Falling Between (The Vaettir Serial, #1) (5 page)

“No,” he pleaded as he looked over to the side of the room. “Please. I told you I had no choice.”

It was only then that I noticed Estus standing in the corner, looking dispassionately at the man. He was still in the loose, dark clothing that I'd first met him in. The clothing made him look like some sort of monk, but the tortured man begging him for his life kind of ruined the picture.

I tried to jerk away from James, but he held my arm tight enough to bruise. The short-haired woman stood to my other side. She didn't speak, but it was obvious by her expression that she wasn't enjoying the show.

“Please,” the man pleaded, looking at me now. “Please don't do this.”

I looked away from the fear in the man's eyes. The fact that I was the source of that fear, and not the people who had tortured him, hurt my heart. I could feel what had been done to the man, and I could taste his fear on the back of my tongue. As James dragged me forward the feeling increased. By the time I stood directly in front of the man, his pain was almost unbearable. I felt sadness as well, and loss. He loved someone, and now knew that he would never see her again. I closed my eyes and shook my head over and over again, trying to diffuse the emotions.

“What is she doing?” the short-haired woman asked. “Why isn't she finishing this?”

“It will come with time,” Estus explained. “Her nature will take over. This is what she was born for.”

I heard someone saying, “No, no, no,” over and over again, and realized that it was me.

“Just do it!” the man shouted, flinging spittle in my face.

His pain was palpable. I thought that if I could reach out and touch it, I could ease that pain. I
wanted
to reach out and touch it. It pulsed in front of me. I began to reach out a hand. No. If I touched him, he would die.

James pushed me forward so that the man's face was only inches from mine. The man could have tried to kick me or head-butt me, but he didn't. “Please,” the man whispered right against my face. “Please just let it be over.”

I opened my eyes to see the man's face. His eyes were a light brown with flecks of green in them. I slowly reached my hand up and cradled his face, knowing what to do even though it had never been taught to me. I held the man's gaze as the light faded from his eyes. “Thank you,” he whispered with his last breath.

I turned at the sound of footsteps in the doorway. Alaric stood framed in the light of the brighter hallway. He looked at me solemnly and said, “Not always a gift, but not always a curse either.”

I wanted to run out of the room, but seemed incapable of moving my feet. I had just killed a man, and didn't even know what his crime had been.

“What did he do?” I asked to no one in particular.

“He fought for the wrong side,” Estus answered apathetically.

I glared at him as anger bubbled up inside of me. “You took him away from someone who loved him!” I shouted as I walked towards the old man. “What did
she
do to deserve this!”

“How could you possibly know that?” James asked from behind me. He didn't seem in the least bit disturbed by my tirade.

I spun on him. “I felt it!” I cried. “She was the last thing he thought of. His greatest concern was the idea of never seeing her again.”

“Interesting,” Estus commented. “An empath and an executioner. I do not envy you my child.”

I turned back to the old man. I said very slowly, emphasizing each word, “I
will not
be doing
that
again.”

“This is war Madeline,” he replied. “We all do what we must.”

“What war?” I spat. “I don't see any battles happening! All I see is torture.” Tears were running steadily down my face, and I couldn't seem to stop them. The man's last emotion was just too much for me to digest.

“Not all war is battle and bloodshed,” Estus replied, finally letting a hint of emotion show through. “And I will not let my people get slaughtered because of one squeamish executioner.”

“What do I even have to do with it!” I shouted. “Killing that man did not stop this alleged
war
!” I knew I was bordering on hysteria, but I just couldn't stop myself.

Estus walked forward. “Without an executioner,” he said very carefully. “We do not truly die. Would you leave us all to that fate?”

“What do you mean?” I sobbed. “How can you not truly die?”

“I mean exactly what I say. We could have chopped that man up and put him in ten different boxes, and still some part of him would have lived. He would no longer have thought or spoken, but the life force would have remained.”

A horrifying idea dawned on me. “Is that what you did to the last executioner?” I asked. “Is he still alive in a box somewhere.”

“It is a fate befitting a traitor,” James said from beside me. I hadn't noticed how close he was standing to me until just then.

I took a step away from him. “Take me to him,” I demanded.

Estus smiled. “So, you would kill another?”

“You owe me for
this
,” I gestured wildly to the dead man. “Now take me to him.”

Estus simply nodded and walked towards the door. I followed him, but everyone else stayed put. Alaric stepped out of the doorway as we walked by to give us space. I followed Estus into the room where I'd found the hand.

“I see you have already met with part of him,” Estus commented as he kicked the dead hand aside. He walked to the wall with the cages and felt across the stones. He came to a handle I hadn't seen before and pulled. The stone came out like a drawer.

I didn't want to look in that drawer. I knew it would be something horrific and bloody, but I also knew that the life, or soul, or whatever you wanted to call it, was still trapped inside this man's dismembered corpse. It wasn't right.

Estus stepped away from the drawer to make room for me. Before I could think better of it, I walked forward and looked down into the box. Inside was a human heart. It didn't beat, yet blood seeped steadily out of the severed ventricles. I felt rage and betrayal radiating from the heart.

“The heart is the key,” Estus informed me. “Release the heart and the soul is free.”

I reached down and stroked a finger across the heart. The muscle that composed the thing felt thick and alive. I willed the life out of the heart, but nothing happened. “It's not working,” I whispered to myself.

“Do what you did in the other room,” Estus advised as if I'd been talking to him. “Do not will the life away. Take its pain.”

I reached out again and felt the soul's hatred and pain. Yet the emotion that outweighed everything was betrayal. If this man was a traitor, it was not by choice. He was killed by the ones he considered kin. I took a shaky breath. This time, instead of willing the life away, I focused on taking the heart's pain, and taking away the feeling of betrayal.

The heart gave a final shudder, then collapsed in on itself. More blood leaked out as the heart deflated and then was still.

A
screeching roar sounded in the hallway, grabbing both mine and Estus' attention. Estus reacted first, running out into the hallway and in the direction of the sound. Alaric, James, and the short-haired woman all ran by before I could get out of the door. They all disappeared around the next bend and suddenly I was alone. I could escape.

I stood frozen in the hallway until I heard the sounds of distant fighting as the others reached whatever the sound had been. I started to run in the opposite direction that they had gone, but stopped. I was beside the room where I'd taken the life of the first man. His body was still hanging against the wall. How could I return to my safe little house, when I could accidentally take someone's life with a touch. The people down here were monsters, but maybe, just maybe, I was a monster too.

I heard a woman's scream. Well shit. I turned around and ran in the direction of the fighting, cursing my choice even as I made it. I went around several bends in the hallway and came to the room that I'd thought of as the throne room. Everything was in utter chaos. The dog/lizard creature fought gleefully alongside the Vaettir. The creature must have been the one to find the intruders.

Sophie was lying still in a corner. It must have been her scream that I heard. The intruders were dressed in what looked like leather armor. The pieces of armor reminded me of insect carapaces. There were others not in the armor that obviously fought for
our
side, though I hadn't seen any of them before. Many had already fallen after painting those who still fought with their blood.

One of the intruders finally noticed me and started in my direction. His movements reminded me of a snake as he wove through the chaos with his eyes on me. As he got closer a long, serpent-like tongue flickered out of his thin lips. The intruder had almost reached me, and everyone else was engaged in the fighting.

My mind screamed at me to run, but I was too afraid. I could hardly even breathe. The intruder came to stand in front of me, but only remained there for a moment. A black shape barreled into him and sent him flying. My feet unfroze and I hurried into one of the nearby rooms. I should have closed the door, but I couldn't make myself do it. I had to make sure whoever had saved me was okay.

I peeked back out into the fighting, which had suddenly all but halted. The furry lizard tore into the stomach of one of the intruders, splitting the armor like the delicate petals of a flower. The creature found the intruders spinal chord and tore a chunk of it free. Its dog-like mouth munched happily as blood poured down its face. My eyes fell next on the one who had saved me.

Alaric crouched over the now-dead intruder. Blood and thicker bits ran down Alaric's face. As I watched, he spat a thick glob of flesh onto the ground. He'd bitten the man's throat out. Alaric looked over at me with eyes that had turned entirely feline and teeth to match.

All of the other intruders were dead, and several of those without armor were dead as well. James lived, though his arm hung limply at his side, and Estus seemed completely unharmed. Sophie was lying still in the corner.

I hobbled back out into the room, feeling almost as if I was floating. I didn't feel anything else, and wondered vaguely if I was going into shock. Alaric cast one final glance at me, then hurried to his sister's side.

I started to step around a body, then made the mistake of looking down. It was the short-haired woman, now lying completely still. The side of her head was bashed in. I felt the pain of the blow and almost fell to the ground. Without a thought I reached down and smoothed a hand across her face, releasing her life force. I was instantly horrified that I'd done so without thinking. What if she could have been healed? If these people could maintain their lives when they were chopped up in little boxes maybe her head would have healed. 

I looked up to find Alaric rocking his sister in his arms. She looked very dead. James stood beside me. “You need to release them all,” he instructed.

“But what if they can heal?” I asked, unable to take my eyes off of Alaric and Sophie.

“They will not heal,” he said darkly. “Once we are dead, we do not come back, but we do not fully die either. It is our curse.”

I closed my eyes. There was so much pain in the room that it was almost unbearable. The dead man nearest to me was the one that the lizard creature had half-eaten. The pain in my stomach doubled me over. I fell to the ground and curled around myself. My cheek was in a pool of blood and I didn't care. I just wanted the pain to go away. I forced my hand out towards the man and took his pain. As soon as he was truly dead my own pain eased, but there was still plenty more to go around. I slowly rose to my feet in order to continue my work. 

I went around the room and took the fallen's lives one by one. Each life that I took seemed to stick to me, leaving a little bit of itself behind. As I went the collective pain lessened each time, just as the remnants of life force remaining with me grew. Finally all that was left was Sophie. Her throat had been cut. The wound was not nearly as brutal as some of the others, but her pain hurt my heart more than anything else. I could feel Alaric's pain as well, like a heavy weight on my soul. The others left living felt pain as well, but nothing like what was coursing through Alaric's veins at that moment.

He looked up at me with human eyes, his tears streaming down to mingle with the blood staining his mouth. I crouched across from him and looked down at Sophie. Her blood was beginning to congeal in her loose, dark hair. She looked pale and very dead.

I reached my hand out slowly and looked at Alaric rather than at Sophie. I felt his pain more than hers. His loss was almost unbearable. I meant to soothe her pain, but instead tried to soothe his. I focused on taking that sense of loss away while I stroked my hand down Sophie's face. I felt the clinging remnants of life leave me while I touched her. At first they slowly dripped of like water, and then they leapt from me in a mighty torrent. I looked down, surprised at the sensation, to find that Sophie's eyes had opened. She took a deep, rasping breath and sat up in her brother's lap. The wound in her throat was gone.

Alaric looked stunned for a second then laughed, hugging his sister to him. She scooted out of his lap, seeming rather cranky, so he turned to me instead. Before I could react he pulled me against him and kissed me. I could taste the blood and salty tears on his mouth, but underneath that I could taste him. It was a comforting, yet at the same time exhilarating taste.

After a few seconds I managed to gather my wits about me and pulled away. I looked into Alaric's eyes as they sparkled with joy, and couldn't help feeling somewhat joyful myself. We laughed together, covered in blood and surrounded by corpses, and I knew my life would never be the same again.

T
hank you for reading the first installment of the
Vaettir Serialized Romance
. A quick note on serials: a serial is basically episodic fiction. Each part, or episode, is novella length. In the case of this serial ~13-20,000 words. Due to length, episodes are released more frequently than installments in traditional series.