Keeper of Sorrows, page 12
“You sure are a curious little thing.” The healer smoothed her ivory tunic. “Why do you ask?”
To determine if you took her, Naokah wanted to say outright, but that wasn’t the way. Nectar over vinegar. Yet, she wasn’t a natural liar. Lenita had taught her, and like most things, her sister was far better at it. If Patri asked where the last cookie had walked off to, even if she hadn’t eaten it, Naokah flushed. You were born guilty, but you must learn how to grow out of it, or you’ll never survive, Lenita had teased.
“I’m just competitive, is all.” She met the woman’s probing gaze and held it, though every muscle in her neck told her to turn away. “Trying to learn as much as I can, so that I might follow in her footsteps. Croi Croga really needs the Keepership,” she said for good measure. It wasn’t a lie. Besides, people tended to doubt one less when they pitied them.
“Smart, I’ll give you that. Especially since I know the rest of your group is up on the belvedere, drinking. I respect that. Lenita was…different from her competition too.” The skin folds at the woman’s neck dipped as she swallowed. “I liked her. A great deal. Was my pick from the start. Always had the right mindset. Bees first, people second. Just like our current Keeper. Was an awful shame she went missing.” She heaved a sigh, shoulders drooping. “Dumbfounded us all. Was like she simply vanished in the night, melted into the walls or something. Still can’t make sense of it.” Noticing Naokah’s expression, she added, “I’m so terribly sorry for your loss.”
Naokah had to clear her throat before she could speak. Lenita had an unparalleled magnetic presence about her. Tati called it her glimmer. Innate, couldn’t be learned. Tati never admitted it, but she, like Matri and Patri, had favored Lenita. Naokah even preferred Lenita over herself. But Tati, more than anyone, wholeheartedly cherished her. They shared that same reckless abandon, the same irresistible pull that sucked everyone in. Though they didn’t care to notice, Naokah was awake when Tati and Lenita went for their late-night strolls. They’d walk the fields, sharing that old cloudcane pipe, talking about who knows what. Naokah was hurt and envious she’d never been invited, but she convinced herself she wouldn’t have enjoyed it. She may’ve liked the smell of cloudcane smoke, but the pipe always burned her tongue.
“Did she have any enemies, Miss…?”
“Call me Marguerite, dearie. The envoys didn’t quite get along. Likely how this poor fellow—” she tilted her head towards the unconscious Kjell, “—ended up here. No doubt, someone saw him as fierce competition and tried to eliminate him.” Her brow lifted, metallic in the low light. “But, she was the last one here at the end. The other six envoys had left already.”
“She make enemies with any of the staff?”
“I honestly don’t know who’d want to harm her. Certainly not the Keeper. Like I told the guards, it made no sense for anyone to want her dead. We needed her. Her disappearance weighs heavy on us all. No body. No closure. I feel most for you, your family, for Croi Croga. To go that far, overcome everything, to merely vanish and die?”
Naokah blinked back the sting behind her eyes. Lenita was not dead. Still…. “You don’t think it was suicide?”
“No. Perhaps an accident.”
“What do you mean?”
A draft sighed behind Marguerite’s desk, and she paused, passing Naokah an apologetic glance.
Naokah squinted, surprised. What she’d initially taken for a solid wall was a tunnel to another room. A bronze placard engraved with Morgue rested above the arched entrance.
“I’ve been here since the middle of the last Keeper’s tenure, after the healer, far younger than me, mysteriously disappeared too. Fifty-three years, I’ve served the citadel. And let’s just say, there are some rather…strange things, that don’t rightly add up.”
“Unnatural things?” Like the ghost girl?
“I’m a woman of science, of logic and reason.”
“So, that’s a no?”
“I didn’t say that. You just wouldn’t find someone like me admitting aloud that I believed in such…nonsense.” The words of disbelief didn’t match the healer’s eyes, which now not only moved over Naokah’s shoulder like she was addressing a presence behind her, but widened with fear.
* * *
The trip back to her chambers seemed to take longer than when she’d been in pursuit of the healer. Naokah could strike Marguerite off her list. Only someone wholly diabolical could’ve put on a show of sympathy so convincing. She was another step closer to finding the answer, but it didn’t feel that way. Lenita had no enemies that the healer knew of, aside from the envoys who had already been kicked off the isle. And what Marguerite had alluded to, that there were preternatural forces at work, she herself didn’t want to admit. Most Crogan farmers, including Patri, were superstitious. Never veering close to the Razing for fear of a crith snatching their soul. Not walking beneath a pollinating flock, for if a bird shat on you, you’d have a decade of failed harvests. Ridiculous. Still, her encounter with the ghost girl had chipped away her disbelief.
The world was full of all kinds of luck, good and bad. A failed harvest was bad luck. Croi Croga and Bizou and Okse getting hit the hardest by the Razing because of their central location? Bad luck. But Lenita vanishing right before taking the Keepership? More than bad luck. Too convenient. Lenita’s disappearance was premeditated. Someone didn’t want her to swear in. Who had the most to lose by Croi Croga controlling the world market?
When Naokah plodded into her chambers, she peeled her sticky clothes off and threw them into a pile. But as she headed over to the lavatory, a shadow fluttered over the mural. She froze.
“Who’s there?”
No answer.
“I said, who’s in my chambers? I’ll scream if you don’t show yourself.”
The shadow shrank into a small rectangle but continued to wriggle like a fly caught in a web. Naokah tiptoed to the side of the canopy. Nothing was—
Shuffling, like that of paper. Under the bed. No matter how un-superstitious she was, there was something ominous about what could’ve been lurking beneath. A fear instilled since childhood. When the farm had a rough year, and they’d had to sell most of their furniture to make ends meet, little Naokah didn’t complain about Patri taking her bed frame. No space under a mattress also meant no monster. This illogical fear and perhaps the fact that she was nude kept her from peeping beneath the pleated dust ruffle. Yet, the shuffling continued.
“Get over yourself,” she said over her rising pulse. She leaned back, ripped the skirt up—
And relaxed. A book, leather-bound. Caught in the vent. She snagged it and stood. Caked in dust, something dark brown, wine or cacao, was spilled over the first few pages, pasting them together. She slid her fingers beneath the loose side and peeled them apart. Only a corner stuck and tore off, but that didn’t matter. It didn’t harm the scrawl across the middle of the parchment. The wild scratches that barely passed for letters, she’d known well. Hastily written or not, Lenita had never been the queen of penmanship – the only thing in the world she didn’t excel at, but only because she chose not to.
Life’s too short to squander, she’d always say, especially on handwriting.
Shocked that her older sister kept a journal in the first place, Naokah squinted, trying to discern the scribbled paragraph that looped across the second page. When she finally did, her fingers shook, and the book thumped the floor. The fish beneath darted off. She picked it back up to confirm what she read, but it was the same: I was wrong. About everything. Divine Daughter, I was wrong. I need help. But who can I trust when even the murals whisper deceit?
The book fell again, and Naokah flipped over her hands. The rusty powder smudging them wasn’t food nor wine. It crumbled like dried blood.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Transformed
Before, when the scrim would retreat, the army – I assumed they were an army, as they weren’t corporeal, but the clank of armor, the pound of boots sure sounded like a legion of warriors – would fade until the next new moon. But now, the phantom marching didn’t stop. The scrim and legion were connected somehow. Whoever controlled the scrim controlled the soldiers. And since a scrim was still here on the loose, I’d unwittingly invited the army to stay too.
How reckless I’d been.
I had to find a way to make them go away but couldn’t succeed if I lost my wits. To shutter out the marching, I forced my thoughts elsewhere – the fish. They could see me through the floor. Their eyes bulged beneath my dewclaws before storming off in a whirl of fins. If I didn’t know I was hideous before, I did now, and yet I was oddly satisfied. Not with being ugly. Surely no one wishes for that.
No, but to be seen. Acknowledged, bad or good. Even with this new form of existence, though, I found myself missing my haunt. Sitting high above the sweeping landscape, drinking in the watercolor sunrises, sunsets. I even missed the cranky eldest. I should’ve been happy. This is what I’d yearned for since I awakened, to be closer to the Keeper. To be real. Bustling with staff and envoys, bees and fish, sentience surrounded me. So, why did I feel like I’d fallen into a mass grave?
The shadows seemed to breathe, the hallways murmured, and eyes burning with malice followed my every move. The scrim could’ve been hiding anywhere. If my kin were successful, the air would’ve felt light instead of dense. I had to locate the beast, and Lenita was my first suspect. Last night, we’d had company.
I seeped into the shading of the mural next to her bed, heat dappling my cheeks as I swam beneath the curve of a hip. Odd taste, humans, having nude women strewn across their walls. Of course, they also had my hideous mug affixed to their donjon. An odd pairing, beauty and beast. I swam through her door, attaching myself to the mural of two women picking foxgloves on a knoll, and followed voices coming from the great hall. From the subtle green light above, it was noon, and the envoys were eating.
Muffled voices from the savvy’s quarters stopped me, and I hid behind a damask armchair. Their room, nestled in an eave beside the foyer, was similar to the envoys’. Canopy bed, standing mirror, and a fireplace, but smaller, starker. There were no murals nor window treatments and, although the citadel always exhaled musty air, something within their walls was riper than compost. Somewhat surprising for the person in charge of the citadel’s staff and upkeep.
“Did you find the culprit?” asked Captain Avice, arms stiff across her chest.
“Just shattered vases in a few of the envoys’ rooms.” Sweat beaded the savvy’s weary face, and their voice dropped an octave. “One of the envoys said it was a rush of air, like a breeze—”
“Impossible.”
“Obviously. But that’s what they said. It came from the turrets and billowed off their canopies, scattering their belongings.”
“But you said Lenita saw something?”
“She’s retracted her statement, likely doesn’t want to look foolish, especially after I told her to talk to Marguerite for her night terrors.”
“Was it a night terror?”
“It had to be,” said Samara, scratching their wrist. “She says she saw something with eyes like a viper, telling her to submit.”
The sentry grimaced. “Will cause widespread panic if that gets out.”
“If. Like I said, she knew how mad she sounded. Didn’t want to dishonor Croi Croga, no matter how superstitious her people tend to be. Would tarnish her chance as Keeper.”
“What’s your theory?”
The savvy moved their hand from their wrist just long enough to tug it through their braid. A few stray hairs and skin flakes moted their collar, before going back to scratching.
Avice’s lips pursed, and I moved to the chair’s arm to home in on their peculiar behavior. Why were they so twitchy?
“I don’t even know where to start—” scratch, scratch, “—never seen anything like it, but I’ve also only been in the Keeper’s employ for ten years. Certainly not as long as you.”
“I will admit, sometimes, late at night, especially during the new moon, I feel as though ….” The guard shook her head. “I sound as crazy as Lenita, but I’ve felt a growing presence since I arrived. Not as loud or constant as the hives. More sporadic, underlying, like the thudding of an army. Yet thousands of leagues away. Maybe it’s just my mind playing tricks on me.”
I nearly flopped out of the chair. I wasn’t mad. Avice heard the marching too. Samara’s face strained, but they didn’t say anything. The scrim were linked. Surely the staff was aware of their cyclic attacks?
“Even so,” Avice sighed deeply, “whatever it is, be it real or an illusion, has changed the Keeper and not for the better. She hasn’t painted in a decade, smokes and drinks all the time, and sometimes I have to call her multiple times before she responds, like she’s losing herself to this place.” She shook her head. “A few nights ago, she’d have lopped off all her hair had I not intervened. When I asked her why in the Daughter’s name she’d do such a thing – she’s been growing it since she was a little girl – she said it didn’t belong to her.”
I glared at the captain. For someone so close to the Keeper, she was entirely unsympathetic. Naturally, the poor woman was acting a bit off. These imposters were here to steal her title, and no one was doing anything about it, save me.
“The sooner the Praxis concludes, the better,” the savvy said, scratching their wrist.
I waited, but they switched to damage control, blabbering about sweeping the envoys’ accounts under the metaphorical rug, and I grew irritated, proceeding to the great hall. As I meshed into the mural of a plump cherub dancing aboard a ship’s prow, a gull taking flight off his hands, a wave of nostalgia hit me.
Brine tickled my cheeks, the sun warmed my back, and weightlessness tugged at my sleeves. I was at sea. Had I been a sailor, a comandante, or steerage? A coral fingernail traced my arm, my collarbone, then the tingle of lips on my earlobe. I arched my back, leaning into the breath steaming my neck.
“Not in front of the crew, darling.” I didn’t mean it at all.
Their thumb parted my mouth, and they filled it with a spiced rum whisper, “You positively sure?” They traced my lips, unfurling my jaw and, when the tip of their tongue zinged against mine, my knees melted, as did my resolve.
“What wicked games you play,” I gasped, surrendering to a kiss that could implode even the most tenacious star.
Glass shattered, yanking me back to the great hall. My throat burned with unshed tears, with unrequited passion. I was cursed, forever handed dried-out paints with canvas too wrinkled to restore.
Pastel light dappled the envoys, only six now. Yet, they didn’t sit at the long, ebony table that spanned the hall. Each claimed their own round table, acting like the others didn’t exist. On the edges of their seats, eyes distant, fearful. Lenita was the closest. Head downcast, she twitched like the savvy. She hadn’t touched her meal other than crumbling her toast. She attempted to sip her coffee, but it spilled down her chin.
I shuffled through last night. The groaning, the scream, the yellow eyes filling her chambers, but I couldn’t recall what happened. I’d blacked out too soon. All I knew was, the prideful woman I’d been watching, respecting, scorning, had vanished overnight. The scrim I’d spent every new moon smashing between my claws didn’t seem so teeny anymore. The eldest never revealed their origin nor their mission other than, like my destiny to vanquish them, they were created to infiltrate. Whatever it had transformed into, must’ve been so horrible, so devastating, to render the most confident envoy a nervous wreck. Now, more than ever, did I wish to return to my tower and beg the eldest for answers, but I was stuck. I’d have to fix this mess, my mess, on my own.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Breadcrumbs
Even the murals whisper deceit. The phrase repeated over and over, relentless as the tub’s dripping faucet. Like the ornery handle above, no matter how hard she wrenched, neither the water nor words ceased. Naokah scrubbed the mud from her skin, taking care to look anywhere but up.
With a face like a sea snake and red, membranous wings, the spout was unnerving. Worse, its toothy jaws reminded her of the butterfly woman’s yawn. Despite Brielle being drawn to the murals that seemed to wrap every inch of the citadel not already covered in bees, Naokah hadn’t particularly liked them. And now, after reading what could’ve been her sister’s last words, she feared them. What if her nightmare was more than exhaustion?
The water went from tepid to ice cold, and Naokah sprang up, shivering. Brown rivulets trickled her knees. Light seeped through the stained-glass turret, splashing the lavatory in a spectrum of shapes. The sun was out, so the storm must’ve cleared. If she hurried, she could use the veranda.
She was fishing for the stopper’s chain, wrinkling her nose at the murky water, when something slimy seized her hand. She shrieked and yanked back. But its hold was firm, tugging her down. She twisted back and forth, currents of brown slapping her calves. Its cruel grip only clamped tighter, dragging her towards the spout.
A bee crawled from the faucet.
Followed by another.
And another.
Droning rumbled from the pipes, the tiles, as a colony of bees surged from the spout. Naokah shut her eyes. This couldn’t be real. Only a nightmare. A hallucination. Her hand went numb as icy fingers dug into her wrist and wrenched her into the tempest. Bees prickled her forearms. Buzzed up her neck. Crawled into her ears, her nostrils.
She thrust out a leg, finding purchase on the tub’s lip, and wrested with all her might.
It released. She flung back, head cracking against tiles. Shards of pain exploded behind her eyes, and she crumpled into the waves. The gurgle of the stopper lifting was the last thing she heard before Croi Croga, fifteen years back, lapped over her.
