Page 34 of What Is Dark Within Me

As the lanterns came to life, their light bounced off cobwebs stretched between every available surface. Aleja sneezed into the crook of her arm and heard something scuttle away.

“Here. Look,” Nicolas said. He stood against the opposite wall, in front of a frame hastily covered by one of the bed sheets. As he raised a hand to tug it down, he hesitated, looking to Aleja once more. “Are you sure you want to see this? You could walk away now. We could never mention it again.”

“Show me,” she told him. Her voice was not as confident as she’d been aiming for.

The sheet fell away, revealing a painting.

It was larger than any in the halls, and like the rest of the room’s furniture, she wouldn’t have been able to place it into any era of human art. It was a portrait of two Otherlanders, standing side by side with their hands entwined, the throne room in the background. The man on the left, she recognized—handsome, dark-haired, and silver-eyed—an uncanny likeness of the Nicolas which stood before her now.

And the woman… Aleja wished it was a splotchy blur, like the vision the bones had shown her. Her reddish-black hair was tied in elaborate braids that wrapped around a horned crown, securing it to her head.

The pair looked happy. A far cry from the stone-faced portraits she normally saw in human museums. It was at odds with the fact that the painting had been slashed down the middle, edges ragged like the culprit had used a serrated knife. Though it was clear someone had tried to scrub it off, the word WHORE screamed in bright red ink over the varnish.

“This can’t be right. It must be some ancestor of mine,” she stammered, taking a step back. “You’ve always been messing with my family.”

“It is you, Alejandra. It was you,” he said. The sentence didn’t seem entirely directed at her, as if he was speaking to someone over her shoulder.

“No…”

“I have one more confession,” Nicolas said, and this time, he winced. “Otherlander marriage vows aren’t considered void, even after death. It’s the reason we were bound by a simple sigil. We were primed for it, you could say.”

Aleja’s body nearly shook with rage. A red light washed across the room. She barely registered it was coming from her hands. “What are you trying to say? That we were—”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that.”

“I am. Believe it or not, deception is not something I’m fond of, especially when it comes to you,” he said.

Those last words were so striking, so intimate, that it was Aleja’s turn to look away. Even when he wasn’t directly in her sight, his silver eyes burned into her vision, as if she had been staring into a bright light for too long.

“I hate this,” she told him. A burst of orange embers joined the ever-drifting dust. “I hate you.”

To this, Nicolas had no answer.

Fire engulfed her arms, but her skin remained unmarred beneath it. A thick cloud of smoke obscured the painting. Something was burning, but it wasn’t her.

“Aleja, please—”

It was too much. Her feet were moving before she’d made the conscious decision to run. She was vaguely aware of Nicolas calling her name as she dashed from the room, trailing licks of flame as she went—down the stairs, past the pentagram inlaid in the floor, and into the unfamiliar halls. Her grandmother. She had to get back to her grandmother, but she made two turns before realizing that the paintings on the walls were unfamiliar.

Aleja pushed through another set of doors and a rush of cool air hit her in the face. The unexpected vastness of the sky made her dizzy and she nearly crashed into the large planter to her left. A man in gardening clothes leaped to the side as she turned onto his path, weaving through rows of well-tended rose bushes.

Let them burn. Let them all burn.

The scent of copper joined the smoke. Perhaps a thorn had snagged her bare arms, or the Knowing One liked to feed his roses with blood.

* * *

A Spell to Reveal a Hiding Place

First, you must find a long hallway, dark enough so that you cannot see where it ends. Begin to walk. And walk and walk, even though you cannot see what is in front of you.

If you reach the place where the hallway must end, but can continue, the Otherlanders have decided to grant you this knowledge.

You may walk in the darkness for a long time, but eventually, you will come to a door.

It will be unlocked.

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