Blood-Bound [ Lore of Penrua: Book I ]

6

Later in her life, it would seem to Mhera as if that dark day in the garden began the year of her family's greatest suffering. Three misfortunes struck the royal household that year. The first of them was Mhera's curse alone. It crept into her not long after the day she witnessed the baby's burial, curling up behind her eyes like an insidious parasite.

The first time the affliction came upon Mhera, she was with Koreti in Esaria's chamber. The empress was seated at her window, bent over a cloud of white cloth. She was embroidering something pretty, a chemise or a nightgown, perhaps. She had turned her attention almost entirely to such work over the previous months. More than ever before, she kept to her rooms, always seeming distant, sleepy and dull.

Koreti and Mhera were playing listlessly with marbles that evening. They had been kept inside all day watching the smug gray skies pour down a torrent of rain that churned their favorite paths in the gardens into mud. Each of them felt as if they'd been cooped up for eons, and their moods were sour.

Mhera was thinking of the boredom that yawned ahead. At least when the sun shone again and the grass was dry—no matter how long that might take—she and Koreti would be off again on their adventures. Koreti seemed to be thinking of something else. Mhera noticed that he did not seem to be having much fun; he seemed to have been less interested in games altogether as of late.

Koreti readied himself to shoot his best marble. They had no ring, but were doing their best using a large, dark square in the pattern on the polished floor. Mhera watched him as the rain drummed on Esaria's balcony outside and the wind keened around the palace facade. A flash of lightning shattered the gloom, casting dramatic shadows across Koreti's face; it was quickly followed by a rumble of thunder, the loudest they'd heard. The colored glass panes in the balcony doors shuddered.

"Don't be frightened, Mhera," Esaria said quietly without even looking up. Although she was closest of all of them to the elements, being seated on a padded bench with her shoulder at her window, she had not even flinched. In the flashes of white light from outside, her expression was solemn, and there were dark circles beneath her eyes. "We're safe inside."

The children relaxed slightly, but Mhera was now focused on the storm. The stone floor of the balcony was glassy with water, and the rain kept coming down.

"Ready?" Koreti prompted. There was an edge of irritation in his voice; he was definitely tired of the game.

Mhera turned her face back to him, tightening her grip on her marble. As she did, she caught a glimpse of something in the darkened mirror of her aunt's vanity. Feeling her blood run cold before she even had a moment to realize she was afraid, she looked back without consciously turning her head. She saw Esaria's reflection in the mirror.

Mhera breathed, "Aunt?"

The Esaria in the mirror did not look round, although Mhera heard an answer from over near the window: "Yes, child?"

Her aunt's reflection was perfectly still, with wide eyes staring from a face without expression. She looked cold and gray, illuminated eerily by the flickering of the spirit lamp set nearby to light the empress' work. Her mouth was slack, partly open, and her head was canted unnaturally to the side. Mhera caught the scent of something sweet and sickening.

She scrambled backward across the floor, scattering marbles heedlessly in her urge to get away from the mirror—away from the horrible sight of her aunt's corpse-like visage. But she couldn't look away from it. Her breathing came in quick, panicked gasps. "Aunt? Aunt! Aunt!" she screamed.

In an instant, the empress was at her side, her cool hands resting on Mhera's cheeks. "Mhera? Mhera, it's okay. I'm here. What is it? We're safe in here. The thunder can't hurt you, it's just a sound from the heavens."

As Esaria soothed Mhera, the little girl was finally able to tear her eyes away from the mirror. She looked desperately at the empress' face, stretching out her small hands to touch Esaria's hair. Still, she repeated her terrified cadence: Aunt! Aunt! Aunt!

Koreti was staring at Mhera from where he sat, looking frightened. Gooseflesh had prickled along his arms. When Mhera finally stopped her calling, he spoke from across the floor. "Mhera? What is it?"

"I saw you. I saw you in the mirror," Mhera said, her fingers twined into Esaria's hair. Even as she spoke, a darkness fell over her, a heaviness. She became blind to all around her. She went limp in Esaria's arms, her head rolling back. Vaguely, she could feel the empress shaking her, calling her name, but she could not move, and now the image was in her mind: Esaria, surrounded by flowers. She could smell their cloying perfume and hear the eerie sound of a song reverberating in a vast, echoing space.

This was the first vision Mhera had.