Page 28 of Once Upon a Dark October

Chapter Twenty-Eight

W ith the autumn Blood Moon fast approaching, I was all the more restless with each passing hour, unable to soothe the tightness that wound itself around my chest. My appetite waned. I held so little interest in my last dress fitting for the ball that I could hardly speak. It was as if we were picking out our mourning clothes.

Morrigan had thrown herself into work and became so distracted—almost to the verge of obsession—that she’d sent me out the door with no more than an entire sentence exchanged between us.

I knew the coven’s worries were mounting. The last week and a half had been taxing on us all, and I had nothing to show for it.

I felt her anger in the distance that pushed us apart over the last night. The silence had been left to fester, a weed as invasive as the stubborn overgrowth in the castle’s ruins. I couldn’t blame her for whatever had brought it about. I was frustrated by my own lack of progress.

While the promise of an alchemist’s education did not appear to be Sonia’s priority as the ball’s preparations gained more immediate attention, my narrowing window seemed hopeless as ever. I’d memorized Gwen and Clarabella’s map to the dungeons so perhaps the feelings of being useless would leave me alone. Yet every time I came close to the right corridor or tried to steal a moment to investigate, the coven demanded more of me.

Wood for the fires, endless laundry, fresh linens with beds to be made. I had to go into town not once but twice throughout the day to pick up finished ballgowns from the dressmaker’s shop. And all of this was after I’d listened to Anastasia having a heated argument with Drusilla in the ballroom. I’d eavesdropped shamelessly, enjoying the curses and threats they hurtled at each other as their tempers flared. Even though I knew the sound of shattering glass meant another mess to clean.

The mention of dhampir piqued my interest.

Anastasia had left in a huff, kicking over a bucket before she went upstairs. Drusilla appeared moments later on her heels, her face red and splotchy with tears of rage. She’d shouted at me to sweep up whatever had been broken, and I realized then that I couldn’t enjoy her pain as I’d imagined. Not with a dhampir woman’s life at stake.

It seemed her affair was no longer a secret.

Sonia dismissed me in the late afternoon, but I had been left with orders to return the next morning, early as I could get to the castle. And I was to meet her in the library, which was an usual request.

The last glimmer of hope resurfaced within me.

The jeweled handle remained stubborn and unmoving. I pushed my shoulder into the door, and the glimmering webs roped across the wood plastered themselves to my dress in stringy wisps .

I grunted with the effort. “Why…won’t you… open ?”

Even the pressure of my vampiric strength would not make the ballroom doors yield for me.

I’d returned home to the cliffside weary from my efforts to keep up with the coven’s demands. I should have slept, waiting for Morrigan to hopefully find her way down from the tower. It was her luck that I wasn’t hungry, just incapable of remaining still and silent. If I stayed in one place too long, my racing thoughts became too loud to tolerate. I had to do something .

Finding solace in cleaning seemed absurd after I’d done nothing else for days on end, but it was the only diverting task I could think to drown myself in. The supplies I’d unearthed from the cloakroom were assembled behind me, lying in wait. The hall’s comfortable filth might have recoiled in horror at the notion.

I grimaced, trying to untangle the layer of cobwebs. “Perhaps I’ll just…start out here.”

A gust of bitter wind roared through the forgotten corridor, stirring the spider silk and dousing the flames in their grimy, wax-laden holders. The ghostly breath along the back of my neck was familiar, gooseflesh rising on my skin.

The doors pushed open with a soft, echoing whine.

I spun around, my teeth still chattering from the unnatural cold that had submerged the entire hallway. Clarabella stood several paces from me, a beacon of moonlight in the gloom. Her smile was faint but amiable, one of her cheeks dimpled at her smile.

I’m the only one who’s managed to slip past the wards in the lock , she explained. Jo and Morrigan sealed it like a tomb. I think they tossed the key into the surf.

Wherever Morrigan and Josephine had woven protections, shielding the ballroom under some invisible, spellbound veil, it was so well-crafted that it went unnoticed.

“Am I allowed in? ”

I don’t think they will mind, she answered. It’s a lovely room…the view of the coast is even more beautiful than the solarium.

“Seems an awful shame to keep it locked away.”

There hasn’t been a reason to use it since… Clarabella let the words trail into nothing, the rest unspoken. Morrigan hasn’t told you, I suspect? She hates this room.

I shook my head. “She hasn’t said much.”

She wouldn’t. Morrigan and Jo have all but banished it from memory. They like to think that if it collects enough dust, it will disappear. Doors locked, out of sight, an ugly little thing shoved into a corner. It’s as cursed as we are.

“This is where it happened,” I realized. “Isn’t it?”

Morrigan told me once that looking on it is painful, all of her failures drudged up again from the dust and broken glass. I don’t know why I keep coming back, truth be told, she admitted. It feels like running my fingers over a wound, waiting for it scar over, but it never does. It’s just that I keep hoping for it to heal.

“We might have a chance soon enough.”

Its beauty had been tarnished, but I could still see it beneath the century and a half that had aged the estate’s ballroom. Stepping through a veil of spider silk, a breath gasped out of me, rising and expanding to the ceiling. I nearly dropped the bucket in my fist when I tipped my head back and saw a nighttime sky without the pall of fog.

Thousands upon thousands of stars winked upon us through a vast domed ceiling. A glow of stardust swirled in the inky purple. We were at the very edge of the cliffside, nearly hanging from it. The sea was the closest here, even closer than the solarium. With the entire back wall built of glass, the room was open to a breathtaking view. If the waves swelled high enough, they’d easily break across the windows when they hit the rocky shore.

I stood underneath the starlit globe and listened to the music of the sea below, trying to imagine what it must’ve been like before the curses fell. Black and white marble followed a diamond-shaped pattern along the expansive floor. It had been buried under a layer of dusty soot. Columned arches flanked either side of the room, more bats etched in its tarnished detailing. A weak glimmer of bronze or copper struggled against the grime that had settled in.

Brushing ashes away with my hand, the grit collected on my skin, the smell of burnt wood and charring, searing destruction rising anew. The burn scars in the hallway carried into the ballroom. It had eaten through wall furnishings, peeled away its paint and twisted sconces and candle holders. Soot and ash littered the floor, an opaque shadow stained one half of the room. It had halted somewhere in the middle, where some of the tiles had splintered.

“There was a fire that night?”

Clarabella’s gentle laugh was hesitant, marked with sorrow. Josephine tried to set fire to it some sixty five years ago. She only stopped trying to burn down the wing when I kept putting out the flames. Jo couldn’t understand it at first—why I protested. But I suppose the grief was too near, then.

“I’m not sure I would, either.”

It’s simple, really, she told me. I wanted to dance with her in this room again someday. She couldn’t deny me that. She twirled in a circle, her dress of stardust flaring around her ankles. We were married right here, Jo and I. Did you know?

“She mentioned it before,” I replied. “Your wedding night—the ball. I imagine it was a gorgeous affair.”

It was at the start , she answered with the same grief-heavy tone. Clarabella pushed the shadows into the corners, a star shooting across the night sky clear as the one above our heads.

A night like this one, endless stars looking down on us. We had candles lit on the edges of the floor, hundreds of them. She swept across the fractured marble, pointing as she went, levitating, waltzing. Flowers, too. Dahlias for me, and peonies for Jo. Her grin turned soft, blushing with adoration. Her favorite. I would live in that moment if I could. Me and Jo, dancing alone…stardust and soft candlelight. It felt like a dream.

“I wish I could’ve seen it,” I said. “I wish it hadn’t ended with curses.”

Clarabella danced, the train of her wedding dress floating in her wake, mirroring the glitter of the night sky above us. No one realized anything was wrong until our coven started falling ill. Sonia had disguised her curses in blood-wine. She traced circles into the air and broken tile pieces under her heeled shoes quaked.

Those were shattered on that night, not when Jo tried to set fire to the room. The two of us studied alchemy together, you know. We had been attempting to transmute blood into elements—of nature, not just metals. The only method we found in the old alchemy grimoires was for a curse. She never intended us to use it, only see if it could be done. We watched the blood burn under sunlight.

“You never expected to have reason to use it,” I assured.

It was the only defense we had against Sonia’s betrayal. Jo wasn’t even certain whether or not it would take. She thought if she released it, they would burn immediately…become embers, ashes. The vapor hit them and nothing happened at first. The sun broke through the fog and then they started to burn.They fled underground. For a long time, we thought the daylight curse had been the end of them.

Clarabella went to the windows and lifted her palm to hover in front of the glass. It wasn’t difficult to understand why she’d stolen away into this room so often, breaking past wards to try and touch the sea.

It wasn’t meant to end that night, she said, wistful. But it will end with blood either way.

“Well, when you get your dance with Josephine,” I told her, trying for a hopeful smile, “it can’t be on a dusty, soot-stained floor in a room filled with cobwebs and burnt furnishings. That simply won’t do. I won’t allow it. But it appears I have my work cut out for me. ”

She giggled. You’re going to clean this travesty? Then you’re much braver than I thought.

“You can stay if you want,” I offered. “Though I can’t promise it’s exciting.”

Perhaps I’ll come back later. I have to remind Gwen not to over-water the dahlias.

Clarabella faded in a cascade of bright stardust. Alone in the ballroom, I took a few moments to breathe in the fire that still haunted this place. The pain it had soaked in, the coven’s fracturing it had witnessed. A night of betrayal and blood.

The castle’s could’ve been its mirror. But unlike that treacherous, decaying throne room, this one stood as a reminder for all this coven could lose yet again if we failed. The ruins deserved their slow descent into the earth. This breathtaking room wanted to see candlelight and dancing again, wanted the stars to look down upon joy and laughter and unbreakable love.

It reminded me, for the moment, that I had to cling to hope.

With the buckets and mops left by the entrance, I picked up a broom instead. The first order of business was a thorough sweep. I pushed the broken things into a corner, piling up shattered marble and wood splinters, candle wax and unsalvageable holders and sconces. Plumes of dusty ash tickled my nose. After a fit of sneezing, I pressed on, determined to give the floor its first scrubbing.

“I haven’t stepped in this room since we sealed it up.”

I had my back to the windows when Morrigan’s voice echoed into the silence. Glancing up, I found her lingering in the doorway, one hand in her trouser pocket. She squinted at the ceiling dome, looking as if she’d rather be anywhere else. Her clothes were unkempt, like she’d slept in them. The pale hollow below her throat showed where her tunic was untied.

I finished sweeping and leaned against the broom handle. “Clarabella let me in.”

“And you decided to clean?” Morrigan’s laughter ricocheted soft, but the glimpse of humor did not reach far. Her expression remained guarded, the pomegranate red of her eyes gathering a dark storm.

“I know it doesn’t make sense. I just thought…after the curses lift, we might use it again. Are you…angry with me?”

“No.”

That seemed like a lie.

“Are you sure? Because you’re allowed. I’m always too curious for my own good. You can say it.”

Morrigan sighed, drained by it. “You’re too hopeful for your own good.”

I settled the broom against a pillar. “One of us should try, at least. It’s a stunning room, you know.”

“It used to be.”

“And it can be again,” I replied. Morrigan squinted at the ceiling again, her body tight with apprehension. “I think I’d like to dance with you here. Under the stars. Are you a good dancer?”

“With the right partner.” Morrigan met me at the center of the floor with leaden steps, forcing herself into the room. “It’s been a while, though. I might be out of practice.”

Offering a bow first, she took the hand I’d held out, her fingers grazing mine with a feather-light touch. Morrigan spun me around once in a wide circle, then another, until I fell against her embrace. She held me, careful as always yet with halting motions that were only halfway present. Still keeping herself at some distance, pulling away—where, I didn’t know.

When I moved into her, our noses a hair away from brushing, Morrigan dipped me toward the floor. She pulled me back up, her hands upon my waist, and I saw the sparkle of tears welling in her eyes. “You need your lessons first—sorcery, then if we survive this, we’ll think of dancing.” She let go of me, abrupt and dismissing, turning away to the expansive of windows.

I wondered then if the ichor had wandered too far into her sorcerer’s scars, ripped them open and planted an unwelcome shadow there that Bella’s scream hadn’t vanquished. I wanted to search her eyes for traces of it, sidle in beside her heart to listen for its evil. Nestle myself in her veins like a shield.

“Can’t we,” I began, slowly, staring at Morrigan’s tensed back, “skip the lesson for tonight? I don’t think I could bear it.”

She wrapped her arms around herself. “Afraid not.” Sensing the panic that hastened my pulse, Morrigan spun to face me, a crease pulling her brows together. Tears had marked winding paths on her skin. “What is it, Elspeth?”

My mouth opened, but I couldn’t seek out the right words. I closed it, letting the rush of the waves filter in before I tried again. “Have you ever felt like…your power took control of you, not the other way around? Like it overwhelmed you, and you became something else for a moment? I had a craving for blood, but it didn’t feel anything like that—not hunger, exactly. I can’t explain it. But suddenly it made me understand the sorcerer-royals. Made me realize what Sonia’s after.”

Morrigan bowed her head. “It’s a perilous line we walk.”

“I don’t want to feel that way again.”

“I’m afraid those feelings will never leave you.” She moved away from the windows, approached without meeting my eyes. “You’ve pulled me back from them time and again. You can run from it, but sometimes they win. Sometimes this power controls you because you need it to survive.”

“Are you not terrified of that?”

My question went unanswered as she scuffed the toe of her boot over a crater left behind by ruined floor tiles. “This power does have cravings of its own. It’s up to the sorcerer—to you—how deeply you give into the bloodlust. But now you know how easily we can be swayed.” Morrigan threw me glance at last and saw the way my mouth had opened in wordless concern.

“It’s a dark legacy,” she agreed. “When Sonia and I had intentions of studying the discipline, we had to seek permission from the High Council. They were wary of it…still are, most of them. ”

“They shouldn’t have allowed it.” The confession stole the air between us, pulled it taut. “I cannot understand why anyone would choose such a path so treacherous. Following the bloody trail it left in our past.”

“Purpose,” Morrigan answered. The terse, snapping note of it lifted to the curved glass above us. “You cannot imagine what it was like to stare into eternity after the woman who made you willingly offered herself to the sea because immortality became a burden.”

“I can’t?” I shot back. “You’ve been finding new ways to get yourself killed every other day since I’ve been here.”

“Elspeth, you don’t—”

“What I don’t know is how you can possibly do this,” I said. “Because I cannot. What sort of purpose is this, Morrigan? Where will it lead you? A hundred years from now, a thousand—what power will you crave then when you find it’s not enough? I’ve pulled you back, I’ve seen it. But what happens when the day comes where I can’t?”

“You’re free to criticize my choices all you’d like, that’s fine with me,” she said, jabbing her fingertips into the middle of her chest. Her eyes blazed like they did when her sorcery awoke. “But they’re my choices.” She twisted the pendant hanging from her neck, twining it between her long fingers.

“I didn’t get a choice,” I yelled.

“You did.” Her eyes flashed, molten and lethal. “I gave you one, quite explicitly. Death or this. And this is what you chose, and I gave you a life. You knew who I was, Elspeth.”

“Not the truth of it,” I insisted. My voice was grave and too quiet. “Not everything.”

She took a few long strides away from me and swiped her palm over her face. “Your feelings of regret are not my fault. And how you deal with that is not my business.”

“You’ve never learned not to succumb to yours, have you?” The question wavered on my lips, but she wouldn’t even turn back, wouldn’t look at me. “I knew this wasn’t meant to be—that it would never last this way. What other regrets do you have, then, besides your cursed failures? Am I your most painful of all? That you gave me your heart too quickly for us both?”

Her silence was a burden she’d left to me.

Morrigan kept walking toward the doors, leaving more unanswered questions to drift in the air. The creak of hinges cinched my lungs tight.

The back of my throat stung. “Perhaps I should’ve chosen death.”

Morrigan’s exhale was a bladed weapon. “And perhaps there’s still time.”

My heart wanted to wither inside me.

Has the kiss of ichor made you so cruel? I wondered into her thoughts. Stars damn you, blood sorcerer.

The door closed behind her, a thunderclap, loud and final. The ground shook between us, the resonance scattering into every corner of the room. I rubbed absently at my breastbone as if it would force out the sob trapped within. I waited for the door to re-open, waited for her to come back.

There was only silence.

I didn’t sleep that night. Gwen brought me a teacup from the crypt’s stores just past midnight, but when I brought it to my lips, nausea stole away my craving. With the sea as my companion, I shut myself in that room until dawn, hoping Morrigan’s words wouldn’t sting when the sun awoke the harbor.