NOVEL NEXT Chapter 11 - Bloodshed
in shadows deep where mortals fight
Death is the most fearsome sight
from mountains vast to Bathune's sand
without a trial, all are damned
- "The Second Lady," Verse 3
We smoke again. Lefe takes three puffs from the pipe, but I limit myself to one—the sweet taste fills my mouth, my lungs. Lefe and Killián do the ritualized chant again—this time, Killián has me repeat the words in answer to Lefe, who's sitting on the opposing side of the mirror. Killián stands behind me—not touching me, not looking at me, just staring at his own reflection in the mirror. There's a long, thin scar running down his forehead, from his temple to his lower jaw—it's a white line, barely visible except from this close. The words feel foreign in my mouth, unfamiliar, and when we get to the part about the Mirror of Fate taking our sight and letting us enter, I'm once again sucked into the depths.
It's different this time—less cold, not wet. A gentle force seems to surround me, and I feel like I'm floating instead of falling. Golden threads wrap around my shoulders, my legs—I'm lowered carefully through the abyss. Whispers and laughter swirl around me, but it doesn't sound mean—it's like I'm surrounded by an army of spirits I can't see. The ghost of fingers brush along my spine, and I shudder. Then I'm in the room surrounded by mirrors—this time, Lefe is at my side. Our reflections surround us—there are no scenes. Lefe is taller than me by a good head, and he turns to face me—he doesn't look at the mirrors.
"We're both leveled," he says mildly. "Our minds have been emptied. We won't see anything in the entry room. That's normal."
I meet his dark eyes. "What do we do?"
"Talk," he says. "Tell Lefe about your sisters."
Golden threads surround him like glowing worms, tying his hands behind his back, interweaving themselves playfully in his black hair. He lets them caress him, seemingly unbothered—when they start doing the same to me, it's a strange sensation. I let them tie my hands, my legs, try not to let it affect me. My pulse rises anyway—I don't like being bound. I wonder if Lefe's ever been tied up before, outside of the time web—I was taken hostage before the battle of Gidad, and memories of Paadrick's corpse sagging to the ground are all I can think about.
"Akeeva's the kindest person I've ever met," I say. "She raised me—our mother, Alyson, was a scaghead. She sold Keev to Kolton when she was a kid, barely older than Ila. Even though she was working twelve-hour nights, Keev always made time for me. Walked me to school every morning, got me a job in the backroom, took care of me when our mother died—"
It's more than I meant to tell him—it's as if the golden threads are tugging the words from between my lips.
"You said your mother's name was Alyson?" Lefe stares at me. "What did she look like?"
"Blond, skinny, short." I pause. "Why?"
"Segolé had a daughter named Alyson."
"It's a common name."
"In Valenès, though?" He pauses. "That was Baumé's daughter's name. Were your grandparents followers of Fate?"
"No idea," I say. "Don't know anything about them. What happened to Segolé's daughter?"
"She was from his first marriage—before Staffmaster Reign." Lefe tugs the threads binding his hands behind his back apart, folds his arms over his blue robes. "She ran away when she was sixteen—had an affair with King Achille that ended badly. Segolé doesn't talk about it."
"It must be hard," I say, watching him carefully. "Losing a daughter."
"You said you'd let Eagleamé rest." His tone is sharp. "Tell Lefe about Felicity. Ila."
"Felicity's tough as metallite," I say. "Nothing phases her—she's got a sharp tongue, but she's a sweetheart when you get to know her. Ila's just a kid—everything excites her. She likes cows—animals in general. You're apprenticing her. You know what she's like."
"She learns quickly, and she's got good hands," Lefe says. "Steady hands. Good for a glassforger. I'll turn her into a master by the time she comes of age."
"Your turn," I say. "Tell me about Genevieve."
He makes a face. "What do you want to know?"
"She threw me an orange in Marbecante," I say. "Is that normal behavior from her?"
"She's insane," he says. "Demented. No seeds in the gourd. And that's coming from Lefe."
It's such a cliché—the crazy ex-wife—that I almost roll my eyes. Nevertheless, Brid told me Genevieve drugged this man with voidweed—that's definitely a reason to hate her. On L-Street, cats have to be careful with their drinks around johns to avoid accidentally consuming a dose. It's supposed to be pretty hellacious—a mixture of a bad trip, paralyzing immobility, and uncontrolled arousal that effects every nerve in the body and makes sex overstimulating and overwhelming. One of Keev's friends, Caressa, got drugged just after I started working as a backroom boy. Kolton evicted the john, but it was too late—she had panic attacks on a regular basis for at least a year afterward and had to be taken off active duty. She lost her flat and had to give a cut of her wages to stay in the basement for a while. It's hard to get back on your feet when you're down to making one franc an hour. Keev would've helped her out, but we were barely getting by.
"Why'd you marry her?" I ask.
"Torrense arranged it. She had a reputation—couldn't get someone of higher birth stratum. After Segolé named Lefe his heir, Lefe was her only chance at being a lord's wife. A Lady. That's what she wanted—even if it meant having to marry Lefe."
"Was it ever good?"
"No." His eyes are distant, his voice is clipped. "She hated Lefe, everything about him. Lefe never mastered the accent. I grew up speaking Jvari—the language of my village. With the other servants, I spoke Xobratic. It's similar. Made it hard to elongate vowels, find the right words in Circuit-tongue."
The shift into first person is jarring—I wonder if Lefe even noticed he was doing it. Maybe it's easier when he's not hearing Baumé's voice—I'm certainly not hearing Marix.
"You've got it down now," I say. "Your accent sounds like Killián's."
"That took years of practice," he says. "You should work on it—anyone who hears you speak will know you're from Valenès. I have some exercises, if you want. They might help."
"I don't care if people know I'm from L-Street."
"You will never fit in here." His voice is sad. "Vestal Brid will resent you for it. It will be a sad, lonely marriage—you will both suffer. Better to be alone."
I ignore that—of all the reasons Brid has to resent me, I doubt an effing accent is one of them.
"When did you divorce?" I ask.
"Three years ago. Our Eagleamé was eleven. She looked like me, spoke like me. I taught her Jvari. Genevieve couldn't stand it. She was cruel. I filed to get my Eagleamé to safety, but it only made things worse." His voice hardens. "I don't want to talk about this anymore. Tell me about your father."
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I can't. I won't.
"My mother's pimp. Maybe a john."
"Different father from your sisters?"
"Have you seen the four of us together?"
"Galtero's going to get you for that," he says. "For your mother, for your sisters. Born of sin, the truth within."
"He can try," I say. "I'm not ashamed of where I came from, or my family."
Lefe looks at me with an emotion I can't recognize.
"Enough talk," he says at last. "Let's walk the threads."
We enter through a mirror—it parts before us like water. Lefe leads the way, golden threads wrapping around his slender shoulders and pulling him forward. He's muscular in a subtle sort of way—nothing like Killián's bulk, Péri's breadth—and his posture is tense beneath the wriggling golden strands. It's a bit like passing beneath a waterfall—once through to the other side, we're in a room surrounded by floating white orbs. They look a bit like crystal balls—Precious, one of Keev's friends, had one back on L-Street. She used to read fortunes for johns before Kolton shut that down and made her get back to work. This isn't a damn church, he said—as if anyone could mistake Kolton's Kitties for a house of worship. She read mine once, told me I'd make good money as a gigolo and die tragically young, strangled by a john. As a 10-year-old, that really freaked me out.
I glance into one of the orbs and see a young girl playing outside the di Vivar palazzo. She has a doll in her arms—both have black hair, narrow eyes. A toddling version of Brid runs up behind her, shears the doll's hair with a sharp knife. The girl howls, and I can almost hear the sound from here—her lips part, tears well in her eyes, but there's no noise. In another orb, Lefe's standing beneath a flowered alter with the gorgeous blond woman who through me an orange in Marbecante. Like Torrense, her eyes are different colors—one is green, the other blue. She's looking at him with a dark expression on her face, and his features are blank as grasspaper. Lanista Segolé stands between them. A golden rope—not magic, just ordinary rope—ties their wrists together, knotted at either end. They each take a bite of an apple, and then they kiss—their lips barely brush, and Lefe wipes his mouth on his cuff. Genevieve's lips curl.
"Are all of these yours?" I ask him, looking around for an orb that might contain some of my scenes.
"Odd," he says. "Very odd. Even leveled, your memories should be accessible. Contained, yes, but accessible. These belong to Baumé."
"But they're yours."
"But I'm his."
I wonder why he's stopped calling himself Lefe, why he sounds so much more alert than he does in the outside world. I thought the mirror game was supposed to mess him up, but as he plucks an orb from the air in front of him and tucks it in his pocket, I've never seen him look so present. His gaze is sharp, his movements are intentional. The three hits of malloweed clearly didn't affect him much—maybe he's got a tolerance.
"So why aren't they here?" I ask. "My memories?"
"They're either stolen or lost," he says. "Gone, either way."
I'm torn between three responses—what does that mean, how do I get them back, and I've still got my memories—how could they be missing? Instead I stare at Lefe, helpless—when he turns to face me, there's pity in his gaze. His normally hard features, hawk-like, are screwed up, and his eyes are gentle.
"What happened to you?" he murmurs. "This isn't right. None of this is right."
"What do you mean?"
He points to the front of the room. There are two altars, one empty, one occupied. Above the first is a shifting vortex of light and shadow, changing, growing. The patterns and ruins shift from second to second, never the same twice. At the center of the swirling chaos is a faintly humanoid figurine, partially obscured by the surrounding flux. A prismatic glow with colors across the entire spectrum creates an ever-changing light show. Radiating from the core are countless threads of gold extending outward. I walk toward it, mesmerized.
As I get closer, I see the ruins intermingled with clockwork motifs. Within the humanoid core are a pair of eyes—bright, luminous. When I get close enough to touch it, faint sounds pierce the air—whispers and echoes, clocks and ticking. I feel like I'm being pulled in multiple directions at once—the fabric of reality warps around me. A comforting warmth surrounds me.
"My soul." Lefe is behind me, at my shoulder. "Yours should be there."
He points to the empty altar.
"My soul?" I say. "Would…would Linden's be missing too?"
I feel a flash of guilt—it's my fault Marix got the best of him. I should have interfered, should have stopped him from tugging all those threads…
Calm down and stop fearing me. It's the first time I've heard Marix's voice since I entered the mirror. Linden's soul is where it should be. I wouldn't do anything with it. I'm not Lord Galtero.
"Linden is safe," Lefe says, as if he can hear Marix too—can he? "Killián would know if he wasn't. The boy follows Death, much as he claims to be agnostic. His soul may be with Loss, but Killián will win it back for his Lady. You did no permanent damage."
He'll have to go through me, Marix says. But…yeah. The odds are with him.
"Where's my soul?" I ask. "How is this possible? How is any of this possible? What does it mean?"
"Have you played the mirror game before?" Lefe counters. "Did you concede?"
"No!"
"Have you ever gambled your soul, even in jest? Made an oath upon it, perhaps—even in your mind?"
"I don't think so."
"Be certain."
"I am certain."
"Then it was stolen," he says. "Which means someone will get you in the afterlife, should you die—when you die. Someone will own you. Killián—are you here? Are you seeing this?"
Silence, then…
Yes.
I'm not sure where it comes from, but it sounds like the general—if he was speaking through a conch shell at a great distance, that is.
Panic is rising within me, twisting my stomach into knots. I stare at the empty altar, trying to make sense of everything. I'm 15, damn it—am I really going to have to live the rest of my life with this knowledge hanging over my head? What did I do to deserve this? Is it because I was born into sin, because of what happened with Leómadura? Is it because I chose Lady Loss when I was delirious and injured? How terrible will the afterlife be for me? Who stole it? Who owns me?
I can't stop thinking about the worst-case scenario.
"Okay." I take a deep breath, try to keep the anxiety at bay. I have a deep, gnawing sense that someone is watching me, that someone is enjoying this. It could be paranoia—I'm not sure where the feeling is coming from—but I don't think so. "Who could've…I mean…who out there is capable of stealing souls outside the mirror game?"
"It's complex magic." I turn to face Lefe—he's staring at the empty altar too, brow creased. "Ancient, evil, immoral. Hard to learn."
"They don't teach it at the lordheir academy?"
"No. Any Lady could've done it, or perhaps an incarnate—if they were guided. Titans have been known to take what isn't theirs—it's said L'Angly stole over seventy souls during his time walking the Lands of the Living, but he gave them all to his Lady—except Leclère's. She's still with him, they say—still bound to his will. A lord or conduit might have the capacity if they found the right book, the proper magic. Like I said, it's hard to learn—but not impossible."
"You're not helping me narrow down the list of suspects."
"You've drawn a lot of attention to yourself since you arrived at the First Circuit," he says shortly. "Three Ladies are after you, and you've toyed allegiance to each of them in your past. Consider this a consequence."
My voice rises. "How is this fair?"
"Don't yell. Wasn't me."
I start to hyperventilate—I can't stop, can't breathe, can't breathe. I sink to the floor, wrap my arms around my legs, bury my face in my knees, rock. I don't want to let Lefe see me like this—Great Yosif, I hope Killián isn't watching—but I can't seem to pull myself together. My soul is gone—gone. That sounds bad, really bad, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. There's no way to fight this—no way I can draw my sword and take this on like it's another Xobrite. I'm just…screwed, effed, up the river, damned to serve whoever might've had the capacity to do this for the rest of my existence. Not only have I lost the privacy of my own mind—I've lost my freedom, my hope for a better world beyond this one. Death will come for me eventually—I'm not immortal—and if I don't figure this out before it does, it could make life on L-Street look heavenly by comparison.
A hand on my shoulder, a tugging in my gut. My body lurches, unfolds, and then I'm back in the crypt, staring into the reflection of the mirror. My eyes are watery, but at least I'm not actively crying—I am panting though, as if I've just run a death sprint. I interlace my fingers behind my head and try to slow my breathing, but I can't—I can't. Killián's behind me, and Bardic—Lefe joins them.
"I've got to get out of here," I say, and push past them toward the exit.