Queen Yavara Ch. 47

LEVERIA

...three, four, five...

My heart was pounding in my ears. My throat was knotted. My vision was gone. Blindly, I raced through the catacombs, feeling out with my hands and feet while Yavara's girlish voice raged in my head.

...ten, eleven, twelve...

I struck a pylon with my forehead, and fell on my back. My forehead throbbed with pain, my skull rang like a concussive bell, but it was still nothing compared to the agony in my eyeless sockets, the burning that still seemed to sear into my brain.

...eighteen, nineteen, twenty...

I scrambled to my hands and feet. My knees and elbows were bloodied and raw, my skin scraped off on the jagged rocks that jutted from the catacomb walls. I felt a trickle of blood running from my forehead, but I paid it no mind. I raced blindly, my keen ears trying to find the hollows in the rock, but her maddening counting blared like a horn in my skull, casting all thoughts away. In a panic, I sprinted in one direction, not caring if I ran head-first into a wall, just exercising the manic urge to flee. I smashed my toes against stone, and lurched forward. My chin struck a jagged edge, and my teeth clicked together. My hands sought my surroundings, and felt the cold wet surface of smoothed rock. A step. These were the stairs! I ran up them, then stopped.

...twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty! Ready or not, here I come!

I made myself small in the corner, hoping that the darkness surrounding me was as pervasive as the darkness of my vision. I hugged my knees, tucked my chin low, and curled into a small ball. There was a shuffling three floors up. A pattering of feet. Too small to be elf feet, and there were four. A rat? I felt something crawling on my shoulder, the spiny legs of a spider. It moved along my neck, and settled over my ear. There was another shuffle, and another pattering of feet, then a squeak. Yes, it was a rat. The spider moved from my ear, and into my hair. A shuffle four floors up. That couldn't be Yavara; she had on her boots. Had she taken them off, or was she simply floating down the corridor like some glowing-eyed phantom? I wished I hadn't thought that. Shuffle, patter. Another rat squeaked. The spider crawled down my forehead, and rested on my face. Two of its spiny legs gained purchase in my empty eye sockets. My heart was beating so loudly. Could she hear it? But of course not. Shuffle, patter, squeak. The sounds were fainter, further up. The spider crawled into my eye socket, and searched it curiously, its sharp spiny legs stabbing into the seared flesh, its mandibles salivating. Shuffle, patter, squeak. The spider backed out of the hole, crawled down a few more inches, and rested over my mouth. I breathed through my nose, each intake tight and desperate, suppressed to keep it quiet. I wished I didn't have to breathe. My lungs ached for it, but I could only sate them with the smallest of sniffs.

Shuffle, patter, squeak. It was much quieter now, maybe seven floors above me. The spider crawled off my chin, and moved onto the rock pressed to my shoulder. I took a tentative breath through my mouth, and filled my lungs. Carefully, I extended my hand, and felt for the next step. I listened. Shuffle, patter, squeak. It was so far away that it must've been ten floors up. I began to crawl. Step by step, I traveled from landing to landing, meticulously moving to make as little noise as possible. It was getting colder as I moved up. The winter's chill took hold of my naked body, and I had to bite my tongue to keep my teeth from chattering. I made it to the fourth landing, and felt the breeze of air on my face through a window. I'd never felt something so sweet. The stifling confines of the catacombs seemed to wash away from me, and I continued up the last steps, and onto the main floor.

Shuffle. Patter. Squeak. It wasn't ten floors up; it was just a floor above me! I made myself small in a corner, and stopped all breathing. Patter, patter, patter, patter, patter, patter, patter, PATTER! It came right for me, and I cringed against the wall, holding my arms out before me. Shuffle, shuffle, SHUFFLE! SQUEAK! There was a low growl, and a light whimper. There was the sound of little bones cracking, and little jaws working. A gnawing canine groan accompanied it, and then a satisfied swallow. With a tremulous hand, I reached out, and felt fur.

"April?" I whispered.

The fur went still, then slid beneath me. I felt little paws in my lap, and a curious snout sniffing my face. A tongue came out, and lapped at my cheek.

"April?" I whispered quietly again.

She nuzzled my face, and nodded. I nearly broke out into tears.

"April, you have to get me out of here!"

She nodded again, her soft fur caressing my cheek. I pet her delicately, careful not to scare her off. My fingers moved through her fine fox hair, her skinny ribs, her exposed muscle, her rotting flesh, her bare bones. Then, I was holding nothing at all. I was back in my corner in the bottom floor of the catacombs. The spider crawled off my face, only it had fingers for legs.

"Found you." Yavara giggled. "It's not fun when people cheat in hide-and-seek, is it? You always liked your mind games, Leveria. Don't you like mine?"

I let out a shuddering breath. I was sitting in a warm puddle, and I vaguely realized that I'd pissed myself.

"Oh no, you had an accident." Yavara cooed. Her hands slid into my armpits. Their span seemed impossible, the fingers touching together at my spine. They were so cold. She lifted me out of my puddle, and cradled me in her impossibly-long arms like I was a babe. She brought me to her face, and I felt her nose against my neck. She sniffed me, and drooled on my throat.

"You haven't seen this side of me yet." She whispered against my ear, her fangs grazing my lobe, "Would you like to?"

I just whimpered, shivering in her cold embrace. She placed her thumbs against my eye-sockets, and I suddenly felt a great warmth there. She pulled her thumbs away, and I opened my new eyes.

Yavara's face hadn't changed, but everything else had. Her flesh was white, her hair was obsidian, and her eyes were rubies, watching from reptilian slits. "Do you like it?" She asked, "Prestira was the one who bit me. We became so close after that. A woman I'd known for only three days, and I felt more kinship with her than a lifetime spent with you."

She ran her fingers through my hair, her nails like razers that gently scraped my scalp. The feeling would've been pleasurable in another situation, but it only made my flesh crawl.

"Then there was Patricia," Yavara whispered, "and she was my blood-daughter. You can't know how much it meant to me." She paused, "Even I didn't know how much it meant to me until far too late. Do you know how she died?"

I whimpered, trying to make myself small in her arms.

"That was a question, Leveria."

"She died in fire, killed by her own friend." I hissed, my words shaking from me, "I'm so glad that she did."

Yavara's nails suddenly came to points on my head. She pushed them into my scalp with the ease of a knife through butter, and I shrieked as the hot tendrils of agony shot through my synapses. Her nails scraped bone, then curled, cutting away beneath the flesh like a taxidermist. I writhed in her cold embrace, blood running down my face, bile roiling from my mouth, my body trying to expel the pain any way it could. Her nails came together, and she ripped. I heard my flesh tear like rent fabric, and my head seared with blinding pain. When I could next see, I was staring at a cap of bloody skin swinging from a mess of platinum hair. I gawked disbelievingly at it. It was only when Yavara took my hand, and guided it to the top of my head, that I realized the horror of it in truth. My fingers brushed over a ridge of skin, then dipped onto damp, hard bone. I screamed. I screamed like I'd never screamed before, and I screamed even higher when Yavara held a hand mirror before me, and displayed the ruin atop my head. I was unrecognizable to myself, but I knew the horrific thing that looked back was me, for it bore my face, and that thought drove me to madness. When Yavara levitated me and consumed me in fire, the agony was actually a mercy.

SHERMAN HUNTIATA

It was a few hours before sunrise when the knock sounded at my door. My guardsmen had all been killed in the battle, and so I answered the knock myself with a sword in hand. Lady Catherine Jonias stood as a hooded slender figure in the doorway, her teal eyes shining in my candlelight.

"You're supposed to send a courier, not come here yourself!" I growled, "What if one of the royal guards caught you sneaking around at this hour?"

"I would tell him to mind his own damn business." She hissed back, "Lucas hasn't issued a curfew."

"Yet. If nobles get caught sneaking to each other's houses in the dead of night, he'll have reason to. Get in."

She stepped into the foyer, and I went to the kitchen to make coffee. Five minutes later, we were sitting across from each other, sipping from our mugs. For another five minutes, the only communication between us was the looks we gave each other as we slurped the early morning's brew. When all was gone from my cup, Catherine was still sipping loudly from hers. I rolled my eyes.

"The Noble Court's been disbanded, and we still play these games?"

She gave me a look of faux surprise. "Whatever do you mean?"

"Why did you come here?"

"Why did you let me in?"

I ground my teeth. "You say it first."

She smiled coyly, and sipped at her coffee.

"Goddamn it," I growled, "I'll just fucking say it then. Ternias needs to die."

Her brows went up. "That's a drastic measure."

"Oh, fuck off. There's only one reason you're here. The line of succession is now Ternias, Straltaira, Jonias. Elena's dead, and her mother officially retired from the court; that puts you next in line."

She slurped her coffee until it was gone, then wiped her lips, and delicately set the cup on the coaster. "I always wanted to be queen, but I never wanted to rule. Being queen by marriage would afford me a multitude of opportunities without any of the responsibility. It was what made pairing with Lucas so enticing."

I scratched at my scruff. "Well, the next in line would be... Landon Xantian. Catherine, if you want me to throw my support behind that soft piece of tit-fat, you're going to have to really sweeten the deal for me."

"Ternias had Xantian executed last night."

"Why would he do that? He was Ternias's man all along."

"Was it Eric Shordian who told you that?"

"It was..." I trailed off, my brow furrowing, "...I can't believe I let that half-wit play me again."

"He wasn't playing you, Sherman. He was simply Ternias's useful idiot." She chewed on her lip, "So was I, apparently."

"Well, if not you, and not Xantian, then Droughtius is next in line. Sofia is dead, so that just leaves... me."

"That leaves you." She said. She looked at the top of my head, and smiled lecherously, "I find baldness quite handsome; you know. Especially on older men. Such a distinguished, confident look."

"I'm married."

"Did Elena know that?" She grinned, then laughed at my face.

"Does everyone know?!"

"Everyone who was looking. You two weren't exactly subtle." She leaned forward, her bodice draping to expose the tops of her pale breasts, "So, is there—"

"No." I growled.

She leaned back in her chair, and shrugged. "You can't blame a girl for trying."

"I can, actually." I glared at her, "So what's your plan?"

She stood up, and pulled a torn sheet from her purse. She handed it to me, and said, "Meet me at that address in two hours. Come alone."

I scoffed. "You think so little of me."

"If I worked for Lucas, you would've been dead after yesterday's conversation. You have no power anymore, and neither do I. Our fluid wealth was wasted on the war, and our familial wealth will soon be sequestered before we have a chance to begin trade talks. While we still have what little resources we have, we must use them."

"Ternias would never take our businesses."

"He would call it 'nationalization,' and divvy the assets amongst our barons. It was..." She wrung her hands guiltily, "...it was originally my idea."

"And now that you're on the bad end of it, suddenly it doesn't seem like such a great plan."

"That's generally how things work with me, Sherman." She said, then cleared her throat, "Meet me at that address, or don't. Either way, I will do what must be done." And she left. I heard her gently close the front door, and listened for her heels clicking away on the cobblestones outside. I sat in my ornamented parlor, hunting trophies of all variety staring at me, their eyes laughing.

"Goddamn it." I grumbled, and went looking for my boots.

LEVERIA

When I awoke, I was whole. I stared at myself in the body-length mirror above me. I was naked still, but not strapped onto the board. I felt an initial wave of relief that was immediately followed by icy terror when I fully realized my situation. For a minute, I was paralyzed, waiting to hear the clicking of Yavara's boots, waiting to see her orange eyes peering at me from the cell door window. The cell door was open. I sniffed the air, and smelled bacon. At first, my stomach grumbled at the smell, then a flash of memory brought about the scent that reached my exposed sinuses when I was being cooked alive, and I wrenched my head to the side and puked onto the floor. After wiping my lips with the back of my hand, my belly grumbled once more.

Come up to the kitchen, Yavara said in my mind.

Even if I wanted to, I could not. My joints were locked in fear, my muscles wasted with spent adrenaline. I stayed prone on the board until suddenly, one of my legs moved on its own. Then the other did as well, then my hands shifted beneath me, and before I knew it, I was hopping off the board, and skipping gayly out the door with a bright smile stretched across my face by some invisible force. I danced like a schoolgirl into the catacomb tunnels, and up five flights of stairs. By the time I reached the end, I was wet with sweat and wheezing.

Yavara was in the kitchen, cooking breakfast. "Care to help?" She asked, and beckoned my body to the frying pan where the bacon sizzled its own fat. My hands grasped the handle, lifted the pan over my face, and began to tilt it toward me.

"Leveria, what are you doing?" Yavara laughed endearingly, and grabbed the frying pan from my fingers. She drained the sizzling grease into a pot, and plated the bacon. "Could you be a dear and chop some onions and peppers for the omelet?" She asked.

I walked over to the cutting board, where an imposing chef's knife lay beside a green bell pepper and onions. My left hand grabbed the knife, and my right grabbed one of the peppers. Never in my life had my non-dominant hand been so dexterous, and never in all my experiences with a blade had I moved it with such precision. The knife flashed between my fingers, missing my flesh by an imperceptible fraction to cut smartly into the belly of the pepper. Behind terrified eyes and a glued-on smile, I diced all the peppers and onions to perfection, moving the blade between my fingers, across my palm, a hair from my wrist veins, but never cutting myself.

"Into the frying pan." Yavara said without looking. I walked the cutting board to the pan of eggs, and scraped the contents into it with my knife. I walked back to my area of the kitchen, and set both the cutting board and the knife down on the counter. My hands let go of them, and were allowed to rest at my sides. I was free. Then my right hand was suddenly splayed out onto the cutting board, and my left was gripping the chef's knife, and before my grimacing smile and bulging eyes, I brought the knife down once, twice, thrice, four times. My pinky was hacked cleanly off, my ring finger followed, my pointer was chopped away in a grotesque diagonal, and my thumb was sent spinning off the board. My entire hand seized, the pain piercing through sinew, bone and marrow, causing contractions up my arm, causing bile to roil in my belly, tears to form in my eyes, piss to run down my legs, and yet, I smiled like a fool through it all, my taunting middle finger rigid in agony.

"Leveria, you clumsy ditz!" Yavara giggled in my ear, "I know you've never worked in a kitchen in all your life, but I was told you were quite adept with a knife." She mentally guided my mutilated hand up to my face, and wiggled my middle finger teasingly before my rigid grin. She laughed again, her hands on my shoulders. "I'm glad to see you have a sense of humor about all of this. Seeing the funny side of things is always important." She let go of my mind, and I felt to my knees, shrieking and clutching my hand.

"It's rather hypocritical of you, don't you think?" Yavara called jubilantly over my wails, "Shouldn't you be more appreciative of your own handywork?"

I could only scream incomprehensible garble back, hardly aware of the words she was saying, only focused on the pain, the searing split nerves firing their twisted signals through my synapses, my mind turning over in horror as it tried to process the unrecognizable thing that had become my hand. She let me stay like that for a minute before she yanked my hand onto the cutting board, and reattached my fingers. I wept with relief, the warmth permeating through my entire arm, the renewed flesh and bone clenching in the most satisfying fist I'd ever made.

Yavara pet my head as I blubbered on the floor. "I think it's time you and I had a chat, dearest sister." She said softly, almost kindly, "There's a hot bath in the next room. Don't dally too long, or your food will get cold. Oh, and Leveria," She said, stooping to my level, "if you try to kill yourself in there, I'm going to make your omelet non-vegetarian." She gently grasped my fingers, "Do you understand?"

I nodded.

She grinned. "Good. There's an outfit I set out for you by the tub. I want you to wear it for me."