In Lost Dreams the Four Were Bound

47 - Neris - Piecing Everything Together

Neris had long since accepted the worst in people. She understood that everything horrible was inevitable and realized that the only reason one escaped a single terror was through chance or death.

During one of their late evenings, Neris had learned how Elis had come to the village of the forest talvuo. She had heard the story of how she had lost everything and everyone she loved at a young age. Neris had been amazed to see how the Renai had overcome the burdens of her past. But unlike Neris, Elis did not cling to the sordid sense of reality she knew very well to be the truth. Instead, she had come to accept change and to keep moving.

Except she hadn't. Not really.

The woman she had fallen for had stirred from her raving nightmares in fits of madness and mania. She had become disconnected from everything around her. The shock of losing Rais was too much for her mind to bear. She had wailed and called for the little girl, sometimes in depressive growls and other times with a cheerful voice. It broke Neris's heart to take drastic measures, finding a bottle of the rare sentae extract that Elis used for her face paints. Mixing it with a small dose of valerian root extract, Neris had forced her friend to drink the substance. At last Elis could sleep without waking, though Neris dreaded what foul and horrible things were dancing in her mind.

But for the Delvori woman, those were the least of her concerns now.

After the crowd was disbanded, Nerin and his mistress, accompanied by his lackeys, had offered to give the girl's body a sendoff. Many had agreed to the task, but Neris forbid it. Some had barked at her, accusing her of being in league with Rais's murderer. Others protected her, and her brother had looked at her with a queerness that unsettled her. Ever since they had been rejoined, Neris remembered the hunger, the want, and the need that possessed her brother as he coveted her flesh and warmth. But when he had looked at her, wearing an expression of sullen desire, she had seen no yearning in his eyes. And that lack of want unnerved her.

Not letting Elis out of her sight, Neris compelled Kadin and the disillusioned lovemakers to bring Elis and Rais to the infirmary. It was strange watching as they laid the golden-haired maiden in the same spot that Davnian had once occupied. Rais's broken body was placed two tables over.

"Tell me, vivahr Kadin, why aren't you lapping at my brother's feet right now, hmm?" Neris narrowed her eyes as she studied the dead girl beneath her.

"I've seen many talvuo men and women die. I've done my share of being a weasel. But I've never seen anything like this."

"I'd think you'd be familiar. After all, you do so love to shove your prick down fledgling's throats and up their skirts, don't you?" Neris was cold and mean as she took gentle care of lifting and revealing the wounds on Rais's body. "Or is this one a little too young for you?"

"Those women were all grown, you insufferable—"

"I'm only teasing, dear," Neris said. "Taking advantage of drunk women is clever, especially for a weasel like you."

"Gods, I'm horrible, but I will not listen to this," Kadin hissed from the shelves behind her. She heard him shuffle, followed by a deep groan as he fell down. "Damn it all."

"Not fun being in a stupor and assailed, is it?"

The smell coming off the little girl's body was putrid. She couldn't have been dead more than a few hours, but every blood vessel in her body had dried up. From her groin, the aroma of carrion and feces combined to form an odor fouler than any she could recall in recent memory. The way her eyes were clouded with grime was haunting. Then there was the hole on the side of her head. Using a small wire, Neris had confirmed her suspicions. The brain was gone, leaving an empty vessel.