Chapter 39: CHAPTER 39

Jalice stared up at the Black House, hesitating at the end of the slope. The structure differed from that of her memories. Where there had only been a small opening before, now a giant rupture split the middle, courtesy of some powerful force. It widened at the base into a gaping tunnel that led into the structure’s inner darkness. The Black House towered above her, like a mountain carved from fine metal and hollowed out with a cave.

Commotion from behind spun her around. She sighed with relief at the sight of Elothel before turning back to the ominous passage.

“We don’t have much time,” said Elothel as fae came up beside her. “The others are in danger.” Fae paused. “Are you remembering anything?”

Jalice shook her head, flinching as shrieks echoed from the top of the crater.

“How about the pain?” asked Elothel. “Is it worse here?”

Jalice gave a clipped nod. Her head pounded. Invisible needles pricked at her skin. “I have to go inside.”

Elothel nodded. “Once inside, I’m going to translate us. Remember what I warned about.”

Jalice’s eyes twitched. A dokojin—inside her mind, and the source of her pain. It would manifest in the Apparition Realm once they translated. Sahruum, spare me this trial and take me away.

Elothel drew closer. “You can do this, starborn. But we must be swift. Your friends won’t last long up there.”

Jalice twisted her fingers around her vow ring and bit her lip. There was no turning back now. Whatever lay inside, whatever she would remember, she had to face it. This didn’t define her identity. She was Jalice, chieftess of the Unified Tribes.

With Elothel on her heels, she dashed into the gaping tunnel and its darkness. She wondered at what had created the larger chasm. Unlike before, the journey inside was less claustrophobic, though it remained an invigorating climb with its odd, titled angle. The smooth surfaces of the House’s material made for difficult gripping, but this time, no sparks flashed from the loose tubes or strings that dangled overhead. On occasion, Jalice heard the rough tear of a garment, presumably Elothel’s bulky garb catching on the cut wires surrounding them.

“This place . . . is old,” Elothel stated in a hushed tone of awe. “Dungeons like these were built long before the Last Great War to imprison monstrous things. They hung the prisons in the expanse, amongst the stars, where no one would find them.” Before Jalice could comment on these revelations, faer tone turned wary. “Do you feel that?”

Jalice halted. It’d been easy to miss—a dull vibrational shift around her. She’d forgotten about this element of the House. “This happened the last time I was here.” She slowly shook her head, staring into the dark that surrounded them. “I don’t know what it is exactly. A vibration. It got stronger the deeper I went in.”

There was a beat of silence before Elothel placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Then we press on until I can determine if it’s a problem.”

Jalice resumed climbing, heart pounding as her chest tightened. Visions of the creature trapped in the glass cage surrounded by hundreds of starry orb lights festered in her mind.

Several minutes of blind traversing passed before Elothel spoke again, this time startled.

“We’ve translated,” fae stated.

Jalice halted. “What do you mean? You didn’t warn me you were doing—”

“Not me,” Elothel interrupted. “The vibrations intensified, as you said they would. A shift has occurred.”

Jalice inhaled and exhaled slowly to regain control of her breathing. “But that makes no sense. There was no lifechain or lifestone last time. I don’t see them now either.”

“Indeed, it’s not a full translation into the Apparition Realm,” said Elothel. “Somehow, we’ve also remained in the Terrestrial Realm. At all times, we exist in both—but here it seems the veil between that duality is lifted.”

Jalice shook her head. “I can’t do this . . .”

“By Sahruum’s lights, you can. You aren’t alone this time, starborn.”

The mirajin’s comforting words soothed her some. Sahruum won’t let me die in this cursed place.

Not long after Elothel’s revelation, the darkness ebbed into light. The angled incline required a sharp pull-up onto a balcony, then leveled out into a corridor not subject to the House’s tilt. The fractured walls of the broken structure gave way to purposed paneling on every surface. Along the ceiling, the splintered tubes soared out of view to crawl above the paneled ceiling and behind the walls that constituted the length of the corridor.

Jalice took two steps into the more furbished area. She froze. Elothel inquired over her reaction, but the words echoed distantly in her ears. She stared with wide eyes at the young girl who stood in the glow of green light pouring from the adjacent room ahead.

“Don’t go in,” Jalice pleaded quietly, fully aware that her warning had no hope of reaching the illusionary child. “I beg you, don’t go back in.”

An ache to escape the scene twisted her stomach, but she didn’t respond to it. She’d tried with every other memory before. It never worked. The memory was going to happen, no matter her protests.

Elothel spoke to her from somewhere. The mirajin’s voice poured into her ears as if underwater, garbled and lacking meaning. Jalice watched the mirage of her younger self. This was why she’d come—to learn what had transpired at the Black House.

A new voice overrode the dreamlike words of Elothel, stealing any sense of bravado that had thus far urged Jalice on. In it, a legion of tortured souls clamored in some erratic, speechless plea to escape the confines of their own existence. With some haunting ability, its bite struck inside her mind rather than without.

“Unworthy Bones has returned to me,” said the voice. “Ready to bow, ready for power, ready to attain what it so desires.”

Jalice recoiled and wished the girl in the green light would as well. She blanched with disgust when instead the girl strode forward and disappeared into the room.

Pain split Jalice’s head. A scream escaped her throat as she collapsed onto the floor—or had she collapsed? She second-guessed this as the light and corridor flickered to pitch black, then returned instantaneously. In that brief flash, she’d been transported several strides forward without actually moving, and was now outside the doorframe of the green-lit room. The pain remained but dulled, buried in a haze of another reality.

Jalice clutched at her chest as she beheld the creature in its glass cage. Fear that it would see her threatened to banish the logic of being inside a memory. The realization that it was unaware of her presence dawned slowly. Even as the scene began to unfold as all her previous memories had—without any indication that she bore noticeable witness—she couldn’t shake the sense that the creature somehow knew she was there.

Every once in a while, its eyes would brush against hers before darting back to the girl.

***

Jalice trembled from head to toe. Dread pooled around her thoughts as crimson eyes engulfed her. The urge to look away burned her eyes, but she resisted. She was in control this time, and it was still trapped behind a glass cage.

“Waste the air and speak,” the telepathic voice growled, “or I’ll rip your mind to shreds until nothing but a wish to die remains.”

Jalice swallowed. Perhaps she wasn’t in control. “You promised you could give me my deepest desire.”

“I promised nothing, infant bonebag.”

Jalice scowled as tears brimmed in her eyes. The kiss between Kerothan and Hydrim from hours earlier seared her mind. “You did. I heard you. You asked what I desired, and you told me you could grant it.”

Folded black wings flexed backward, and the creature lunged at her. Its torso crashed against the glass, limbs flailing in frenzied desperation to escape the confines. Jalice whimpered as a howl like a deadly wind roared inside her head.

“Dust and blood, Unworthy Bones,” it screamed. “Dust and rotting blood!”

“I need him!” Jalice shrieked, a low whimper against the creature’s chanting. The thrashing ceased, and it grew quiet. “I need Hydrim. Someone else is trying to take him, but he belongs to me.” She wished her mind would stop replaying the kiss.

The creature clucked, a sound like a boulder crushing bone. “Jealousy. Bitter bite, a taste to savor.”

“I’m not jealous!” Jalice huffed. “Hydrim wants to be with me too. He’s told me.”

The lie slipped from her lips, and a drip of regret sank in her anger over the creature’s insinuation. She convinced herself quickly that she hadn’t lied completely. Hydrim had held her hand once, and he constantly bantered with her. Surely those actions meant he wanted to be with her. Kerothan was just a distraction.

“A body.”

Jalice startled. “What body?”

“You crave a body that isn’t yet yours,” the creature’s voice explained. “I desire a body to call my own. An equal trade, Unworthy Bones.”

Jalice went rigid. She shook her head. “No, I can’t give you my body.”

“Not yours,” it said. “You’re weak, with a mind that would rot within seconds of coalescing with my presence.”

She bristled, unsure of whether to be insulted or relieved. “Whose body, then?”

“The boy’s.”

Jalice took a step back, her head whipping side to side. “No, you can’t have that.”

“We share, Unworthy Bones. He is yours. He is mine. Ours.”

She tore her eyes away, turning to leave. This was wrong. She should have known better than to trust this entity with something as precious as Hydrim. She’d find another way.

“He will never love you.”

She froze in the doorframe. Her hands trembled in sync with her quivering lips. “Yes, he will.”

“Not if he has another,” the creature hissed. “You wouldn’t have come if you didn’t think the same. He isn’t yours if he belongs to another.”

Jalice’s stomach twisted—perhaps because the creature was right, perhaps because it didn’t matter. She spun around to face it, nostrils flaring. “The same would be true if you had him. He wouldn’t belong to me.”

“I am lonely in this cage,” the creature explained, “but I can’t leave this place without a vessel. If you can share the boy, I’ll ensure he’s enraptured with you.”

Enraptured. The term floated in Jalice’s head like a bubble. Delicate, with a promise to stay and a promise to burst. Despite her revulsion at its hideous features, pity trickled inside her at the creature’s admission. It was lonely. Trapped. If it could give her Hydrim, perhaps it wasn’t too much of it to ask her to share Hydrim in return.

“If I agree to this, you have to prove your promise first,” she said. “Then I’ll uphold my end of the bargain.”

The creature bared its teeth and flexed its wings. “You will forget me. Liars die in pits, Unworthy Bones. Rot and bleed, and seed the ground with cavities.”

“You’re the one who’s trapped. If you want out, we do it my way.”

Unstained teeth embedded in wrinkled gums gnashed together. The creature stared at her silently, reviving the apprehension that had afflicted Jalice. Empty seconds passed.

Jalice clutched her hands into fists, shifting her weight. She’d been gone too long already. It’d taken hours to reach the House, and the Storytelling would be over before she returned. Her absence had surely been noticed already, and would sprout anxiety in her friends and family if she remained unaccounted for.

“As a dying star bears witness, chaos permits strains of order,” the creature said. “So be it, Unworthy Bones. I accept your insolent terms.”

Jalice breathed a sigh of relief. “So, how will you make Hydrim mine?”

“Poison.”

Jalice’s jaw dropped. “You’re going to kill him?”

“Poison doesn’t always kill. Sometimes it cleanses. Eradicates. He must be purged of the chemicals that direct him to the other who rivals for his attention.”

“So, what is this . . . poison?” she asked. The word soured in her mouth, crawling out of simmering dread.

With no room to fully stretch its arm, the creature behind the glass simply pointed a finger across the room.

Jalice squinted skeptically in that direction. “It’s here? Why?”

“Unimportant,” it simply said.

Jalice had taken a few steps towards that part of the room, but halted and regarded the creature again. “It’s important to me if I have to give it to Hydrim.”

A snarl lit in her ears. “It was used in love and in war,” the creature said. “A concoction that aided your kind in melding the mind to a singular desire. Poison to indecisive wills. It focused the soul, purging inhibition and distraction.”

A cryptic and vague response, but the ticking clock in her head ushered her from further inquiry. She reached the wall, giving a gesture of confusion with her hands. “Where do I look?”

“Open that panel. Behind it lies a canister; beneath it are vials. Take one.”

Its directions proved accurate. Jalice’s eyes trailed across the large silver canister locked in place by metal latches embedded behind it. A handful of clear, slender vials filled with green fluid lined the base of the canister. She gingerly withdrew one and held it up to the dim light.

“So, he will drink this?” she asked warily.

“Drink. Eat. Swallow. Choke. Gag.”

“Stop,” said Jalice, flashing a dark look before glancing back to the vial. “How will I know it worked?”

“You will know,” said the creature. “When something becomes yours, it is obvious.”

Jalice looked to the creature. “When it’s done, what do I do to fulfill my end of the bargain?”

“Bring the boy here.”

“What will you do to him?” A shiver ran down her spine as she stared into its bloodshot eyes. “Will any of this hurt him?”

“Pain is an illusion,” the creature explained. “It evolved alongside everything else, and it serves a purpose. But it is no more real than the dreams your sleep bestows upon you.”

Jalice stood there for a moment, a part of her unwilling to leave with this explanation. The creature had sidestepped her question. No reassurance, no promise. She studied the vial in her hand that might very well cause Hydrim pain.

A cruel function in her mind regurgitated the kiss. She saw it as clearly as it had happened hours before. Hydrim leaning in, his lips meeting Kerothan’s in the shadows of the forest.

Jalice squeezed the vial and leapt to exit the room. She avoided looking at the creature as she passed the glass tube, unable to endure another glimpse of its horrendous features. But this didn’t stop one last scratch of words inside her mind.

“Return to me with the boy, Unworthy Bones. Liars die in pits, and that is where I feast.”