The Sirens who had survived the attack gathered in the middle of the field where most of the killing had taken place.
The three Elders assigned tasks for the soldiers left standing to build pyres for their headless sisters.
I looked away.
I couldn't stare into Minna's lifeless eyes, or bear the sight of a little girl's mutilated, decapitated body.
I could only hope that it wasn't Sigrid.
If it was...
I couldn't bring myself to look.
Inala stayed close to me, clutching my hand tightly while her arm remained around my shoulders as I leaned my weight onto her.
Olesia was gone, nowhere to be found.
"Olesia's gone to get the book. For the Summoning. It's happening now."
"Now?"
My voice was detached, cold.
Something intrinsic had broken inside of me after the attack.
The storm had broken as well, a light misting of rain coating our hair and ears and lips with dew drops sent forth from the heavens in a warm spray, as if in penance for the deluge brought forth upon us that day.
Born from ashes, those that had dissipated into thin air from my shadows and those burning from the pyres set forth, Erinna was not on the list of the dead.
Nor was Warrick or Soraya or Yuni.
All three Elders had survived.
"Sigrid made it to safety."
Inala's words were hushed as ancient prayers were spoken reverently over the dead, their pyres singeing the verdant grass a deadened, ashy black.
Her voice bespoke of tragedy unfolded, and I clutched her hand just a bit tighter, even though my hands were frozen, soaked straight to the bone with what I knew was rain but my mind tried to tell me was blood.
She still hadn't told me how it happened, but as we stared at Sabira's body put back together by one of the soldiers as she burned, burned, burned...
She loosed a ragged, tragic bound sob.
It scraped my ears until they were raw.
And then it wasn't Inala holding me up, but Oren, because Inala had collapsed into a pile on top of herself, but before I could reach down to pick her back upâ
Soraya was there.
Rubbing her back, whispering consolations into her ears.
But I knew it was only a minor comfort, because this was just the shock of it all.
The first sting of pain.
The needle of grief that would slowly morph into that of a dagger lancing through her heart until it magnified into a sword.
One that could not be pulled out, for the blood loss from that would mean instant death.
Better to leave in the object of your demise and die slowly, leeching yourself of life until the finality of your fate was sealed in one last bedraggled, blood speckled breath of fatality.
But Soraya was thereâshe was there and she was solid and real and the tether that Inala could hold onto, because that sob...that soul drenching stain of mournful grief?
That was a lover's cry, the song of a love lost too soon never to be recovered again.
And its lyrics were those that I knew all too well.
Oren was suddenly in front of me, his fingertips wiping away tears that must've fallen down of their own accord, escaping my notice.
Everything was a fogged blur, time moving forward but I was unable to feel its effects.
Like time was moving, and everything was happening as it should, but I was unmoved, unchanged, standing still.
Oren's hands were cupping my head, speaking to me, but they were words that I could not hear past the roaring in my ears.
I had done everything right; I had trained with Oren beforehand to make sure that I wouldn't hurt anyone.
I had tunneled down deep into my mind to make sure that the power I did use was strong enough to save Inala, but she hadn't been the one who needed saving.
It had been Sabira, with her golden hair and bright blue eyes that now stared upwards, unblinking at the sky until Erinna appeared and pressed her fingers down over them, Warrick behind her holding her up in the dim after light of the storm while the sun set at our backs.
"We will not let this tragedy ruin us. We did not come out unscathed, but thanks to the powers of our Princess, we came out victorious. We will mourn our losses, but first, we must summon forth a creator with the power to keep us safe before the next wave. This was only the first attack; we've been warned. They will return. We must act now to save our peopleâto save our home!"
Velda's words fell upon crushed and broken ears.
But no one argued.
Oren tugged me away from the fray and back towards the center of Hefeta, back into a familiar home with a roaring hearth decorated in vibrant blues with gold stitching.
With charcoal drawings hanging up on the walls.
With a new portrait I hadn't seen before, one bearing my likeness.
Inala, Erinna and Sabira all appeared beside me in the portrait.
And our faces were smiling.
I hadn't seen a smile on my face reflected back to me in so long, I'd forgotten what it actually looked like when I was happy.
We were smiling of a friendship I'd never even been able to foster before it was ripped out from under me.
"Are you too drained?"
I shook my head at Oren's words.
I didn't know how I knew the answer, but I knew that I was invigorated.
Devastated and numb, I was still energized somehow, as if a lightning bolt had reached a spindly finger down from the heavens and touched me upon my brow to charge my body and soul with its brilliant light.
"Good. You need to get changed. The Summoning is happening now, and they're going to need your power."
He led me back into the room I'd been staying in while visiting Sabira's home.
It still smelled of her.
Jasmine and lavender.
A wreath crown of lavender and bay leaves laid upon a trunk with a sheer white billowing robe underneath it, gold stitching etched around its entirety.
It was a garment I would've worn to bed, it's bright and nearly see-through material appealing to look at and high slits making it near inappropriate for other's eyes.
My sister had been made to wear worse in the brothels, though, so I supposed it wasn't the most awful thing to wear.
"Help me."
I stared at Oren helplessly.
He sighed and ran a coarse finger down my cheek.
My mind made me believe the wet trail it left down my face was a streak of scarlet red instead of the remnants of rain still clinging to him.
I shivered under his touch.
He reached behind me and began untying the laces behind my back.
Tug.
He pulled one lace from the bodice as my face stayed upturned towards his.
Pull.
My mind told me he was yanking the the thready veins from my body.
Yank.
There went my bones in his hands.
Twist.
His hands were shoved into my spine, taking it and grabbing it with his bare hands.
A sigh of breath left my lips, and he bent down towards them, his air coating them over like they were his own.
In that moment, I didn't care whose lips they were.
I reached up on shaky feet and wrapped my hands around his neck, taking his air for myself.
Taking any small comfort he could give me.
Ignoring the grumble of anger within me as the shared power the shadow man had given me recoiled from Oren's light, I held onto him for everything that I was worth, and I realized that I would let him ruin me if only it would make me stop feeling this way.
His lips were soft, supple and firm as his hands continued releasing the threads from my gown, finally wrenching them all free until the bodice hung loose around my chest.
He ripped it away from me as his hands grasped my hair in his hand and angled my face toward his.
I moaned out into his mouth as my hands danced along his skin, uncaring of the Summoning about to be had in Hefeta.
Uncaring of the attack that had just been brought forth; only caring of the here and now.
Because Sabira had died. Minna had died.
People I'd only just met, but had connected with nonetheless.
People I'd sang with, had shared their burdens and trauma with.
Sirens I'd considered as my own.
They were my people, in my likeness, and they were gone.
Just like Peter.
And my father.
Just like Marlisa...because I was sure to never see her ever again, and that sharp swell of grief had coursed through me stronger than any other had before, even though I was hesitant to admit it to myself.
I missed her.
I missed themâI missed them all.
So any comfort I could take within Oren's arms was well worth it.
Because he was strong and real and he was there, there for me in a way the dead never could.
The dead couldn't comfort, or touch, or hold.
The dead were only there to haunt you in the memories you could no longer be apart of anymore, and it was time to banish those memories with the pleasure that Oren could wring from my body.
He reached below me and pulled my legs around his waist, wrapping my body around him as if he were my lifeline.
His mouth pulled the energy from my body and turned it into malleable pleasure and heat as it coursed throughout my entire being.
"You don't know what you've done, Josephine."
His words were a strangled grumble from his throat, but I didn't allow them to stop us.
And then his hand was delving beneath the skirts of the dressing gown I'd worn underneath my dress, traveling up the length of my thigh until he reached the apex of them, but still he did not stop.
I squirmed beneath his hot touch, the pulse of need within me writhing like a living thing.
My needy whimpers were silenced by his mouth cutting atop over mine.
His velvet lips stoked the embers of fire inside of me as he placed pressure there, right where my body was demanding it, and then...and then...
My back bowed in divine gratification as his fingers delved inside of me, teasing, kneading, twirling, raking out the rapture of my body as he continued his ministrations against me, all the while holding me up.
He twisted us until my back hit the wall and I cried out in ecstasy as his lips trailed down my neck, sucking and biting until I was sure he'd leave marks upon my skin.
"Oren..."
"How does this feel?"
His labored breathing against my neck had me tightening my legs around his waist, writhing beneath his touch, melting underneath his carnal gaze.
Bright amber blazed in the darkness back at me just as the sun sank past the crest of the horizon.
A deep shudder went through Oren as the change surged through him.
His fingers lengthened into taloned claws as he withdrew them from my shivering body.
"Oren?"
His breathing intensified as his body grew, his armor half forgotten in a pile on the floor that I must've ripped off of him in my haze of desire.
"Oren, set me down, please."
Was he in control during his shift? I couldn't be sure, not as a fire seemed to bank behind his eyes.
Eyes that still held mine, as if they were saying that he wasn't quite done with me.
Not yet.
"Put your clothes on," he managed to garble out behind teeth that had sharpened into fangs.
He dropped my body ungracefully until my feet hit the floor, and his form trembled again before he took one more look at me in my half dressed state and stalked out the door, leaving me a panting, melted mess with no satisfaction brimming in my blood, only despair in remaining in the place where his body stood.
***
Author's Note:
What did you think of this chapter?
What do you think will happen next?
What do you WANT to happen next?
Any wild, crazy theories on what's going to happen?
Let me know what you think!
Until next time my lovely readers,
Kristen :)
***
The World of Irena: