All Things Devour

eighteen

Thunder rolling in the distance dragged Sonya out from under Calder’s malignant spell.

She sat up, grimacing in darkness, her breath shuddering in and out of her trembling chest as the last of the haze cleared from her mind. The cold bit into her lungs, shivered and nipped at her limbs. Her fingers buzzed with frozen pins and needles. A hard, brisk shiver shook Sonya from head to toe, and it broke the malaise weighing her body down.

Where am I?

She could see nothing in the dark aside from a faint luminance oozing from an opaque window high on the wall. Sonya guessed it was still night, but whether it was the same night or not, she hadn’t a clue. Her hands traced the shape of a simple wooden bed frame and prodded a thin, musty mattress that smelled heavily of straw. No other occupant laid in the bed, no odd, bespectacled vampire with a penchant for wrapping himself around Sonya’s slighter frame as they slept.

Anton. Where is Anton?

Sonya’s questing fingers made quick work of the wall above the headboard—a flat, textured material like clay without any adornments—and the plain nightstand. She felt the surface, hands mapping the shape of a candlestick and a candle. She grazed the nightstand’s surface next and—there. She tapped a little wooden box similar to the ones she’d seen in Gudbrand’s house, and matches rattled inside. Picking one up and finding the striker proved a further irritant, but finally, fire burst to life at the end of the little stick, and Sonya moved it to the candle’s wick.

The light gave the room definition; it was spartan, containing the bed, the nightstand, an unpadded chair, a chest, and a wardrobe—all made of unvarnished wood in simple designs. An unappealing space, to be sure, but passably comfortable. The door was shut and barred by a security gate made of dark, crude iron.

Calder. Ylva. That—that—!

“Witch!” Sonya hissed, jumping to her feet—and she nearly toppled, given the numbness in her extremities. She still wore her blood-stained tunic and trousers, neither providing much protection to the unbearable chill riding the air. She rubbed at her chest with both hands, using the brisk friction to get some semblance of heat into her system before she moved again.

She first tried the door—a natural inclination—and then the gate, finding both locked tight. She pulled her hand from the metal and glanced at the skin of her palm, wondering at the uneasy, sticky sensation touching the gate gave her. That’s not at all natural.

“Hello?” Sonya called, frightened, reaching through the bars to give the door a firm knock. No answer. She tried the handle again, sighed at her own futility, and surveyed the room.

This is a fine mess I’m in .

Sonya perched on the chair and exhaled when it teetered ever so slightly, the legs not quite even. “Marvelous,” she grumbled, head in her hands. “Simply marvelous….”

Thunder again made its presence known, and Sonya looked at the window so high above her, the glass painted black against the thickness of night beyond. Dawn must have been nearing for it to be so dark, or the storm had again intensified into an unforgivable tempest. The draugar would have to weather Calder’s bad temper once more.

Sonya stood and scrutinized the window, a hand on her hip, eyes flicking about the modest furniture. The top of the wardrobe ended at least two feet under the window’s unadorned sill, and Sonya didn’t much fancy what kind of drop might follow if she did manage to get through. She decided it best not to overthink it, shook her head, and then stepped onto the trunk.

The height gave her the leverage to grip the wardrobe’s top and heave herself atop it, choking on the dust and her own half-swallowed curse words in regards to vampires and their untidy pseudo-jail cells. Unfortunately, the wardrobe’s stubby legs proved just as uneven as the chair’s, and Sonya barely had a chance to graze the window’s cold glass before the heavy piece of furniture teetered forward, sending her tumbling back to the floor.

The wardrobe collided with the nightstand, the candle toppling, plunging the room into shadow once more. Sonya gasped in pain, sprawled on her back like an ungainly rug, and winced when she touched her arm. She’d dragged it against the wardrobe’s rough wood on her way down, and as she prodded the area around her torn sleeve, the sting of large, angry splinters answered.

Oh, buggering hell.

Footsteps sounded in the outer passage, someone alerted by the ruckus, and the door crashed open, swinging outward to leave the gate in place. It was replaced by Calder’s tall, imperious figure framed in the torchlight, not wearing his great black cloak for once. Truly, without it, Sonya almost didn’t recognize the man. He looked less otherworldly this way—but unapproachable all the same, the set of his jaw and posture both combative and surly.

He spotted the fallen wardrobe and Sonya’s bleeding arm as she blinked in the light.

“You asinine woman,” he cursed, reaching into his trousers’ pocket to yank out a pair of gloves. He pulled them on, then retrieved an ancient key that matched the odd material of the gate, the handle wrapped in cloth. Grumbling, he unlocked the gate—and Sonya quickly scrambled upright and backed into the corner. “Come here.”

“I’d rather not.”

“ Now .” His lip curled, and his eyes narrowed. He spoke in a reserved, clipped voice, managing to sound both irritated and exhausted in the same breath. “Do not be difficult.”

Sonya considered her options, scant as they were. The first was to scream and cower; the second, to acquiesce to the command. The former choice would most likely result in her being dragged from the room by her hair, so she stiffened her spine and made the latter choice.

Calder dropped his hand when Sonya didn’t fret and stepped back from the door, his furious eyes intent on her as she followed. The cell opened onto a hall lined with other, similar doors, the stone columns interspersed with braziers or medieval weaponry. Nerves kept Sonya from classifying or cataloging the arms, and she averted her eyes. “Where is Anton?”

The draugr hissed low, displeased. “I haven’t a clue. Walk.”

“I would like to leave. Please.”

“Now you have manners, little m?r ? Too late for that. Walk .”

Sonya did as told, skirting around the man, clasping her trembling hands together before herself as Calder’s heavy footsteps sounded behind her.

“One would think you’d be more grateful for the opportunity to talk my blood out of me.”

“I’ve no interest in b-being bound to you,” Sonya replied, wishing he wouldn’t move so close to her, that her voice would stay steady. “Not if you’re intent on keeping me prisoner.”

“Hmm.”

The far end of the hall opened onto a recessed den of sorts, comfortable chairs padded with furs and throws, lit braziers crackling, coals smoldering in the fire-pit centered in the room’s middle. Without thought, Sonya tried to drift nearer the heat, her chest still tight from the cold, and Calder pulled her away to an arrangement of chairs about a small table. The incongruous silver laptop and documents on top of it looked utterly bizarre, and in some recess of her mind, Sonya realized he must have been sitting here working before hearing her accident.

Calder yanked one of the chairs out—heavy legs screeching across the flagstones—and shoved Sonya into it. Then, with another rough pull, he angled his own chair toward hers and sat, glaring and exasperated. “Give me your arm.”

“Will you please tell me where Anton is?” she asked again, hoping to plead to his decency, however buried it might be. “And what you intend to do with me?”

“ Give me your arm. ”

Sonya pursed her lips, annoyed, and extended her hand. He gripped her by the wrist, forcing her to lean closer as he turned and examined her wounded forearm.

“If the gods cared for me, he’d be dead,” Calder growled as he pinched Sonya’s flesh and, with deceptive care, slid free the first splinter. “But they persist in tormenting me with his existence.”

Sonya watched as he worked and set aside each large sliver of wood on the table’s edge. His ministrations hurt, but no more than they should, Calder taking the time to unearth even the tiny splinters Sonya didn’t have a chance of seeing on her own. She stared at the side of his face.

“Why must you act the way you do?” she dared asked, Calder’s grip tightening in warning. “Because you are head seidmadr? Because of Ylva? Because of her—her— coven on that wretched island?”

“Do not speak of what you don’t understand,” he snapped.

“Well, you’ve referred to me as an asinine woman and a little virgin girl, if my guess at translation is correct, and while both are rather insulting, you haven’t yet called me ‘ it’ or an object. So that leads me to believe you wear this traditionalist persona in public for a reason, and I assume that reason is to satisfy Ylva for whatever reason—Ylva, whom I am not at all gutted to inform you is mad as a hatter.”

Calder’s fingers tightened to the point of bruising.

“I theorize you need her support to keep your position, and she needs you to further her hateful agenda with the Jarl and the people of Vidarheim. Which seems pointless, as it’s been my general impression that traditionalism is a dying custom in the realm. It would also explain why Ylva denied she wanted Anton to take your place. He finds traditionalism ridiculous. She must be where the traditionalism stems from, and she’s using you to keep her values aloft.” She tipped her head. “You’re doing yourself no favors by selling out.”

His eyes widened, his brow furrowing. “ Shut up !”

Sonya fell silent as Calder’s snarl echoed in the enclosed space. He loosened his grip—her skin throbbing under his strong fingers as blood flow returned—and continued working. Several minutes passed before he spoke.

“I should have you beat for the pleasure of looking upon me,” he said without inflection, keeping a firm hold of Sonya’s wrist. Frightened, she tried to pull away, and he continued to remove the splinters from her flesh. “It was what my v?rdr used to do if my eyes dared meet his with such impunity. Had you spoken to Radu Dr?culea as you speak to me, he would have had your tongue ripped out, little maiden girl or not.”

Sonya paled as he picked the last of the splinters free and turned her hand for his inspection.

“His father, who was voivode before the other leaders of the strigoi grew tired of his tyranny, used to impale impertinent little creatures like you on great spikes. Radu would show me the woodcarvings when he was bored.”

Sonya turned her head, not wanting to look at him anymore, certain her heart might leap from her chest and escape on its own if she didn’t muster the courage to stand and run. The wounds on her arm had begun to slowly, slowly congeal. Strong, rough fingers took hold of her chin and forced her to face him again. “Look at me when I’m speaking to you.”

“I would prefer not to bleed for the privilege .”

Again, guilt flashed in his eyes, the outline of someone kinder, someone better than the man before her. “You hate me.”

“I cannot say I much care for you, no.”

Calder sneered. “ But you care for him ? Anton and I are two sides of the same coin, as the cliche goes, but in many ways, I was the lucky one. Radu bloodied my face every chance he got, but he never pretended to care . Eerika, on the other hand…oh, she’d tell Anton whenever she could how much she loved him. That she was proud , when nothing was ever actually good enough for the bitch.” His thumb and forefinger pinched Sonya’s chin when she frowned. “She would dangle acceptance in front of him, always trying to get him to do a little bit more for scraps of familial affection. She’d turn a blind eye to Radu throwing him around and then despair how her poor boys weren’t getting along. It was crueler to spare her fist and make him think anyone could ever love a scrawny Balkan slave boy.”

“Stop it.”

“Why?” he asked with genuine interest, letting her go. “Do you think yourself in love with him, m?r ?” Sonya’s face flushed. “More the fool you. He isn’t capable of it. He was raised to be a liar and doesn’t understand another way of being. You don’t love him.”

“I know my own mind,” she said, pressing her lips in a firm line.

“Do you?”

“I know what I can quantify—what I can touch, taste, smell, what I can comprehend and compile evidence for. I know Anton to be caring and compassionate, just as I know you to be needlessly cruel and hypocritical. These are things I have seen, things I can prove —.”

“You can prove nothing,” he quipped. “And you know less than what you think, little girl. Just because Anton stuck his cock between your legs doesn’t mean anything. You don’t mean anything to him.”

“Are you trying to unsettle me with your use of vulgarities?” she asked, brow raised. Calder’s eyes shifted with discomfort. “I am not interested in mind games. You lack the subtlety for them, seiddreng . You will not convince me otherwise on Anton’s character or your own. I don’t want to listen to it.”

She tried to stand—and quicker than she could blink, Calder rose to his feet and gripped her by the arm, Sonya stumbling as her heart leapt into her throat with sheer terror. Unbidden, her gaze jumped to his, and Calder looked down at her with slow, simmering ire in his stone-like face.

“Unfortunately, you have to listen,” he stated, speaking in a slow, measured tone. “Just as I had to listen to Radu even as I dreamed of ripping his heart out. Every day, I dreamt and prayed for someone to kill him. I would have given anything for it. Ylva gave me what I wanted, but all things come at a price.” Sonya gulped. “This is what your precious Anton wanted. Me taking responsibility .”

“He wanted you to do the right thing!”

“There is no right thing. ”

His free hand bunched into a fist, and for a horrid instant, Sonya feared he may strike her, but when Calder unfurled his fingers, red stained the many creases and lines of his palm. Then, quick as could be, he clapped that hand over Sonya’s mouth, and she gasped despite herself, startled. The blood trickled onto her lips, warm and bitter, and when Sonya thought to close her mouth, to deny him, Calder squeezed her cheeks with enough force to keep her jaw open.

His blood dripped onto her tongue, and Sonya wrinkled her nose in protest.

Calder relinquished both her arm and her face, and she took a decisive step back, dragging her ragged sleeve against her lips.

“It is done,” the draugr said with his eyes fixed upon the floor. Red dripped along his limp fingers. “Go back to your room, m?r. Get out of my sight.”

Taking a shaky breath, Sonya wiped at her mouth again and asked, “What’s going to happen to me?”

“Go to your room.”

“Please.”

“ Go! ”

A frisson of power escaped the man with his shout, and Sonya wilted, turning toward the militant hall with its swords and spears, a foul taste lingering on her tongue.

Neither missed how her balled fists shook with impotent rage.