Chapter 27: CHAPTER 27

Though desperate to escape the scene, Delilee could find no excuse to leave without drawing attention. Jalice wouldn’t have left without dismissal from the Sachem, nor would she have wanted to.

Delilee waited with tense apprehension as the Ikaul people immersed themselves in spontaneous celebration over the Sachem’s announcement. The remainder of the evening would be spent in the field, drinking and praising their chief. For more than one reason, she didn’t want to linger and witness what the night of debauchery would entail.

Hours dragged by, slowly draining Delilee of the endurance to remain true to her disguise. When the sun finally dipped beyond the horizon, she knew fatigue would be an acceptable excuse to retire.

Yet still she hesitated. Peering at Hydrim from afar, she got the impression he was intoxicated. Speaking to him while he wallowed in such a state might only make the night worse. Reclined in a throne chair placed on the elevated boulder, he watched with deep enthrallment as lurid dancers entertained the crowd to the beat of drums.

Delilee shivered and pulled her cloak in tighter. By some miracle of the stars, she’d avoided sharing any nightly companionship with the Sachem. However, she wondered if tonight might change her fortune. For a moment, she contemplated sneaking off with the hopes of avoiding an expectant look from Hydrim, but she decided against this upon recalling his temper. With anxious steps, she approached him and summoned the last amount of feigned affection she still possessed.

“Blessing of the stars, my Sachem,” she greeted. She smiled warmly and tried to overlook the glaze of his eyes. “I’m afraid the day’s excitement has left me exhausted. I’m returning to the Fortress.”

“My greatest possession,” said Hydrim. He grinned at her ruefully. “Most beautiful and prized. Don’t you want to remain with your love and bathe in the praise of our people?” He grabbed her hand in a sloppy attempt to pull her closer, but Delilee resisted. Something in Hydrim’s expression disturbed her, and his slurred words confirmed his drunkenness.

“It isn’t safe for me out here,” said Delilee as she filled her voice with concern. “With the sun gone, it’s too easy for someone to try and abduct me again. Please forgive me. The attempt earlier this week has left me paranoid.” She flashed a look of embarrassment, ignoring the flat stares of the Elders. “With your blessing, my Sachem.”

Hydrim’s face twisted into a wrinkled scowl, and a growl thudded from his throat. Then in an instant, his drunken expression returned. Delilee froze, unsure if what she’d witnessed was another dokojin’s grin. Perhaps it’d been a play of the shadows, although that wasn’t entirely convincing. His face had looked inhuman—almost otherworldly.

“I hope you enjoyed your gift,” Hydrim murmured. “When I have fused the Realms, I’ll take you to the stars and give the real constellations to you.”

“I’ll wear it every day until I pass into the next Realm,” she lied, reaching up to grasp the pendant. Faking her enthusiasm became more difficult the longer she dwelled on the dokojin grin she’d witnessed. His impassioned words only worsened her nerves.

Hydrim chuckled deeply. “Sweet Jalice, you keep forgetting,” he replied. “I am fusing the Realms. You won’t pass from one to another. You’ll exist in all of them at once as it was meant to be. Death will no longer be a transition. It will be a transformation, just as it was for our ancestors. We’ll regain what we lost—what our generation never had the chance to learn and experience.”

Delilee inclined her head, hoping he would understand she wanted to depart without further conversation. She turned to leave.

“Take Eerish with you,” said Hydrim suddenly. “You said yourself it’s not safe.” He eyed her skeptically. “If someone wielding aether were to attack, you’ll need someone like Eerish to keep you safe.”

Delilee halted and glanced back, unable to hide her dismay.

“You want me to take an aethertwi—wielder?” she asked, stumbling over her words. Her heart pounded. She wondered if he’d noticed her slip-up. An itch prickled along her forearms. Dying stars, not now. The lyprow root shouldn’t have been wearing off so soon.

Delilee gave a clipped nod before the Sachem could respond. She glanced at Eerish, who stood at Hydrim’s side dressed in grey robes and boasting Ikaul skin ink. Faded blue eyes stood stark against pale skin and glossy ebony hair that sank past the neckline. The man returned her scowl.

“As the stars’ witness,” Eerish mumbled, clearly not fond of the prospect either.

The pestering itch spurned Delilee to depart without further protest. Stressing over the aethertwister’s presence would only worsen the hives sprouting over her skin. Her entourage of two warriors and Eerish stepped in pace with her, flanking a few steps behind.

She remained tense and waited for the Sachem to call out again with a change of mind about her departure. Once out of shouting distance, her muscles relaxed, and she quickened her steps. Passing through the crowd—many strung out on aether drugs, alcohol, and pure euphoria—heightened her desperation to escape the unfolding nightmare.

Geshar came up behind her out of the throng, a torch in hand. “The other talimai are scattered, Tecalica. It seems that some men in their stupor thought the women were . . . available for enjoyment.”

Delilee stopped walking and turned to Geshar, unable to hide her revulsion. “Why didn’t they remain close to me? I wouldn’t have allowed that to happen.”

Geshar bowed her head with apologetic eyes. “I don’t think some of them minded much, Tecalica.” Her voice trailed off to a whisper, unsure of how the chieftess would react.

Delilee blinked as she mustered fake apathy over the handmaids’ decisions. “Perhaps they wished to join in the celebration. I won’t fault them for that, but I commend your loyalty, Geshar. Come—we’re going back to the tower.”

The group of five—Eerish, the two Ikaul warriors, Geshar, and the Tecalica—made their way across the field and entered the forest. Delilee found a small amount of relief when the roar of the valley died to a faint murmur behind the trees. Her skin begged for relief from the itch, but she gritted her teeth in silent torture. This walk would be an eternity.

Darkness shrouded the path, and only Geshar’s torchlight offered clear sight. The night’s cold bit at their lungs, and clouds of vapor formed with each exhale. The bathing pool beckoned to Delilee. At least there she’d be warm and free to scrub at her skin without question. Also, she needed privacy to ponder the Sachem’s announcement and what doom it might bring upon the land.

Soft, quick footsteps pricked Delilee’s ears. Before she could process what was happening, one of the Ikaul warriors let out a guttural croak. She turned at the sound to see a blade jutting from the warrior’s garb and skin. Blood splattered the ground as it burst from the wound.

Chaos erupted. Someone shouted, and the clash of weapons pierced the air. Delilee happened to glimpse Eerish as an arrow sank into his chest. One moment the man stood with pain stretched across his face, and in the next, his entire body bubbled until it exploded. A loud pop followed as the explosion showered the area in blood and flesh.

Splattered by remnants of Eerish and too shocked to scream, Delilee stumbled back in a daze. Her heel caught on something solid, and she tripped. The fall onto her back left her breathless. As she wrestled to her side, her eyes happened upon a bloodied face pressed against the ground mere inches away. She sputtered, unable to move while the Ikaul warrior’s dead eyes stared aimlessly back at her.

Before her muscles could respond, a shadowy mass entered her vision. Poor lighting offered little details of her assailant as they threw a sack over her head and plunged her into a darkness deeper than the night.

Delilee screamed and thrashed her limbs. The assailant saddled her and held her prostrate while wrapping powerful legs around her waist. Distant shouts went quiet, and the sound of boots shuffling on gravel approached Delilee.

“The aethertwister and warriors are dead,” murmured a low voice, and Delilee quickly decided the speaker was male. “Yetu is taking care of the bodies. Are you sure you got the Tecalica?”

“Yes—let’s take her before anyone notices,” said another masculine voice. “We’re lucky she left alone without the Sachem or more warriors. Bad fortune that twister came, but his fancy aether couldn’t save him from a simple arrowhead.”

The sound of more shuffling boots grew steadily louder as someone shushed the pair of whispering men.

“Pick her up and let’s go,” commanded a female voice.

Before Delilee could discern the woman’s identity, her attention shifted back to the man who had tackled her. He removed his weight from Delilee’s legs but kept his hands clasped around her wrists. Meanwhile, another set of hands grabbed her ankles. She could feel someone breathing against the sack over her head.

“Don’t scream, or we’ll use aether to keep you quiet,” whispered the female voice.

Delilee gasped as they lifted her into the air. The crude manner of transportation jostled her as they bumbled off the gravel path. The sound of branches snapping and leaves crunching told her they were heading deeper into the wild parts of the forest.

Delilee panted against the sack as claustrophobia set in. “Please let me go,” she pleaded, her shoulders aching.

“Be silent!” shouted one of the men.

Delilee whimpered softly. Tears streaked from her eyes, and her nose dribbled. Sahruum, don’t let me die. I beg you—save me.

***

The blind trek left Delilee disorientated, and time distorted during the humiliating journey. When the lighting beyond the sack shifted from pitch black to warm hues of red and orange, her assailants lowered her legs to the ground and propped her onto a wooden chair. The abductors made quick work of binding her hands behind it.

Delilee sobbed, as she couldn’t stay silent any longer. In one swift motion, someone removed the sack from her head. The light seared her vision as her eyes slowly adjusted to her surroundings.

A low fire crackled a few feet beyond her. Its smoke billowed up and lifted out of the open slits in a tent’s ceiling. Delilee startled at the cross-legged figure sitting on the other side of the fire, and the two daunting figures that loomed on either side of this stranger. Frightening wooden masks obscured both of their faces, which seized Delilee with paralysis as her mind struggled with the unnatural visages.

One mask stretched in a tall oval that clashed against the otherwise expected human frame past the shoulders. Giant bulging eyes, constituting most of the wooden object and detailed with thin eyelids, leered at Delilee. The miniscule lips carved into the mask were curved into a petrified scream.

Where this mask relied heavily on minimal design and disproportionate features, the mask worn by the constituent flashed with vibrant color and accessories. A three-tier mane of dead leaves flared out at the edges, with only faint remnants of red or orange lingering in leaf blades otherwise deathly brown. The wreath collided with the vivid red paint that dominated the wooden base of the mask. Ribbons of gold lines traced through the crimson landscape before ending in a flourish of curves at the center, forming the distinct shapes of two bloodshot eyes and a snarl of teeth.

Delilee turned away and, through the fire and smoke, divulged a third and final mask disguising the sitting figure. Like the withering leaves of the second mask, dead reeds sprang forth from the crown to mimic a mane like that of a male grimalkin, with the ends branching down to the neck. The wooden base was fashioned after a feline predator, its lips parted to bare four teeth. Two slits revealed a pair of human eyes that studied Delilee as the light from the fire glistened within them.

“Why am I here?” Delilee asked. She flexed her hands against her binds. “What do you want with me?”

“That depends,” one of the masked figures responded.

Delilee narrowed her eyes as she strained to identify her captors. She assumed the two who stood on either side of the sitting figure were the men who had carried her. They filled out their tunics and trousers in a stocky manner and both held a dominant posture with arms crossed against their chests. Because they wore long sleeves, Delilee couldn’t tell whether they were Vekuuv—based on an enslavement marking—or Ikaul.

Veiled by the fire and wrapped in a generously sized poncho that lacked any tribal markings, the third figure remained elusive, though Delilee assumed the person to be the woman whose voice she heard earlier.

Glancing around the room, Delilee noticed the stark lack of furnishments. Aside from the rug she could make out beneath the sitting figure, the ground beneath them consisted of natural forest dirt and a few patches of dead grass.

Delilee’s palms moistened with sweat, exasperated as she was by the heat of the fire and the unblinking set of eyes staring through the smoke.

“Are you going to hurt me?” Delilee asked bluntly. She took pride that her voice no longer quivered.

The sitting figure’s eyes flickered down. Delilee’s gaze lowered until she spotted the gold feather resting on her lap. A salutation feather—a token of peace. An inherently Ikaul custom, but she refused to take that as identification of her captors.

“Who are you?” she asked, unsure of what to think of the meager offering.

“Have you heard of the Vekaul?” asked the sitting figure—indeed a woman, based on the voice.

Delilee’s eyes widened. The Vekaul—a mere rumor before Annilasia had confirmed their existence during the scheming to displace Jalice. Unsure of where the conversation was going, Delilee chose her words carefully.

“Nothing more than whispers and grumblings,” said Delilee. “It’s supposedly a group of people forming a new tribe under the portmanteau Vekaul. The Sachem has deemed them a rebellion, if their existence is even real.”

The strange woman’s grimalkin mask nodded slowly. “A rebellion indeed. We’re a new tribe—a mix of Vekuuv and Ikaul, with a few foreigners who became trapped here during the Delirium outbreak. But we aren’t trying to restore Vekuuv and Ikaul to what they were before. That isn’t possible. We strive only for a land that isn’t ruled by the Sachem.”

That voice. The timid familiarity of it distracted Delilee as she listened to the divulged information. Annilasia had always maintained that this rumored tribe of rogue vigilantes wasn’t a viable route to overthrowing the Sachem. To Annilasia, having the freedom to execute plans without filtering it past others held more value than allying with a unified force.

Delilee squirmed in the chair. She wondered if they suspected, like Annilasia did, that Hydrim was possessed by a dokojin. Delilee wasn’t willing to offer up the theory. Despite the eerie expressions Hydrim had bestowed upon her hours earlier, she didn’t truly think him possessed. He was just a cruel man skilled at unsettling her.

“Why not assassinate the Sachem?” Delilee asked instead. “That’d be the easiest and quickest way to do away with him.”

One of the men snorted, and an awkward silence followed.

“We’ve tried that,” said the woman in the grimalkin mask. “Many have tried over the years. There’s something protecting that man. Some have suggested he’s in league with dokojin. But there’s no proof of that other than his remarkable ability to stay alive and his methods of madness.”

Delilee raised her eyebrow. So, they did suspect the dokojin.

“I think you could be of great use to us,” said the masked woman.

Delilee balked. “How’s that?”

The cross-legged woman leaned forward past the erratic flames. “Well, it seems likely that someone pretending to be the Tecalica would be willing to work with us. We know you’re an imposter. You are not Jalice, wife of the Sachem.”