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I didn’t think I’d be so reluctant to greet death as the man I watched die. From above, I was a mere spectator to his pleas for his children, his wife, and the job he wished to spend the rest of his years working for the one who stood to claim his life.
He didn’t know I was there.
Every time I watched a man on his knees, I couldn’t help my need to observe from the high rafters, wondering if I’d relate to his pleas if my own breaths were numbered. With my fragmented memories only spanning five years, I had little to attach my purpose to.
It was as if Hektor Goldfell heard no cries as he gave a nod to the brute of a man pinning the victim down with a single large hand on his shoulder. He wouldn’t spill blood—not in this room. He wouldn’t disturb the bustling nighttime entertainment in the main room of his establishment with this man’s death.
I pinched my lips at the sickening twist of his neck, fortunately not hearing the crack over the chatter and low music before his body slumped. It churned my stomach all the same.
As though he’d exerted himself, Hektor slumped into the nearest booth, flicking his chin so the few locks of red hair weren’t touching his eyes anymore. When two beautiful women slipped in either side of him, I averted my eyes, lying down on the wooden beam only a little wider than my spine. My glittering silver hair spilled over the sides, along with the sheer material of my skirt, which floated in the air. But I didn’t fear anyone finding me here. They never looked up.
My fingers brushed the ornate black hilt of my dagger idly. I wasn’t permitted to dance or entertain like the women below, but I still enjoyed the lightweight elegance of their movements.
Skillfully, I got back to my feet, perhaps childishly copying one of the ladies who was trying out the art of theft among the newest group of esteemed card players. Distraction came in her fluid movements. I crossed over the wooden rafters, light on my toes, twirling like she did, and studied her movements, pretending it was I who attracted the men’s lusty eyes, their gazes preoccupied enough to miss her hand purposely placed on one’s shoulder to divert his attention from her other hand dipping into his pocket.
I couldn’t see what she stole, but her blue irises gleamed triumph.
She twisted and perched on the edge of the table, arching her back as she lay so as not to disturb their game. I reclined backward until my hands felt the wood, legs rotating in the air, and my next blink canceled out the dizzy sweep as I straightened again. Then I leaned back against the vertical support with a sigh, casting my gaze away from the busy candlelit room to the gloom of my vantage point. Cloaked in shadow, I felt no more than an insect caught in a spider’s web. It was hard to believe we were in the same room.
Sometimes I wished the guests would see me just once, even if I disappeared in their next blink since I was a prize only to be known by one man.
My eyes found Hektor, who hadn’t moved at all, though the women were now spilling themselves over him. His deep green irises were the one set I’d never want to be found by up here.
Within these grand walls he kept me safe from the horrors outside. The vampires. Different species of them who consumed blood or souls and kept the humans afraid.
But they, like us, were under the control of the king.
The main room was bustling with talk of the Libertatem, a centennial trial hosted by the wicked ruler in the Central Kingdom of Vesitire. Five humans, the Selected, from the surrounding kingdoms would be sent off in the coming days to compete for one hundred years of safety from vampire attacks. When our world upended into chaos three hundred years ago, following the king’s conquest in the war he announced henceforth that the humans would fight for peace, and the vampires would be kept under control by his enforcement of the Libertatem trials. I suppose it gave the people something to look forward to. If their kingdom won, they’d have freedom to leave their homes without terror for themselves and their children for a generation. If they lost, at least it was a break of pageantry in their bleak lives.
I think everyone knew deep down but didn’t want to acknowledge that their beacon of hope was a lie of oppression. I couldn’t relate to the excitement that buzzed through people’s talk of it, but I understood.
Spirits were fragile. Hope kept them from breaking.
As I remained confined within these four elaborate walls with rarely any opportunity to venture beyond them, I didn’t know as much of the outside world as I yearned to. All I could do was pluck kernels of insight from my frequent eavesdropping during these envious nights of beauty, gambling, and seduction.
I spent hours here listening in to the discussions of guests more eagerly than usual but my interest rooted more personally.
Four more days until the Libertatem send-off.
A clock ticked each minute in my mind as if it was an opportunity slipping through my fingers like sand and a grip on my heart squeezed tight at the thought of my longest friend leaving as our Selected from the southernmost Kingdom of Alisus.
My memory went back far enough to remember Hektor’s hold on me, but not what had chased me into his comparatively safe arms. He’d brought me here and told everyone the story of how I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for him. Now, five years later, from what I’d been told, I was around the age of twenty-three, and I knew he’d never let me forget that debt.
My hand hovered over the two long scars that ran from under my jaw to the hollow of my neck. Though I couldn’t recall the face, nor the moment it had happened, phantom jolts of searing pain erupted whenever I thought of it. Like when I fixated too long on the raised skin in the mirror, trying to find the memory. Another mystery perhaps owed to what I’d fled from.
What remained a despair I could never voice was that I would never know who I was before Hektor.
“You’re safe now, Astraea,” he had said.
Those first words I would always remember. Hektor hadn’t just found me, but also my name, which once heard I knew was mine.
In that respect, he possessed both my lives.
I didn’t know why, of all the company surrounding him now, he took favor in me. I surely wasn’t the only one to bring comfort to his nights. I’d watched women of all beauty give him their convincing affection. Those from fair skin to dark skin, of natural hair color or hair enhanced with Starlight Matter—magick that spoke to their wealth. Right now, a woman with glowing brown skin slipped a hand over his chest, in under the material he always wore with the first few buttons undone. Her long, dark hair appeared dipped in fluorescent rose paint. Another with a porcelain complexion and catlike yellow eyes hooked a slender leg over his lap.
I looked away. No matter how often I watched his nightly affairs, it never erased the question: Why did I choose to stay?
The answer came easily: I had nowhere else to go. And while he indulged himself in others, he came to me with an affection I consumed greedily and craved deeply.
Love was a drug laced with its own cure.
Copyright © 2023 by Chloe C. Peñaranda
