But the woman grabbed my sleeve, holding me back.
“One more vial,” Margaret pleaded. “I know you have more. Just one more.”
“You have enough elixir to last until the restock,” I said slowly. “The rest of the vials belong to other Norhavellian children.” She knew this.Everyoneknew this. “There will be more in just a few days’ time.”
“Maybe even earlier,” Elliot added brightly. “The Light Legion will be here any day now.”
“The extra vial isn’t for us,” Margaret snapped. “It’s for my husband.”
Isaac, her blacksmith husband, had been discovered to be Corrupt last month after bludgeoning his friend to death with an iron rod. The poor man’s face had been unrecognizable afterward.
“Wasn’t Isaac found to be…” I let the statement trail off, uneasy with where the conversation was headed.
“Corrupt, yes,” Margaret answered coolly, letting go of my sleeve and waving her hand as if the implication were a pesky insect at her throat. “I know what he’s done. What he looks like. But what if more elixir can reverse his condition? Maybe it can stop his dreams as it does ours.”
“We don’t give elixir to the Corrupt,” I said flatly. What she was asking was impossible. Corruption had no cure; it would be a waste of a vial.
“If you won’t grant me an extra vial, I will give Isaac ours,” she threatened. Her children shuffled their feet, peering up at us fearfully. “He needs it more than we do.”
Her demand was clearly a threat, but one we couldn’t appease without drawing attention to ourselves. Not to mention that her children would be at risk for Corruption if she gave away their vial.
“You may give him one-half of a standard vial,” I finally said, hoping that I sounded authoritative. “No more. And you must keep the first vial for you and your children.” I wiped my hands on the sides of my skirt, irritated at their growing clamminess. Margaret tapped her foot, eager for me to hand her the extra vial, but I made no move to give it to her. “We’ll also accompany you to the holding cells to ensure you’re following protocol.”
Margaret agreed to this, and she hastily bundled her children in soft woolen sweaters to ward against the late-summer air before we all headed out to see Isaac.
The holding cells were in a quiet part of the village, near the very woods that wrapped around our property. The cells used to be in thecenter of town, but as Corruption worsened, it was quickly discovered that no one wanted to hear their demon-infested loved ones screaming for release. The new structure was built on the outskirts, surrounded by thick, gnarled trees and stationed with an ever-rotating patrol of guards. And then, every season, the Light Legion would come to purify the Corrupt and bury them in simple graves.
I put what I hoped was a reassuring hand on Elliot’s shoulder, knowing that the contents of the holding cells were never pleasant. A few years ago, there had been only one cell. Now there were at least two dozen.
And tonight they were full.
We followed the guards—a small handful of men—down a dimly lit hallway. The Corrupt either slept in unnatural angles, stood stock-still with violence in their eyes, or appeared eerily calm both in character and countenance. All had shadows under their lashes; all seemed distinctlyother. Isaac was in the last cell, and when we reached him, the guards left us alone.
Isaac was chained to the wall, but he had enough leeway to slowly slide to the bars. Margaret greeted him warmly, brushing the ratty, sweat-slicked hair from his forehead. As though he was still her husband and not a demon. A cloudy substance dripped from Isaac’s eyes, mingling with a thick, fleshy fixative that covered the upper half of his face, making the skin appear fractured in several places.
“I try to conceal the shadows so that he doesn’t scare the children,” Margaret whispered, pulling a brush and a small tincture of flesh-colored putty from her skirt pockets. Concealment, because elixir would be futile. Corruption had no cure, just as the shadows on his face couldn’t be scrubbed off. “Would you mind keeping the twins company until I’m done?”
Elliot immediately sat with the children, entertaining them with a tale of Lelantos, the Air Weaver. It was a delightful story, but it twisted an unseen knife in some soft, vulnerable part of me. Before Eden’s death five years ago, I had enjoyed reading about the Weavers. It had seemed possible that they would one day return from their centuries-longabsence, making everything right and true. That they’d save the world from Corruption and rid us of the Shadow Bringer and his demons.
It was difficult not to flinch as Elliot finished the story.
I didn’t want to hear a tale from our kingdom’s perfect past. Not when the present was dark, twisted, and haunted by the ghost of what it used to be. What it wasmeantto be.
“And then the mountain bursts like an egg,” Elliot continued, throwing his arms open dramatically. “Lelantos flies from the rock, reborn with wings, and saves the dreamers!” He jumped to his feet and pretended to fly around the cramped hall. Once he’d made a few passes, he knelt in front of the twins, an intense expression on his face. “The end.”
The children broke into giggles, forcing a dry, rattling laugh to crawl out of Isaac’s throat. I smiled politely, struggling to focus on the twins’ joy and not the shadows marking lines into their father’s skin. And who was laughing? Isaac, or the demon within him? Margaret worked quickly, blending the concealment onto his face until the shadows were hidden, but the effort felt futile. The concealment would last just long enough to uphold part of his dignity before the Light Legion purified his soul, and that was perhaps the cruelest part of all. Although Isaac’s soul would be saved by the Light Bringer, his Corrupt body, like Eden’s, would still need to be sacrificed. He was destined to die.
Because once a demon claimed its victim, nothing could be done. It would feed on its host, slowly and delightedly, one dream after another, until the afflicted mind rotted and its body bore signs of decay. It might take months if one was strong enough to resist, but few ever did. Most fell into Corruption within a week.
Once Margaret was done, she motioned her children over to their father. They shared a few quick words and an embrace through the bars—one that made my stomach churn with discomfort—and Isaac was handed the half vial of elixir. He rolled it in his rough fingers, sniffed the substance, and recoiled violently.
He won’t drink it. Waste of a vial.
Isaac leveled his gaze at me. As if the demon inside him heard.
Afterward, when we were safely outside the holding cells, Margaret gave Elliot’s and my hands a meaningful squeeze. “Thank you,” she said sincerely. She shot a nervous glance behind us, adding conspiratorially, “I have hope for Isaac’s soul. I have hope for my children’s, too.”
Night descended at a crawl.
