pushed away the feelings of loneliness and being unloved, focusing on her destination. Her father’s throne room. It was the time of day for citizens and officials to be heard, and she wanted to simply sit and listen as she often did. To learn, and to practice in her mind how she would respond to each person’s concern. But most of all, she wanted to be a stone in her father’s shoe. To remind him that she was still there. Still ready to rule.