A feminine voice echoed distantly through the rows of books. “All patrons of the Magna Annalis must depart promptly. We say again, all patrons must depart promptly. Remember your manners and order as you leave the confines of our sacred grounds, and may the gods bless your hasty steps.”
A rather pleasant way to usher people to their doom, Elloven thought but was already working through a plan. The library had been only a dozen yards from the gates, and the gates roughly... She couldn’t calculate the distance, but the walk had taken around ten minutes from the path’s fork. So, make it fifteen, to account for the lack of light. Fifteen minutes to the divergence in the road. Another thirty or so to the havre.
Forty-five harrowing minutes to protect her flame.
It pulsed inside her dress. Every last simulcra in the Infinitum wanted it. Vigils were different. They’d been criminals whose punishment was the complete loss of their soul. They were vessels programmed to seek out other criminals, no longer even a whisper of who they’d been. Terror by design.
The simulcra, on the other hand, had been robbed of their flame, and were still, to some extent, themselves. Their affliction was reversible, unlike the vigils’. The only known antidote was to steal the soul of another, who would take their place, passing the curse down the line. Vigils were not there to protect her or others from theft though. One night, she’d heard the proprietor of the cloister in the Seventh telling others that as the numbers in the Infinitum swelled, the need for vigils had as well. They couldn’t make them fast enough.
In the seat of power of the netherworld, there’d be more than ever.
Elloven’s only chance was to hide and pray they’d take pity on her.
Her body moved on its own. Her feet lifted from the ground as she glided, against her will, back the way she’d come. Even flailing was impossible; her mind seemed the only thing left over which she had any control, though even that was useless if it could not command her body as it traveled through the magical door and back to the lobby, where the steward wore a grating, impatient scowl he seemed to have saved just for her.
“You have dallied,” he gruffed as she glided past, clawing the air for help and trying to speak, to beg him to make it stop. Her flesh crawled with terror as she was dragged toward the looming darkness, unable to do anything to stop it.
“Please,” she managed through her teeth. “Please don’t.”
“You read the signs when you entered.”
“What si—” Her mouth slammed shut, her lips felt sewn together.
The door flung open, and she was hurled out. Before she could even look back, a metal grate clanged over the door.
Whisps of pale forms swept between trees... flitted behind buildings. One vigil appeared, then another, mouths yawning wide and jawing unnaturally, though vigils couldn’t speak. They had no words of their own anymore, compelled to action by the malignant magic that had made them. Their eyes were sunken orbs with no life or light. She’d heard they didn’t need them at all.
Elloven didn’t know if they’d detected her. If they couldn’t see her, could they smell her? Feel her?
She ducked low behind the courtyard sign and scouted for a clearer path. The way back was packed with simulcra, hovering in a haphazard line. She’d never seen them so clearly or up close. They still looked halfway human, but their jerky gait and lifeless gazes removed all doubt.
In every other direction were the trailing white gowns of the vigils, moving in and out of sight like a dance of oversized moths.
Fear would have her believe every fiend in the area knew she was there, and were just waiting for her to make her move so the real hunt could begin, but she couldn’t just crouch under a sign until lightrise and hope for the best.
And what is my move? She couldn’t hear herself think over the shrieks bouncing around the courtyard. Her face was a pinboard of heat, her eyes swollen and tired. Silence rang even louder than the screams. There was no one, no one, who could protect her. Even the idea she could “survive” was as ludicrous as bargaining with the universe for a miracle, just as she’d done as she’d lain dying in the sept.
If she ran back the way she’d come, one of the simulcra would grab her. She couldn’t outrun all of them.
If she traveled farther into the grounds, a vigil would take her in. She’d committed no crime, but her instincts were screaming about the danger the ethereal lawmen posed.
She could lose half of her soul or all of it.
Elloven reached back to wipe the damp heat crawling along her neck and noted the change in energy in the air behind her. She turned and looked straight into the dead eyes of Fabrien Quinlanden.
The horror of him was far worse than her nightmares had guessed. Most of his hair had fallen out, and it was patchier than it would have been on an old, decaying man. Half of his flesh was sunken, some completely missing, but around his jaw, it was still just as supple and tight. His mouth had always been the font of his evil, the place from which the worst of him spilled. When he grinned, all mouth and melting flesh, nothing could have suppressed her curdling scream.
He pressed a finger to his widening grin. She didn’t need his words; she felt them. He’d always posited the worst of his nature through rhetorical questions. Now, abbess, why would you alert the others to come take what is mine?
Trembling and hyperventilating, she crab-walked into the sign, knocking her head on an arrow. She crashed onto her ass. Fabrien opened his decaying robe, revealing a body that matched his face. He’d retained his warrior’s abdomen, but his hips and arms were only half intact. His knees exposed two grotesque orbs. But none of that was what he wanted her to see. Between his legs was a swollen organ, just as dangerous as it had been in life. It glowed with a dark, crimson vim, pulsing as he gathered it into his hand and nodded at her. An offering.
Elloven clasped both hands over her flame, frozen and cowering before her tormentor. As he neared, his hand and organ were nearly level with her face, and she squeezed her amulet tighter, unwilling to surrender regardless of how hopeless a fight would be.
But when Fabrien’s eyes traveled to her chest, his lip turned up in a snicker of disgust. He nodded at his full hand, then back at her.
She was stunned speechless. It wasn’t her flame he’d come for.
A ghastly, rotting hand found her gown. Spindly fingers traveled from just beneath her bosom, downward. Sobbing, she drew into herself, because there was nowhere else to go. Even the vigils and other simulcra had gone quiet.
