Hereditary (21 page)

I wrenched away from the page, looking down at what I had written.

Could I really be like that?

I was just about to tear up the questionnaire, when something occurred to me. Flattening it back out, I added a tiny drawing to the bottom of the page. It was the mark that I had examined earlier in my wardrobe mirror. A muted black beneath my skin, much paler than a tattoo, blessedly hidden beneath the curtain of my hair, one spiky line reminiscent of a sunbeam reaching up behind my ear, and the other—reminiscent of the sharp point of a dagger—stretching down the back of my neck.

Once I was done, I re-folded the page and placed it back inside the permission slip, rolling it into a cylinder and tying it off before slipping it into my book bag.

Chapter Fifteen

Treading Reality

On Tuesday, I began to hear whisperings of a dead body found in one of the castle gardens. Rose didn’t seem to know anything about it, and when I asked Hazen, he also denied knowledge, though I couldn’t be sure if he was telling the truth or not. Either way, the gossip died down by the end of the week, and I turned down another Friday night at the castle to return to Nareon for a top-up. I dropped my book bag off in the cottage after classes, surprised to find my father in the kitchen, shovelling his way through a bowl of soup.

I had avoided him the last few days, since he had been home, though I had been glad to see him safe. So much had happened since the last time I saw him, I simply didn’t know what to say to him anymore.

Looks like mum’s curse wasn’t the only one I inherited
,
I thought, every time I saw him.

I told him that I couldn’t stay, that I had promised Hazen, Cale and Rose that I would attend their Friday night frivolities at the castle, and while the corners of his mouth turned down slightly, I knew that he was happy that I had finally made friends.

“We still need to talk,” he said to my back, as I skipped out of the cottage, feeling guilty for lying.

I found Nareon’s horse tethered near the cottage in the near cover of trees where my father hopefully wouldn’t pay her any mind. My guilt only increased as I pitched onto her back and turned her toward the north, but I consoled myself with the fact that it was better for my father to not know just how far my life had spiralled. As for the mark on my neck, I knew that it was only a matter of time before he saw that, and so I resigned myself to tell him as soon as I got back.

A few hours of hard riding later, I broke free of the winding forest trail that led to the edge of the giant wasteland. When I crossed over the border, I was met with another group of soldiers, although Grenlow was not with them this time. They greeted me by name and took the horse away as one of them escorted me to the castle. He left me in the fountain room and Nareon swept in moments later.

“Hello, Spitfire, I’m glad to see you.”

I smiled a little awkwardly. Spending time with Nareon was always awkward, because he was the old-monster-king on one hand—something that I thankfully had not yet seen proof of—and on the other, I needed him. He was the first and last man that I had ever kissed, apart from the chaste kisses that I bestowed upon my father. And yet, I did not love him. I wasn’t even sure if I liked him, and certainly wasn’t sure if he liked me.

“You are?”

“Yes,” he admonished. “You’re just in time for the games.”

“What games?”

“Come.” He turned and I hurried after him until I found myself in a large tiled throne room, with white pillars bordering a thin silk carpet that ran all the way to the small raised dais that housed the throne.

The throne itself was made of twisted oak with a high back and carved, ornamental tree branches stretching high over the top, crossing over in an arch and falling again on the opposite side of the chair to seemingly melt into the floor. There were smaller, carved vines that twisted about the legs of the chair, and for a brief moment I was reminded of the chains that had protected me against my own hunger on my last visit. I wondered if he would lock me back in the chair again, as it had certainly seemed to go a lot smoother for him with my own movement restricted, and the silver metal blocking my compulsion.

There were people milling about the room, all dressed in varying shades of obscenity. In fact, Nareon seemed to be the only one dressed normally, in plain grey-scale colours, with the same leather straps crisscrossed over his chest that I recognised from the day I had met him. Except now I saw their purpose as he displayed his broad back to me. They crossed again in-between his shoulder blades, and each strap held a leather hilt, which boasted thin daggers that curved all the way to the small of his back. I didn’t even notice the stares I got as I followed Nareon to the throne, because I was too busy staring myself.

There was one woman who was dressed in something tight enough to be a second skin. It was shiny and pale, and it stretched and dipped around her curves in a way that left my mouth hanging open. Another woman was clearly disguised as some sort of bird, with bright blue feathers fanning out from her short satin skirt in a puffy show of a tail. Heavily spiked, jewelled lashes framed her eyes, and her mouth was painted bright green. The man standing with her wore a giant lion’s headdress, and I wasn’t even sure that he could see out of it, though it turned in my direction as I walked past.  

When Nareon reached the throne, he fell into it and caught me by the hand, pulling me onto his lap. I landed across his thighs more out of shock than willingness, but his hands quickly clamped me down before I could rise again.

“Begin!” he boomed to the room, which immediately burst into a flurry of movement.

I looked on, my eyes wide as they rolled out a giant, checkered carpet, and then arranged themselves like chess pieces. Two men stepped up, the lion and another, who walked on platformed shoes that made him easily tower over every other person in the room. They began directing the human-pieces across the board with a ferociousness that surprised me, and soon it was time for the lion to strike away one of the tall man’s pawns. The ‘pawn’ was a woman dressed in a pretty, toga-style dress, with her hair piled into an elaborate, tiered pyramid atop her head, and she looked utterly terrified. The man who had stepped up to her square smirked, and all around the room, the onlookers started to chant.

“What are they saying?” I found myself whispering.

“Some are saying
kiss
some are saying
kill
.”

“I don’t understand?” I asked, as the man approached the woman, grabbed her face and planted a smacking kiss on her lips.

She visibly sagged in relief, and a realisation began to dawn on me, causing a shiver to race down my spine.

“And now it is time for yours, Spitfire.”

Nareon turned my head, smirked at the horror in my eyes and tugged my mouth to his, neglecting to tell me to drop my glamor. I felt an immediate yearning shoot through my body, pushing the horror momentarily away, and as his fingers slid into my hair, his compulsion spread, tingling all the way to the tips of my fingers, which rose to clutch at his shoulders. I made no conscious effort to drop my glamor, but I recognised the pull of his energy when it happened. He made a sound in his throat, and twitched me closer, the kiss becoming reminiscent of another kiss, one that had ended in my dress being torn down the middle, before his mouth pulled away from mine.

His hands were strong as he held me back from him, and there was a smile playing at the edges of his mouth. Over my shoulder, someone screamed, and the horror began to wind its way back into my mind, but Nareon was already pulling me forward again, his mouth soft and hypnotizing, slowly driving me into a mindless, boneless being of compelled reaction in his arms. Not long after, he pulled back again, and the world around me returned. I heard the people chanting again, but those grey eyes held me in check, the look in them growing steadily toward something that glinted savagely, though there was amusement there too, amusement that I didn’t understand. The people’s chanting melted into cheers, and then another tense silence fell, which, minutes later, erupted into another chaos of chanting. Nareon pulled me back to him, and the world faded away.

I didn’t know how much later it was that Nareon released me from his game, but when he whispered to me to pull my glamor up, I found myself to be very unwilling. I was warm and comfortable, my lips tender from his kisses, my body flowing with strong, surging energy and consuming compulsion. It took me an abnormally long time to return to myself, and when it happened, I found myself grappling with no small amount of confusion. I yanked my glamor back into place and scrambled off his lap, finding my legs shaky. The room was quiet, but I delayed looking behind me, because Nareon’s eyes—while still displaying that wild glint that he got when he kissed me—now seemed to be openly laughing at me.

Had I really been so easy to compel?

“Now now, Spitfire, don’t look so outraged. You got a good fill.”

I turned away from him, the feeling of unease doubling, and saw that people were beginning to stare at me now that their human chess game had died down. And then I remembered the horror, the scream. I frantically counted the people walking from the board, including those standing beside it, and found three to be missing, though I couldn’t be sure that they hadn’t just disappeared into the surrounding crowd. Suddenly feeling sick to my stomach, I whirled back on Nareon, and then something else caught my eye. Right in the corner of the room, turning on a huge spit surrounded by a table laden with glass plates of towering snacks—all dressed-up as absurdly as the people—was something that had my world turning completely black.

It had been a man
, I thought,
once
. Though his head was now missing, along with his arms, and his skin was cooked enough that it didn’t look remotely human anymore.

A man
, I thought again, numbly.

When I woke up, I thought that only seconds had passed. Nareon’s face was above mine, and when I turned my head to look away from him, I could see the people fleeing the room; all except two, who lay on the ground not far from me. Unmoving. I turned back to Nareon, confusion overriding my fear, and finally focused on his expression. If he had been laughing before, he wasn’t anymore. His eyes were narrowed, focused on my neck.

“You kept that quiet, didn’t you, sweetheart?” he whispered.

He drew back, and I struggled into a sitting position, wondering what would happen to me now.

“I wasn’t supposed to let you see.”

He reached forward, and I flinched away, but he shot me a disparaging look and cupped my chin, his grip surprisingly gentle.

“You needn’t ever fear me, Beatrice Harrow.”

In answer to that, I flicked a look over his shoulder, in the direction of the roasting spit, though I avoided actually looking at it, and he winced as if I had slapped him.

“Most pure-breed synfees crave human flesh, it’s true, but it’s also something that I avoid.”

“I doubt that.”

“Doubt all you want,” he pulled me to my feet then, and I let him. “But it’s true.”

“You kept me purposefully out-of-it,” I accused, gesturing to the chessboard.

“Would you have preferred to watch?” He asked the question calmly, with no hint of remorse in his eyes, and I shivered.

My eyes fell upon the men lying on the floor then, and I stiffened. Nareon moved behind me, I felt his formidable presence close, though he didn’t touch me.

“It’s powerful. Almost frighteningly so,” he said cryptically.

I wasn’t able to answer, because something else had stricken me as strange. The men didn’t look dead at all. They looked as if they had fallen into a peaceful sleep, their eyes closed, no sign of a struggle, no blood. As my confusion grew, something niggled in the back of my mind, and it wasn’t until I turned and saw the admiration stamped all over Nareon’s handsome features that it finally clinked into sickening clarity.

“Oh no…” I gasped, falling to my knees, bitter tears spilling down my cheeks, a burning horror chocking in my throat. “I’ve killed them.”

He knelt beside me and pulled me into his arms, cradling me like a child, soothing me with words that I didn’t listen to, stroking my hair. Of course Hazen hadn’t wanted Nareon to know, I was already tied into helping him, I didn’t need to add another skill into the repertoire of powers at the synfee King’s disposable. Especially not
this
power.

Eventually I pushed away from him, scrambling to be free of his manipulations, and he didn’t try to stop me. I rode hard to the cottage and my father while the tears streamed down my face, and when I burst into he cottage, I didn’t try to hide them. Except that the cottage, my own little brick sanctuary, was teeming with people. Everybody seemed to lunge all at once, and it wasn’t until Hazen jumped in front of me and pushed me against the door that I began to recognise their faces. Hazen wasn’t the only person who had moved in front of me, shielding me with their backs. My father was also there, and Cale. I saw Rose and Miriam in the corner, looking at me with tear-stricken faces, and behind them, lurking in the shadows, was Joseph Harbringer. The rest were all soldiers.

I thought about the two synfee men I had just killed, their absurdly peaceful expressions flitting through my mind, and I began to panic, though of course none of these people would know about something like that. Hazen had seen it though, and he stiffened, turning slowly to face me. He grabbed my shoulders, dark eyes boring into me, and I heard his voice in my head. There was another presence there too, one I suspected was Harbringer, though he stayed silent.

Show me that again, Bea.

Obediently I brought the image back up, though I flinched outwardly at having to see those faces again, and I heard my father’s panicked voice beside me.

“Don’t hurt her, be gentle dammit.”

Hazen ignored him, latching onto the memory, sifting through the events that led up to it, and then he spoke again, his voice deep and calm despite the whirlwind of panic now racing through me.