We continued to hold one another’s gaze as I said, “You’ve got me there.”
Chapter Six
Azazel
“Grandfather died today. I always knew Father didn’t get along with him, but I can’t say I wasn’t surprised when he called me into his office and had me drink whiskey with him to celebrate the news. I guess it’s normal to hate your parents.”
-From the journal of Azazel Altair, 9232 AS
When I was nine, my favorite servant, Martha, died. Well, she didn’tdie.I killed her.
I thought a lot about that night as Tershetta cooked a foul-smelling stew from the chicken I had left over in the icebox. She was like a tornado, tugging open every cabinet, pulling out every herb, and talking to herself randomly.
Nothing like Martha, who was soft, kind, and organized beyond belief. She always sang bright lullabies and cleaned my cuts when I fell. She was the opposite of Tershetta in many ways; however, she was the same in one crucial aspect. Martha, like Tershetta, was not subject to the sway and demand of society. They did not subscribe to the status quo that everyone else desperately clung to. They were not affected by gravity, because theyweregravity.
I had known it the first time I met Little Void. She studied the world and saw it for what it was. She didn’t care about money, power, or notoriety. Martha hadn’t either. She used totell me she loved me more than every piece of gold on Dajahim. She’d tell me of all the dreams she had for me—how she pictured my future self shining brighter than the stars above. She didn’t believe that we were ruled by anything but ourselves.
And, just like Tershetta, Father wanted me to strike her down for the audacity. I wished I had found a way out of it like I had with the woman in front of me. Sometimes I still had nightmares of Martha’s writhing body as I squeezed her neck, sobs leaking from my mouth in time with the snot pouring from my nose. Father had beaten me after for feeling remorse. Or was it sadness? Perhaps both. He so despised all feelings other than anger.
I sat at my table, feigning reading a book when really I was watching Tershetta. She’d been pretending not to have a plot brewing in her mind, acting as if she was suddenly hungry and wanted to cook. Please. I wasn’tstupid.I saw the way she hung a second, smaller pot on the hearth. Watched curiously as she slyly shoved some of her newly acquired plants into it.
Tershetta was brewing something.
Martha would have liked her,I thought. She enjoyed annoying and persistent people. She liked me, after all.
Tershetta brewed differently than Cal, who was more contained and clean. Cal used to call Alchemy an art. He would tell me that I was too stupid to understand as he stirred whatever new concoction he was crafting in his family’s lab.
I missed him. All of them. Every time I snuck into Castle Altair and found more of their letters upon my bed, I nearly caved and responded. I had to keep them in the dark though, even if their devastating words threatened to strike me down from the pain of their abandonment and fear. Even worse, I thought of the two people who weren’t sending me letters. The one lost and the one dead. Dove would have figured out that it wasn’t me, not even bothering to accept the false narrative. Shewas too keen, too loving, tookind.For all the hatred that we cores stored away in our hearts, she still somehow managed to find it in herself to be tender. Talon had once been the same.
It felt as if my entire life had imploded. Like I was lost at sea, treading water and fighting off my inevitable, slow death by drowning. Martha would have held me. Sang to me. And I had killed her.
“Okay, food’s ready!” Tershetta shouted the words, rushing them out of her mouth as she dashed towards me. She was borderline frantic, her eyes darting to the front door and then back to me. What was she plotting?
Sloppily, she slammed a bowl in front of me at the table, the stew almost looking muddy. Would Tershetta kill me? Was it poison she made?
I could hear that voice in my head, the one that sounded so much like Father, hissing at me.
You can’t trust an of eadi. They’ll take any chance they can to kill you. They’ll rip apart everything you hold dear and then burn the world to the ground. All they do is poison everything they touch.
I took a bite of the stew.
Tershetta watched me with keen eyes, the barest hint of a smirk raising the left corner of her mouth. I chewed slowly, hating how it was simultaneously thick and slimy.
“Let me guess, you think I poisoned you?” she asked, letting her chin fall into her hands.
Swallowing, I said, “No, of course not.”
“Maybe you should be more afraid of me, Altair.”
That had me pausing, a chunk of too-tough meat sticking to my teeth, stabbing me in the gums when I tried to chomp down on it. “Well, I’m definitely terrified you’ll kill me with your poor cooking.”
Crossing her arms, she sat back. I watched with fascination as she tugged her lip into her mouth, the graze of her teeth against it making my stomach stir. It wasn’t even a particularly alluring act. Her lip split from the effort, bleeding and forcing her tongue to dart out and soothe it.
I want to do that.
The thought was there and gone, a startling force of desire landing in my gut, so heavy I had to acknowledge it. I hadn’t felt like that since before…Benadell Zade. Yes, it had been that long. Even when I had previously seen Tershetta, she hadn’t elicited such emotions from me. Not really. Or, perhaps she had, but I always hated her too much to see it. Now, though, it was impossible to ignore.
Just like the lust, I couldn’t ignore the shame, even if I knew it wasn’t necessarily something I should have felt.
