A Monster Inside Read online

  A part of him whispered, Let the boy go. Let the boy go. He glanced down at the princeling. Wide eyes and trembling lips peered back at him. I can’t do it. I rather die.

  Clutching the boy until his fingers ached, Erik forced himself to hold on, forced the images back. He refused to listen to the whispered thoughts in his head. Instead, he concentrated everything he had on his sense of self, on methodically building a wall to stop the endless processions of phantom pictures that crashed into his mind.

  . . . from its vantage point . . .world grew smaller. . . from the empty blackness of outer space. . . once green planet. . . skies gray with ash. . . turned away. . . lava covered ball was its past. . .

  He drifted on a tide of blood and hunger and tried to find purchase, raging against his unraveling. But it was useless. He sank down deeper into the ocean that he now understood to be the Celestial Dragon’s consciousness.

  . . . quiet, too quiet. . . dark went on forever pregnant with a profound stillness. . . solar wind inflated its wings, turning them into light sails. . . it watched the stars and chose one it admired. . . endless night filled with misery and anguish. . . the Hunger plagued its complex trajectory through space. . .

  A darkness weighed on him, twisting his thoughts. The beast has existed for eons and has traveled the vast emptiness between stars. What am I compared to that? I’m just a candle trying to stay lit while floating in the middle of the Howling Sea. Cold seeped into his limbs. And his heartbeat slowed. He fantasized about letting go, about sinking beneath the Celestial Dragon’s unfathomable depths.

  The ocean of otherness rippled with anticipation.

  No. Erik’s closing eyelids snapped back open. He would not let that happen. He decided to fight! But he had no weapons, all he had were his memories. The entirety of his life wheeled before him. Half-forgotten conversations and moments trapped in amber flickered past.

  Mother, forgive me.

  For a second, the water seemed to pull back from him as if his skin burned and it was living tissue. Erik grinned. That’s it! He closed his eyes and concentrated on the image of his mother, on his cheek pressed against her chest, on the sound of her heartbeat. When he opened his eyes, the ocean shook with a booming lub-dub-LUB-dub resonance. The echoing churned the water like the fury of a storm; Erik pulsed in tune with it. Love filled him with warmth until he floated upwards. A spot of brightness the size of a golden coin grew above him the higher he climbed.

  The ocean roared, guttural and cutting. A whirlpool formed beneath Erik, drawing him in, pulling him back down, ripping the memory in his mind to shreds. He came to a halt, and the light above dimmed, dwindling into almost nothing.

  He closed his eyes and reformed the memory. The image came slower this time. He knew the little boy’s hatred was holding it back. If he wanted to survive, he would have to let him go. I can’t do it. Let him go. I don’t want to. Mother, there has to be another way. He blocked out the boy’s whimpers, and opened his hand one finger at a time. Hot tears leaked out of his eyes, and he grimaced, unable to . . . force himself to . . . open his last finger. It had to be done, but he could not do it, even if the price were his continued existence. He would die for this child and the whole world would pay.

  The hint of light above faded, and Erik stared down at his younger self. “I won’t abandon you.” Bubbles escaped his mouth as well as sound.

  Water entered Erik in waves, viler than a city’s sewer, powerful enough to overturn ships. He gagged and thrashed, but refused to let go. His insides burned. His insides. . . .

  The Celestial Dragon howled, not in triumph. In frustration. It pounded at Erik, tore desperately at him in its watery form, yet love kept it at bay. Not love for Erik’s mother, but love for the boy. They hung in perfect balance, Erik and the beast, until the ocean boiled into steam, until light became all-consuming.

  Chapter 3

  Erik awoke lying on the cold stone of a man-sized altar, his heart pounding. He squinted, and winced partly to protect his eyes from the sudden brightness, but mostly to block out the smiling countenance of the Eternal Father that stared down at him from the center of a once-bright mural. He had always hated the image of the Lord of the Hosts, and it had nothing to do with the blood-stained cloth tied around the god’s eyes. It was the smile, always depicted much too wide, as if the Eternal Father was laughing at him. Idly he wondered whether artists purposefully tried to make all images of the Eternal Father as disconcerting as possible. At least the mural kept him from thinking about what he had just experienced, if only for a moment.

  I know you’re there. I can sense you inside me, hiding, watching through my eyes. The thing in his mind flashed away like quicksilver when he tried to reach for it, but it was there. He knew it was there.

  Absentmindedly, Erik fingered the hilt of the longsword resting on his chest, recognizing it as his own by the way the Tár Guðs blade resonated at the edge of his perception. Something had happened to him, something he could not explain, yet he was not going to unravel the mystery at this moment.

  He scrambled upright, longsword tumbling onto the stone floor, and stared in dismay at the painted walls of the Shrine of the Eternal Father. The chamber was a hollowed-out hole in the side of the Rin Mountains, illuminated by the light of a hundred candles. Fine tendrils of smoke pooled and swirled like clouds near the ceiling, though no breath of a breeze entered through the sheet of white paper blocking the doorway.

  A gasp drew Erik’s attention to a serving woman standing beside a table with a red vase clutched between her hands. On her forehead, inscribed with black soot was the Tree of Life, a leafless oak tree bound by a circle. A symbol of death and rebirth. Part of the ritual of mourning. She moved impossibly slow, dark pupils widening, muscles under her face stretching and flexing while the vase slipped from her fingers, falling with a sluggishness that seemed to defy logic. He could smell the pollen on her hands from the flowers she had been arranging. He could almost taste the sweetness of her flesh. It made him hunger. It made him. . . .

  Erik blinked and time lurched back into its normal rhythm. A shrill shriek echoed through the shrine as the vase crashed to the floor, shattering into a dozen pieces. A second later, the serving woman dashed out of the chamber, tearing a person-sized hole into the paper covering the doorway. The wind whistled into the shrine through the new opening, rippling Erik’s blue robe, and the red sash tied around his waist.

  Erik hopped off of the altar. He felt . . . different. His five senses were amplified somehow, and there was an emanation of horrible vitality trapped inside him. It made him feel powerful in a way he had not felt before. He closed and opened his hand. His whole body buzzed as if a swarm of butterflies whirled beneath his skin.

  What did you do to me?

  Yet again there was no response, nor did he expect there to be. But he sensed an air of excitement radiating off the thing that lurked within his mind, pulsing in chorus with the buzzing sensation. The feeling grew until Erik feared he might shatter like glass. He groaned.

  Mouth opening in shock, Erik watched his skin unfold into red petals and fleshy tendrils that latched onto his robe and sandals, drawing them inward. The garments disappeared, the buzzing ceased, and the intricate puzzle of flesh returned to normal, as if it had all been a figment of his imagination. If not for the icy wind blowing across his naked body, he would have believed just that.

  A growl roared through Erik’s skull like rolling thunder. Not from him, but from the beast that now shared his mind. The Celestial Dragon. It had to be that, for what else could it be? The monster had eaten him, of that he was certain, but somehow he had consumed it instead. The Devourer of Worlds had been defeated by a mortal man. He would start laughing if he did not fear he would not be able to stop ever again. Madness! This is madness!

  Heavy footsteps drew near. Four soldiers rushed into the shrine, dressed in blue surcoats—etched with the symbol of the Royal House of Ito—over plate-and-mail armor. They froze, iron-tipped spears gripped in their hands, longswords sheathed at their sides. Not a murmur came from them as their eyes drifted downwards.

  With a start, Erik remembered his own nakedness. For a moment, embarrassment surged through him before breaking apart under an onslaught of foreign pride; his blood seethed and bubbled with a sickening sense of smugness. It was only natural for these tiny flesh-things to stand in awe and terror in his presence. Their fear bred a need, a hunger.

  No! Erik shivered, feeling violated. He clenched his teeth and balled his hands into fists. This body belongs to me! Do you understand? The only reply came as a distant pang of desire.

  “Turn around!” he barked.

  The soldiers moved as one and spun around, coming to a stop with the butts of their spears slamming onto the stone. For a handful of seconds, the metallic din of rustled plate-and-mail armor filled the shrine.

  Erik jerked around, running a hand through his hair, doing his best to put thoughts of the beast out of his mind. One problem at a time. First, he had to figure out how to bring back his clothing. He concentrated on himself and envisioned the blue robe he had worn, remembering the feel of its soft silk against his skin. A burning sensation spread across his body as if ten thousand ants poked and prodded him from within, then his skin oozed, changing until it had transformed into the robe. The garment looked no different, yet it yielded strangely to his touch, almost like it was part of him.

  Viscount Baldur, a solid, gray-haired man, pushed past the soldiers into the shrine. Despite his old age, there was an air of danger in his brown eyes, and gracefulness in the way he carried himself. Adorned in a dark robe with the Tree of Life drawn on his forehead, he was appropriately attired for the mourning period after the death of a prince.

  Erik turned to regard the Viscount’s large pupils. According to the information he had received before setting out for Hjörtur, Baldur had a perverse fascination with little boys. Erik had witnessed nothing that gave weight to the rumors, but that along with the fact that the Viscount had supported the wrong claimant for the throne—one of Erik’s now deceased uncles—had led to him being stationed kilometers away from civilization.

  “How?” Baldur asked. His hand drifted toward the longsword at his waist. “You were dead. I’m sure of it.” A hard edge crept into his voice. A dangerous edge.

  Erik took a slow breath. If handled wrong this could spell disaster. For himself. For his plans. “What are members of my family called?” From his mother, Erik had learned renunciation of excess and acceptance of personal sacrifice, but from his father, he had learned strategy and the act of subjugating others to his will. “What is the moniker of the Royal House of Ito?”

  Baldur’s shoulders sagged and he stared at Erik quizzically. “The Undying.” A whisper that seemed to echo like a shout in the small confines of the shrine.

  Erik nodded and fought the urge to smile. None of this was about the Viscount, it was about the soldiers and everyone they knew. If he did not implant them with the seeds of a story already rooted in myth and legend, then their own tales of today would grow wilder with every retelling. None of it to his benefit. “Has my father been informed about what happened?”

  “No,” Baldur said. “I was just penning him a letter when—”

  “Good.” Erik bent to pick up his longsword off the floor. He hid the shaking of his hand behind the act of securing the weapon on his sash. “The other members of my hunting party, were—are there any other survivors?”

  Baldur lowered his eyes. “I’m afraid you’re the only one, my Prince.”

  Erik bowed his head and rubbed at the back of his neck. What the warriors had seen would have been impossible to explain away. Much better that they were all dead. For him. For his plans. “I didn't know them all well,” he said, “but they were good fellows. May the Eternal Father ease their journey along the Great Cycle.”

  “Well said, my Prince.” Baldur nodded, then continued in a different tone. “Can you tell me what happened in the forest?”

  Erik blinked, faking a look of devastation indivisible from the real thing. “I’d rather not speak on it.” His voice quivered. “Not yet . . . I . . . I. . . .” He staggered toward the door.

  “There’s something else.”

  Erik spun around. “What is it?”

  “It’s about Asbjörn. He thought you were dead. We all did.”

  “What did he do?” Erik’s hand tightened on the hilt of his longsword. A hundred dreadful possibilities flashed through his head, each worse than the last before he stilled them all with a thought.

  “He tried to kill himself, or so it seems,” Baldur began and continued by telling Erik the story of what happened in the forest. “Only Asbjörn has been severely injured.”

  Erik took a deep breath. His face was a block of stone for all it revealed, but inside he burned. “Where is he now?” he asked, surprised at how soft his voice sounded.

  “His chamber.”

  Erik exited the shrine without another word, stepping onto a gallery that overlooked the citadel. The sprawling edifice of blacked stone below him was as welcoming as a blade darkened by blood. It was as though the builders had imbued the horror of the deepest night into the bricks and the stones. The sight of it scratched at the mind, like the knowledge that most of it remained hidden, secreted away in underground rooms and tunnels, much of which had gone unexplored for centuries. Smoke drifted up from chimneys fed by a hundred different fires, all blending together, carried southward past the inner and outer walls, down into the forest of the Northern Reaches.

  Erik turned from the view and walked toward the broad stairway that connected the shrine to the rest of Hjörtur. Without being asked, the soldiers fell in around him, acting as an honor guard. Shrouded in silence, he made the long climb down, lost in thought. Over the last three months, he had come to love the citadel, but soon his exile would be coming to an end. Then the next chapter of his life would begin, the one for which he had been planning for the last ten years. Things would change, and he might die. Even so, he could not help but look forward to what came next.

  At the end of the stairway, he entered the citadel through a wooden door with his honor guard. Liveried servants stopped in the middle of their tasks to stare at him. The Tree of Life symbol that was etched on their foreheads seemed to glow in the torchlight. He ignored them, cultivating an air of regal nobility. But on the inside, a sense of being caged overtook him.

  Erik forced himself to breathe. He observed his surroundings, climbing up stairs and traveling through bustling corridors. For all its ugliness, Hjörtur was a well-designed fortress. Murder-holes dotted ceilings and arrow-slits peeked into halls, leaving no place for an invading army to hide. Old tapestries and faded painted screens sparsely decorated the walls, adding the odd flair of color to the endless black.

  Down the hallway from his own apartments, Erik stopped in front of a massive door covered in scrollwork. He scratched at his forehead, then went in, leaving the soldiers standing guard outside the door. They closed the portal behind him with an echoing note of finality.

  It was a small chamber with a pair of narrow arrow-slits looking up at the mountain range. Its only real embellishments, the prodigious bed, a table and chair, and a large wardrobe pushed up against a wall. Fresh logs blazed in the small fireplace, reducing the chill that came from the arrow-slits.

  Asbjörn was asleep on the bed. Dark even in the daylight, he seemed made of shadows; there was an unstableness to his form, like a gust of wind would be enough to make him dissipate. His large, forever drooping eyes lay closed, and his chest rose and fell with a rugged sounding breath. A layer of sweat soaked the white bandage wrapped around his chest.

  Erik took a seat on the cushioned chair, facing the bed. Wood creaked beneath him, but he ignored it. Instead, he used his index finger to draw a circle on his own thigh. There was something soothing about circles that always quieted his raging passions. A circle was a complete entirety all on its own; it needed nothing but itself to be whole. There was something beautiful about that.

  Asbjörn, I’m sorry. I. . . .

  Erik leaped to his feet and paced back and forth. Asbjörn had been a part of his life for almost as long as he could remember, ever since his mother passed away and everything changed for the second time. The Mainlander was a pillar among men, and he offered shelter and comfort to Erik when he needed it most. He was more than just a teacher or a friend, he was the father Erik always wanted, warm where his own was cold and distant. I can’t lose you, too. I can’t! Not now. Not ever.

  The door flung open, and Súla, one of Erik’s wife’s personal attendants, erupted into the room, hair disheveled and out of breath. With her large chest and small face, she looked like a tiny bird trapped within a piece of dark cloth. Her expression wavered between shock, relief, and fear, until settling on the second. She curtsied and squeaked, “Forgive me, my Prince.” Then she was gone, slamming the door behind her.

  Asbjörn bolted upright, hands dropping to his bandaged rib cage, gasping in pain and for breath, shuddering, staring with eyes as gray as the billowing clouds of an autumn storm. “You’ve come to haunt me,” he hissed.

  “No,” Erik said, “I’m no ghost!” He retook his seat, ignoring the chair’s groans. He was unsure what to do with his hands, first placing them on his knees, then dropping them to his side.

  Asbjörn broke into a fit of coughs. “I failed you.”

  “No, you didn’t.” The pain in Asbjörn’s voice wounded Erik like a blade thrust into his chest. All he wanted to do was reach out and console him, but he did not. He was not a child any longer; he was confined by the expectations of his caste and his sex. Even in private, men did not hold each other’s hands to shelter them from hurt. No matter the pain. No matter how much. . . .