Siren's Fury Page 14

  Stir, stir, stir. Hum, hum, hum.

  The smell is slow, drifting, dragging itself through the air in a green wisp to settle around Myles and me in a disgusting scent of more fish. I crinkle my nose and stare straight ahead. At her. At the pot.

  Stir, stir, stir.

  Is this what Myles had to go through when he came years ago? Drink fish-smelling stew? I look at him and smirk. I wonder if he threw it up.

  Stir, stir, stir. More humming. More stirring.

  I swear hours go by with Myles and me just sitting there, waiting and watching as she stirs.

  Myles yawns and polishes his hair until, eventually, he’s apparently satisfied with his appearance and nearly passes out on the table.

  A short while longer and suddenly the woman hops up from her seat with an exclamation. She shoves the pot in my face. “Here. Sniff.”

  I careen away with a gag. “Is that what I need to drink?”

  She jerks it back and huffs. “You? Of course not. It’s my tea. But don’t it smell good?” She settles the pot on the table and spoons out some of its liquid into her teacup. Takes a sip and smacks her lips. “Mmm. That’s the thing right there.”

  I raise a brow at Myles. He shrugs, looking more frumpy and frazzled than I think I’ve ever seen him, with a patch of his dark hair actually out of place and his sly eyes sagging heavily.

  I turn back to the witch. “Are we . . . going to be here much longer? Just curious,” I rush to add.

  She slurps her tea, louder this time, and eyes me. “This ability you’re wanting . . .” She juts her chin toward Myles. “Is half-breed boy going to help you practice using it?”

  I nod.

  “Good, good,” she says more to herself. “Like I said—piece of cream using your new abilities. But just in case, you’ll need someone to keep an eye on you for a bit so you don’t accidentally kill everyone.”

  Lovely. “Is there anything else I should know?”

  The woman sets her cup on the table and stands on her tiptoes to open the third chest. It creaks as she pries the lid. “Only that if you’re hoping to use the ability on that boy . . .” She turns to me as if to ensure I’m staring right at her, listening. Her smooth voice grows rough, firm. “Don’t wait much longer.” She flips back to the chest and pulls out a clear bottle with a cork stopped into it and then walks to one of the shelves to fetch another mug.

  And I’m sitting here staring with my mouth open. “Is there any hope for saving him?” I blurt out.

  She doesn’t answer. Just places the mug and bottle on the table before taking another slurp of tea. After a moment she uncorks the bottle and leans down to peer inside it with one eye. “Uh-huh. Just like I left it.”

  I watch her tip it over and a sledge of black liquid flows from it down into the cup. I frown. The bottle she’s holding is see-through and empty, but the ick keeps dripping out as if the thing is full. She recorks the bottle and swirls the mug to mix it.

  She carries the cup over and thrusts it in front of my face. “Drink.”

  That’s it? That’s what we’ve sat here waiting for? I sniff. Ugh. What in the name of—? It smells worse than the tea and when I peer over the mug’s rim, the liquid is bubbling. Boiling.

  She tips it near my lips and I lean back because maybe we should take a second to be certain this is the right stuff and also to let it cool. “Wait—”

  My words are cut off as she crams the cup to my mouth and jerks my hair back so my jaw opens. I gasp and choke as suddenly the sledge is slipping between my teeth and down my throat.

  Dear hulls, what kind of plague is this stuff?

  But it’s not burning. In fact, it’s cold and bubbly and it tastes of honey. Even if it smells like death warmed over. I swallow it down until it’s gone, and once she pulls the mug away I’m thinking the chances are fairly good I might vomit. My stomach feels swollen and the honey is sticking oddly to the back of my tongue. The woman doesn’t seem to care—she just sets the cup on the table and pulls her stool over to sit and wait. And hum.

  I’m not sure what it’s supposed to do or how it’s supposed to work, but I suspect she mixed something wrong. Abruptly my stomach is on fire and my bones are icing over—as if all the heat from my body and blood is being pulled into a whirlpool made of the potion.

  My head starts vibrating first. The rest of me follows quickly—shaking, shivering, flailing, my wrists and ankles chafing at their restraints as my muscles lose control of themselves. The old woman’s got me by the back of the head and she’s stuffing a dusty cloth in my mouth.

  That’s when I begin screaming.

  Because my entire body is being frozen alive and my veins are turning to powder as the cold sears through my bones and skin. Then I’m screaming because the woman is morphing, changing into a hideous black beast, a spider the size of a ferret-cat. It’s coming closer and Myles is merely standing there watching, staring at it. What’s he waiting for? What’s he doing?

  The spider-lady shuffles forward.

  Clack, clack, clack.

  Her legs tap on the floorboards as she scuttles for me, humming her song that now sounds like a chanting death knell. I squirm and gag on the dirty cloth. I try to lift my hands, my legs, but the straps are too tight—they’re cutting my skin.

  The spider talons dig into me as she latches first onto my leg, then jumps to my stomach. She begins crawling, clawing, scratching her way up my bones, my flesh, onto my chest until suddenly I can’t breathe. She’s suffocating my lungs.

  “Help me!” I try to yell, but no sound emits through the rag.

  Clack, clack, clack. The legs move along my chest up onto my neck, my throat. The spider’s hundreds of eyes twinkle down at me as her hideous coarse-haired body leans into my chin. She puts two legs on my lips. I shiver, but she yanks out the rag and is clawing, forcing my mouth to stay open.

  I shake my head and writhe, trying to throw her off, but the talons cut deeper and suddenly she’s crawling inside my mouth and forcing her way down my throat. Her bristly legs scratch up every inch of it as they scuttle down into my chest, my heart, my blood.

  Next thing I know someone’s pulling the rag from my mouth just as I begin vomiting into a pot placed in my lap. And when I look up, the spider’s sitting in front of me but she’s re-formed back into the old witch.

  CHAPTER 20

  Crisscross, back and forth, the spider spins her web, while the carved-in bird on my arm flutters and whimpers and chirps out a song that sounds very much like one I used to know. There’s something beautiful about it really—the way the spider weaves to the music, strumming my veins onto her loom, like an intricate dance of sinew and flesh. Leaning down every so often to bite and push her venom further into my blood.

  Clack, clack, clack, her legs scratch. Transforming the thrum in my veins into pockets of cold, swirling energy.

  Until she looks up with those glittering eyes, and I swear she scowls. Her scratching legs pause, then suddenly she’s skittering for the carved-in bluebird on my arm. I try to brush her off, but my fingers are heavy and cumbersome and by the time they twitch she’s pounced. A horrid chirp is followed by a broken note, and the last of the melody is replaced by the crunch of bones and chewing.

  Vomit bubbles up. What has she done?

  I try to move but the venom hits my spine and my veins begin to freeze. Then sting.

  Suddenly my bones are seizing, writhing, as the poison rips out every last bit of Elemental so that all I can hear is a voice screaming to make it stop. Please make it stop.

  The spider keeps devouring my arm.

  I wake up screaming and clawing at my arm, but it’s too dark to see what in kracken is going on. I slap and hit at the beast before finally fumbling for the light along the bedside, twisting the gear to illuminate the scratching legs attacking my skin.

  Nothing is on my skin.

  Other than a crisscross of scuff marks made by my own nails along the puffy bluebird’s face.

 
I lean back and shut my eyes, aware that my sweat-drenched body is shaking like one of the earthquakes Colin used to make, and I can’t hold still because everything’s so wet and cold, and my bones are seizing. What in—? With a jerk, my chest curls down around my knees, and suddenly every frozen muscle I own makes a cracking sound. Like ice under too much pressure.

  Oh litches.

  My body is going to break wide open.

  I force myself up into a sitting position and clench my arms around my legs to make it stop, to make them still. A movement in front of me catches in the corner of my eye, and it’s not until I glance up that I finally notice someone’s seated near my desk, rubbing her eyes, staring at me.

  I frown. Rasha?

  The red glow of her gaze is there. Growing. It’s lighting the dark between us with an intensity that says she’s scared, or concerned. Or furious.

  “Nym, what in hulls have you done?” Her voice sounds like a ghost. An angry one.

  I blink stupidly and continue shaking.

  “I told you—I warned you not to trust him.”

  I glance around the dim room before swerving my eyes back to meet her face. “What are you doing in here? What time is it?”

  “Half past four.” She stands and draws near. “But do you even have any idea what you’ve done?”

  I grip my knees harder so she won’t see how badly my legs are quaking. “Yes, I know exactly. How long have you been here?”

  “For the past three hours and, no, you have no idea.”

  “Where’s Myles?”

  “Why didn’t you ask me? Why didn’t you come to me instead of lying about it?”

  “Me? I asked you when you brought up his offer and you refused to tell me anything. Did you know this might allow me to save Eogan? That it’s the only way to save him?” I glance around again, my bones clacking around. “And where is Myles?”

  “If he has any bleeding sense at all, he’s shaking in his nightmares for fear of me. And I’ll thank you not to lay it at my feet as if it’s my fault. Once he offered, you could’ve asked anytime.”

  “Maybe if you’d stayed at the banquet I would have. If you’d seen what they did—”

  “You’d already made your decision at the banquet. But if you’d stayed and heeded my warning instead of tromping off to absorb a power you know nothing about—”

  “Your warning made no sense!” I choke out. “Look, it’s half past four in the morning and you standing here lecturing me in my room before my head can even think is not helping anything. I’m not going to apologize for trying to give us a chance. This can help all of us—Eogan, you, me, the delegates.”

  “You don’t know it’ll give them a chance! If anything, it’s just as likely you’ll end up like Draewulf!”

  I peer sharply at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She clamps her mouth shut.

  My throat is jittering so hard I’m having a hard time getting the words out. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that that’s exactly my point. You have no idea what you’re dealing with or what it will do to you.”

  “But apparently you do and you decided to withhold it from me. Lovely. I think I’d like to go back to bed now if you don’t mind.” I jerk my head toward the door.

  Her eyes flash and by the time she’s crossed the five paces and opened it, her gaze has lit up her hair so she looks like an angel of death. She walks out and the whole room shakes as she slams the door shut behind her.

  Bleeding hulls.

  I sit there a moment, cursing her out in my head, then cursing myself out even more. After a moment I get up, and, quaking like a blasted avalanche, peel off my sweat-soaked leathers and slip on the only normal-looking dress I can find in the dim light. I wrap my warm cloak around me before yanking open the door.

  Six guards snap to attention from a game of stones they’d been leaning over. Rasha is already gone.

  “Can we help you?” one mutters.

  I clench my teeth. “Take me to see Lord Myles.”

  Every guard turns toward me and I swear their eyes all harden at once. It takes me an annoying minute before the awareness dawns of how such a request must appear. The girl from Faelen, rumored to be Eogan’s love interest, embarking on a tryst with Faelen’s lord protectorate.

  “Miss, are you—?”

  “Now.”

  With an uncomfortable tsk, the Faelen man turns and leads me down two doors to Myles’s chambers.

  He taps.

  Taps again.

  I reach out my shaking, deformed hand and bang on the blasted thing just like at the old woman’s house.

  There’s a mumbling followed by a crash inside just before the door’s yanked open. Myles is standing there in a pair of pants displaying the whitest bare chest I’ve ever seen on a man who prides himself so highly on looks.

  “There’d better be a bleeding fire or a woman with very good legsss standing here because . . .” He stalls, seeing me for the first time. His face pinches. “Oh.”

  “I’d prefer not to be seen as either of those,” I say, jaw chattering. I slip by him into his room, which, from all appearances, is identical to mine. I pick up a pair of what appear to be his silk pantaloons tossed onto his desk and drop them on the floor, then slide up to shakily perch myself in their place and tug my cloak around me.

  He flips around. “What do you want?”

  “Help.” I lower my voice and glance toward the door. “Whatever that woman gave me is poisoning my body. Something’s wrong.”

  “And thisss is cause for getting me up before the Creator himself is awake?”

  “How do I fix it?”

  “You’re a woman—how in hulls should I know?”

  “I had a dream—”

  “I would be too if you weren’t ruining my sleep.”

  “Of spiders.”

  “How nice for you. We can talk about it tomorrow, now would you—”

  I narrow my gaze. “I’m not leaving until you help me.”

  “Help you what?”

  I glare at him and lift my gimpy hand from my robe, holding it out to him as it violently tremors.

  He shuts the door. “Tell me about your dream.”

  I tell him about the spider and the glittery gaze and the poison in my veins and arm. He closes his eyes as if imagining them, except now he’s moving his lips, repeating my words, and the air around us has rippled until I’m watching the very same spider crawl across the carpet toward me.

  I yelp and yank my legs up onto the desk, and the creature dissipates.

  Myles opens his eyes. “Interesting. Other than the cold and shaking, how doesss it feel?”

  “Like there’s a blasted vortex inside tugging my bones apart.”

  He smiles and rubs his face with the base of his palms, then turns to pull a shirt off the foot of his bed to slip on. Thank hulls.

  By the time I glance back, he’s walking toward me—stopping three feet away to roll up his sleeves and smirk. The moonlight glints off his silver tooth, making my spine rigid a moment.

  “As to your question if this is normal, I’m no expert, but I’d say the potion’sss working through your system and attaching itself to your blood. The chill and tremorsss will ease once you’ve managed some control. You recall your training with Eogan?”

  I ignore the hunger such a simple comment brings. Of course I remember. That’s part of the reason I’m standing here—because I don’t want to simply remember. I want it back.

  I swallow and nod, which feels more like a jiggle since even my head is convulsing with cold.

  “He taught you to tap into the idea of protecting others as a way to control your Elemental abilitiesss, did he not?”

  “Among other things. What’s your point?”

  “Were you ever able to gain complete control of them?”

  “Not without his help, but only because he hadn’t finished training me.” I swear my chest bones crack a little wider as the words tum
ble out.

  “Exxxactly. Lucky for you I’m going to finish his training—just the other side of the coin, so to ssspeak. The side he wouldn’t show you for fear you’d become too powerful for even him to control.”

  “Because he knew I’d keep hurting people if he didn’t help me.”

  “And so can I. The difference isss . . .” He steps closer and lifts his hand, touching one finger to a strand of my white hair. “I don’t think you need to be controlled. I think you need to be ssset free.”

  Eogan would be horrified. My teeth begin clacking again as a shudder lurches through me. The bluebird marking on my arm begins aching, flaring, flittering her crushed wings against my pulsing vein. But when I look down, it’s nothing.

  I grind my jaw. “So get on with it. Show me.”

  “As I said, Eogan used the technique of tapping into your, shall we call it, merciful side. My way is similar. Except I’m going to teach you to reach for your jussstice side.” He dips his face near mine and whispers, “The part of you that hates Draewulf for what he’s done—that hates the injustice done to you by years of being enslaved to perverse owners. I’ll teach you to fight against that.”

  My stomach turns. How many times did Eogan and I argue about this—about my fear of becoming a weapon? “I want to do justice, not strike out in vengeance.”

  “Oh my dear,” he breathes. “When I’m finished with you, you’ll be able to use thisss power for whatever you want.”

  I swallow and force my head to believe him even if my heart doesn’t. “Because I’ll be able to control it.”

  “More than control it, you’ll be able to control others with it. Like Draewulf.”

  “That witch said Draewulf needs me to achieve something. Will this stop it?”

  “It’ll do more than stop it. It’ll kill him if you want.”

  Something in the way he says it curls my spine. “By interrupting the blood of kings,” I whisper.

  His answer is to slide his hand from my hair he’s been toying with down to the fifteen owner circles on my right arm. And squeeze.

  The old familiar energy comes, but instantly it’s not familiar. This one is slicker, cooler, oozing into my veins where my Elemental strength would’ve surged. With it comes an utter sense of hopelessness, of emptiness, as if everything in me is being poured into that vortex in my chest and is flowing, fading inside it, draining everything that is me into an entity that is pure energy.