Veiled Innocence (Book One, The Soul Cycle) (13 page)

The gloomy fortress
was
completely transformed. Fresh flowers and silk streamers in varying shades of red and gold hung from the polished sconces and banisters, adding an uncharacteristic cheer to the dark corridors. Any chips in the walls
were
r
epaired with a dollop of mortar
or covered up entirely with a decoration of some sort. Tattered tapestries
were
replaced by newer ones.

The garden was the most astonishing makeover of all, having gone from a graveyard of
dead plants and overgrown weeds
to a state of manicured, healthy perfection. Shabby bushes
were
cut into shapes of different animals, and all vines and moss
were
removed from the swamp-green statues until the marble underneath shone in the sun.
She
had no idea they were supposed to be white. They were positioned as markers along the walls of flowers and bushes to guide patrons as they navigated the refurbished labyrinth. 

She had not made it so far as the Grand Ball Room, where the gala was to be held, but she could imagine from the considerable improvements on the rest of the fortress what extravagance she would find there. 

Few people came to visit her, and finding hersel
f to be a nuisance in her state
,
she kept to her
chambers
and watched the transformation of the courtyard below, looking on while servants worked themselves into nervous bundles of knots. She had not seen U
rsa since the countess appeared. H
er father and sister had not stopped by either, but the latter did not surprise her as much as the
former
. Gabriel dropped in a handful of times to inquire about her health, but within minutes he would become tongue-tied, clam up, and abandon the room as quickly as he had entered. 

Lian sighed from her perch on the window seat and gazed over the garden into the black expanse of Dreaka’s Forest, beyond the dreary, graying hills. If she squinted, she could barely see the faint glimmer of the leaves, their veins lined with metallic hues of red and gold.

According to legen
d, there was a war between the g
ods, said to have occurred at the dawn of the Age of Stars, the darke
st era in Eresean history. The g
ods spilled their blood on the forest, cursing its leaves and slowly draining the forest of its life essence. Dreaka, not wanting to see any living creature suffer, lent some of Her own essence, the power of life and light, to the forest. She healed it, though the mark of the battle had already s
tained the leaves; red for the g
ods’ blood, gold for Dreaka’s benevolence. At night, the veins glowed, not as bright as the moon but enough to give it a ghostly aura. Priests said it was Dreaka’s light,
Her mark that the wood
s
were
Hers, while
scientists claimed the plants somehow trapped the light of day within their veins, appearing to glow at night.

There were different stories surrounding the wood
s
. The one thread they had in common was that the forest was sacred, said to be a favored
haunt of Dreaka, Queen of the g
ods. Travelers often claim
ed
to have glimpsed Her betwe
en the trees
or by the river, shining with all the light of the world. These tales were usually accompanied by rumors of strange, otherworldly creatures that inhabited the wood
s
, made from the very essence of the forest itself. Maidens with bark for skin
, men who could turn into water;
there was something new every week, it seemed.

No doubt exaggerated by an overzealous merchant looking to drive home a sale.

She
never placed much stock in the stories. Though she had never set foot in the forest, she had never seen anything to suggest something extraordinary was happening there. Though it might spor
t some unusual vegetation, she had
always assumed it to be a qu
irk of the land, perhaps a side
effect from the lack of sunshine. After all, the plants had to survive somehow. Why not trap sunlight? It seemed like a perfectly logical explanation for their appearance at night.

Her thoughts drifted back to the present.
She
watched gardeners fuss over flower beds, making the garden look less regal and more cluttered, while
attendants swept the walkways.
After a moment, they began to blur out as her mind once again wandered.

There was hardly a moment spent where she didn’t brood over something.
So many things
had happened recently
, and she had lost count of the hours she spent trying to decipher what it all meant, if it meant anything at all. Sometimes, she wasn’t entirely convinced it all had not been a dream. She was healing to
o fast, f
irst
from
Orris’ bruises, and now a miraculous recovery from what had appeared to be a near fatal illness.
Though she was relieved,
it bothered her at the same time.
The mask she carefully hid her emotions behind felt cracked, leaving her feeling oddly e
xposed and vulnerable, prodded on by a persistent stomachache that refused to go away.
She hated it, hated feeling like she wasn’t in control of herself.

She also n
ever had nightmares before now.
For that matter, she never really dreamed, at least
from what she could remember the next morning.

Until that necklace showed up.

She absently piddled with the crystal dangling between the folds of her gray blouse. No one
had claimed it, but then again
Lian hadn’t advertised its whereabouts
either. Somewhere along the way
,
she had decided to keep it. But if it hadn’t been lost, then where
had
it come from?

And those dreams. Was it all in her head the entire time? They had seemed so real. She remembered the velvet petals of the yeullis, could feel the feather as she twirled it between her fingertips.

But I was awake when I saw the feather. The yeullis, the voice, might have just been a bizarre dream, but that…

The
healer
had said the feather was a side effect of the illness, some sort of virus she mus
t have contracted while in the M
arket that made her hallucinate. Or perhaps it was a mirage. She knew the desert people saw them quite often: fountains on top of sand dunes, birds that were actually scorpions, beautiful women who were no more than the bones of some lost soul. It marginally made her feel better, though she wondered why more people hadn’t reported suffering from a similar state.

And then there was the countess. Some part of her that she didn’t understand craved one more glimpse of the woman who both enchanted and terrified her with her exotic beauty and burning dark eyes.

The way she looks at me makes me uneasy, like she can see straight into my soul.

The countess pulled her like a moth to a flame, drawing her in to face something old and forgotten. Lian had seen snatches of her raven hair in her walks around the fortress, but as soon as she was close to Merí, she forgot how to use her tongue and retreated back to her
chambers
before her face could turn redder. 

Me
rí’s eyes were the worst of all. F
rom the moment they had pierced her soul with their icy, empty gaze, she had found herself looking into them every night as she drifted in and out of restless sleep. The eyes would shift, from blue to green to amber, to all the colors and shapes of the eyes that had ridiculed her over the years. Merí was like a great shadow that blocked out the warmth of
happiness whenever she was near. T
hough she
had never spoken a word to her,
Lian imagined her voice to be as cold as her countenance
,
and she shivered involuntarily.
I think I’ve actually managed to find someone colder than Ana. That’s quite an achievement.
 

New gossip had flooded the halls, and Lian would have been relieved to not be the topic of discussion for once had it not involved something much worse. The Arch Duke had
taken a fancy to Merí, at least
according to popular belief, and many more believed she would soon become the new mistress of the estate. Thi
s bothered Lian for two reasons;
the first being that Merí looked about Ana’s age, and secondly, the sheer thought of that woman being her mother made her stomach lurch. Merí was, she admitted, beautiful, far prettier than perhaps even Ana-Elise, and her father had a taste for beautiful things. Lian thought of what it would feel like to have a mother, and her heart swelled with longing. Yet, she could not bring herself to welcome that woman as family. 

She
shook her head
to clear her thoughts
, and the empty silence of the room closed in on her once more. It was almost oppressive, and one thing became perfectly clear in that instant: she needed out of that room, to be anywhere but here. 

Her stomach rumbled; she hadn’t realized how late it had gotten. It was nearly dusk. She peeled her eyes off the landscape below and settled her gaze beside her bed.
The corner of her lips twitched into a smile.
Maybe she didn’t have to leave the room to become lost in a world that wasn’t her own. 

She
eased off the worn cushion and slowly dragged her feet to the small bookshelf beside her bed. Its inhabitants were caked in layers of dust, which in her opinion, made them all the more charming
.
S
he ran her fingers over the worn titles, her fingertips leaving trails in the gray fluff. At last, her fingers
rested
on a small, thin volume of Eresean folklore and poetry bound in aging red leather. 

Red. 

It was so forceful that she staggered back. The word reverberated in her m
ind. She couldn’t take her eyes
or her fingers
off the
small book, which had begun leaking
red ink. It dripped down the length of the shelf to stain the dingy rug with red teardrops. 

She
blinked, though it felt
as if
she was fighting some unseen force to make her eyes close. But once she managed to close them, she saw a column of black feathers raining down from a red sky. 

Something flashed, white and hot as fire, and she yelped, jerking her hand back. Her heart beat in her temples as she examined her pink fingers in growing confusion. Surely, they should have been dipped in blood, for the book had bled only seconds earlier right before her very eyes.

But there wa
s no blood to be found anywhere,
not on the rug, on the shelves, the book, or on her fingers. The room looked completely normal, wearing its shadows like a familiar cloak. 

She gasped, terrified
and
not knowing what to make of it.
She
stumbled to the corner where her satchel
lay
and swiped it up on her way out the door.

Unrequited

THE SUN WAS BEGINNING
to set by the time Lian made it to the guard’s wing.

To her immense relief, there was not a soul in sight, and she found herself half-anticipating the distraction shooting an arrow would provide her. Life was too complicated
at the moment
, and she was
mentally
ill-equipped to even fathom how to go about sorting it all out. 

The silence that had been overbearing in her
chambers
was comforting here. She was partially grateful for the countess’ appearance. Like a shiny new toy, the courtiers had taken a liking to her, and thus, had let
Lian
be. Today, she could practice archery and rest assured she would be alone; no moc
king laughter, pointing jeers,
or crude remarks could haun
t her.
And though it kept her thoughts at peace, she could not help but to feel a small sparkle of hope at seeing Gabriel in the yard. Every fiber of her being ached to see him, to hear his voice soothe her worries away with its mellow timbre.
It was infuriating.
The thought was enough to make her swipe her bow a
nd quiver
and rush through the remainder of the armory to the small door that led to the training yard.

Her hand trembled as she laid her palm across the aged wood, and suddenly the thought of running into Gabriel seemed as scary as falling off a cliff. His actions the past few days had led her to suspect he cared for her the way she did for him. And yet, she was so afraid that she was wrong, that she had somehow mistaken his
friendly
concern as something more.