A Monster Inside Read online

  With a loud cracking sound, the chair snapped under Erik, sending him tumbling to the floor, shooting broken pieces of wood through the air. He groaned, more in shock than pain.

  “Are you all right?” Asbjörn asked, fumbling a hand out to help.

  Erik could only gape at him. I’ve gotten heavier. Much heavier. He stood up and gave a bark of laughter. “No, I’m not fine. I don't understand why I’m still alive. I should be dead, Asbjörn, but here I am. The thing that attacked us was a breed of dragon I’ve never seen nor heard of, not even in the ‘Encyclopedia of Named Beasts.’”

  “Describe it.”

  “It was as large as one of Hjörtur’s ramparts. Its scales were gold and black, and its jaw was filled with man-sized teeth. We were too weak; our attacks did it little damage.” Erik paused as if catching his breath. “It was a mistake coming here. I see that now. I thought I was so smart. Hjörtur was going to be the answer to all my problems.”

  Asbjörn grunted. “It was a good plan. It still is a good plan. Out here you’re protected from your brothers’ plots, and you have time to train.”

  “The Grand Assessment is in forty-two days,” Erik whispered to himself, less as a reminder and more to divert from the conversation about the attack. Asbjörn seldom seemed willing to let any investigation lie until he had learned all you knew, unless you distracted him.

  “Plenty of time. I have no doubt that you’ll be ready by then.” Asbjörn’s voice was weak, but his gaze was piercing, filled with enthusiasm and conviction.

  Erik snorted. “I have to face up to the truth about myself. Asbjörn, I’m a terrible Cultivator. I have a pitifully small range of sixty meters, and my cultivation has been stuck at First Stöðin, First Stratum for the last four years.”

  “Cultivation levels and range are not everything!” Asbjörn growled. “You have a talent with Esoteric Techniques—the way your mind works. . . . You were born for this.”

  “That may be so, but. . . .” Erik sighed. “To lie on the bed of purple was always a fool’s dream.” The color purple was reserved for Kings and Princes of the Blood; it meant death for anyone else to wear it.

  “You are the best of them, Erik. I wish you saw what I see.”

  The love in Asbjörn’s eyes made Erik feel dirty. I don’t deserve such loyalty and trust. “I should let you rest,” he said after a moment. “My wife probably still thinks I’m dead. I should remedy that.”

  “I rarely agree with your father, but he was right about her. She’s dangerous.” Asbjörn lay back down on the bed, wiping sweat from his forehead with a hand that was none too steady.

  “All women are dangerous. Your words, not mine.” Erik smiled.

  In the hallway, the voices of the soldiers were pitched low in a quiet conversation. “He was naked . . . how did he. . . .” They straightened and fell into silence as Erik walked out among them.

  “Where to next, my Prince?” asked a square-jawed soldier with high cheekbones and thin lips. Almost as tall as Erik and twice as broad-shouldered, he loomed large. But like his comrades, he kept his eyes downcast when facing Erik.

  “My chambers,” Erik said, pointing to a door forty meters away. “What’s your name?”

  The soldier’s head jerked up, and he blinked. “My what?” His eyes shifted to his comrades and back to Erik.

  “Your name. You do have one, don’t you?”

  “Kai, my Prince. My name is Kai.”

  Erik nodded, doing his best to seem appreciative. “Would you and your men care to accompany me for a little while longer?”

  “We would be honored to,” Kai said, leading the way.

  Music spilled into the hallway from behind the closed door to Erik’s personal apartment, the soulful lamentations of a plucked zither. Each note joined together to give the sense of a flock of geese in flight, the image of a tranquil waterfall, the beauty of nature at her most endearing. Yet under it, hid a chord of menace, as if at any moment it might all turn violent.

  Erik slowed then halted in front of the door. Hanna. No one but her could play with such emotion. He lifted his hand and stared at his quivering fingers. “Wait here. I won’t be long.”

  The soldiers bowed stiffly, hand to heart. A sign of acknowledgment and obedience.

  Chapter 4

  Erik opened a heavy, iron-strapped door into the anteroom of his personal apartments and stepped inside. So intent was he on what he planned to say that he did not notice the four women seated beside the lit fireplace until the music stopped. They turned to regard him, foreheads marked with soot, dressed in flowing dark gowns.

  Despite himself, Erik slowed and then faltered. He looked down at the brightly colored, layered carpets and then back at the women. Furthest from the door sat his wife, Hanna Ito, with a gilded zither draped across her lap and her golden hair hidden behind a dark shawl. Her eyes held him captive in oceans of blue. There had always been a sadness trapped within them, but today the sorrow seemed more salient. More. . . .

  Has she been crying? An instant later, he dismissed the idea. Hanna remained a mystery, to him at least, but he was certain she would not cry over his death. Would she?

  He pulled his eyes away from her and scanned the three other women who sat cast in the red and orange light of the hearthfire. Súla, he recognized immediately, and the two other ladies were named Rikka and Óla. Both were thin women with angular faces, but the first had freckles and the second a small mole on her upper lip.

  Hanna rearranged a strand of hair that had fallen across her face. “Thank you, that will be all.” Notwithstanding the look in her eyes, her voice was soft and almost warm. Not for Erik’s sake, or not solely; Hanna always sounded gracious and heartfelt while in the presence of others.

  The serving women rose from their seats with a flutter of dresses, faces affixed with pleasant-looking smiles. They took the zither from Hanna’s lap and placed it on top of a small table. They curtsied first to Hanna then to Erik, passing by him on their way out of the room.

  The anteroom fell silent. Hanna had been peering into the fire, but after the door closed behind the serving women, she turned to regard Erik once again. Her expression was unreadable.

  Erik stood as still as a stone. Beautiful. She’s so beautiful. His heart ached with longing; she never looked more radiant and seductive than at that moment, half-pitched in the flickering light. All the things he wanted to but could not say ran through his head, yet he struggled not to let it show on his face.

  “I think you would have been happier if you were born a man,” Erik said, continuing a conversation they had from the day before.

  “Perhaps.” Hanna shrugged as if Erik had a point. There was not even the hint of humor in her voice, though, just cold evenness. “But then again if I had been born a boy I wouldn’t still have my eyes.”

  Her words struck Erik like a blow to the gut. He suddenly felt bone-weary and drained of all vital verve. Every conversation with Hanna was like a pitched battle. He turned away from the hurt in her eyes and listened to the wind whistle past the brocaded curtains that covered the arrow-slits masquerading as windows. The apartment had been beautified by her feminine touch, a far cry from the way it had looked when they first arrived.

  “Can we not . . . please, just for the day. . . .”—his knuckles whitened on the hilt of his sword. I can’t change what was done. — “Loving you is like embracing a cactus. The more I pull you close, the deeper you wound.”

  “You love me now?” she asked softly.

  Erik frowned. “Is that all you heard?”

  “Isn’t that what I was meant to? I’m not one of your. . . .” She left the word ‘whores’ unsaid, but it rang through the room louder than if it had been spoken. “Pretty words won’t make me swoon.”

  Erik strode forward and ran the knuckle of his index finger along Hanna’s cheek. “You thought I was dead, isn’t that a cause for some kind of celebration.”

  “You’re right.” A little less petulant, she gestured to a broad table in the middle of the room. “Come, Husband. Sit and allow me to serve you.” Her voice was now submissive and loving, like an adolescent girl to her first sweetheart. And her eyes sparkled with all the warmth of the crackling fire.

  Erik followed Hanna to the table, wondering what emotions her facade concealed. She was better at the Game of Faces than he was, having mastered the art of hiding her true self behind a permanent mask. He knew he only ever saw what she wanted him to, and at the moment that was the image of a dutiful wife.

  Hanna pulled the chair out from the table and its stout legs scratched against the carpet with something of the sound of a sword scraping off armor. Erik sat down behind the ornately worked table, making sure he did not allow all of his weight to rest on the cushioned seat. The ruined chair in Asbjörn’s room had taught him a valuable lesson he did not mean to repeat.

  Hanna poured wine into a bowl from a silver pitcher etched with curling grapevines. For a moment, Erik could almost pretend she loved him. He wished it was true. He wished she did not hate him deep in the marrow of her bones.

  “Thank you,” he said, trying his best to sound genuine and heartfelt.

  “You’re welcome, Husband.” Hanna set the pitcher back down on the table. “I live to serve.”

  Erik snorted and picked up the bowl with both hands. He brought it to his lips, inhaling its aroma. The scent of fermented grapes assaulted his nostrils, and Erik imagined he could almost smell the soft earth of the Vindurian vineyard that the grapes had been grown within. He frowned, fear rising. Under the aroma of dirt and grapes was another fragrance, a hint of wrongness. A hint of decay.

  “Something wrong?” Hanna asked. She stood with her hands folded in front of her dress, calm as the surface of a tranquil pond, all her murky depths hidden from view.

  “Drink.” Erik extended his arms toward her, closely observing her face. Hanna laughed, amusement curving her pink lips as she took the bowl and drank.

  Time and motion slowed; appalled, Erik watched droplets, and little rivers of wine fly toward his face from Hanna’s mouth. Caught by surprise, he closed his eyes, protecting them by instinct. Wine struck his eyelids and cascaded down his face, sluggishly making its way to the carpeted floor. What is she doing? Did she just try to poison me?

  Something that burned with the coldness of winter slashed across his throat, and a wave of pain traveled through him. It was as if he had swallowed a vat of burning oil. His eyes snapped open, blood spewing from the wound on his neck. He gurgled in shock and agony, overturning his chair, banging his legs against the bottom of the table, launching something that three strong men would have had trouble lifting into the air. He collapsed to the carpeted floor, and a moment later the table slammed into the tapestried wall behind him, crashing to the floor in a shower of splinters. Fingers trembling, he pressed a hand to the gash, gasping, blinking.

  Hanna looked away from the wreckage and down at him, frowning. Blood dripped from her cheeks. Red dripped from the dagger clutched in her fist. Another wave of pain surged through him.

  He blinked up at her, mouth opening and closing. Why? Why?

  “I made a promise to myself.” Hanna kneeled down in the pool of growing crimson and ran a hand through his hair. “A promise. Do you understand?”

  No. He did not understand. What she had done did not make sense. None of it made any sense. Yet, strangely, he thought he loved her more at that moment than at any other time before. She looked so luminous and complicated. He wanted to . . . he wanted to. . . .

  Hanna pressed her lips to his forehead, tears leaking from her eyes. “Goodbye, Erik—”

  Something cracked within him. That was only the third time she had ever called him by his given name. The first instance was over ten years ago, shortly after she had been brought to Vetur as a prisoner of war. He had found her with her arms wrapped around her legs, weeping in a darkened hallway. She had once been one of those quiet, feral children who always seemed married to the shadows. Now . . . now she was so much more.

  “—the Eternal Father willing we will meet again in another life.” Hanna closed her eyes and gripped the dagger with both hands, pointing it at herself.

  Erik wailed. No! Stop!

  Hanna plunged the blade forward. Erik grabbed her wrist, halting it an inch from her heart. Her eyes opened in horror, and he wrapped his free hand around her neck, preventing her from impaling herself, easily ignoring her struggles. She loomed above him, eyes bulging from the hand gripping and choking her. He could sense her pulse quicken beneath his blood-slicked fingers and watched her drift deeper into unconsciousness.

  “Why?” he whispered, tiny blood bubbles ballooning and popping as air escaped from the slit on his throat. Hanna slumped, and he rolled her onto her back with a wretched gasp. For a time that seemed like an eternity, but could only have been an instant, they lay there, fingers intertwined, side by side, as husband and wife in a pool of cooling scarlet.

  The world seemed to grow dull around him.

  Why must it always end in tragedy?

  Pain made his vision blur with dark spots. His hands grew cold, the sensation vanished, and he no longer sensed anything at all. Not pain. Not sorrow.

  He grew aware of distant droplets. They were like little islands of infinity, whispering, murmuring just at the edge of his hearing. He reached for them, calling them with his mind.

  Abruptly, the trickle of blood from the gash slowed; then it stopped, and the surrounding gore boiled and churned, crawling back toward the wound, oozing inside him. Like spilled ink in reverse, within moments, the once red-drenched carpet became almost spotless.

  Erik lurched to his feet, hand touching his throat. The wound had healed without scarring, but he did not have time to marvel at the miracle. A second later, a bottomless pit opened in his stomach, wobbling him with need. Staggering him with hunger.

  The world spun before him and the Celestial Dragon rose to the surface of his mind. He gazed at Hanna and found himself filled with an alien desire. An image flashed before him, a picture of himself ripping through Hanna’s flesh with his teeth and his claws.

  EAT.

  No! Erik yelled at it. She’s not food.

  EAT!

  Erik quivered, wrapping his mind in his love for Hanna. Energy surged through him, a torrent of power that swept the Celestial Dragon away. The monster howled, sinking back from where it came. Yet he could sense its hate, like burning coals at the back of his brain. It had been repelled, but not defeated. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.

  Heart thundering, Erik opened his eyes. Hanna lay on the floor, chest slowly rising and falling, next to the dagger that had almost taken his life. He sighed.

  “How did we get here?” he asked out loud.

  Erik lifted Hanna into his arms and carried her into the bedroom, marveling at how light she seemed in his arms. It was as if he was hoisting a feathered pillow. The bedroom was just as elaborately decorated as the anteroom, if not more so. A bed large enough for four sat on a red-and-blue-tiled platform. Next to an arrow-slit, a large wardrobe crowded half the room, and through a closed door opposite the wardrobe lay a bathing chamber. A crackling fire blazed within a small hearth.

  Ever so gently, he placed Hanna in the room’s only chair and searched through the wardrobe. He ripped a pink garment into strips and used the sections to bind her legs and arms to the chair, making sure to gag her so she could not scream for help. He straightened, studying his work. Hanna sat bound, eyes closed, head slumped forward, golden locks escaping her dark shawl to drape across her face.

  His hands shook. Everything was falling apart. All his perfectly arranged plans were in disarray. He needed to get away and clear his head. He needed to get away.

  Dazed, Erik drifted into the anteroom and then out of the apartment. He stopped, blinking in surprise as he came face to face with Kai and the other three soldiers. In the mad intensity of the last few minutes, Erik had forgotten he had instructed them to wait. Why had he told them to do that? It was not as if he needed them for protection. He was a Cultivator, he could rip through ordinary mortals like sheets of paper. Did I see this coming?

  “My Prince, is everything—” Kai began.

  “Guard the door,” Erik said, “and allow no one to enter. No one. Do you understand me?”

  They bowed, hand to heart, faces marred by worry.

  Erik rounded the corner and leaned against the hallway wall. The soldiers disappeared from view. Eyes blank, feeling lost, he stared at the empty corridor, replaying the scenes from his anteroom chamber. She tried to kill me. Why? What changed between now and yesterday? I died. But why would that make her want to kill herself and me?

  He ran a hand through his hair and continued his journey. None of his self-reflection was helping. The only one that held the answers to his questions was Hanna, and at the moment she was not talking.

  He wandered through the citadel, paying no mind to where he went, so long as it was in the opposite direction from where he came. The fortress still bustled with news of his resurrection. He saw it on the faces of the liveried servants who bowed and curtsied as he traveled past and heard it in the excited din of voices and clattering pots that filled the kitchens and hallways.

  Erik pushed his way through a door and found himself in a large courtyard without fountains or columned walkways, where the air rang with the swift clang-click-clang of swords. A group of twenty black-coated warriors stood in small knots, dispersed throughout the courtyard, watching two shirtless men, one young and one old, swing swords at each other. Stripped to the waist, a light coat of sweat glistened on the duo’s chests and arms as they danced on top of the hard-packed earth, encircled by four knee-high braziers that flared under the afternoon sun.

  He approached the combatants, keeping his face impassive, nose twitching at the scent of burnt wood. He knew one man well, Sir Númi Maida, the aged Lightbender who had led his honor guard from the capital. As tall as Erik was, Númi stood taller still and far more heavily muscled. His gray topknot bounced off his shoulder, and scars from countless previous battles crisscrossed his puckered skin. He moved like a dancer, longsword flowing in his hands, meeting his opponent’s attacks with perfect stance and form.