Blood and Betrayal Read online

  Crossing the room, he yanked the door open to find Evangelline waiting in the hallway. She had changed, now clad in a dress the color of blood, her ebony hair twisted on top of her head in a tight bun, an apple blossom tucked into the dark strands. She held a basket of apples, their shiny red skins blending with her bodice. When she smiled, her entire face lit up, erasing any concerns Derrick had felt moments ago.

  “Evangelline.” His voice slurred slightly, the pain in his shoulder and head making him feel cross-eyed. “What’re you doing here?”

  “I brought a snack. You must be starving.” She held up the basket. “I know I am.”

  He stepped aside, allowing her to enter, and nodded to the two guards in the hallway. They each held up an apple, nodding back.

  Evangelline lingered near the door, her eyes fixed on the queen’s bed. Eyes that seemed too dark somehow, too full around the pupils, that exquisite darkness leaking out again. Oh, how he loved her, would do anything for her, would protect and save her just as he had done for his kingdom.

  “Mother,” he said softly, returning to her side. “There’s someone I would like you to meet.”

  The queen’s eyes widened, but not in joy. A frail hand clasped Derrick’s as she whispered, “You should have left her in the forest.”

  He frowned. “What are you—”

  A light touch on his shoulder, Evangelline’s warm breath on his neck, and then a sharp pain exploded behind his eyes, merging with the headache at the base of his skull. His shoulders tensed, fingers curling awkwardly as his legs buckled beneath him.

  “What’s—what’s happening?” he stammered, collapsing against the side of the bed.

  “I’m helping,” Evangelline said sweetly, as if talking to a small child. “It’s been six days since you fought that demoni.” She glanced at Queen Lilith. “Such a brave fighter he was, too. But I’m afraid the poison has reached his heart.” She turned back to Derrick. “Your body is attempting to complete the change. It won’t be long now.”

  He brought a shaky hand up to his neck. His fingers came back bloody, and he stared at Evangelline’s mouth, wondering if he was hallucinating the blood staining her pale skin, the tiny black veins winding a pattern across her temples.

  “Ch-change?” His legs buckled completely now, his bloodstained hand dragging a crimson smear across the duvet as he sank to the floor.

  Queen Lilith made a sound—a cry? a sob?—but Derrick barely registered it, captivated by Evangelline’s hypnotic stare.

  “Yes, my love,” she crooned, stepping toward him with a bloody smile. “You are one of my demoni now.”

  “No… Guards….”

  “The guards are not coming. Not after eating my apples.” Evangelline flashed him a wicked grin.

  Let go, another voice whispered, echoing in his head, and somehow he knew that was her voice as well. Had been all along.

  “The monster. Demoni…You?”

  “You killed my demoni, yes.” Evangelline leaned in closer to hiss in his ear. “But I am the real monster.”

  No. None of this made any sense. “I don’t…understand….”

  “Of course you don’t, sweet prince. They never do.”

  Her voice was deeper than he remembered, though it still rolled over his body in a soft caress, compelling him to love her even as his mind revolted.

  “But your mother does.”

  Evangelline spun around, the soft layers of her skirt somehow razor-sharp as they brushed against his arm.

  “I have come to collect,” she told the queen in a crisp tone. Brusque. Business-like. “Where is the mirror?”

  Lilith turned her head in response. Derrick followed her gaze to the nightstand, but it was Evangelline who opened the drawer.

  “Ahh.” She let out a sigh that sent shivers racing across his skin as she turned back to the queen, her delicate, snow-white fingers wrapped around the handle of a mirror.

  Derrick watched helplessly from the floor as a lancing pain shot through his feet, his toes trying to twist and curl like his fingers. He tried not to think about the creature he had fought in the forest, the way its limbs had ended in deformed claws, back hunched awkwardly, ribs exposed beneath too-tight skin.

  This wasn’t happening. He had killed the monster. This shouldn’t be possible….

  “You didn’t tell him, did you?” Evangelline asked the queen, as if reading his mind.

  Tears welled in Lilith’s eyes but she did not reply.

  Evangelline knelt beside Derrick, her skirt flaring out around her like a pool of blood. Her tongue flicked out to graze the red smear under her lips—his blood. This close he could see that the swirls near her eyes moved as if alive. The breath constricted in his chest, but something still made him wish he could lean in and kiss her.

  “Have you ever wondered, Prince, why Groschier has such beautiful queens?”

  He remembered her words in the forest. Perhaps the kings should choose uglier brides, she had said, her tone both amused and almost resentful.

  Evangelline held up the mirror so he could peer into the glass. Instead of his own reflection, the glass was cloudy, almost black. “You think the monster cursed them for being beautiful. But maybe they are beautiful because the monster blessed them instead.”

  She pressed a finger to the glass and he wondered why he had never noticed her fingernails before, so long and sharp, almost claw-like. He wanted her to run those claws down his face, to rip the heart right out of his—

  No! he screamed silently, trying to abort the thoughts, to dispel the darkness that crept into his mind.

  Let go…

  Ignoring the plea, Derrick watched as the glass before him rippled and a scene spread across the surface—the coffin in the forest, with Evangelline lying inside. Instead of dark, needle-sharp trees laden with snow, the branches surrounding the clearing spread bright and full with forgotten greenery, flowers of every color embracing the coffin while various forest creatures lingered nearby, as if to keep the girl company.

  “She was the first sacrifice.”

  Evangelline’s voice was soft and haunting, and Derrick realized with dread that the girl in the picture was not the one standing before him now. The girl in the coffin looked younger, her cheeks rosier, her pale hands smooth and gentle. Instinctively he knew that if she were to open her eyes, they would be a clear blue, a captivating green, a rich brown—anything but the terrifying pools of black that stared at him now.

  And yet…something in those eyes called to him, to the other part of him, to the darkness that threatened to consume him, calling, calling…

  “That is where your ancestors’ beauty came from.” Evangelline’s words were hard now, the swirls around her eyes seeping into the dark strands of her hair. “They make a sacrifice to the monster. In return, the mirror gives them beauty—stolen beauty, but beauty nonetheless.”

  Derrick’s mind whirled, desperate eyes struggling to see over the edge of the bed. Don’t let it be true. Don’t let this be true too. “Mother?”

  Tears streaked Lilith’s sunken cheeks. “I tried…to give it back.”

  “You took what you wanted. Just like they all did,” Evangelline snapped, and Derrick thought of the row of paintings in the great hall, Groschier’s cursed lineage. A memory surfaced in his mind, pushing past the chaos—the inscription on a plaque under one of the faces: Veranmoor.

  “The birthplace of the first queen,” he whispered, realization dawning too late. “That’s where you came from? You were the first sacrifice?”

  Evangelline raised an eyebrow. “Well, not me, personally. I just like the body. Still, that’s impressive. They don’t usually put that together.”

  A blinding pain flashed behind Derrick’s eyes, a sharp current shooting down his spine. “They?” he managed to ask.

  “The princes,” she said simply, as if a centuries-old monster inhabiting a girl’s body made perfect sense. “They all come. All desperate to save the new queen. Once it was e
ven a princess.”

  She grinned at the memory, the dim light of the candles glinting dangerously off her teeth.

  Derrick blinked back the spots in his vision. The voice in his head insisted louder now, urging him to let go, to forsake the shredded remains of his humanity. But he couldn’t. Not yet. Not when another word filtered through the slivers of his sanity.

  “You said first.” He struggled to breathe through lungs that didn’t want to work anymore, tucked inside a chest that tried to swell and shrink at the same time. “The first sacrifice.”

  A smirk hovered on Evangelline’s lips, as if she knew his words were not meant for her.

  Queen Lilith cried freely now, her body shaking in silent sobs. “I did…what I thought…I had to.”

  “No,” Evangelline interjected. “You did what you wanted. A sacrifice for beauty. You took the mirror just like the rest. Beauty is the curse, not the mirror. Show me beauty, and I will show you death.”

  Derrick’s reality fractured, black fingers of confusion and denial cracking the cloudy veneer of truth. His mother—his own mother…

  A spasm wracked his body and he writhed on the floor, temporarily forgetting everything but the blinding pain.

  Let go…

  Not yet.

  “Who was it?” he demanded, blood trickling from his nose, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead as he glared up at his mother.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Evangelline waved her hand, looking bored now. “Your mother’s years are up. And now I take what is mine.”

  She leaned over the queen, and Derrick watched in horror as she gently pushed Lilith’s golden hair off her face. Time seemed to stand still, their lives hanging in the balance. Then, before he could stop her, before he could make a sound, Evangelline had thrust her hand into Queen Lilith’s chest.

  Derrick writhed violently as he tried to scream, desperate to control pain-laced limbs, to save his mother, but he couldn’t do more than twitch and whisper as tears burned his blackening eyes.

  The monster straightened, dropping a blood-stained mass into the wooden box while the queen’s body lay still on the bed. Closing the lid, Evangelline turned to Derrick with fresh blood on her lips, red tongue slicking against a too-sharp canine.

  Tears streamed down Derrick’s face, mingling with the blood that pooled at his collarbone. “You…evil…”

  And yet, even then, he could not finish the words, his ravaged mind still compelled by those dark eyes, his heart forever cursed to love her, to follow her, to protect her. At all costs.

  Let go.

  A command this time. Evangelline knelt beside him, her purr a heinous balm against his ears as his body succumbed to the last of the transition.

  “Mirror, mirror, in my hand, who’s the fairest in the land…?”

  THE END

  The Bleeder’s Wife

  Aisling Wilder

  Amaya woke early, dreams of grasping shadows fading as she opened her eyes to pre-dawn light. Careful to be quiet, she stretched, then pushed herself up against the pillows, resting a moment as she rubbed the rounded hill of her belly. Not long now. She felt a heel pressing up, foot under flesh, and into her palm. She smiled.

  Not long at all.

  Cradling the weight of her womb, she rolled to one side then got to her feet. The babe turned once more under her touch, and she sighed, her heart overflowing with happiness. Behind her in the bed, her husband snorted and muttered something unintelligible, then rolled away from the window and drifted back into sleep.

  Another smile played across her lips as she pulled on her overclothes, choosing the dark-green dress today. He liked green. “The colour of your eyes,” he’d whispered, nights and nights ago.

  She blushed at the thoughts that rose to her mind as she tugged on belt and shawl. Not the time. Not yet.

  Soon.

  Padding barefoot across the room, she scooped up her boots and opened the door, wincing as the brass handle whined in protest and the snores behind her stopped. She stopped also—breath caught, eyes closed as she listened, not daring to move—and then she heard another snore. She loosed a soft sigh and slipped out into the morning mist.

  Tiny birds darted and sang among the hedgerows as she tugged on her boots, grabbed two wooden buckets, and made her way to the river. The sky grew rose-tinged in the east as she walked the short distance, and by the time she reached the rocks at the water’s edge, the spray that drifted into the air—where the river plummeted into the breach—shimmered like gold.

  She clambered over the rocks, lowering first one bucket, then the other into the chilled water. Then she climbed back up to the bank, where she stopped, setting the sloshing buckets down on the grass and looking back at the water. Her gaze followed the whirling current, watching as it eddied on and on and over the edge with the roar of a thousand beasts as it fell.

  Away. Into the Dark.

  She closed her eyes and tipped back her head, breathing in deeply and trying to catch some scent of that fall. Her hand trailed down, resting on the rise of her abdomen as once more the babe twisted within her. As though it knew.

  Of course it did. The babe was his, after all. It knew the Darkness. Darkness who had whispered secrets to her. She could still hear him. In the water. On the wind.

  Canting her head to one side, leaving the buckets behind, Amaya scrambled up and over the rocks again as fast as she could, chasing the rushing water. She missed him so. Wanted to see him. Wanted to taste him. Wanted to know him again. The rocks grew larger as the river reached the edge; piled high, a barrier of boulders dragged there by the toiling hands of men long dead.

  To keep them safe. Away from the breach. Away from the Dark.

  Once upon a time there had been towers all along Nearbreach. Towers filled with men, ever watchful; men stoking fires, ever lit—all to keep the Darkness back.

  All gone now. No more fires, no more men. The once-tall towers were mere piles of rubble, their stones added to the boulders at the river’s edge, stacked higher and higher nearer the fall to discourage any who might be tempted to climb.

  But she was not discouraged. She was a Bleeder’s wife, after all. Chosen to live at Nearbreach Edge, to keep house and bed warm for one of the men who bled to quiet the Darkness. A Bleeder’s wife was rugged and resilient, and not afraid to climb over a few boulders. Soon enough, she reached the top of the rubble, and after that, the Breach Edge—until she stood less than an arm’s length away.

  The sun, having risen into its short arc, lit the thundering spray of the fall in rainbow prisms of colour. The droplets rose, covering her in a crystalline mist, shimmering on her fair hair loosed from its plait by the wind that rose from the breach.

  She lifted her head once more, closing her eyes and inhaling deeply.

  There. The briefest whiff, mingled with the iron tang of the river and the earthy hardness of the warming rocks—there it was. The scent of Darkness itself. The aroma that was him. Within her womb the babe kicked like a wild thing; she shuddered in response and leaned in, breathing deep, lifting her nose like a dog, craving—

  “Amaya! Wife! What are you doing?”

  Strong arms wrapped around her, pulling her away from the edge, away from the water and the darkness. She cried out, reaching—glimpsing the shadows reaching up and out and into the torrent as she was torn away—but then she knew herself again and turned in her husband’s arms, blinking up at him as she began to shiver.

  Scooping her up with a frown, he carried her back down the boulder-wall, back upriver, laying her down on the soft grass beside the buckets. He tugged off his own cloak and began to rub her dry, his deep voice shaking.

  “What were you thinking, standing so close? You could have been killed! And at the water’s falling? You know that is Dark-Dread—it’s forbidden!”

  She found her voice, still trembling despite the day’s growing heat.

  “I know. I am sorry, Husband. I was…enchanted…by the light on the water. It drew
me, and next I knew.…” She allowed herself a shudder, her eyes darting over his broad shoulders toward the river and back. “Oh, Rakin…I am sorry.”

  He shook his head, still frowning as he helped her to sit up in his arms. “I simply wish for your safety. You and the babe.” His glance fell on her rounded belly. She smiled, gathering his large hand in her own and placing it over where the babe lay, still again.

  “He’s sleeping.” She smiled up at her husband. “And safe.”

  Rakin smiled back, indulgent—a gentle giant. At times like these she felt a twinge of pity for her husband. For what he had to do. Had been bred to do. Bleeders were always big, and always men. They needed to be, for they carried more blood in their bodies than other, smaller men, and far more than women. More blood meant more to give to the breach, to quiet the Darkness and keep it from rising.

  There hadn’t always been Bleeders. Amaya’s great-great-grandmother had recalled a story told to her when she’d been very young, by her grandmother in turn, about a time before Bleeders, before the last Darkrise. The Darkness had risen then, up and out of the breach, and begun to take—as Darkness did. The towers fell, and the men with them, their fires extinguished. Nearbreach was almost lost, and Midfall, but then the king convened a council of the wisest men in the land, and the council commanded the Darkness be fed.

  A thousand men were called forth to stand at Breach Edge and bleed. And bleed they did, slicing their wrists and arms open with knives and spilling their lifeblood into the breach. Most died. But the Darkness turned from the land and sped back to the breach to feed and feed until it was sated and slept once more.

  Those few who did not die were raised up, hailed as heroes, celebrated saviours of the land. And thus the Bleeders were born. They were given wives who would bear them strong children: boys who would be Bleeders and girls who would breed more of the same. They were given houses and land in Nearbreach, a store of seeds, one horse, one cow, one pig, two goats, six hens, and plenty of ale—and each was given a silver dagger in a jewelled scabbard. Every night, twenty men would walk to Breach Edge, each a league apart. Each one placed the dagger against his arm and sliced it open, feeding the breach for as long as he could stand—and the next night, twenty more would do the same, and the next, and next again, until the first were replenished and they all began again. When each Bleeder’s firstborn son reached bleeding age, he, too, would be sent out along Nearbreach, to begin the same again, and so on and so on.