A Liar's Twisted Tongue, page 1
Contents
I. The Rising
1. Sometimes I Think I Could Be a Killer
2. Before There Was Honesty, There Was a Lie
3. If You Can’t Run, Hide
4. All My Dreams Are Awake
5. The Blood Doesn’t Stop at The Hand
6. What I Pay For
7. Who’s Keeping Score Now?
8. Nothing Burns Like The Cold
9. Duck Duck Goose
10. Reality Ruined My Vision
11. This Oath is a Lie
12. A Fool’s Errand
13. A Drink He Was Sharing
14. There’s What You Want and What You Get
15. Can’t Save Them All
16. I’m A Killer Everywhere
17. Innocence Don’t Make You Feel That Way
18. My Conscience Is Stained Red
19. Birth Of A Vendetta
20. It’s Strange How People Can Change
21. The Things That Break Are Never Fixed
22. Somebody Might Die, But Everybody Gets Hurt
II. The Unraveling
23. An Arsonist’s Lullaby
24. Hole Hearted
25. Let The Hero Die
26. Infamy’s A Dish Served Cold
27. Lines We Don’t Cross
28. Nothing’s More Dangerous Than A Scorned Lover
29. High Hopes and Huge Falls
30. Facing What I Turned Away From
31. Soul Sucker (For You Only)
32. No Future, No Past
33. Remember The Pact of Our Youth
34. Death Does You Well
35. The Only Thing I Know Is That I Know Nothing
36. Pot Meets Kettle
37. You Can Never Go Home Again
38. Three’s A Ball, and One’s A Killer
39. Losing Track of What I’m Fighting For
III. The Falling
40. In Your Choices Lie Your Fate
41. When Bones Turn To Ash
42. Doing What You Have To Isn’t Easy
43. I Know What I Didn’t Before
44. An Ode To You
45. An Ode To Nothing
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
For anyone who finds it difficult to share the contents of their heart
Part One
The Rising
Chapter 1
Sometimes I Think I Could Be a Killer
DESDEMONA
The septic is a worn down and indigent place. All orphia who reside there are equally as depraved as their lands and of no greater value than the corenths that were birthed upon their soil.
– COLONEL JENDA’S GUIDE TO SUPERVISING THE LESSER ORPHIA
Blood soaks my palm, and I press Damien’s dagger deeper. Everyone in my life and I agreed: I would be better off powerless. But as I watch the separated skin of my self-inflicted wound sizzle and blister before turning to one ugly, orange, and closed slit, I know the dreams are more than I’d initially hoped.
The leaves above me rustle, and I clutch the dagger by the tip of its blade so I’m ready when the catch falls into my territory. I push away all thoughts about the dreams or the cut.
The austec scuffles through the tree. An ugly thing with bulky teeth and a long, bushy tail that is almost inedible, but it’s the best we have in these woods. Easy to catch, skin, and cook. Damien lifts his hand and a string of whitish blue lightning shoots one austec out of the tree. Before it reaches the ground, I throw the blade into its throat.
“Pst,” Damien whispers down, trying not to scare the catch. He’s high up now, to the point where the branches don’t even look strong enough to hold him. His words echo down the concave of trees. “Come up.”
I give him a look, one that I can only assume he deems unpleasant because it’s the one I always give him when my answer is no.
Not much later, he jumps down from the tree, holding a smoking gray bird by its feet while it seizes just before it stills. We don’t normally hunt the birds, they’re harder to catch and don’t have as much meat as the austec, but they sure do taste better.
“Should’ve come up,” he says.
“Why? Cause you burnt it?” I open our bag for him.
“No way.” He holds up the bird like it’s a trophy and smiles at me like I’m a child. “It’s perfect, Red.”
I shove my shoulder into his bicep, and while he throws the bird in the bag Marice bound for us I close my fist tighter, even though I want Damien to see the cut, my shaking hands and worried eyes. For his eyes to bulge before he diverts from his concern by saying he knew he couldn’t trust me to handle the daggers. But ultimately when he asks me “What happened?” I would tell him that my magic is manifesting and I’m scared of what it means, if the murder in my dreams is any consolation.
Of course, none of that will happen. Because my hands aren’t shaking and my eyes… well, there may be a hint of worry that I’m unable to conceal, but nowhere near enough to make him wonder any more than usual.
“We’ll have to cut it to see,” I say, wiping the blood—mine and the austec’s—from the dagger before I hold it up, smiling, even though I don’t feel like smiling.
Damien tugs the bird away from me. “No way you’re mutilating today’s prize.”
I don’t mean to get quiet, but I do. Mutilating is a word that hits too close to home these days. The burnt bodies and faces of my dreams haunt me into the waking hours.
“You know I’m messing with you,” he says, using his forearm to wipe his auburn hair from his sweaty forehead. “This is as much mine as it is yours. If you insist on butchering it, have at it.”
I wave his dagger in his face. “Maybe I’ll butcher you.”
Five austec and a bird aren’t enough to feed my mom and his family for the day, not with the trading he’ll have to do. So Damien scales another tree, looking for another catch, and I follow suit, preparing the dagger.
I used to think Damien only let me tag along with him to help my mom and me. It’s no secret that three years ago when we arrived in the welders’ village, we weren’t doing well. No belongings, nothing to trade, and starving. I hated pity, but even now, I think that if pity is the reason Damien and I became what we are to each other, maybe I could live with it. But looking back, he was just as bad at hunting as I was. He couldn’t aim and I’m still much faster, always been better with his daggers too.
Damien stays in the trees and me on lookout until the late hours of the morning. I carry the bag into the septic, but when he holds his arm out to me to take it I oblige, but not before giving him a long look. A warning.
“Be careful,” I whisper. When he starts shaking his head, I grab his arm. “There’s more keepers out than usual. I saw them huddling up this morning.” Then I say again, “Be careful.”
“Always am, Red.”
He walks to the saul, where he’ll trade the catch for the necessities—clean water, since the closest river to our village is a four-hour hike; clothes for his growing siblings, since the nights are getting colder; and the most taxing luxury, salt. I walk to school.
They teach us what they call the useful things here, which is mainly how to use our powers to strengthen our odds of survival, which are never very good in the septic. Even though the Folk can live well into their hundreds—sometimes even longer—most of us die out before we reach seventy. The Fire Folk hardly make it past thirty, and this is the last year I’ll get to be a student before I’m forced to take up a job as a welder. All Fire Folk are required to start working at nineteen, four years earlier than the rest. In the septic, at least. They want to make sure they get a good decade out of us before we self-combust.
This is the only village out of the eight I’ve lived in where there are more than a handful of us since the main job here is welding. Unless you’re trading and hunting illegally, like Damien and me.
Gathering is acceptable, not that berries are enough to keep the kids from malnourishment, and not that it’s easy either. Most of the herbalists’ knowledge is passed by word of mouth, which makes it hard to determine which pretty berries will sustain life and which will take it away. I know some of the poisonous ones, but only because I’ve seen them in action, and that kind of sight doesn’t ever give you the peace of purging itself.
Kind of like my dreams.
Today, Ms. O is teaching us how to hit a corenth to paralyze it—but not for hunting, for defense, so she says. Which doesn’t make any sense, because the corenths don’t attack.
“How many times have you…?” Elliae whispers to me while nodding her head toward Ms O.
Elliae is easily the prettiest girl in our village, with long, straight auburn hair like Damien. Her face is more rounded than most of the other girls, and the apples of her cheeks are high and bulbous. She has every physical feature you could ever want, and I always thought it would do her much better if she were off somewhere in a place like Utul.
Beauty doesn’t lead to pretty jobs here.
“More times than I can count,” I whisper back. But I’ve never paralyzed a corenth, that’s always Damien. All I do is finish the job.
“Did he go to the saul today?” Elliae asks me.
“Yes, why?” She doesn’t normally ask me about that.
“Ma told him not to. Something about a new shipment of Nepenthe.”
Suddenly, I’m cursing Damien in my mind. I knew it was a bad idea, going today, knew I saw more keepers than usual. For the lif
“Tell Ms. O my mom’s sick if she asks.” I stand up and slip out of class.
On my way out of school, I walk by the same old room I walk by every day I sneak out. One that hasn’t been filled for my entire three years here. Today the walls are littered with new posters spelling out sentences in color. On paper. Color on paper—something I’ve never seen before.
Paper is scarce around here and trees are illegal to cut down—a criminal offense much worse than hunting—seeing as lumber is a Viridian job. So seeing all these pages with things like Hard work makes the worlds go round or Your sacrifices strengthen us all, and my personal favorite, The key to peace is compliance, filling the walls is rather surreal.
I’m sure it has something to do with the keepers, and just what it means I don’t care. I’m more worried about how we’re going to feed ourselves.
My eyes catch on a small note, words spelled out in leaves and dirt, not fancy colors. YOU DESERVE TO BE SEEN.
Maybe that one’s my new favorite, for its comical attributes.
I slip out through another hole in the school that used to have glass in its place—so I’ve heard—and walk straight to the saul. Word around town says it’s the oldest building in this village because the Nepenthe took it over during the war and it didn’t burn down with the rest of the world.
But I’m too filled with anger to let the past get to me too. I can’t believe Damien went to the saul knowing the keepers were multiplying. Trading isn’t exactly illegal—but trading livestock is. Only the wealthy get to handle the corenths, not Folk like us.
I’m halfway there when I see him. I don’t change my pace out of fear of attracting a keeper’s attention, but I want to run. Maybe give him a good slap too. But the Nepenthe are fast. With super speed and agility, you never know when they’ll show up.
When I’m less than a foot from him, I say quietly, “What is wrong with you?”
Damien lazily rolls his eyes. “We needed water, Red. The little ones haven’t had anything to drink in a full day’s time.” I eye his pack. “Yes, I got you water, of course.” He hands me a water skin and I’m sucking it dry. I haven’t had water in a full day either. I can make it two and a half before the paralyzations start. His little siblings don’t have that kind of practice.
I shove the water skin back into his chest, hard. “But the keepers—”
“Want to say that any louder?” He slips the water skin into his pack and grabs my arm. Instinctively, I look around, to my sides and behind me. “Stop. Eyes ahead.”
“They’re here, aren’t—”
“Don’t say anything. I still have four austecs in the bag.”
“Shit.” If we’re caught, we’re screwed, and if we’re not, four isn’t enough to feed his family of five and mine of two.
We keep walking, eyes ahead of us, both hoping that they won’t stop us today. The smallest penalty for hunting is twenty lashes to the back, the highest is death. Four austecs is a lot more than one. One could be forgivable—an honest mistake, your first time. Four means you know what you’re doing.
My heart drops to my stomach when I hear someone say, “What’s in the bag?”
We don’t bother to look at one another, but I already know the face he’d make. It’d be the embodiment of we’re screwed. I make a mental vow to not die today.
Or tomorrow for that matter.
“Clothes for my little siblings,” Damien says. “It’s getting cold out.”
“From the saul?” he says.
“Yes, sir.”
“And what’s a kid like you got to trade?” The Nepenthe’s hand reaches for the whip at his side. A display of power. It’s not like he could use it now—whippings aren’t an easy punishment, they have to detain you and bring you to the post. No, he’s just doing it to show us that no matter our actual power, we’re still weak. Always will be.
I don’t understand why the kingdom still brings them here. The Nepenthe are disgusting, power-hungry, and murderous. This kind of thing brings them joy, and after killing so many of us in the war, I don’t get why we keep giving them the satisfaction.
I grab Damien’s hand—telling him to stay quiet without saying it. “Bottles,” I say quickly with a soft smile. “We hiked to the river and collected sand so I could make them.” Technically, making glass is something the welders do, only for the kingdom and other elites of Elysia, but there’s no rule against making it yourself if you get your own material.
“A Fire Folk, are we?” he says lazily, stepping closer and gliding his disgusting gray eyes down my body. I bite my tongue and close my fist.
“Yes, sir.” Not that he deserves the title.
“Shame. By the looks of it, you’ll be in the welders’ quarters soon.” By that he means dead. Damien tenses next to me.
“Yes, sir.”
He leans back a little, his hand still close to the whip but not on it. “Why aren’t you in class?”
I keep my face entirely blank. Unreadable. Nothing to show but what I want him to see. Nothing to use against me, should he find a reason. “Mom’s sick. Wanted to get her something warm.”
He smiles, eyes still on my body, and from the look in them, I know he’s more than just surprised at my fuller frame—which is a common look I get too. I’m stronger than the majority, Damien too, but no keeper ever looks at him the way this one is looking at me.
“She’s real sick, sir,” I say. “Freezing up and all.”
The Nepenthe grunts and then brings his eyes back to mine. “All you got in that bag is clothes and bottles?”
I tilt my head to the side, smile deceptively, and nod. “Yes, sir.”
He shoves his hand in his pocket, leaning to the left and looking around the space—the dirt, trees, and clay buildings—before looking back at me. “Get out of here. Don’t forget I made your life easier.”
“Thank you, sir,” Damien says, and I can hear his anger. He shouldn’t have said a thing.
We walk a little quicker than we did before, and when we’re a good bit away from any visible keepers Damien says, “I hate those creeps.”
“At least we’re alive.”
He stops and pulls me behind a tree. “Which way did you walk to the saul?” he asks me in a hushed whisper.
“Through the barren, why?” The patch of land that never recovered after the war.
“Marice is dead. Same with a dozen others. Whipped.”
This time, there’s nothing I can do to control myself before my face falls, lips drooping down into a heavy frown. Marice. We would give him the skins and leftover bones of the austec in return for the waterskins and the broth he would make of them. He made the catch bag Damien is holding right now.
He must be dead because he was found with livestock remnants. Because of us.
“Shit,” is all I can seem to say. Marice. I think of all the nights me, Mom, and Damien’s family sat around the fire with our broth listening to his stories of how he and Sevyn fell in love and survived the wars together. Every word that came out of his mouth demanded your attention.
“Sevyn? Is she okay?” I ask.
“I think she ran,” Damien says, looking over my shoulder. “Couldn’t find her anywhere. We should get moving.”
After a few minutes of walking in silence, I say, “Four?”
“Yeah, four.” He kicks a pebble.
