Page 8 of What Blooms from Death

Chapter Seven

Aleksander

“So, this is an interesting development, isn’t it?”

I finished wiping a streak of blood from my arm before darting a look toward my cousin. “Which part?”

“All of it, really.” Zayn was practically bouncing as he spoke. In all the time we’d spent trapped in this hellish underworld, some things still hadn’t changed; he was still entirely too fucking excitable.

“We’re all awake, to begin with,” he said. “Which hasn’t happened in a long time, for some of us.”

I didn’t want to think about all I had lost during this most recent sleep, but I couldn’t help asking, “How long was I out for, this time?”

He hesitated.

“The truth, Zayn. Out with it.”

“…This last stretch was the longest one yet. Nearly a year, as best we could track it. We didn’t think you were going to wake again.”

My breath hitched.

A year?

How was that possible?

It felt as if I’d only been sleeping for a day or two, at most.

My tongue felt oddly heavy. My lips, numb. I couldn’t speak, so I busied myself with lifting the cloth I had pressed to my wrist, checking the stab wound underneath.

Still bleeding.

That chaotic beast had been impressively accurate with her knife.

“And all the princess did was touch you, she claims—and just like that, you woke up.” Zayn glanced at the woman in question, frowning.

We still had her—and the strange, shapeshifting beast accompanying her—surrounded by our soldiers. She would not escape. But she was keeping her distance from me, at the moment. Which was for the better, as far as I was concerned; the farther away she was, the easier it was to think.

“Interesting, as I said,” Zayn concluded, dragging his gaze back to me. “And she could prove even more useful to us, maybe. Given her magical affinity…” His tone shifted, a cautious hopefulness weaving into it as he quietly added, “She could be the very thing we’ve been waiting for, Aleks. Our way out of this hellscape.”

I bristled. “I wouldn’t count on that. She’s the reason we’re here to begin with, if you’ll recall—her and that damned, out-of-control magic of hers.”

His gaze danced between the princess and me, questions clouding his eyes, but he didn’t argue.

“It doesn’t feel like years ago that it happened,” I told him, shaking my head. “It feels as if I just woke up after that last night at Rose Point. I still remember everything perfectly clearly. And I’m assuming you do, too.”

I’d tried to save her father that night.

In return, she’d attacked me. Her magic had ripped my sword from my hands, cutting open the world itself in the process—and then her shadows had overtaken me and my guards and courtiers, pressing us down into the realm of the dead, trapping us here.

We’d come to in this strange hell, assuming she’d killed us. Yet, after a time, we realized something even more disturbing: We were different from the ghastly souls who haunted this place—at least, at first.

Buried alive, in a manner of speaking.

Some of our companions had eventually succumbed to the deathly air and energy here. They’d joined the pale, dead figures who pressed against the edges of a safe area we’d created—an area protected through what magic Zayn and I could manage to summon within this suffocating place.

But my magic had grown increasingly erratic as the weeks went on, and soon, my consciousness had started flickering in and out along with it. I’d assumed death would take me and everyone else, eventually.

I’d hoped for that ending, more than once.

True death had eluded me, though—me and eleven others, including my cousin.

We’d all slipped in and out of consciousness a few times over the years, and I had vague memories of waking and existing in a half-life of sorts; of fighting against falling back into the clutches of a death-like slumber.

But no matter how hard I fought, the darkness always took me back.

And the last thing I saw before I slipped back into the cursed darkness was always the same thing: The face of the Princess of Eldris, glaring at me through a haze of smoke and shadows while the ground buckled and broke around us—a memory of the night we’d confronted one another in Rose Point.

I’d relived it a dozen times over.

At least.

Waking up to her face had been different than falling asleep to it, yet no less enraging. And I didn’t know how she and her magic had woken me up—if she truly was the reason behind that—but I did not intend to go back to sleep, whatever the cost.

Zayn drummed his fingers against the symbol of his house that was branded upon his bicep, the way he always did when he was deep in thought.

I studied the emblem—an upward-pointing sword encircled in a radiant sun—as his fingers fell upon it, thinking of the world above. Of the life we’d once lived, and of what we’d lost and left behind.

The rage in my gut twisted tighter.

“That out-of-control magic of hers seems to be continuing to have an effect, even as we speak.” Zayn’s brows knitted together in concern as he picked up a black, fallen leaf—one of the countless number now littering the ground. They cascaded down in a steady stream, like dark water puddling at our feet.

“The entire time you were in repose, this forest around us continued to flourish,” he said. “It’s kept us alive, the food within it growing at an impossible pace, the stream through it remaining perfectly clear...and all of it glowing, we assumed, because it was being fed by your magic, despite your unconscious state. But now…well, what do we make of this?”

I took the withered leaf from him. Despite my gentle grip, it still crumbled in my hand.

“Whether we find a way to use her and her power to our advantage or not, we obviously can’t continue as though she didn’t crash-land into our little corner of Hell,” said Zayn. “Things are shifting because of her presence.”

I clenched my fist, crushing what remained of the leaf into dust, as I glanced her way again.

She sat in a circle of soldiers who all kept their hands firmly on their weapons. She seemed to be talking to the creature who had very nearly sank its fangs into my face—a creature that had reminded me of a small dragon earlier. Now, it looked like a mere dog with a long, narrow snout. I watched as it pressed its forehead to hers, its feathered tail sweeping back and forth through the dead leaves that had fallen over them.

A shapeshifting beast was not the strangest thing I’d seen in this realm, but it was still difficult to take my eyes off the two of them.

The princess must have felt my staring, because she tilted her head toward me and glared back, her hateful expression remarkably similar to the one that had chased me into the dark so many times over these past years.

Things are shifting because of her presence.

I wished I could disagree.

But then, why was I still aching in the places where she had touched me?

My magic had flowed to those points, as if desperate to collide with her.

Although, now that the initial rush of my awakened power had eased a bit, that magic seemed to be… scattering. It bounced restlessly about inside of me, fluttering with a frustrating lack of direction, like a moth trapped and beating against a closed window, able to see a light inside, but unable to reach it.

I felt unsteady, but also more alive—more aware of my magic—than I had in as long as I could remember.

But why ?

And at what cost?

As she stood and marched her way over to us, escorted by several wary-looking soldiers, I felt compelled to stay put and watch her approach. She was walking with a slight limp; from the arrow of magic I’d managed to slice through her leg, I suspected.

She made a point of avoiding my gaze, speaking directly to Zayn as she snapped, “I want answers.”

That makes two of us, I thought.

I said nothing, however; my magic tumbled and spun faster at her sudden nearness, and my head throbbed so painfully I couldn’t think straight.

Zayn, always the more cordial one between us, said, “By all means. Where shall we start?”

His friendly tone seemed to briefly confuse her, as if she’d expected to have to work harder to pry information out of us. Composing herself, she said, “You told me you all have been trapped here since the events at my birthday celebration…but what about the weapon that also fell from the living world that night?”

My gaze lifted automatically at the question, the pain in my head parting long enough to allow me to grind out a response. “Luminor, you mean.”

“Yes. The Sword of Light.”

“What of it?”

She reached a hand toward her shadowy beast, who had slipped free of the soldiers and now moved to sit at her side, fixing its unsettling blue eyes on me as it did. “We came to the underworld in search of that blade,” she said. “Among other things.”

I snorted at the audacity in her tone; she spoke as though strolling into Hell was akin to taking a short trip to the seaside.

Zayn spoke before I could comment. “It isn’t here,” he informed her. “We would have known, if it was; Aleksander’s connection to it is a kind of magic itself. It’s tied to his blood, in a manner of speaking.”

If only I did have that blade…then perhaps I never would have lost my grip on my magic. Or my consciousness. Luminor channeled my abilities into something far more powerful than what I could manage on my own; there was a chance I could have used those powers to cut a path back to the world of the living.

If only.

“How can you be sure?” she demanded. “How much of this realm have you explored? Have you truly looked for the sword?”

“As much as we could,” Zayn replied, evenly. “Things aren’t that simple here, I’m afraid.”

Her power seemed to flare in indignation, and mine only grew more restless in response. I closed my eyes, tucking my chin toward my chest to try and steady myself through the waves of unsettling energy.

“I’ve researched this blade and its powers,” she said, matter-of-factly. “It caused a tear in the world above that’s still there, still bleeding after all these years, cursing my home and the kingdom around it. It must have caused an inverse wound in this dead land. And the sword is likely near this wound, preventing things from healing.”

“…We’ve seen nothing of the sort,” said Zayn.

“There must be something that—”

“Your little adventure was in vain,” I said, my eyes still clenched tight, pain making my voice even harsher than intended. “And now you’re trapped here in this hell along with us. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”

“You don’t sound particularly sorry.”

“No? Well, I suppose seven years of slow, miserable death have dulled my empathy.”

I opened my eyes to find her watching me with a venomous gaze, her stillness unsettling—like a snake waiting for the opportune moment to strike.

Zayn stepped closer to her, blocking any potential attack she might make. His gaze fell on the pile of blackened leaves behind her. He studied them for a moment before he said, “Let’s get out of this mess before we discuss things any further. There’s something I want to show you, too, Princess.”

“Nova,” she corrected.

“Nova, then. Come with me.” He offered another of his disarming smiles. He’d rendered more people defenseless with that smile than I could count—it was part of why I’d always kept him close, and why I’d intended for him to play a large role in my court when the time came. I could fake charm and niceties well enough for short periods of time, but not with as much conviction as Zayn.

His charm seemed to be working on her, as well; she followed him with only a slight hesitation, silencing the beast at her side when it let out a low growl.

I trailed the trio at a distance, more interested in reorienting myself with the land we were imprisoned in, searching for things that had changed during my latest bout of cursed sleep.

A year .

It still seemed impossible I’d been gone for so long.

We came quickly to a small structure rising up from a stretch of otherwise flat, bleak landscape—the dwelling we’d staked our claim on shortly after our fall into this world.

We had reinforced it over time, but we were not the ones who had originally built its walls of dark, weathered stone, or laid the interwoven pattern of bone-colored logs that made up its roof. The vines of black ivy crisscrossing its face had started to grow soon after our arrival, however, and they shimmered and crawled as I approached them now, newly stirred by my presence—or my magic’s presence, rather.

Like so much of this realm, this house seemed to be an echo of a structure in the world above. Our theory was that the more sentient souls who arrived here—the ones unable to fully pass on into deeper parts of these afterlands, for whatever reason—were responsible for building these kinds of things; we’d even glimpsed them working on other projects, sometimes, drifting through the motions, surrounded by billowing curtains of ghostly white energy.

It was perhaps the most haunting thing about this place—the way some of the dead carried on as though they were still alive. It had caused me to question my own existence, more than once; with the line between the living and the dead so blurred, could I really be certain that I had survived the descent into this hell?

Maybe it was an eternal punishment of the damned, to believe you were still alive and somehow able to claw your way back to life.

The wooden door creaked as we pushed our way into the house. Little had changed inside; it still smelled of damp soil and woodsmoke. The walls were still cold and close, making it feel more like a cave than a home.

Zayn knelt before the large fireplace in the central room. His magic was not as powerful as my own, but he channeled it with a smooth, confident precision, and in no time at all, he’d used a stream of concentrated light to ignite a pile of leaves and twigs in the center of the hearth.

Others of our company continued the job as they came inside, some building up the fire through non-magical means, while others took the torches from the wall, lit them, and proceeded to ignite the lanterns spaced along the rooms and hallways.

As light and warmth spread throughout the abode, Zayn led Nova on a tour of it, explaining more about how we’d taken shelter here and survived over the years; how my magic allowed for some things to grow, even in this climate, and how this was our main source of sustenance—that, and a once-clouded and rot-filled stream I’d managed to purify with more magic.

While they talked, I walked onward into the backyard, to where a garden of withered blooms awaited. Like the ivy we’d seen on our way into the house, this garden reacted to my approach, the flowers in it shivering with awareness, some of them blooming and brightening to deep, lush shades of purple and blue. The trees along the edges of the stacked-stone fence we’d built were withered nearly beyond recognition, their fruits nothing more than shriveled husks; they didn’t show any signs of life, even when I purposely tried to magic some essence of it back into them.

Three of my guards followed me outside: Elias, Rowen, and Farren. They had changed more than the house had in the last year; their features were terribly gaunt, their bodies skeletal—more like the dead beings outside our safe haven than the proud men and women who had followed me into the disaster at Rose Point.

How much longer could we withstand this realm and its noxious airs?

We sat for a while, catching up on the things I’d missed and the memories I was attempting to sort through; it was getting difficult to keep timelines clear, as much as I’d slipped in and out of my cursed, slumbering state.

As we talked, I tried to subtly infuse the air with warm magic, even though I was still feeling weak and off-balance myself. My power brightened their skin and their eyes, making them at least appear slightly more alive.

Alive.

I had to keep reminding myself that we were alive. We did not belong in this darkness. And one way or another, I was going to find a way to claw us back to the light.

Zayn rejoined me perhaps twenty minutes later, dismissing the guards and assessing me as he approached. “You’re still conscious.”

“Wide awake,” I assured him.

“A good sign.” He glanced back toward the house. “She still claims all she did was touch you. She certainly didn’t intend to wake you up.” A corner of his mouth quirked. “And I’m pretty sure she’d prefer it if you went back to sleep.”

I ignored the jab. “Did you get anything more useful out of her?”

“She’s not eager to run away from us, at least. We’ve intrigued her. And, from what I gathered, she’s already encountered some of the nasty spirits of this world…she doesn’t want to face any more of those alone, even if she won’t outright admit it. Fear is a powerful motivator, and it’s reason enough for her to want to stay close to other living beings.” He crossed his arms, his head tilting back in thought. “There’s more she’s not telling us, though. About her magic and her mission, and about the living world.”

“Of course there’s more. Did you expect her to immediately, willingly share her entire life story and all her hopes and dreams with you?”

“It wouldn’t have been the first time I had a woman spilling all her secrets within an hour of meeting me.”

“Maybe not—but copious amounts of wine were usually involved in your persuasions back home, as I recall. Something this realm is sorely lacking.”

He arched a brow. “It wasn’t the wine that loosened up their inhibitions, Cousin.”

I fought the urge to roll my eyes.

“Though, I wouldn’t say no to copious amounts of wine,” he added with a grin, “if you think we could procure some, somehow.”

I massaged my throbbing temples, sighing. “I could use something much stronger than wine.”

He chuckled, nodding in agreement.

After a minute, he said, “At the very least, don’t drive her away. Not yet. She was able to enter this world and navigate her way to us by using her magic—a useful talent. So think of the larger picture, please.” He finally dropped his usual cheerful act, fixing me with a hard look. “Some of us have been awake in this infernal region for longer than you have, and we’re getting tired of it.”

With that, he disappeared back into the house without a backward glance.

After studying the dead trees around the fence for a few more moments, I decided to go and have a chat with the princess myself.

I found her near the fireplace, tending to the gash I’d left in her leg. My magic had seared straight through her pant leg, leaving an ugly slash of burned and bleeding skin in its wake.

I leaned against the wall, watching her work for a moment, trying to recall the few memories I had of our meetings in the world above. Her appearance was more striking than I remembered. Waves of dark hair fell to the middle of her back, hints of deep violet shimmering in the strands that caught the firelight just so. Her complexion was porcelain pale, an alluring contrast both to those dark waves and to the piercing turquoise shade of her eyes. The shadows upon her arms still had not receded completely, though they were faded, now, to a pale grey that made it look as if she’d painted them on with ash from the hearth. Several bracelets decorated her wrists, and I could sense magic swirling around them whenever they shifted and clanked against one another.

She ignored me, as did her shapeshifting beast who dozed by the fire, still in the form of a large dog.

As I pushed away from the wall and sauntered closer, my head didn’t throb as badly as it had earlier, but the effect she continued to have on my power was undeniable.

It felt… chaotic .

Everything about her arrival did.

She continued to ignore me, even as I drew close enough that we could have reached out and touched one another.

“Hey. You.”

She didn’t look up from tending her wound. “My name is not You. ”

“Annoying, Abhorrent, Abysmal Creature of Death and Chaos, then.”

“Still wrong.”

“What if I shorten it to just Chaos ?”

With a vicious flick of her wrist, she ripped her knife through the roll of bandaging cloth she’d just taken from her bag. I could only assume she was fantasizing about doing that to me, instead—perhaps wishing she’d cut my wrist a little more deeply earlier.

“What do you want?” she demanded.

“I have a proposition for you.”

“Does it involve you going and fucking yourself?”

“Such foul language for a princess.”

“ Princess ?” She bared her teeth at me. “The Kingdom of Eldris has no princess. Not since the night you murdered her father.”

I forced myself not to react, steeling my features into an unreadable wall.

So the poor old bastard had ended up dying.

Interesting.

What else had transpired in the world above since that moment?

A thousand questions exploded in my mind all at once. All the more reason for me to try and strike up a partnership with her, at least for a little while—long enough to get answers, and to see how her magic might help us search the endless parts of this realm that we’d yet to explore, hopefully finding our way home in some part of it.

“I didn’t kill your father, Chaos.”

“Spare me your lies,” she snarled. “I saw you stab him.”

“What happened that night was…regrettable. And complicated. But it’s not important right now.”

“ Not important ? For seven years, I have—”

“Do you wish to listen to my proposition, or do you wish to continue arguing until the deadly curses and demonic things in this realm overtake and claim us both?”

She looked as though she was actually considering both options with equal measure.

Chaos was a more fitting name than I’d anticipated, apparently.

Several times, she opened her mouth only to snap it shut. Finally, she asked, “What do you propose, then?”

“That we find Luminor together.”

“I would rather die a thousand excruciating deaths than willingly travel anywhere with you.”

“Well, that’s good to know. Because you very likely will die without the help of me and my soldiers.”

She finished cutting her bandages and stabbed her knife into the dirt floor with excessive force, but she held her tongue.

“There were nearly three dozen of those soldiers when we landed here, you know.”

She continued bandaging her leg while regarding me from underneath her lashes, her curiosity clearly piqued.

“The ones who remain are the ones who have learned how to survive in this desolate place. The rest…” I let the comment hang heavily between us.

She stared at her impaled knife, a tormented look in her bright eyes.

Without looking at me, she said, “Go on.”

“They’ve had more practice than you at keeping the ghosts and demons of this world at bay,” I said with a shrug. “And trust me: You want escorts well-practiced at this. Because living things don’t truly belong in this realm—even those with magic such as yours.”

“So you’re offering to escort me to the sword, even knowing I don’t intend to let you have it back? I’m going to find a way to repair the damage it’s done and continues to do. And then I’m going to use my magic to neutralize the blade. I’m going to destroy it, if I have to.”

“Ah, so you actually do have an ultimate plan? That’s reassuring.”

“I always have a plan,” she muttered.

“We have that much in common, at least. Which brings us to the other part of this proposal,” I said, calmly, “and what’s in it for me .”

She wrapped her hand around the jeweled hilt of her knife, but left it in the dirt, and she didn’t interrupt as I continued.

“Something about you and your magic seems to have stirred my own magic, waking me up in the process,” I said. “And it seems to be keeping me awake—more awake than I’ve been in some time—even if it’s giving me a headache to go along with it.”

She considered my words for a long moment, her fingers tapping against her weapon.

And then that wicked, chaotic beast smiled .

“Have I said something amusing?” A snarl slipped into my words.

“You need me in order to stay conscious. I give you, the King of Light himself, life. I just find it ironic how desperately you need me, even though you called me—what was it? An Abysmal Creature of Death and Chaos .”

“And you need me to keep you from meeting a gruesome end in this realm.”

“Debatable.”

“If you think so, then feel free to leave. Best of luck on your journey. May the road show you mercy, favor, and light , as they say in my kingdom.”

She shot me a nasty look before getting to her feet, testing her weight on her injured leg before making a few adjustments to the bandage she’d tied around it. She looked as though she was considering walking away from me, but she couldn’t bring herself to move.

I took a step closer to her. Then another. The closer I drew, the more the restless magic inside of me settled. The clearer my mind became. It was such an odd, unexpected reaction that I couldn’t help but draw even nearer, chasing the sudden clarity without regard to much else.

Her knife was at my throat in the next instant.

I almost smiled at the feel of the cold steel pressing against my skin; at least she was entertaining. How many years had it been since I’d felt this alive?

“You’re impressively quick with your blade.”

“And you’re embarrassingly slow at realizing I want you nowhere near me.” She punctuated the sentence with a twitch of her wrist, making the tip of the knife bite painfully into my skin.

A few pounding heartbeats later, the sound of approaching footsteps reached us.

Neither of us flinched.

“Oh, good,” Zayn said, smiling brightly as he appeared in my peripheral vision. “I see you two are still getting along wonderfully.”

I didn’t acknowledge him, keeping my gaze leveled on the princess’s. “Either join forces with us, or leave,” I said, my voice low. “Our resources are too scarce to waste them on outsiders.”

“Fine,” she snapped, after a weighted pause. “I agree. But I’m warning you: One more questionable move, and I am going to stab you in the neck.”

I met her threat with a smile. “Part of me still thinks letting you kill me would be preferable to subjecting myself to more of your company. So, by all means: If you are going to stab, aim for an artery.” I pulled the collar of my shirt aside, exposing myself further to her blade.

She glared, drawing back and spinning the knife around in her hand with impressive control.

Zayn cleared his throat—loudly—finally pulling both our gazes toward him. He held up a bright red fruit, one of several from a basket balanced in his other hand. “Anybody hungry?”

The princess flashed Zayn a perfectly cheerful smile—as though she hadn’t just been threatening to kill his cousin.

“I am hungry, actually,” she said, sheathing the knife before swiping the fruit from him and holding it out to me. “You first, though.”

“Paranoid, hm?”

“Plenty of others have tried their best to poison me in the past.”

“What a shame they failed.”

She spun the fruit between her fingers, inspecting it closer. It was one of the bright red specimens from the withered trees in the backyard. Hellthorn apples , we’d nicknamed them, because of how difficult it was to pluck one without bloodying your arm against the briar covered branches. Their taste reminded me of strawberries at first bite, but with an odd hint of spice and honey in the aftertaste.

“What was it you were saying earlier?” I asked. “About how I needed you more than you needed me?”

“Don’t test it for me, then. I’m perfectly fine going without food.” She looked as if she was considering throwing it in my face instead.

“No need for that.” I caught her wrist, holding it steady. “It’s safe. Don’t worry.” I leaned in, my eyes never leaving hers, and took a bite of the succulent fruit. Crimson juice trickled like blood from the apple’s broken flesh, winding a path down the side, dripping onto her skin.

Her hand shook slightly as I drew back.

“No one here is out to poison you, Chaos,” I told her, turning away. “But you might wish we had, after you see what the rest of this realm is truly like.”