I begin to scream long before she begins hurting me, before my life truly gets worse, worse than it’s ever been, and there is nothing but blood left in that room of nightmares.
My body shudders as I snap back to the present. My eyes drift away from the blood pouring from Marcus’s mouth, and the memory goes with it. Hours have passed since we got trapped in here. Ziven helped Marcus onto the couch in the one room that we have. It’s a small, cozy room with three couches and an enormous fireplace. There are some plates of food on a side cabinet and a jug of water we can refill in the sink in the bathroom we have. There’s nothing else in this short corridor area, and we can’t leave. Marcus looks worse, and I wish there was something anyone could do for him. I head to the bathroom, getting some cloths and soaking them in cold water before coming back. Ziven’s warning echoes to me from his spot near the fireplace. “You shouldn’t go near him.”
I ignore Ziven and lay the towels on Marcus’s head and his chest, and he moans in either pain or comfort, I’m not sure. “If I’m going to get sick, I’m already going to be sick at this point. He deserves to be looked after, and I don’t think your nursing skills are up to par.”
Ziven frowns at me, and I don’t even need to look to know he is. I can hear it in his voice. “Why would you look after him? You don’t know him.”
I don’t know how to answer that. I would help him even if I knew he was a monster when he was in this state. “Why are you not in danger of getting sick? How are you immune?” Ziven doesn’t bother to answer me. “Daegan told me this affects everyone here, so why not you?”
“Because I caught it before, when I was a baby. So did my twin, but only one of us survived.” His answer is clipped, and I regret asking him.
“I’m sorry. I never had a sibling, let alone a twin. I couldn’t imagine how hard that must have been.”
“I was a baby. I do not remember.” His answer isn’t as cold as usual. I take it as progress. Ziven sits on the floor near the couch, and I sit down next to him. He glares at me for a moment, but eventually, he looks away. Marcus is fast asleep in some kind of fever, and I really don’t think there’s anything we can do for him except be here. Ziven moves his collar down and shows me his shoulder where the scar I’ve seen before is. This close, I can actually see it is scaled. “Considering you’ll probably die, I’ll tell you. This is what it looks like to survive. It’s rare, but sometimes children do live. No one really understands why that is.”
I pick up a strand of my hair, messing with it. “Where did it come from? I’ve never heard of it outside of here, and I’m pretty sure if there was a sickness this extreme, it would have come up at some point.”
“We do not know. It wasn’t listed in any of our ancestors’ books, notes, or stories. Mazzis has looked and had people search, but there is nothing.” He turns his gaze on me. “It started infecting us over a hundred years ago, and there isn’t a fae in here that hasn’t lost someone to it. Except you.” He looks up. “We’ve lost a lot of people, but my dynasty was hit the hardest. There are currently twenty-seven of us left, but there used to be well over three hundred.”
Deities above… “I’m sorry, Ziven. Hettie…”
“Hettie spends far too much time with you when I’ve told her not to.” His growl makes me laugh.
He blinks at me in surprise. “I get the impression Hettie doesn’t do anything that she’s told, and she gets that from you.” After a moment, I ask, “What happened to her mother?”
I really don’t expect Ziven to tell me, but maybe he is feeling sorry for me because I might die so it doesn’t matter what he tells me at this point. “She’s my niece, my sister’s only daughter.” He pauses. “She caught this when Hettie was one. There was nothing any of us could do but watch her die, and I was left with a one-year-old, who is the heir to the Moon Dynasty. If anything happens to me, with my siblings gone…Hettie is all the family I have left. I’d do anything to protect her.”
“She loves you, looks up to you,” I admit. “When she sneaks in to speak to me, she makes that very clear. I’m sure your sister is proud of you both.”
Ziven shakes his head. “She would hate me if she could see me now, Storm. You don’t know anything.”
We sit in pure silence for a long time, and I don’t know what he means by that—I have the feeling I shouldn’t want to find out. After a while, Ziven checks on Marcus, and I pour myself a drink of water, watching as the scary Moon Dynasty king tucks a blanket around one of his people and gently tells him he will survive this. He lies to him to give him hope. When he straightens and Marcus has once again fallen asleep, I hate the broken look in his eyes. “You know, if I catch it and die, at least you can be finally happy that your traitorous enemy is dead without you even needing to lift a finger.”
Ziven crosses his thick arms. “What makes you think that dying is going to make me happy, Storm?” He glowers with his silver eyes as a flush crawls up my neck. “Even dead, you would haunt me.”
“I would,” I agree with a touch of a smile. Marcus starts coughing up blood, and we both look right at him. Whatever moment that was is gone. Ziven uses the cloth to clean him up, and I sit on the edge of the couch, right next to him, and pull Marcus’s hand into mine. He opens his eyes for a moment, looking up at Ziven, who rests his hand on his shoulder. “Rest. You’re safe.”
“Look after her.” His voice is croaky but easy enough to understand. “Vow it.”
“I vowed to care for my people when I took the crown. I will care for her always,” Ziven firmly answers. “Be with the deities, warrior of the Moon Dynasty. May the dragons and kings welcome you to their hallowed gates.”
He nods once before his eyes slowly shut. I don’t know who she is that Marcus wants protecting, but I know Ziven will keep his vow because it’s Marcus’s last words. The moment he’s dead, I feel it like the embrace of a cold fog. His heart has stopped and the gold scales softly fade on his skin until they are no longer glittering gold, but drained into a grey colour, almost matching Ziven’s scars. Ziven pulls the blanket over his face, covering him up. “Move away.” The lack of anything in his voice makes me immediately move away.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper when I’m a few steps back. My eyes widen as he holds his hand over Marcus, and his whole body starts burning in silver flames. The silver fire is mesmerising to look at as it completely engulfs the body in seconds. Within a minute, there’s nothing but ash on the sofa, on the burnt sofa cushions, and the fire instantly disappears. It didn’t even make smoke. Ziven lifts the entire sofa with one hand and flings it in the air, slamming it against the wall as he roars. “Fuck!” He stops by the fireplace, places his hands on that mantelpiece, his muscles straining as he looks down into the burning fire.
“Ziven.” I don’t move closer. I know what men are like when they get angry, and I don’t want to risk getting hurt. My hands shake and I clamp them to my thighs to stop it.
“Get comfy. We cannot leave for five days.” He doesn’t look back.
“What do you mean, five days? That would just be right before the test.”
“You and I are contagious,” he carefully answers, but there is such a lethal undertone that I can’t ignore. “Think of Hettie dying like that if it makes you feel better about staying in here with me. I think of all the people stuck in this mansion who could get sick and die. Neither of us can leave until the five days are up. That’s if you don’t die before then too and end up like him.” His voice is quiet. “Everyone fucking dies on me.”
My heart cracks in half, and for a moment, I actually feel sorry for him. I glance at the sofa, broken in half now by the wall, Marcus’s ashes spread all across it. If we stay in this room, we are both going to do nothing but annoy each other. “Why don’t we train? Out there in the corridor?”
I get the feeling he needs to get out of this room just as much as I do. He looks over his shoulder. “I thought you hated training, Storm.”
“I’ve grown to like it,” I admit. “I even train on the days I’m not here. My body feels stronger than it ever has before, and I want that to continue.”
“I’ll train you on one condition,” he murmurs, moving away from the fireplace.
I clear my throat. “What?”
“Tell me something true about yourself.” He watches me closely. “And I will know if you’re lying to me.”
“Do you have Etena’s powers?” I joke, but he doesn’t laugh. “Fine. Like what?”
“How many lovers have you had?” he asks. I’m surprised by his question.
I can’t look at him as I answer, so I go to the cabinet by the door, searching the drawers until I find a hair tie and pull my hair up. “My master, the second I had, was the only lover I had. I wouldn’t count him as a lover when it wasn’t my choice and I was owned by him.” When I lift my eyes, I can’t read Ziven’s expression. “You have your answer. Train me.”
“Alright, Storm.” He tugs off his cloak and shoes, meeting me in the corridor. The silver light of the walls he has made makes it bright, and I wait for him to tell me what to do. “Show me what you learnt from reading those books.” He tilts his head. “And not the romance books Daegan gives you.”
“How do you know about those?”
His counter is immediate and concerning. “I know about everything.” He spreads his arms out. “Stop delaying and attack.”
“Fine,” I mutter. I go to attack him in the way that I read about in the books, but he easily grabs me, turning me around and pinning me against the wall. His entire body presses into mine, and he’s holding my arm bent backwards against the middle of my back. He leans into my shoulder. I don’t know what it is about this position or him holding me like this, but my body feels like it’s on fire, completely and utterly alive under his grip. I feel like I’m burning everywhere he touches me. “Get out of this hold. I know you read about how to do it.”
