A Girl in Black and White (Alyria 2)

So many arrogant princes, was my last coherent thought.

I turned around, a darkness crawling from my stomach into my chest. “One prince, two prince, three . . .” I mumbled mirthfully as I walked away. Black shadows trailed me down the dock like a sea monster’s scaly back in the water.

The dark stretched into a thin pool in my mind, an invisible thread pulling me to the edge of a dock deep in the harbor. As if I’d imbibed too much, I swayed on the ledge, until in slow-motion, I teetered over the edge.

Splash.

It wasn’t water. Emerging my head from the darkness, black trickled down my face and shoulders.

There really was nothing like swimming in the dark.

I sank.

As if I were a sinking ship and the water was pulling me down, claiming me as its own. But there were no passengers’ screams. No fire and burning wood. No captain saving the day.

Only silence.

A silence you can only know once. The stillness of the dark water surrounding me. The quiet in my head.

The finality of it all.

Nothing scares at you

at that point.

It just is.

Until it isn’t.

My dreams haunted me all morning: of drowning on repeat, of blood dripping, the sounds of the soft splats hitting wooden floorboards like a form of torture.

The house was now empty, it seemed. It was too early for the working women to arrive, and the girls had already left for the festival. Even Agnes had gone to a meeting after breakfast, and the servants were given the day off to enjoy the festivities as well. I’d gotten quite the talk from Agnes about missing supper last night, but she only threatened, ‘One more time and I’ll alert the Superior Sisters,’ like she always did. I was only waiting for the day she would really do it.

I felt content sitting at the window seat, looking out, like my mind had been altered by a dark version of Midnight Oil. The quiet tick of the clock and the soft trickling of the fountain were the only sounds besides for the occasional shouts from the unloading at the harbor.

I’d only gone through this change once before. Somehow, out of sheer luck, I’d kept it hidden from the Sisterhood, because I’d found someone to help me through it.

The state only lasted days, unless more of my blood dripped, though I hoped it didn’t have to come to that. Because the longer I felt this way, this burning, this blackening, the harder it was not to free-fall into it, just give into this pull on my body from all directions. Last night I did, and I’d woken wet on a remote Symbian beach, having no recollection of what happened during that hour I was out. I could only hope all I’d done was go for a nightly swim.

I could hide it, pull the awareness into the deepest recesses so I appeared normal. Sometimes it wanted free rein, and occasionally I didn’t mind at all how I looked, but thankfully I’d checked the impulse.

I twirled my cuff in my hand, having found the reason Weston had taken it off my wrist last night. Etched in the metal on the inside were two letters: WW. I didn’t need to think hard about whose initials those were. He could track me with this cuff. He must have done it long ago—which meant he never had to take my blood. But the only reason he would take it off would be that he didn’t want to find me. Why would it matter unless he looked? I guessed maybe that was an itch too hard to scratch. My ego could only assume anyways.

A creak sounded through the room, and I turned to glance at the front door as someone walked into the foyer.

A dark smile rushed over me on the inside.

I knew I couldn’t go through this change again, that eventually, this dark pull on me would win, and I’d become a Shadow of myself. So why not take advantage of it and tie up my loose ends now?

The door shut behind the Titan. He wasn’t the one I preferred to see, but this would be interesting, nonetheless.

He hadn’t noticed where I watched him from, but his movements were short and slightly tense, aware that he wasn’t alone.

It was undeniable, even for me when I hadn’t known them, that Roldan and Weston were brothers. Same mouth. I could only imagine that their smiles would be almost identical; but I couldn’t know that for sure because I’d never seen Roldan smile. He was perpetually granite, while shockingly enough, Weston’s features were softer when he wished, usually when he was aiming for something nefarious.

Undoubtedly, I would have found Roldan attractive if it hadn’t been for the whole murder situation. In fact, I remember staring at him the first time I’d seen him and Weston telling me to close my mouth. But now I could see the lack of sympathy behind his eyes. The pretentious air in his stance. And I resented it all.

The good thing about this magic was that my palms burned continuously. I was so much stronger, so much more confident. It was utterly addictive. I might have, some of the time, had to shake unintelligible whispers out of my head, dreamt of death and blood, and had a fleeting paranoia that someone was watching me, but the power that came with it, sometimes made it feel worth it . . .