The Hated (Sleeping With Monsters Book 3) (8 page)

“Give me all your money.”

I had no idea what he was saying, but he brandished what I was sure was a weapon. Twenty-thousand years and some things will never change.

“Come on! Give me all your money!” he said. I stepped closer to him and he stepped back, holding the weapon up higher. “I mean it – I’ll cut you – I’ll –“

“I am Zaan the Fearless and you will regret this decision.”

A second later he was slashing his knife through the air where I used to be. He shouted, more words, it didn’t matter – I reached in and grabbed hold of his shoulder, while he tried to slash me through. I made the parts of myself in his path smoke and so he stabbed nothing.
Avoiding his blows was second-nature – my scars were from training, not battle. I hoisted him up, and his shouts turned to screams as his weapon clattered to the ground.

I held him there as he howled. If I spoke his language, I knew I could have asked him anything – but where would I even begin? How much time has passed? Have you heard of a Zaibann? The name Airelle, is it familiar to you? I clenched his shoulder tighter and tighter, hearing bones pop, the unanswered fury of twenty-thousand years pouring out of me, until urine trickled down his leg. I set him down in disgust, and his hand found something in a pocket and threw it at me. I caught it, releasing him, and he ran off cursing.

The thing he’d thrown – I opened it up. Inside were cards I didn’t recognize the use for – and one piece of paper that I did. I smeared it with some of his blood in pulling it out.

It had her face on it. Ilylle’s.

The sky was getting lighter – dawn was coming. While the world would be less frightening in daylight to the people that lived here, I would become moreso. I walked back to the palace wall, changed into smoke again, and wafted the piece of paper back up with me on the wind.

#

I tossed and turned that night. Nightmares about creatures of stone, and people in the screens, beating on the glass, trying to get out – it was a good thing I wasn’t in the dream cradle, or I might have poisoned my people. When I woke, Joshan was there.

“Queen Ilylle, your King appears to have left.”

I lay back exhaustedly. Did I have to tell anyone? Perhaps the celestitians could choose another Zaibann for me – but what if all of them were like him?

“Is there anything I can do for you, my Queen?” Joshan asked, worry creasing his brow.

I looked up at him. He, like Beza, was just an elaborate zoomer – four limbs, instead of eight. No wonder he always knew the time – or when the Council called. He was a lie. Everything in the palace a lie except for me.

No, not even except for me. I was a lie too – ruling a people I never saw, lands I’d never walked. There was no proof that I was a Queen. For all I knew, the palace and everything in it could be a dream. And one of my titles was Queen of Dreams, wasn’t it?

I felt like I had dove too deeply into my pool and stayed down too long, like I was running out of air. I felt my throat close, my heart race, no matter that I was lying in my bed. I had never felt this way before – it felt like I was dying and I looked to Joshan.

“Come here and hold me,” I commanded, and when he was prone beside me, I looped my arms around his neck and cried.

I must have fallen asleep again – I didn’t remember, but when I woke up the pulsing lights of the dream cradle were all around me. I stayed inside it, curled up, unwilling to face the rest of the palace again – until I heard the sound of someone pacing back and forth outside. I pushed the lid open and the pacing stopped – I saw black leather boots leading to black pants and armor and finally Zaan, staring down inquisitively.

“Your servant told me waking you would be harmful,” he said, pushing the door up, squatting on his heels. “What is this contraption?”

“It harvests my dreams. It is how I help keep Aranda safe and well,” I told him, even as the words tasted bitter on my tongue.

He looked at me and one of his eyebrows rose. I avoided his gaze and he snorted softly. “You do not believe in yourself as much as you did yesterday, do you.”

I swallowed and didn’t answer him.

“I have good news for you then,” he said, rocking back up. “You actually are a Queen.”

“Of course I am,” I said, with more conviction than I felt. “But –“

He held up a piece of paper – and I realized with awe that it had my likeness on it. “What is that? Is that…currency?”

His dark eyes studied me. “You have never seen its like before?”

“Never.”

I gathered myself up inside the cradle and stood, stepping out of it. But between my weariness and my skirt catching, I tripped. He caught me effortlessly, then picked me up out of the chamber and set me down.

“Do you have your footing?” he said, without kindness.

“Yes,” I said, as he released me. I carefully walked over to my bed and prayed he wouldn’t follow too closely. “The paper – please –“

He handed it over to me and it was my face. The same one I saw in the mirror each morning when Beza dressed me. I was printed in a shining blue and there was a smudged thumbprint on the corner – the same color as blood.

“Did you steal this?”

Zaan shrugged. “I wasn’t injured. He survived.”

“You –“ I looked from the paper to him. “You injured one of my people?”

“Do you care so strongly about a public you have never met?”

“Of course I do! I’m their Queen!” I showed him the paper as though it were proof. “They rely on me!”

“For what, precisely?” he asked, his tone cold.

I gathered myself and swallowed before answering. “I dream their dreams. And – Railan has me read things, sometimes, so that they can hear my voice. And,” I waved the paper in front of him, “this is currency. They honor me. They value me. Should I not do the same for them?”

I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at my picture on the paper -- and then realized the question I should have asked all along.

“How did you get out?”

Instead of answering me, Zaan asked another question. “In your stories, what happens to your Kings?”

“It is as I told you – King and Queen rule side by side.”

He shook his head once. “No man could be content to be so trapped here.”

I looked up at him, fury burning inside. “What about Queens? Do I seem content to you?” I rose to standing and willed my magic to catch him alight, only it wouldn’t answer me. “How did you get out? Tell me. I want to see the land I rule – I want to meet my people.”

He leaned back, the corners of his lips subtly rising. “Make me tell you.”

Chapter Seven

I knew from my brief time outside why they kept her in here like a songbird. She wouldn’t last a minute outside in the brutal world I’d seen. And her powers – if she could be said to have any – were so weak as to be almost useless.

Which was perfect for me.

I could take all the blood from her I wanted, and no one would ever find out. I imagined myself swelling up like a tick – until she died and I died with her.

Bloodbinding was inherently unfair.

I rocked back in the chair I sat in, waiting for her to do something foolish to attempt to seduce me, to use her ‘magic’ to bend me to her will. Instead she sat back on the bed and looked at me hard, as though she were memorizing my face and said, “Tell me about Airelle.”

I stared back at her, challengingly.

“The book is all I know of her,” she pressed.

I shook my head. Airelle was mine – she was still alive for me, not just words inside some book. And if I deigned to tell her, where would I begin? How the dawn looked, reflected in Airelle’s eyes? The way she could best a man in battle? How the
ozri
drifted down to sing for her? How when she swam a river, scaled
garmanders
swam at her side?

A thousand-thousand memories rushed to the surface for my attention, as the little impostor stood.

“I know I am but a poor copy of her – a copy of a copy of a copy. But something in me is still the same. I do have power. And I know from reading that book the lengths she would go to for her people. I would do the same for mine.”

Her hands went to the fastens on the front of her dress and unclasped them. It fell from her in a rush of blue – how had the printers of her currency known that that was her best shade? – and she stepped out of it like a
phine
leaping out of ocean foam.

And for a moment, she looked like
her
, truly -- her skin shining white, her straight blonde hair falling to lap around all her curves and edges. A creature of will and desire -- and power. I felt it pull at me, like a whispered word, like a gentle hand. Nothing like Airelle’s commanding presence, but -- I closed my eyes to shut her out.

Whether I liked it or not we were bonded.

“Put your dress back on. We have things to discuss.”

I waited until I heard the first fasten click shut. “What do you know of my kind?”

“Only what I have been told.” She looked shyly over at me, through a rippling wave of hair. “That you are a Zaibann, destined to be my King. From the council, the celestitians, and the children’s stories that you mocked.”

“And what do you know of blood?”

“I…have cut myself before.” She sat back on her bed now, watching me with caution.

So much innocence. It was both alluring and repulsive. I wanted to smother it with blackness, to change her, to punish her as it seemed I had been – and I wanted to shelter her forever from the world outside. I was like a starved artist finding a uniquely perfect white dove – I didn’t know if I should set her free, or eat her alive.

“Zaibann are priests of blood and smoke.” I held up my hand in front of her and let it dissipate – her jaw dropped in surprise. I reformed my hand and laced my fingers together in my lap.

“That is how you got out, isn’t it.”

“Precisely. I followed one of your accursed metal beasts and found a route.”

Her face sank. “Which means I cannot follow.”

“Not that way, no.”

“Could Airelle?”

I shook my head. “She was not Zaibann. Not even a Queen can manage what we do. We are born to it and then trained.”

“My stories never mentioned that. The history did – but I didn’t want to believe it.” Her hand went to her neck, where my bite was already healed. “And nothing ever mentioned biting.”

“When one is a creature of smoke long enough, you need an anchor to bind you to this world.”

I watched her swallow. “Were you bound to Airelle?”

“No.” She blinked, and I went on. “She wouldn’t let me. When you are tied by blood –“ My voice faded. How often had I asked her for her blood? How often had I begged? Of course the first thing I wanted upon waking was her.

But she knew as Queen that she might die – and she wouldn’t see me fade.

“She wore a collar at all times. It was a symbol of her defiance.”

“Should I withhold my blood from you, then?” Ilylle said, attempting to take a regal tone.

“You wouldn’t be able to if you tried.” I looked over at her, so small upon her bed, and saw her frowning furiously. My impotent, impostor songbird – something like pity for her moved in my heart. “But were you able to, I would die,” I answered honestly.

She inhaled in a gasp. “Really?”

“Yes.
To taste someone’s blood is to begin to die
.” I said the second phrase in the old tongue, surprised to see her nod as though she’d understood.

I expected some change to come over her at my revelation, a realization of the power she now held over me, some latent cruelty to shine through, but instead she leaned forward, her expression one of genuine curiosity.

“How often do you need it? And how much?”

“Once a day, and it depends.” I touched my tongue to the tips of my fangs. It had almost been a day, now, and I had traveled very far as smoke.

She took several long breaths and I could tell she was thinking. “So when I woke you and I was collarless – you thought that I was her, granting you permission to take blood?”

“Indeed.”

“And now you are bound to me? You need my blood?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” she asked, and then drew her lips into a straight line. “Because you did not believe me, until you went outside.”

I nodded.

“What is it like?”

Her eyes on me then – they were beautiful and serious. Blue as the dress she’d worn, as the money her image was embossed on. “It is very different from my time.”

“Of course,” she said, relaxing a little, giving me a soft smile. “But is it good? Are people happy?”

“I do not believe that happiness is a good thing, in and of itself. Pleasure must always be earned.” On that, Airelle agreed with me.

Ilylle frowned. “Are they…earning it? Or are things too soft? Like – in here?”

“No.” How to tell her that the pictures her screens showed her were false? That the first thing a man from her time had done was try to rob me?

She read the truth in my eyes and sank back. “It isn’t like the screens show, is it.”

“As Queen, you should know the truth -- the air over your land tastes like ash, and your streets smell like a sewer.” She shuddered bodily as I told her, like my words were blows. “Your people – the ones I saw were fighting one another, or being gnawed upon by rats.”

Her hand went to her mouth in horror. “It’s just like the screens –“

“I tell you, it’s not –“

“No – the ones Yzin brings.” She leaned over the edge of her bed and held up a stack of thin metal. “The stories in them. They’re so dark. Bad things happen all the time. But I always thought everything in them was made up. Just stories.” She looked over at me. “Same as you.”

I shrugged.

“Is the…whole world like that? All of Aranda?”

“I do not know.”

“What have I done to it?”

I leaned forward and put my elbows on my knees, piercing her with an intentionally cruel stare. “You have done nothing. Which is almost as bad a crime as doing evil itself.”

She swayed on the edge of her bed, looking around the confines of her room. I may have lost twenty-thousand years, but she had lost her sense of self. I wasn’t sure which of us was currently poorer.