Marek (Buried Lore Book 1) (20 page)

Once
through the trees a short distance I turned to look at the castle. It stood
grey and
sombre
in a field of white, its stone guards
watching me. Movement in one of the windows tore me from my trance. I had to
hurry but my legs felt like they were made from lead. The frosty winds failed
to cool my skin, which tingled and burned. I rubbed at the itch but it did not
help.

I
had no idea which way I was headed but I came upon a lake that had frozen and
looked solid enough to cross. Something had drawn me here and I felt the
presence of one of my own kind. There appeared nothing in my wake except the
trees that stretched on endlessly. Halfway across, I caught the sight of
something moving beneath the ice. As I put my hand on the surface there was a
thud against the ice from beneath and I jumped back, my feet slipping from
under me. It seemed just for a moment the ice would crack and swallow me.

I
carefully crawled back to where the object was. A face pressed against the ice.
It was the servant, Irene, with her eyes and mouth open. I could hear her
gurgled screams as she scratched at the surface for her life. The skin on her
fingertips was raw from trying to claw her way out, and there was a faint
murmur inside her head. She was attempting to speak to me but water gushed into
her mouth. Instead, I saw inside her thoughts with images of my father. I
became frantic, for this woman and I were connected in some way.

With
all my dark strength I hit at the ice with my fist. A tiny fissure formed with
water leaking through. Irene was slipping away with the current. I smashed at
the ice one more time and this time a loud cracking noise echoed across the
forest. My arms entered the freezing waters and I grabbed Irene’s hair, pulling
her back and up through the hole.

I
turned her on her side to let the water rush from her mouth. Her face was
purple as I carried her back to the edge of the lake.

I
called her name, cradling and stroking her head in my lap, but she was gone.
This person had known my father, a link to my past now broken. My healing hands
were to no avail for my strange sickness had weakened me and after several moments
I felt her last moments of life float past me like a warm breeze. This death
was wrong like everything else to do with my sister.

‘Too
bad,’ said a distinct voice behind me, since
no-one
else could sound syrupy and masculine at the one time. ‘She was so loyal to
your mother.’

It
took a moment for his words to release some memories from my previous life.
Irene. Of course! She was my mother’s friend and my father had talked of her.
How could I have missed that? I stood to face him, Irene in my arms. ‘What is
going on? How did this woman die?’

‘She
took her own life. Isn’t that obvious?’

‘You
lie.’

Jean
smirked. ‘You must come back. Oleander is worried. She has asked me to come and
fetch you.’

I would
have argued but for the pain in my stomach and the noises in my head of voices
far away, of sounds like gushing water.

‘What
is happening to me?’ I asked as I sank back down into the snow feeling as if
the ground beneath me was swirling.

‘You
need to rest,’ said Jean. ‘Your body is changing. It is craving its new life.’

Jean’s
words sounded so far away. I wanted to ask what he meant but I slipped into
unconsciousness.

Chapter 8

Celeste

I lay in prison of obscurity. I was
neither here nor there. I just was.

Sometimes
I could hear sounds, like voices through the walls. I could not move my body or
lift my arms. It was like I was suspended in the night sky. I did not feel
pain, hunger or cold. Sometimes I thought I slept but it was hard to tell because
it was always so dark.

What
I remembered was blood.
Lots of blood.
I remembered
screaming. Was it my own or had I imagined such a sound? I remembered
Oleander’s perfect face, her faraway cold eyes. But that was all. And when I
was awake the world was empty and I lay there suspended in a black cloud with
just memories.

Did
I die? Was I in purgatory? Had my bones been picked over by forest animals? Or
perhaps I was buried alive.

Marek
!
Mama! I would call soundlessly. Where am I?

Zola

Marek
was becoming one of us. He could feel the change but could not
explain the way his body fought an unseen force. His stomach cramps worsened by
the day. One night I visited him in his room where he lay on the floor. He had
tried to eat meat but it made him sick. Human food was not what he craved,
though eventually he would again if not for the taste but to blend in with
humans. But it would never fill a need. I found the practice quaint but it was
human life force that sustained us.

He
was gaunt and his eyes darted around the room suspiciously. He ranted that he
must see Oleander, demanding answers. His sister was a monster, a liar, a
murderer, and he accused her of poisoning him.

In
one way he was right. Oleander had been feeding him a few drops of human blood
into his wine and food. And only a few drops were needed for a witch’s body to
know what it needed and the cravings worsened until the hunger was satisfied. I
knew that from my own experience and watching the others turn. I was worried
though, about
Marek
. He was powerful. And the extent
of his power was something that perhaps Oleander was unaware of just yet, and
something I did not choose to share with her at that time.

Oleander
had breathed new life into the circle yet sometimes I still craved the old one.
Things seemed simpler in earlier times, less intense, less mysterious. Was that
disrespectful towards the chosen one amongst us? For I could not forget that
she was part of the reason I was what I became. Perhaps I was just tired of
feeling indebted.

I
felt
Marek’s
power back in the forest when he saw
Celeste over the fire. That night I had helped direct his dagger to that
idiot’s neck. I stood watching him from the darkness whilst those animals
attempted their pathetic little ritual of burning anyone they were suspicious
of. I felt the force of
Marek
. He did not know it
himself at the time but had he been trained he could have turned the whole
village into a fireball. Only a few were capable of such magnitude, one of them
being Oleander and before her, Lewis. Jean and I were stronger than most but we
did not match their power.

I
took in a tray to
Marek
, with fruit and sugared rolls
and thick mead laced with blood.

I
entered the room quietly. He sat in a chair looking out the window. I detected
the trace of tears on his cheek. He wore the clothes I first saw him in,
coarsely tanned items often worn by lowly merchants. Still, there was
a certain
attractiveness about this: a ruggedness, a
strength of character that sometimes stopped me short. His hair hung limply
over his broad shoulders. He was perhaps still pining for his island. I had to
admit, it sounded quite dull when he used words like paradise, golden, free,
warm,
open
, to describe his home. I on the other hand
loved cold, barren, empty places – the touch of the first winter wind
from the north, the short days that fell quickly into night, and the cover of
the Black Forest. No…his island would never do for me. And definitely not for
Marek
, now that he was coming into his real form.

He
turned to look
at me, his face awash with misery and his eyes
sunken from lack of rest. There were beads of sweat on his forehead.

‘Zola,
why must I be here? I still don’t understand what Oleander wants from me. Am I
a prisoner?’

‘Of
course not.’

‘Then
why is the door always locked and I have no strength to open it?’

‘It
is exactly that. You are weak and your sister wants you to be safe. You could
not be safer anywhere else than here.’ His island would be the most dangerous
now but I could not say that, which might have enraged him further.

‘What
is this on my arm? I do not remember how it got there.’ There was a tiny circle
of purple ink no wider than an inch.

‘You
are marked now. You are a
strigoi
. All
strigoi
must be marked with the circle. You are one of us.’

‘I
do not want anything to do with you.’ He scratched at his skin trying to erase
the circle of ink but I gently pulled his hand away.

I
could see the questions in his eyes. Only a few nights ago I was in his arms
and he was looking at me with puppy eyes. Now he was tortured, a prisoner
inside a body he no longer knew. I should not have been confronted with the
situation. Oleander should have warned him of the changes but I felt I must say
something. I was frustrated that Oleander had left him so. He was bound to her
by blood and I could not understand how she could treat him in such a way.

‘
Marek
. You are what humans refer to as a life-taker.
A hated demon.
An aberration. You can no longer live with
people.’

‘Are
not the servants downstairs people?’ he spurted resentfully.

‘They
come from generations of humans who have served our kind for centuries. We
would not abuse their loyalty and they would not betray our hiding places. We
both have our boundaries and we can coexist in some circumstances.’

‘Was
Irene one of those? For it seems her loyalty counted for little.’

I
could not speak of Irene. It pained me. She was a good person but she had
changed her loyalties once Oleander became the chosen. At any cost I was not to
talk about it.
She
would know.

‘You
are different now. Your islanders would have seen the difference. If you go
back you will be persecuted, exiled at the very least, but more likely tortured
to death. What Oleander is doing is for your own protection…’

‘My
father will protect me,’ he interrupted emotionally, standing up and clutching
at this chest. ‘Now I am just a monster. I think about killing people all the
time. I have nightmares about taking the life of people, draining their blood
until they fall like a bag of bones…’

‘It’s
perfectly normal…’

‘Oh,
God, what am I becoming?’ He fell back into the chair and moaned. He was
handling this far worse than I thought he would, than any of us thought. For
three days he had been asking for Oleander and he grew sicker by the day. I
knew it was just a matter of time before the cravings consumed him and he would
have to act. It was the basis of survival; that first kill when you thought you
would die if you didn’t.

I
reached and touched his shoulder but he drew away from me, preferring to turn
to the wall instead. I had developed feelings for him. At first it was just for
amusement. This young boy so besotted with my beauty. I seduced him as I had
many others; those who had since run their course with me, their appeal
eventually wearing thin. 
Marek
had been a
welcome distraction. He was certainly not the most charming or desirable of men
I had met, but most appealing in an awkward fresh sort of way, and there was
the potential for ruthlessness under the
candour
.
Sometimes, I found myself staring at him for long periods should I miss
something about him that I had not seen before. At parties I was not so
interested in other men. They were shallow in comparison, even Jean
;
though occasionally, to flatter Jean’s vanity, I still
competed for his attention.

The
festivals I was tiring of. If I were to spend several nights without the
beautiful silks, without enchanting melodies of the
lyra
, I would not mind as long as I was in the
company of
Marek
. What was happening to me? If I was
human, one might say I was in love but it was wrong to have these feelings. The
strigoi
were not meant to be so vulnerable with human
conditions, nor feel consumed by anyone. I did not ache for Jean like I did for
Marek
.

For
my own sake, I would have to dispel my feelings. Oleander’s laws did not allow
for lengthy intimate partnerships or to desire another exclusively of our
choosing. Since she came to rule, such actions, unless sanctioned by Oleander,
were considered collusion against her.

‘I
want to see Oleander. I am tired of being a prisoner,’ said
Marek
.

‘You
are not a prisoner. Jean has asked you to accompany him to town several times.’

‘To
kill! I will not go. What do you plan to do with me?’

‘I
do not plan anything. Oleander is the leader of this delegation.’

‘Huh,’
scoffed
Marek
. ‘Leader of bloodsuckers! That is
hardly a title.’

‘Yes,
I suppose, in a rather crude way. There are other circles across the lands. We
are just one. Oleander believes hers to be the strongest.’

‘And
if I choose not to become one of you?’

‘I
wish I could tell you,
Marek
. Oleander has her
reasons for not coming to see you at this time. Perhaps it is so your blood
grows stronger and then you will have no option but to take a life. It will be
by instinct. You won’t be able to stop yourself.’

‘You
are vile. To think that someone so beautiful could turn out to be vermin.’ He
directed this with venom but I knew it was only the hunger talking. Once he
took his first soul it would get easier. I had to tell myself that, before the
words sunk in deep enough to bruise.

‘I
am not a murderer,’ he shouted. ‘Oleander! Oleander!’

‘Hush
now.’ I put my arms around him like I had done several nights before, and he
was too weak to resist. He felt so thin in my arms. ‘She has asked not to be
disturbed for any reason.’ Even I did not know what she was doing and was
curious as well. I vowed to seek out Jean who was her closest confidant. We
would do something about
Marek
soon. It was time to
set him free to make his natural choices.