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Content Warning: This chapter is clear, which is a nice change. But don’t worry, things get worse.
Chapter 8
When it wakes again, everything hurts.
It lies still, eyes closed, taking stock. Its back is bruised and abraded where it slammed against the bookcase, its stomach the same but from the tentacle. Two lumps decorate its skull: one from the Master of Death’s stick and the other from when it hit the wall. It inhales a slow breath, smells decay and smoke and spilled blood. It hears no movement, no breathing except its own. The only sounds are birds in the ruined roof, and the Dirarch’s ghost’s faint wails.
Which means House Talique no longer believes it killed their Dirarch. Otherwise, it would have woken in their basement, to be tortured for as long as they can manage before it dies. It sighs in relief and passes out.
It opens its eyes the second time it wakes and squints in the morning light. With slow, pained movements, it pushes up to its hands and knees. Its arms and legs work. They sting, though, in the way that only fresh scrapes do. It breathes deep, and while its sides ache, nothing clicks or stabs into it, so no broken ribs. It touches its side and finds blood on its fingers. Seven abrasions on its limbs. Three large ones on its body.
It could have been much worse.
It crawls forward until it finds the wall and walks its hands up the burnt stone. It stands upright and waits for dizziness and nausea, but neither comes. That means no concussion, most likely. Surprising, given how long it was unconscious. It tries moving, and manages a slow, limping imitation of a walk. More blood splatters the floor than it remembers, and it wonders who else died after Felleen. Keeping a hand on the wall for balance, it circles the room and staggers through the hallway and down the kitchen stairs like a broken octogenarian.
Its first stop is the tin of cookies. The raisin’s sweetness brings its appetite roaring to life—it hasn’t eaten since the day before. It fills the bucket at the pump and strips. Washing the abrasions hurts terribly, and worse, it knows that water alone isn’t going to be enough.
It leaves its clothes on the floor beside the other set and takes the cookie tin with it. It stumble-walks to the training room below and lights all the lamps. Darkness is a friend to infection, and it can’t allow itself to become sick. It pulls a large box out from under the workbench and winces in anticipation. The box holds cloths, bandages, curved needles, thread, and brown bottles of a wound cleanser. It opens a bottle, pours the sharp-smelling liquid onto a clean cloth, and cleans its scrapes. Each touch stings so sharp it has to suck in its breath and hold it to keep from screaming.
It promises itself it can eat the rest of the cookies once it’s done and keeps going.
After it bandages the last scrape, it stumbles to its chest. It has one more clean servant’s outfit, and another for night-work. The servant’s clothes aren’t as conspicuous, and the kilt and loose shirt are less likely to rub against the abrasions and bruises. It kneels on the rug to pull them out, and exhaustion takes it again.
I need to get dressed, it tells itself, but it leans back instead. Just a moment’s rest. Then I’ll do it.
It wakes in darkness with its brand burning hot. It stifles its yell and rolls to its feet. The movement breaks open a dozen stinging scabs. It aches deep in its bruised flesh, and its overworked limbs. It wonders how long it slept. The tallow lamps burn for six hours, if they’re full, but it can’t remember when it last filled them, so maybe it hadn’t slept too long.
The brand quiets, but still burns too hot to ignore completely. It finds the servant’s clothes by touch, struggles into them and ties up the sandals. When it finishes, it goes takes a dose from box of clohalc, stuffs it in its mouth, and chases it with a cookie. Three more doses go in its purse—enough to keep it awake for a full day and night. It keeps the tin of cookies in its hand and fetches another string of twenty sinet from the chests.
The drug kicks in. Its body doesn’t hurt anymore and its senses are almost as sharp as they were before the chases and violence and exhaustion. It collects its daggers from the kitchen floor and steps into the yard. Sunlight and warmth touch its skin, and the overgrown garden’s smell fills its nose. A glance up shows the sun hasn’t moved much further along in the sky. It eats another cookie, takes a third without thinking, and leans against the doorway to think.
The—creature? monster? thing?—that killed Felleen wasn’t attacking at random. If the creature was hungry, there were far easier targets than someone in the middle of a fight. Instead, the monster went after the Heir to House Talique. So why? For that matter, why Talint or the other Dirarchs? The thing had to have a reason to kill them.
Its hand goes into the cookie tin once more and finds it empty. With a sigh, it puts the tin inside the doorway. Its stomach still feels hollow, but it has to leave. The creature isn’t of this world, so it needs speak to someone with unworldly knowledge.
When it slips through the side gate, the crowd on the streets surprises it. Usually, no one dares defy a Council order, but many people were ignoring the forty-eight-hour curfew. It joins the crowds and walks to the public dock and hires a boatman to take it to the delta islands. It lands near House Tishia, and with brisk strides, heads for the small, green church. As it expects, Silagh Lacinth sits outside the door, calling greetings to passers-by. It waits until the boardwalk clears to greet her. The Silagh smiles and says, “Welcome, servant of House Kilcharni. What brings you back here?”
“I needed to speak with you,” it says. It nods toward the crowd. “Isn’t the church enforcing the curfew?”
Lacinth frowns. “The curfew lifted this morning.”
It stares, confused. “No. It was supposed to . . .”
When it collapsed on its rug, it hadn’t napped. It slept. I’ve lost a day.
“Sit before you fall,” the Silagh says, which makes it wonder how stunned it looks. It shakes its head and doesn’t move. Lacinth scans it up and down, taking in the bandages and the way it holds its body and asks, “Are you hurt?”
“Not badly,” which is almost true.
“Have you your eaten?”
“Yes,” it says, not mentioning that it was only cookies. Before she can ask it anymore questions, it blurts, “If I want to learn about a monster, where should I go?”
If Silagh Lacinth is surprised, she doesn’t show it. She asks, “What does this monster look like?”
“Taller than a man, a column-shaped body, twelve spiked tentacles and a round bump with seven horns instead of a head. Oozes liquid that smells of acid and smoke.”
“You’re describing a demon,” Lacinth says. “Such things do not walk the earth without being summoned.”
“Then someone summoned it,” it says. “Because it killed Talint.”
Lacinth’s eyebrows rise high on her forehead. “You said you didn’t know what killed him.”
“Not then,” it explains. “It killed Felleen of House Talique the same way as Talint, so it had to be the same creature.”
The Silagh stares, then asks. “Did you hit your head?”
“Yes, Silagh,” it manages a smile. “But that was after the demon killed Felleen.”
Lacinth opens her mouth, closes it, frowns, and looks away. She breathes deep, and when she turns back to it, her face is empty of emotion. In a very calm voice, Lacinth asks, “Why were you present when Felleen died?”
“He was in our manor,” it says. “He thought House Kilcharni killed his father, and so came hunting. But the demon killed him.”
“No one has summoned a demon it in two hundred years. Most people doubt they exist.” Lacinth thinks for a moment. “Go to the university. Learning House Martyr Pelinol teaches church history, including mythology and demonology.”
“Did you study there?” it asks, hoping it won’t need to visit the place.
She smiles. “I became a Silagh the old-fashioned way, training under the one before me. I suspect they didn’t take this church from me because no one else wants to minister to the islands’ prostitutes.”
“I see.”
“You should rest,” Lacinth says. “You can go after the monster tomorrow.”
“I can’t,” it says, “Farewell, Silagh.”
She gestures the God’s seven-sided sign at him. “The God bless you and watch you, servant.”
They won’t. “Thank you, Silagh.”
It heads down the boardwalk, wondering how it’s going to talk to anyone at the university. If it tells the professors, they will surely demand proof. They might even go to the other houses seeking an explanation. It can only imagine what the Masters of Death will do to it. It could try to break into a library, but which one? The university had a dozen. It could take days to find the one it needed and then it needed to find the right book.
The burning in its chest tells it that its curse will not wait that long. It needs to speak to someone who can help it, and that means students. It sighs, and heads toward another island, where it knows a shop that sells second-hand clothing.
It is time to become Metilia again.
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