What Kills Me (26 page)

“When we fell in love, it was
forbidden. He was only a soldier in the Aramatta and he was
Ikkaru.”

She saw my puzzled expression.
“Vampires are divided into orders based on the bloodline. The
Ikkaru are thrice removed from the Ancients and therefore their
blood is diluted. Did you see the general?”

I nodded. She put her index finger
under her eye and dragged it down her cheek. “It is why he still
bears a scar from his human life. I, however, am Ilutu. A second
generation vampire. My sire was created by an Ancient. So we had to
hide our love. In the meantime, the general moved quickly up the
chain of command. He was a brilliant soldier and fiercely devoted
to the Monarchy. I was able to convince my obaia that he deserved
to be general and when he was promoted, I requested her permission
to be with him. She made the rare exception.”

“Who is your sire?” I asked, though I
suspected the answer.

She met my gaze. “The Empress is my
sire.”

I felt a chill. I could not imagine
these two women together. The Empress was cold and hard like metal.
Nuwa was soft and fluid like water.

“May I ask you a question?” she
said.

“Of course.”

“You’ve come so far. What makes you
fight so hard to live?”

“I don’t know. Fear of
death?”

“What else?”

“Maybe the remote chance that I might
one day see my family again.”

“I understand,” she said, nodding.
“That is certainly worth fighting for.”

She rose. “You must be
exhausted.”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t really need
to sleep anymore.

“I’m going to turn in now,” she
continued. “If you require anything this afternoon, just call for
Ai-Leen and she can bring you whatever you need.”

Before she left, she turned and rested
a hand on one of the stone jambs in the room. “Will you do
something for me today?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Take the afternoon to rest your
spirits. You deserve it.”

“Thank you.”

“Keep your spirits
up.
Audentes fortuna
iuvat
. Fortune favors the
bold.”

After she left, I wandered the halls
like a ghost, feeling the cool walls, examining the art. Time
seemed to creep without Lucas’s company. When I finally found my
way above ground, back inside the temple, it was afternoon. I
walked outside, savoring the sun’s heat and the smell of leaves. I
strolled through the grounds. I watched the koi. It gave me peace.
Then I climbed the hill to the wall bordering the temple and jumped
over it. I hoped to find the waterfall again. I wanted to see it
under the sun.

The forest was thick with vegetation.
Brush blanketed the ground, and trees blocked out the sun. When a
ray peeked through the foliage, I ran to stand under its spotlight.
I couldn’t imagine an eternity without the sunlight. I followed a
butterfly’s flight for a few minutes. It fluttered among the trees
and suddenly changed directions, narrowly avoiding a spider web.
The web stretched five feet across, anchored in four corners to
trees and bushes; its creator rested in the center, plucking the
strings like a harp. I was as stunned as the butterfly.

“Whoa. That is a ginormous spider,” I
said.

All the mountain critters were
ginormous, I found. The butterflies had puffy bodies like
hummingbirds. Tree trunks were covered in bug-eyed green insects
disguised as leaves. I was careful not to crush them while climbing
into the canopy. I spent the rest of the day hiking and climbing
the peaks. I pretended to take photos, creating a frame with my
thumbs and my index fingers.

Yesterday the mountains had seemed
like titanic monuments and I had felt so minuscule. Today I knew
that I could reach their pinnacles. I mentally marked the temple
among the green behind me. Ahead I saw something red against a
mountainside in the distance. A patch of flowers, maybe? A flag?
Curious, I trekked toward it.

About fifteen minutes later I pulled
myself up on a ledge and rubbed the dust from my hands. The red
object that I had seen was a blanket. Like the one Ai-Leen had
given me in the library. It was hanging on a wooden rack, along
with a pair of light blue pants.

It belongs to one of the
servants, maybe.

“Hello?” I called.

I walked a few steps toward the
blanket and I found a crevice in the mountainside. I poked my head
inside. The cave was empty except for a cot, three wooden chests, a
basket of clothing, an unlit oil lamp, and a pile of soft-covered
books with yellowed and curling pages.

I had likely stumbled upon a servant’s
lookout post. I wanted to fold the blanket and put it inside but I
decided not to touch anything in case I offended the
person.

As I walked back to out to
the ledge, my toe kicked something. Something green. A hoop. I
knelt down and picked up a jade bracelet. I rubbed the dirt from
its shiny surface. It looked like the one that Yung wore.
She must have dropped it.

My eyes wandered, unfocused, to a
small mound of dirt. But when I stared at it, it took a shape. The
shape of a hand.

No. It can’t
be.

I leaned in, staring. There was no
mistaking it—it was a blackened hand, truncated at the wrist with
its fingertips crumbling away. It reminded me of Paolo’s burned
remains. I gripped the bracelet and scanned the piles of charcoal
sand at my feet.

Is this Yung? Or another
servant? How could this happen? Did she not find shade in
time?

I reversed until my heels
pushed rocks off the edge and I heard them crack on the cliffs
below. The setting sun now hung just over the western peaks. The
sky looked like it was on fire.
I should
get back. I should tell Nuwa.

I took a last look at what
I thought were Yung’s remains. The winds would take every last
trace of her. And then there would be nothing.
Nothing but our memory and this bracelet.

I stood still, as if to take in this
moment to show her respect, and I froze. There was something odd in
the air. Something unnatural. The lightest scent of something
medicinal, maybe. Or incense.

I scoured my surroundings. Gazing at
the ground, I caught a small, faint pattern of squiggles in the
sand. Wavy lines like the ones in Nuwa’s garden. Wavy lines,
perhaps, made by a boot print.

And then I was running. I had never
run so fast. I skidded down crags on my heels and ripped trees out
of the ground that were in my way. I only hoped that I made it back
before the sun sunk behind the mountains. I hoped that Lucas and
Nuwa would still be alive. That we could be together and escape. I
carried that image of our reunion with me as I ran. I thought each
of my steps, so heavy with my fear, so powerful in my desperation,
would break the ground under me.

I jumped onto a tree, bending it with
my weight, and threw myself over the wall. I leaped up the stairs,
ripped the doors off of their hinges, and ran into the temple. I
slid into the middle of the stone garden, destroying the design in
the sand. Lucas and Nuwa were already sitting at the table on the
terrace, in the shade of the temple roof. Lucas rushed to me. We
grabbed each other.

“They’re here,” I said. “We have to
go.”

Lucas’s head snapped back to look at
Nuwa. She was rising from her seat, teacup in hand.

“Nuwa,” he said. “We need to
leave.”

“Just calm down,” she said. “Axelia,
how do you know the Aramatta is here?”

“I know. I could smell them. The
leather, the incense from the palace. I can still smell
it.”

She lifted her head and
listened.

“And I saw a boot print.”

“My servants would have heard them
coming. They would have come to warn us,” she said.

“I think Yung is dead. I found this,”
I said and I tossed the jade bracelet to her. She caught it between
two fingers.

“I saw her burned remains in the
mountains. I think it was at her home. There was clothing hung out
to dry. The Aramatta may have gotten to her first.”

“No,” Nuwa said. She set the teacup
and the bracelet down. She picked up her sword, which was propped
against the table.

“Axelia,” she said. “How is it that
you were out that far in the mountains? It was day.”

“I…”

“Axelia is different,” Lucas said.
“She’s impervious to the sun.”

Nuwa frowned. “It’s not possible,” she
whispered.

“We know it doesn’t make any sense but
she can go out in the day,” he said. “We wanted to tell you but we
didn’t want to alarm you.”

“Is this why the Monarchy wants her?
Because she is…different?”

“Yes. Please, Obaia. If the Aramatta
are here, we must leave.”

Nuwa nodded. “It’s all right, my
children. Don’t worry. Everything is going to be all
right.”

A westward wind blew through the
garden. Their odor. It was so strong. I grabbed Lucas’s
hand.

“What?” he said. But then we could
hear them. Their footsteps suddenly were everywhere.

It’s too late.

They were here. They streamed in
through the entrance and over the roof, like black cockroaches,
until they lined the veranda, three soldiers deep. Lucas pulled
both swords from his back and swept me behind him. He started to
back us up against the terrace but soldiers had lined the edge of
the cliff. We were surrounded.

I heard the general’s lumbering
footsteps inside the temple before he emerged on the veranda,
larger than life. He looked pleased. He stepped down onto the sand
and Lucas grit his teeth.

“Ah. There you are. We have been
looking for you,” he said.

Lucas crossed his blades and widened
his stance, poised to fight. Nuwa moved beside us. She had not
drawn her weapon.

“General,” she said. Her soft voice
trembled. She put her hand to her chest and bowed her head. I noted
for the first time that she was wearing a silver, high-collared
dress. Her dark hair, parted in the middle, hid her
face.

“Obaia,” Lucas whispered.

“My lady,” the general
purred.

She raised her head and she had the
most peculiar expression. Her face was tense, her lips quivered, as
if she wanted to smile or cry.

“I’m so glad that you’ve come,” she
said.

Lucas’s shoulders fell and his arms
dropped to his sides, as if Nuwa’s presence sapped him of life. He
seemed to sway, hit by a gust of wind. He was like a ghost. I had
seen that look before—the last time we stood before the general and
he had watched his family die.

“It has been some time, my lady,” the
general said to Nuwa.

“It has,” she said. She lowered her
chin and appeared almost shy.

“You have kept well in
exile.”

She flinched at the mention of her
exile. “As well as one could.”

“I bear this message from the Empress:
she is pleased that you continue to fulfill your sacred duty to the
Monarchy.”

“Thank you.”

“Obaia, why?” Lucas said.

She turned to him with a mournful
expression. “I’m so sorry, my child.”

“Your obaia serves the Monarchy,
Swordsmith,” the general said.

“But we trusted you,” I said. The
shock receded and the anger rushed in.

“I know that you don’t understand.
But—I am sorry,” she said. Then she looked to me and added quietly,
“We will do almost anything for the one we love.”

The one she loves. After
all these years. The general.

“Your obaia rightfully informed the
Monarchy of your plans,” the general said. “We arrived immediately
and disposed of your accomplice.”

I gasped. “Kinman!”

“No,” Lucas said.

“You killed him?” I
blurted.

“Resistance against the Monarchy will
not be tolerated,” the general retorted. “My lady, we also disposed
of your servant. She showed resistance to guiding us
here.”

Yung.

Lucas raised his swords again, one
aimed at the general, the other at Nuwa. The soldiers around us
unsheathed their weapons. I caught sight of my white sword on the
table.

“You wouldn’t fight your obaia,” she
said.

He paused. “No. I would not,” he said.
But he didn’t lower his sword.

“Don’t fight, my child. You will
die.”

“They’re going to kill me regardless,”
said Lucas. “At least this way some of them will pay.” He pointed
his blades at the soldiers.

“General,” Nuwa said. “There does not
need to be any more blood shed. If my child agrees to put down his
weapons and the fugitive surrenders herself to you, will you spare
his life?”

The general shook his head. “That is
not possible, my lady.”