Forsaken: The Chosen Trilogy - Book One

Chapter Four

Vikos - the last month of harvest; tenth month of the year

KRYSSA 

The Rose Farm, Northwestern Valory

17 Vikos 569A.F.

The Crone returned every day for months, feeding Malachi more of those awful, swirling potions in small glass vials. Their smell was sickly sweet, lingering like a cloud around him as he watched her leave with burning eyes. My dread deepened as I watched the spark of animosity appear in his dark eyes, his apathy gradually vanishing into an almost tangible anger. 

And then came the day my father woke from his state of despair.

We were sitting at the supper table, eating the thin stew Lanya had managed to make for our supper, when the door opened. We looked up, stunned, as he staggered inside. 

"A bath." His voice was rough and rasping from disuse. "Fetch the water."

We didn't move.

Father's expression darkened. "Now." 

Brannyn and I rushed to fetch buckets, carting water pumped from our well into the house. Lanya had pushed the others into the kitchen and dragged the heavy tub to the middle of the floor. Then she backed away, protecting the twins and Reyce from our father's menacing glare.

We made trip after trip to the well, our backs and shoulders aching under the strain of the heavy buckets, our legs burning as we hurried as fast as we dared. The water level slowly rose, and with it Father's anger. I could see it building in the coiled muscles of his shoulders, the pulsing vein in his forehead, but there was nothing I could do to stop it.

And then he struck me.

At first, I was too stunned to even feel the blow. I stumbled back, tripping over my own feet, the buckets tumbling from my hands to spill water across the floor. Wide-eyed, I stared up at him as pain bloomed across the side of my face. Tears sparkled in my vision until they all but blinded me.

"It's your fault she's dead," he whispered, the words grating and harsh in the abrupt silence. "Worthless bitch. You killed her. You killed my Adelie."

My breath caught. "Papa, no, I-"

"Shut up!" The second blow knocked me to the floor and flooded my mouth with the taste of blood. Tears streamed down my cheeks, though I scarcely noticed. Panic, fear, survival- all of these were rushing through me, and all I could think of was that I needed to run, to hide until his rage faded.

Then I lifted my head and saw Brannyn. He stood frozen in the doorway, the buckets dangling uselessly from his hands. In the instant that our eyes met, I heard his thoughts as though they were my own, brilliant red, filled with fury.

I'll kill him.

No. Fear for myself vanished. I looked to where Lanya cowered in the kitchen, her face white as the others peered around her. Protect them.

It happened in a moment, this understanding between us, and his guilt and relief and impotent fury flooded me as he gave in to my will. His jaw was clenched, his eyes still uncertain, but he set down the buckets and ushered the others into what had been Janis' room. His eyes met mine one more time before he closed the door and locked it, leaving me alone with Malachi.

I took a deep breath, and stood.

I do not remember all of the names my father called me, nor the number of times he swung, though he mostly missed, his eyes too unfocused to see me clearly. Suffice it to say that he blamed everyone for my mother's death, for taking his Adelie away from him. He blamed Reyce, of course, and the twins, for making her too weak to withstand my brother's birthing. He blamed Janis for not doing enough, and the Crone for arriving too late. He blamed Lanya for resembling her, and Brannyn for possessing her smile. He even blamed the Gods, and cursed the vision that had made her seek her own death.

But, most of all, he blamed me. It was because of me that he had been forced to come to this gods-forsaken place, so far from the healers that might have saved her. It had been my hands that had been covered in her blood when he had entered her room the night of her death. My mere presence had been a curse, dooming her. He screamed that I had let her die to save Reyce, shrieked in a broken voice that he would never forgive me.

His star was dead, and his world was darker for it.

And then, abruptly, it was over. Malachi sagged as the emotions drained from him. He crumpled in on himself, weak and weary, full of remorse and piteous tears.

It frightened me more than his rage.

In the end, I resorted to treating him as Janis had, as if he were a small child in the aftermath of a tantrum. I bathed him, scrubbing months of filth from his skin as the water turned black. I trimmed his hair and shaved his beard and dressed him in clean clothes, throwing his soiled garments in the fireplace to burn. He wept through it all. At last, I led him to his bed, and he sighed as he curled up beneath the coverlet, whispering my mother's name like a prayer as he fell immediately asleep.

I stared at him for a long moment, then limped from his room to ours and wearily tapped on the door. "Brannyn, it's me."

He jerked it open. His face reflected all the pain that lurked somewhere deep inside of me, buried beneath the exhaustion. He reached out to touch the tender bruises on my cheek.

I flinched. "I'm fine, Brannyn."

"No, you're not."

"I'm just tired." My bones felt like fragile glass; if I admitted how afraid I was, I would simply shatter. "I need sleep."

He stepped aside.

Lanya stared at me from a chair in the corner, her face tight with worry. The twins lay sprawled across the bed with Reyce, their limbs tangling with each other as they slept.

"Kryssa?" Lanya whispered, her voice trembling.

"I'm fine." I curled onto my pallet on the floor, dragging my blanket around me, and closed my eyes. "Everything will be fine."

But it was a long time before sleep finally claimed me, and my dreams, when they came, were filled with my mother's blood and my father's screams.