Page 6

A warm hand cupped my cheek , then smoothed down my neck to my shoulder. The threat of claws tickled my pulse point, and my heart sped up, reacting to the sensation.

I jerked upright, breathing hard and scanning the room.

I was alone.

The haze of sleep clung to me, weighing me down and dragging me to the cusp of darkness again.

My muscles protested as I shifted and slung my legs over the edge of the bed.

A stream of light filtered through the paned glass window, muted by the years of dust coating the surface.

I blinked placidly at the cobweb hewn corners and worn tapestries along the walls.

A soft crackle made my ear twitch.

I tipped my head toward the hearth, noting the glowing embers within, fading as if they'd burned for hours as I slept. How long had I slept? Who had come into the room?

A tentative knock on the door startled me.

My teeth clacked as I went rigid, fingers fisting the cloak around my shoulders.

As the wood groaned, my stomach heaved itself into my ribcage and bullied my heart for dominance.

Before I found my tongue, a shadowy figure lumbered inside.

I strained my eyes to adapt to the darkness, trying to swallow my heart back into place, when a large bulky figure entered the poor excuse for light.

An amorphous being of shifting shadow stood before me. Silky black ribbons flowed around the edges like floating limbs. Unsettled, yet wholly entranced, I watched as the shadows coalesced into a substantial form.

“There you are,” a silvery voice spoke. Yellow eyes formed on the being, and a wide, menacing mouth split in the center. “Oh, a delightful creature, to be sure. Yes… yes.” It twirled around me, towering over me as it assessed me from head to toe. “Oh, I can work with this.”

“What… Who are you?” My curiosity bullied back my fear as the creature remained hovering out of reach. Breaths came easier as the being’s energy stayed serene and enthused.

“A gloomthreader, come to dress you for the master,” it answered.

My expression pinched. “I don’t know what that is.” Nothing familiar. Nothing mortal.

“Prince Mavros has summoned me to weave for you. I, Thayer, weave the best garments.”

“Weave for me?” I echoed.

“Yes, to provide attire befitting my master’s cherished guest.” The rotund creature leaned forward, eyes blinking owlishly. I held my breath, bending away from the skin-deep scrutiny. “I am tasked with ensuring you are properly garbed at all crucial moments.”

“Garbed? Garments?” I fumbled for understanding until it dawned on me. I clutched the cloak around my shoulders, head tipping sideways. “I am not accustomed to wearing clothing.”

The creature—Thayer—quivered, and it made a shrill noise of glee. Dark ribbons fluttered with a life of their own. “Then I have the honor of crafting something perfect for your first time!”

Before I could reply, unseen hands snatched the cloak from around my shoulders.

A chill air whispered over my skin, and I shivered.

The heavy garment thumped to the floor, lifting a puff of dust. My lips pursed as I watched it, part of me itching to retrieve it and guard myself in its warmth once more.

Thayer’s appendages swiveled and flowed around us.

My mouth clamped shut and tensed as silken, insubstantial protrusions gripped my wrists, then slipped along my arms, shoulder to shoulder, down my waist, then followed the curvature of my legs.

Deft and rapid, a whirlwind of shadows took my measurements with barely more than a fleeting touch.

Cool threads slipped over my shoulders and around the base of my neck.

I swallowed down a rising sense of dread as my groggy, sleep-slowed mind caught up with my situation.

Thayer used several ribbon-arms to lift my hair and skim the length of my spine.

I remembered the beast, his eyes, the heat of him radiating against me and the gloomthreader’s icy touch contrasted the lingering heat inside me.

What did it mean to be the guest of such a creature in a foreign world?

I understood the concept of castles, dungeons, and the strange whims of intelligent creatures.

Though human accommodations had changed over time, from grand structures with spires such as this one to square blocky buildings and carriages with rumbling motors.

In all my life, I had only watched humans and their interactions from afar.

So far and so distant, I hadn’t even known when my kind vanished from existence until I was the last.

A wave of something so painful and overwhelming I couldn’t contain it crashed through my chest. My hands scrambled at my neck and breasts, clawing with human nails at the tender flesh.

A cry, a wail, surged up my throat to leap off my tongue.

And my cheeks were hot, burning, and wet.

I swiped at my face, feeling the droplets escaping my eyes and blurring my vision.

My knees ached when they hit the floor.

Thayer jerked back, its large vague mouth curving down. “Oh, how miserably inconvenient.”

“What… what’s happening to me?” I gasped out. Fingers spread on the floor, vision going fu zzy, I scrambled for purchase on anything solid, anything real.

There was no moon here. And I was alone.

Another strangling sob tore through me.

“I couldn’t venture a guess,” Thayer replied after an eternity of silence. “Inferni don’t conduct themselves in such a… performance. This behavior is unknown to me.”

Quaking on the floor, sobbing through the feelings that accompanied my awakened thoughts. I grabbed at fleeting memories and notions obscure to mythical beings. A sudden influx of maudlin sensation, uncontrollable tears, juggling fear and panic… missing the foundation of who I was—what I was.

Grief .

Natural for humans. An intense emotional response to significant loss, death, and upending life changes.

And I’d lost my entire race, my sense of self, my power, my world.

I was stranded, hunted, alone. Entirely divorced from my reality and forced into a mortal’s encompassing range of emotions and instinctual behaviors.

Then there was the guilt wrangling fresh sobs from my chest.

Distressed by knowing I had survived when all others had passed.

Victims of a cataclysmic event wiping out magic and mythical life.

I was undeserving of escaping when all the other sylphs were gone—exterminated by a man with unfathomable power.

And I could only cry harder when an alien sense of rage, red-hot and putrescent, slithered through my chest and wracked through my body.

The Crimson Mage. The vile bastard who hunted my kind, and many others… he would come for me if he knew where to look.

Then fear, like acid in the blood, crept over me and corroded away at whatever light remained in my core. Snuffed out, diminished, fading as sobs wrung me out, I wished to shrink into oblivion.

What would be preferable? Living as the last of my kind bearing the pain of existence alone? Or allowing myself to fade away until my kind completely withered out of existence?

“Come, sweet creature, let’s move past this.

We have things to do.” The world blurred out of existence.

Some portion of me remained aware of movement and walking and talking.

Thayer guided me into another room where a bath waited, a large copper thing filled near to the brim with steaming water.

More creatures materialized in the room, forming to life like slick oil in the cracks of the stone walls before dripping to the floor in vicious puddles.

A shiver ran down my spine, but I remained mostly catatonic as the puddles surged and androgynous creatures—these Inferni—solidified.

I stared out, unblinking, sniffling through the last of my tears, as five of them grabbed and scrubbed at me.

Some of them were no larger than a rabbit.

Some were tall and thin. They had varying features ranging from snouts, fluffy ears, snake tails, claws, long and short horns.

Two had scales that interspersed their formless furry outline.

The strangest oddities I’d ever encountered, and I didn’t have the energy to observe or react more than necessary.

This was a world of curiosities, yes, but the Crimson Mage wasn’t here.

I was.

And I was alive.

That had to count for something.

Wisps of silk and gossamer enveloped me, varied materials and pale colors overlapped in a flurry, a veneer of couture opulence.

Thayer returned once the smaller Inferni dried me off and left me sitting on a chair in front of a fire.

Some of my consciousness returned to my body, and I noticed I was in my room again with a fire roaring before me.

The heat kissed my skin, rousing me as ribbon-arms manipulated my hair.

“Why am I here?” I asked fate.

“You will dine with the prince tonight,” Thayer answered instead. “And you will look splendid.”

Reflections were for human vanity. The face staring back at me in the mirror wasn’t mine—wasn’t any part of me I had ever known. A stranger in every way that mattered, plus the ones that didn’t.

Just a human woman. Trapped and alone in a body dying all around me.

Frozen, I passively beheld my new features. Creamy, pale skin. Pale blue, silvery hair that fell to my waist in subtle waves that Thayer was braiding into a crown. Eyes that gleamed like every shade of the summer sky crushed into gemstones.

A mockery that stung.

“Yes, yes,” Thayer spoke in a musical cadence that drew me from my morose thoughts. “This is wonderful. Lovely. These will do for now.” It’s arms whipped around, and multiple garments appeared from thin air. “A few nightgowns and a handful of dresses until a complete wardrobe can be completed.”

“A complete wardrobe?”

“Yes, as requested by the prince.” Without waiting for a response, Thayer slipped an ethereal, glimmering swath of fabric over my head.

The firelight caught the material, highlighting that the dress shifted colors when I moved—ranging from silver to pale blue and purple.

A scoop neckline with a bodice that clung then flared at the hips, cape-like sleeves, and lighter than air.

Both odd and strangely secure on my new body.

I didn’t feel as vulnerable any longer.

It was no armor, but it was supportive and bolstering.

The undergarments, however… uncomfortable and constraining.

“Call on me if you need anything, creature.” Thayer faded into the wall, leaving me alone once again.

With a careless flick, the scrap of lace fell to the ground.

The shadows and light from the fire danced like a tide over the silky white material.

Their presence sat as a reminder of my predicament.

Left in the silence, I contemplated where to go from here.

I drifted around the room, exploring the fading elegance—how the light slanted on the faded tapestry, the intricate patterns in the hardwood.

Unrestrained by distractions and left tender by grief, my mind raced faster and faster, twirling and swirling, a cataclysmic storm zipping through my thoughts. One fleeting thought to the next and threatening to make me spiral into oblivion.

Though this land, this body, was new and strange, I had to push through and survive.

I bore the legacy of my kind and refused to allow their memory to die.

But what of the Crimson Mage? Aradia said he wielded great power, and I’d felt it for myself.

He shouldn’t be able to chase me down to another realm entirely, yet I didn’t know that for a fact.

I couldn’t be sure. He was a hunter, a magical man of means, determined to his bitter end.

Aradia thought she was saving me by cursing me in this body.

I wouldn’t agree with her, wouldn’t ever think what she had done was right.

Part of me intrinsically knew, though I couldn’t face it yet, that her sacrifice had only bought me time.

Despite the centuries I’d lived, I couldn’t guess how much time I had left.

My circumstances were unprecedented.

And this beast—Prince Mavros. A ruler of demons in a wretched wasteland. What did he want?

I pushed open the drapes and a clattering sound startled me. The shadowy cat, Domovoy, appeared on a side table near the hearth. The candles on his heat flickered low and golden. A grin crept over his expression as we assessed one another.

“Glad to see you awake,” he purred, tone dripping with an unvoiced taunt.

His games weren’t worth my time. He snickered as I remained silent, weaving through the ancient relics and décor on the side table.

His fluffy tail bounced behind him even as he moved gracefully.

“I have come to escort you to dinner with the master.”

Ignoring him for as long as I could, I gazed out at the land draped across the horizon. Far below the castle, I spotted the garden where they found me—where the tide of my fate shifted anew.

When I looked at the sky, there was still no moon.