13 Chapter 17: A Distant Past

"Go. Now." the demon growled, its face twisted in pain as it stared at her with those mismatched eyes. They glinted under the green-hazed sunlight, shining with anger and the slightest tint of fear.

"Demon." she hissed, sinking into a crouch with blades in hand, green eyes flicking like a viper between him and the shadows on the ground, as if judging which one was more deadly. "Stay where you are, or I'll slit your throat."she warned, blades spinning in her tight grip. Yet she was tired, and her voice betrayed her with a tell-tale quaver.

The demon's face twisted with a grotesque mockery of a smile as it rubbed a sharp thumb along the wound on its neck, feeling the ridge of the scar where she had first slid her blade across its throat. "Tried once. Failed." came the guttural response, fangs showing as it gave a rueful grin.

She flinched at the gesture but refused to back down. "You beast," she hissed forcefully, trying to keep her stance aggressive. This thing was an animal; she could not give it any sign of weakness. "Why did you let me live? Why did you give my spirit back?" She had to ask it, even if she could do nothing else. It was the question that she had no answer for, the question that could not understand.

The demon merely shrugged its shoulders, turning its gaze behind her to the ravenous shadows on the plains distractedly. "Earth spoke. Said to save." it replied simply, as if that answer was sufficient.

"Five and three curses, what the hell is that supposed to mean?" she cried out, throwing her arms out wide. Frustration bit her stomach, rousing her blood and sending her heart pumping. Was this thing toying with her? Was this all just another cruel dance for the gods, for those crow-cursed watchers? She had enough of putting on a show for some laughing onlookers.

The demon shook its head curtly, fangs clacking as it opened its mouth to speak. "Need run." it grunted, pointing a black claw to the shadows on the horizon. "Skal'ai."

Lily sucked in a sharp breath upon hearing that name. How could this beast know of Skal and Skal'ai? Her mind felt slower than her surroundings, as if everything was happening too fast for her to think. Questions popped up like lights at Festival, unending as a tide. She could not help but remember how the demon had healed itself of its wounds when they had fought. It had used magic then—she was certain of it—the glow of white could only mean burning vahma for a spell.

A demon capable of magic. What more did it know? A shudder ran down her spine. "I'm not running until you give me an answer. What do you mean the earth told you to save me?" she demanded. The demon hissed in frustration, claws flexing as if it was suppressing a bestial urge—most likely the truth.

"Earth." it growled, throwing its arms out expansively. "Spoke." it grunted, pointing at its ear with a claw. "Save you." it snarled, its claw now pointing at her chest. The performance was something one might give to a pouting child; it was a mockery, a ridiculous farce.

"Why?" she asked suspiciously, fingers tightening around the hilt of her dagger. Still she did not understand what the demon meant when it answered. How could the earth speak? Unless the fool heard something else and thought it to be the earth.

The demon let out a slow hiss, clearly exasperated. "Sister." it replied simply, and she fell back a step as if struck.

That word again, what did it mean? She had called it brother in desperation, a nonsensical word, but it seemed to have swayed the demon. Yet when she opened her mouth to question further, it interrupted her with a brusque response.

"No time. Skal'ai." The demon strode quickly towards her, and she tensed, uncertain of what it wanted to do. Yet it walked past her, feet digging into the dirt as it sniffed the air deeply. Suddenly it turned, cords on its neck standing taut.

"Run." it spoke, gazing into her eyes. She shuddered at what she saw on the other side.

There was raw ferocity, bestial instinct, animal savagery, all barely hidden behind those red and yellow irises. It spoke of unchecked rage, of sheer power. There was madness, mania, all swirling behind a thin veil. To fight this beast was lunacy.

"You—you want me to go with you?" she demanded, thoughts tripping over each other in her head like schoolchildren. Madness filled her. Her heart was racing for a myriad of unspoken and unthought reasons, feeling as if it would burst in her chest.

The demon nodded.

To fight this beast was lunacy. Surely, then, to travel with it could only be sheer insanity. Yet to stay certainly would be even more foolish. These were Skal'ai, creatures of nightmares and monsters mothers told rebellious children of. They could not be killed, could not be stopped. And they were everywhere—wherever there was a shadow.

"Trust. Sister." it growled, striking a clawed fist to its chest in humanlike fashion, and a small giggle slipped out of her mouth. To stand with a demon, perhaps she truly was going mad. Then again, perhaps it was the most rational of decisions—flee with a demon, where there was a possible future, or stay with the Skal'ai, where there was only promised death. Aye, this was the logical decision, and she always was a woman of reason.

"Well if you say so, Brother." she replied half hysterically, sheathing her dagger and picking up her pack. She had been planning to run anyways, what was one more along for the ride? But before she could expose the demon to anymore of her characteristic charm and wit, it gave a short grunt before suddenly taking off. It loped forwards on two legs, apparently awkward and unused to the movement. It had not traveled far before looking back at her and tilting its head in a motion for her to follow.

With a short sigh, she strung her pack over her shoulder and took off in a brisk run, following the black figure in front of her. It seemed to slow itself down for her, pausing every so often to look behind its back. Its bipedal gait was cumbersome and awkward, uneven and almost childlike. Clearly it preferred to travel on fours, but if it did so she would be left behind in just a few breaths. Even now, she could just barely keep up.

They had made it over the hill, perhaps a few hundred paces from the cave, and already she could feel her chest beginning to burn. As she ran, Lily threw a quick glance behind her towards the shadows. They were gorging themselves on beasts large and small, wrapping around fur and hide as they bulged in gulping motions. They ate flesh and blood and even bone, leaving nothing behind as they stripped the lands of life.

Yet as she watched, she did not notice as a black mist crept out of her bag. It was cold to the touch, like ice against the skin, and she flinched when it struck her skin unexpectedly. She knew what it had come from, inside her bag. She wished that she could forget. She wished that she had forgotten.

Before she could even breathe, the black smoke wrapped itself around her, numbing her as it crept in through her mouth and nose. There was panic at first, but then it became nothing. There was only a pervasive cold, an utter nothing that filled her. She fell. She collapsed. She struck the dirt.

She dreamed.

She was lost in a fever dream, her lucid thoughts churning in a heated sea of emotion. Questions, faces, and past regrets, they all flashed before her in fleeting instants, melding into one another before disappearing back into the muddled dreamscape of her mind. She saw her dead master in front of her—or rather, only his pox-scarred face. His neck was cut open, throat bared to face the sky. She knew it, for it was her blade that had parted his flesh. Rot had set in already; the skin was old and wrinkled, pitted with scars that wept yellow and red. In places it had cracked, falling off with a texture like dead leaves. His eyes were bloody and ragged at the edges, tears of red streaming down his ruined face.

"Girl," he shouted, bloody spittle flying from his mouth. "You are cursed!" His face contorted, withered features twisted in fury. His voice was raspy, rattling where his throat had been cut. "I gave you life where there was death. I gave you fate where your string had been cut. You killed me for my efforts. Burn, you crow-cursed Witch!"

His eyes wept before closing. When they opened next, one was a bloody hole and the other replaced with the stone of black. Its surface was glossy, gleaming with an almost unnatural sheen. Black mist poured out instead of tears, blinding her in the fog until all around her was the darkness of the night. The darkness of that night. She remembered it, could never forget.

She wished she could forget. She remembered it all now, despite the haze that had clouded her mind then.

She had dreamed long that night—a dream of screams and glorious horror. There had been pain like molten fire that had driven all other thought from existence, and there had passed an eternity before she had realised that she was dreaming. There had been the dead, the tormented spirits that had wailed like banshees—cold as ice in the wind. They had whispered in pain, a pain that had pierced her like bed of a thousand knives. They had screamed, and she had woken.

She had woken, yet she was asleep.

Her eyes had opened, but her mind was not awake. What she could see, she did not see; yet, she had seen the black shard. She was walking towards it, its whispering cold drawing her closer and closer. The chorus of screams in her mind became nothing more than the wind, cool against her hair. It had whipped in her face and raked her skin like claws, but it was as kind and gentle as a lover. And she had walked forwards, towards that shard that was black as night.

Black as nothing. And she had seen it before her, And she had stretched out a hand, a single, pale, shivering hand. And she had just stroked its surface, smooth as glass.

And then she had woken. And yet she was asleep.

And the old man was before her, eyes wide in fear and betrayal. His throat jumped, his mouth worked, but no sound reached her ears. His eyes cried rivers, his fingers clawed desperately at her chest, but her eyes saw none of it, for she was asleep. Yet, she had seen the knife that was buried in his stomach, the steel that kissed his flesh. And she had seen hands—her hands—that had held the blade. And there had been blood, streaming onto the floor and painting the carpet crimson. And the man had begged, and the man had died.

But she saw none of it, for she was asleep. And then she woke. And then she had screamed.

For his one eye was gone, torn out of the socket. His tears had turned to blood, dried and cracked on his leathery skin. And in the other eye had been that shard, black as night, bottomless as nothing. It sat neatly in his skull as if it had been there all his life. And she had taken it out—cut it out with the same knife that she had found in his stomach. And she had found it smooth, polished, and as round as a pebble worn smooth by a river. And cold. Cold as ice, a cold that burned her to the touch.

And so she had killed the man, a payment for his gifts and a lesson for his weakness. She had killed him while she had slept, but she had killed him nonetheless. And so she burned him, or rather, she had tried. She had reached for the mahji inside her and found nothing, a hand grasping feebly at empty air. She had searched and scoured, but the mahji was gone. And the dead man had laughed at her.

"Foolish child." the corpse had rasped, black mist pouring out of the blood-filled mouth. "You'll not kill me so easily." His voice had been wet and gurgling, and streams of scarlet poured out of the wound in his stomach. "I take this from you." he had hissed, empty eyes staring deep into her. He sat up with unnatural rigidity, arms raised with skeletal fingers raking the air."I take this with me. I take your magic with me, thrall."

The girl had found his voice terribly troublesome, and so she had slit his throat then. And the mist had poured out of the gash like a storm, billowing out before filling the air with a terrible cold that froze the sweat on her arm and cracked her skin. And the old man had crumpled, returning back to his death. And he had stayed dead the second time, but she had taken no chances. So the sloane had burned him with candlefire, the flames streaking into the air in a funeral pyre that touched the heavens. Black ash mixed with black mist, scattering away on the wind. Then, with her senses returned at last, she had wept.

That was the night that Lily remembered, the night of half-dreams and black blood. She had killed the old man, yet his death had not been final. Twice, she had killed him—once by steel and once by fire. Now, once more, he tormented her from beyond his grave, his scarred face alight with white fire in her mind.

Again he burned, now in her dreams.

"I saved you! You were mine. YOU ARE MINE." he screeched as his face peeled off, the skin sloughing in chunks of charred black. His blood turned to black mist that billowed around him, wreathing his face until it smothered the flame. "MINE." he howled, and wind whipped in her dream. And his single eye, dark as a starless night, gazed deep into her, pulling her, until she too was screaming in fear and pain. Their voices mingled in a cacophony that crescendoed until she realized that she was aflame as well. The old man's face had fallen away and the inside was utterly hollow, an endless plume of black mist pouring out of where there was once flesh. The bone was stark white, an odd purity in contrast to the stone in his eye.

His skull shifted then, the black smoke pouring back inside and hardening. The fog became a shell, and the shell became skin. His bald head grew hair, thin and lanky, and his wrinkles grew softer against his face. He grew tanner, scars crisscrossing like needlework across his cheeks and forehead. He had morphed into the one of the Witch Hunters that had chased her out of Telavir, one of the silver-bladed men that saw themselves holy in their depravity. Only one thing stayed constant: one socket was empty, and the other held that black shard.

"Child of the Devil." His face jeered with laughter, mocking her. "Useless mongrel. Filthy whore. You flee like the rat you are." She was running then, in her dream, fleeing in pain. They were chasing, on horseback and foot. They were laughing, their voices echoing in the wind.

"You will be found." A hot lance of pain pierced her right leg, and she crumpled to the ground in cold agony. There had been hot pain when it had happened in life, but in this dream she only felt the chilling ice that numbed her limbs.

"You will be taken." The hard bite of steel found its way inside her stomach, twisting her guts and sending blood bubbling into her throat.

"You will be used." Their laughter swarmed in her ears, growing thick as a storm about her head. There was pain, a hot pain this time that burned fierce against the cold in her body. They took her—raped her without care for the blood on her thighs or the screams that were ripped from her throat. She cried tears that streaked down her cheeks in memory of a sweet sister from days long past, but all she could hear were their moans and shouts. Her face was pressed into the dirt, jagged stones digging into her skin like knives. The blood clouded her vision and black covered her eyes.

"And you will be killed." She felt the rage bursting forth from deep within her, wild power gathering from the memory. They were a single face once more, a single Hunter with the eye of night. She was screaming, her throat ragged and raw, but she paid no heed. She burned him in her dream, just as she had burned them, and his sweet screams were just as she had remembered.

His face burst into white flame once more, a mirror image of the old man's. He too was crying out in agony as the fire swallowed him whole in hunger. Skin was charred black, crackling and cracking to reveal burnt muscle and scorched bone. The fire surged alongside his screeching howls, the heat pleasantly warm against her skin as it died down. Blackened ashes and charred bone was all that was left of the face. His screams morphed into laughter, high piercing shrieks that stabbed her chest. Slowly, the ruins of the face crumbled to dust, blowing away in the wind.

All but that black shard.

It was still there, black fog drifting off its surface. She was filled suddenly with the feeling that it was watching her. The laughter slowed and deepened as it filled her head, shaking her to her bones. She felt eyes burning into her, and when she looked in the shard she saw nothing but a bottomless black. And she saw her own face, smiling back at her from the surface that the shard did not have. And the face laughed when she did now, and her face spoke when she did not. It was a dry voice that spoke to her—from her—resonating with power beyond comprehension.

It was a deep voice, same as the laughter that chilled her heart. It was a hard voice, sharp as a whip, same as the Hunters that had raped her in the fields. It was a soft voice, same as the master that she had killed in her dreams. It was a familiar voice, same as her own.

It was a thousand voices, spanning an eternity.

"Child. You cannot hide. Your demons will tear you apart."