SONG of EMBER

17

BOOK OF ECHOES

PART II

🙜

The echoes of his voice quivered in the chamber, the word paynes reverberating again and again. And then Ember realized with a start that the sonants were changing.

“Paynes… paynes… paynes… plagues… a thousand… plagues defile thy soul… foul traitor… and devour thee whole!”

The vile words clamored about the atrium, gaining impetus as they were flung from pillar to pillar. It was Ember’s voice, but Something Else was shaping it.

Ky thrust her hands over her webbed ears and collapsed to one knee, gazing at the wall with empty eyes. Ember turned frantically to the book, slamming his hand on the pages with a breathless anger, but the words continued to crawl along beneath his fingertips and his own rogue voice continued to roll out the words in a blithe undertone.

“For though thine own black words denied the fate which moans through waters wide, hereyn ye stand bifore thy fault, as writ withyn this ancient vault. Snail-skin, beware thy past and reckon with thine murderous deeds. Thou lyest to the friend thou swore were’t thicker than the water weeds. Blood for blood of brethren spilled we warn thee nowe he may decide, and in this act of ‘venging flesh wolde be forever justified.”

When he glanced down at Ky, two red streaks trailed from her lower eyelids to a fingers-breadth above her jawline, like crimson tear-trails. But they weren’t tears; they were wounds. Dark, thick blood dripped to the floor.

Ember pounded his fist on the book until he bruised his own hand, but it had no effect on this adversary. He dared not approach Ky—if magic had hold of her, he didn’t know what further harm might be done by interfering.

“Shut up!” he shouted, scrabbling at the pages. “That’s my voice, and you can’t have it!”

“So we ask thee: Friend or Foe? Only Truth and Knowledge know…”

The echo slowly faded away, disappearing down the hall, and Ky collapsed in a heap on the floor. She shuddered, cupping her hands to her face. Blood dripped between her fingers and she released a muffled wail that shook him to the core—body and soul.

Though the echoes were no more, the words which had been recited still hung thick in the air like a poisonous fog, whispering in Ember’s mind. Instead of going to her at once, he remained standing near the pedestal, observing her with mingled suspicion and fear.

The sirena trembled like a leaf, thin muscles taut beneath her jerkin as she stared down at the blood upon her fingertips. Crumpled. Submissive. It crushed his heart to see it—and moreover to know that he had begun to read those foul words—but the proclamations of the book filled him with a black, oozing dread.

“Ky?” he whispered.

Her only response was a faint whimper.

Small and tremulous.

She had never made such a sound before, and she did not look up.

Sholde thee partake of human flesh and sup the blood of human veyns…

Ember blinked down at the ruddy pool on the floor, numb with shock. He stepped down from the pedestal, his leather shoes silent on the stone, and got down on one knee beside Ky’s shaking form. He held a hand over her shoulder.

“I’m sorry…” He trailed off awkwardly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know… I wouldn’t have…”

The magic seemed to have released her from its thrall, and he was now anxious to leave.

“Please look at me, Ky,” he begged, suddenly desperate. “Ky, look at me? I’m sorry!”

Her eyes flicked up to meet his, round and dark.

Something hazy swirled within them.

Something different; something a little softer than before.

“The book lied, didn’t it?” he whispered. “You’re not like them…”

Them.

He remembered the skull with the pointed teeth.

Remembered the way she had held it in her hands.

Ky continued to gaze into his eyes, as silent as the cadavers they had passed by in the hall outside. The words he had read came back to him: For within our sacred halls no man may tell a lie. There was something Ky was hiding from him; something she had been hiding since they spoke to the mountain’s door—no, further back.

Since their first encounter in the cabin.

Perhaps if he pressured her now, the magic would force her to say it.

It was a twisted inspiration, but what choice did he have?

“Are you?”

Ember hesitated for one moment, wary of her seductive presence, and then gently grasped her shoulder, shaking her a little. She swayed in his grasp like a river reed, but her pale lips tightened stubbornly.

“Why did you really bring me here, Ky?”

Her eyes darted here and there—everywhere except his face.

Ember gritted his teeth, tasting dust. “It wasn’t just to read those runes, was it?”

He leaned forward, nose-to-nose with her, closer than he had dared before.

At last she returned his stare, lower lip quivering once before pulling thin. Her skin felt cool and slippery against his, her eyes dark, soulless. They were so close he could see the two small lumps of her fangs hiding behind her lips, every slimy shimmer of her skin, every facet of her blackish-green irises, every gleam of her pupils—and he was certain she could hear his heart thudding in his chest.

A drop of warm blood landed on his forearm…

It smelled sweet, and sickened him.

“You,” he muttered, his breath stirring the black locks of hair that hung down over her forehead. A few strands stuck to the slivered gashes. Blurry tears filled his eyes, but when he blinked them away she was still staring back at him as cold as ever.

The emotion which crept over him was not sorrow.

Wrath, hot and sticky, muddled his mind. “You did lie to me, didn’t you?”

He rubbed his thumb across her perpetually damp shoulder.

Snail-skin.

“I should have known better—Maker’s Breath, I’m such a fool. Who was it that you ate?” The words began to lilt into an unfamiliar mirth, as if they no longer belonged to him. He felt detached from his own voice after listening to the echoes wander on without him. “My sister? My father?”

Her silence was maddening.

He wanted her to move. To speak. To confess.

But she refused, her eyes shining like water.

“Go ahead,” he panted, yanking his spear over his head. He gripped it tightly, stricken, the tip of it aimed at the sirena’s heart. “Refute it. Tell me that was never your plan! Or kill me and eat me. What’s stopping you now?”

Her eyelids twitched, nostrils flared.

Why didn’t she strike out?

Or flee?

Leave her, Ember. Leave her. She’ll bring you to ruin, one way or another.

He could not tell if those words were his own inner thoughts or another wayward echo… but he believed them. It had always been the truth—he had only been too blinded by her superficial charms to see her for what she really was.

“I trusted you,” he tried.

Nothing.

Fear gripped him, threatening to turn the contents of his stomach inside-out. Without her, he would be adrift in a sea of magic, looking for an exit which may not even exist.

Go, Ember, the echoes whispered, pressing against him urgently. Go…

He released his grip on her bare shoulder and crumpled his hand into a fist again. They stared at one another in silence. He understood now. Her presence was a poison, an addiction which kept him in thrall—even still.

And then he stood to leave.

Ky finally stirred, her delicate ears flickering slightly. The bat-like membranes folded inward with a shiver, half-hidden in her hair.

Ember flicked her blood from his arm.

It smeared.

She trembled beneath the archway, long limbs pressed against her body. Ungainly, grotesque, and startlingly beautiful. He wanted to say that he hoped he would never see her again, but his tongue froze to his teeth and he could not speak even a whisper. She was the only familiar thing he had left in this place—

You’re a fool, Ember, came the echoes. Get away while you can…

The book shut with a thump and the light went out.

Ember jumped in the sudden darkness, but the sirena remained a slumped shadow near the entrance. He took several steps backwards into the hall, where the veins of living magic far above illuminated the cavern just faintly enough to see the great expanse stretching out before him.

Ky Veli huddled against the wall, her head bowed to her chest. Another drop fell from her cheek to her hands.

It might have been a tear but for the darkness of the liquid.

Ember hardened his heart, turned his back, and strode swiftly down the hall to the left, glancing over his shoulder to be sure she was not following. He was afraid, stripped of his wits, fearing her and loathing her at once. The echoes rolled endlessly in his mind, a dire warning.

She never moved.

And he left her there, alone with her blood and the book.