The Bonds of Blood (13 page)

“So the medallion is with them?”
Angelica said, more to herself than the reflection. Aramaiti did
not respond.

“A vessel sounds pretty ominous,”
Jovian pointed out.

“Indeed it does, but to have yourself
referred to as ‘The Vessel’ is even more disheartening. Makes me
wonder who we should be more worried about—this vessel thing, or
the Mask,” Angelica responded.

The Vessel is dangerous,
but like all containers it can be emptied. However, the Mask is
something else altogether. Wisdom would tell me that you should be
cautious of both the Vessel and the Mask, for their work will be
closely intertwined.

“So the Vessel and the Mask are working
together?” Jovian asked, a little befuddled.

No, the Mask is the master
of the Vessel. The Mask will not share power, and therefore it will
only take slaves, not partners.

“Then the Vessel is working for the
Mask?” Angelica asked.

Yes.

Angelica and Jovian were silent for
some time, and the Aramaiti continued.

Tonight when you get ready
for bed, I will come to you again. You will have to pay close
attention to what I tell you, for it is then that I will instruct
you on how to halt the winds.
For now, I
have to leave. You will need nothing to prepare you for tonight’s
venture but a good portion of dark flower from Grace’s storage.
Gather ten flowers each, and boil them in a mug of water until
there is only enough for you each to have a swallow. This infusion
you must drink entirely.

“That could kill us,” Angelica
protested.

Yes, it very well could.
That is why you don’t want to drink more than a swallow. This is
very dangerous. Only one swallow, and make sure you are both close
to your beds when you take it, for it will work quickly. There will
be some pain at first, but when that has passed, you will have
release.

“You mean we will be dead?” Jovian
asked, but before Aramaiti could reply the mirror dimmed, and soon
they were only staring at their reflections in the now cold
glass.

Across the hallway, Joya stood at the
doorway of her sister’s room. “Amber,” somehow the room seemed more
cold and lifeless in the knowledge that Amber was no longer there,
“where are you?” Joya ran the hem of her dress through her fingers
nervously.

Slowly she stepped inside, a shaky
breath escaping her lips as she crossed the threshold. The very air
within the room was different than that of the rest of the house.
It seemed colder, more haunting, as if the room itself had
witnessed what took place there, and it was damaged.

She let out a breath, which turned cold
and vaporous before her eyes.

Joya wrapped her arms around her as the
air within the room became startlingly bitter.

She paced the floor, looking at the
meticulously clean room, and worry budded within her stomach. Amber
had never kept her room this clean; in fact, just the night before
Joya had commented on how messy it was.

Like a pigsty,
Joya heard herself laughing in the
memory.

Just because I am not as
anal about cleanliness as you are,
Amber
had laughed before she had turned back to her books.

The memory faded from Joya’s mind, and
she stopped at the window, weeping.

Out of the corner of her eye, Joya saw
something glowing green. But when she looked it was gone. Sighing,
she turned back to the room.

“You put everything right,” she said,
walking to the writing table where, the night before, the books had
been spread all about. Joya looked to the bookshelf and saw that
one book was missing.

Curiously she walked closer and
examined the books, and just as she was about to step back she
realized what book was missing.

“The book Grace gave her is gone,” Joya
speculated aloud. When she thought of the book, Joya suddenly
wondered what else was missing and found herself flipping through
her sister’s wardrobe. Inside she found the cloak their father had
given her, still hanging on the hook as it had been since their
birthday. Beside it hung the whip Destra had given her.

Joya looked around, and found that
everything else of her sister’s was still there; the only thing
missing was the book.

“Amber is gone, along with her strange
book, and Mother’s medallion.” Joya knew there was something
special about the book, but why did Amber take that
specifically?

“And what is with the
medallion? And why Amber?”
One question at
a time, Joya,
she told herself and paced
around the room. She sat on the bed to think, and a gasp was torn
from her lips.

Before her eyes was a blackened,
withered hand holding a gruesome, flaming candle. Joya jumped up
and backed up toward the desk.

“The book,” Joya whispered to herself,
and she quickly strode from the room towards her own. There was
something that happened in Amber’s room, and the energy of it still
hung around. It both frightened and pleased Joya. If there was
something noticeably different about the room, then there might be
more clues about her sister; however, she was not sure she wanted
to learn those clues for fear of what they would reveal.

Joya closed her bedroom door stoutly
behind her and crossed to her bookshelf.

“What is it with you?” she asked her
book, not bothering to pick it up. “What are you? What do you know?
Why did Amber take you when she left everything else of value
behind?” Joya was now pacing back and forth, waiting for the book
to answer. However, the only noise filling the room was the heavy
footfalls of Joya’s dress boots.

No answer came, and Joya walked to the
book quickly and abruptly pulled it from the shelf. “Tell me!” she
screamed, violently throwing the book open. “What are
you?”

The book hung limp in her hands. There
seemed nothing special about it; just a strange book filled with
geometry.

Angry, Joya had no outlet to let loose
on, so she pulled hard on one of the pages. She expected to hear it
rip, but it didn’t. The page suddenly became hard as stone in her
hand, and where her fingers ran along the edges of the pages, blood
spilled to the surface.

Joya quickly sucked her fingers into
her mouth.

“Why won’t you tell me?” Joya sobbed,
setting the book down so that she could bandage up her fingers with
a length of cloth from her drawers.

The book said nothing.

In a huff, Joya stood and walked back
out into the hall, pausing at the entrance to Amber’s room. The air
within was noticeably different now as a shadow hung over the room,
for it was much darker than it should have been.

She couldn’t make herself enter the
room. The thought of the green glowing thing outside the window and
the image of the hand stuck in her mind. Joya felt a panicked
warning that someone was watching her, and she pressed herself to
the wall to offer a clear view of her surroundings. Surely she was
alone.

A shadow shot across the end of the
hall, near her father’s room.

Joya’s breath came fast and hard, much
like the pulse thundering in her ears.

She waited in the hall for a long time.
Nothing else happened, and her breathing slowed with each passing
minute. Closing her eyes, she took a few deep breaths to steady her
heart.

Something brushed Joya’s face.
Something insubstantial, like a thin veil drifted across
her.

She gasped and opened her eyes to see
two green orbs fading into the wall.

Leave it alone,
a voice as malicious and noxious as the green orbs
whispered in Joya’s mind.

Quickly she retreated, walking
backwards into her room, and barred herself inside. There she sat
on her bed, her back to the wall, until night began to fall. Even
then Joya got up only to light her oil lamp, and then retook her
place on the bed.

CHAPTER NINE

_L
ightning flashed wildly
outside, and
thunder assaulted the
plantation late in the night just as Angelica lit her candle in
preparation to create the concoction with Jovian. She shivered and
bound her long robe around her tighter.

She would not have heard the light
tapping on her door over the wind if she had not been waiting for
it. Angelica opened the door just wide enough to let Jovian
in.

“Are you ready?” he whispered, and
Angelica nodded her consent.

“I was reading through that prophecy
again today,” Angelica said quietly once they were in the kitchen
out of distance from prying ears.

“And?”

“It mentioned the Two.” Angelica lead
him to the cupboard where Grace kept her stores of herbs. “I
remember now that Joya pointed it out, like they were
significant.”

Jovian pawed through the herbs,
recklessly bumping the contents of the cupboard in his
quest.

“Here, let me look for the herb, and
you go boil the water.”

Jovian surrendered. “Good. I had
forgotten the name of it anyway.”

“I figured.” Angelica shooed him away.
“Anyway, I was reading through it again today, and remember how
Aramaiti spoke of the Mask and the Vessel as master and slave, and
said that their work would be intertwined?”

Jovian nodded as he measured out the
correct amount of water from the hand pump. “Yes, she did. So it is
safe to assume that the Two are the Mask and the
Vessel?”

“I think it is, at any rate. It would
not hurt to ask Aramaiti about it tonight,” Angelica squinted in
the poor light as she read the labels marred in Grace’s sloppy
handwriting.

“I think that we are going to have
enough to contend with tonight. She said that Baba Yaga was the one
who set these winds upon us, but that she was ordered to do so.
Aramaiti also said that we would be stopping the winds. To me that
sounds like a confrontation.”

“You are right,” Angelica agreed as she
pulled out a small bottle. She opened it and counted out twenty
flowers, ten for each of them. She corked the bottle and replaced
it carefully in the cupboard. The last thing she wanted was Grace
noticing it had been moved and questioning everyone about
it.

“I just wish we knew who the Mask was,”
Jovian said.

“I know; it is so
frustrating,”

“Were you able to make anymore sense of
it?”

“No.” Angelica fell silent as the
concoction finished cooking. Soon they both had their swallow in
separate cups, and Jovian was banking the fire.

“Are we ready?” Angelica asked. Jovian
shrugged and the two picked up their candles then climbed back up
the stairs.

“Good luck,” Jovian said as he stepped
into his room.

“You too.”

Alone in his room, Jovian closed the
heavy door behind him. Setting the candle down, Jovian quickly
disrobed and felt a draft of air tickling over his bare
skin.

Drink down the infusion and
lie down, Jovian. You must not cover up, for you must lay on the
bed naked. Coverings will interfere with what will come
next,
the voice of Aramaiti
explained.