The House Of Blood and Dust, Book One: Darkness Rising

Stains Upon the Soil

Staring in the mirror looking at the tattoos upon my right arm my full sleeve is all I have. I suddenly hate myself as I think of Abigail and I look at Miranda she’s sleeping peacefully her face somewhat repulsing me. My heart jumps and misses a beat but then sinks as I think of Abigail’s perfect smile. Miranda’s eyes start to open and her smile widens when she sees me. 

          “Good morning.” I say to her as she stretches and sits up, my blue cover is just off of her breasts on show, I feel nothing.

          “Hello, mister Arkness.” I do not reply I just smile. Miranda looks at me with a confused look in her face, “Avenji?” I grab some boxers from my draw and put them on. 

          “I feel that I have done wrong.”

          “You have not done anything wrong.” I smile at her and crawl onto the bed to kiss her. I lie next to her and she wraps her arms around me. 

“Something bad is going to happen… I can feel it in my stomach.”

          “Is that true mister Arkness?”

          “I feel like this world is going to engulf itself.”

          “Avenji, do not worry… you do not have to explain your feelings to me.” I stare blankly at her. The raven haired woman climbs out of the bed and grabs her clothes off the floor to dress herself and comes back to me. She grabs me and holds me tight, “Avenji… you have given me the greatest thing… love and our bodies have been connected. You gave yourself to me; I’ve felt the darkness inside of you… the taint within you is no taint but a gift.” I pull away,

          “Taint? What are you on about?” I stop and stare at her, my mind goes blank.

          “Settle down, Avenji… when I left, I told you that my father was an evil man… I wish to share with you the things he did.” I’m still sat on the bed and she returns to sit next to me. 

“I never rightfully knew him.” She looks at me and smiles.

“I believe that no harm shall come to me with you.” The muscles in my face don’t react, I don’t care enough,

“I aim to please.”  

“When I was fifth-teen… I remember saying goodbye to you; you had no beard then or long hair. Your eyes were the only thing that gave you away, your touch I could remember your hands caressing my body, the sudden chill racing down my spine… your kiss I remember that too.” She looks at me, gazing into me and my heart leaps into my mouth. “I was taken to an experiment of my fathers. It was a camp to see if none magical humans could become mages.”

        “How could they do that?”

        “They gathered a plant a magical plant, grown in Arcanosea… in the fate fields… near to Winterhall; they combine that with the essence of Syini’ui the Goddess of the arcane arts.”

        “How do you get the essence?”

        “Her essence is her voice… it is heard in the Alumni cave of Tu’can… they force-fed us the combination and trained our minds to focus the energy… if we could not then our heads would explode. The soldiers would come into the girl’s camp and take a few of them away… I stood my ground; I am glad you trained me in hand to hand… I killed four soldiers, who came into the camp one night with magical blades I conjured myself, my father saw and well he told me I didn’t have to be there as long as I would be his personal assassin. The first person I killed was a mother of three she was a dounas my father wanted to get back at her husband… I spoke to her for hours and took a kitchen knife and stabbed her in the neck, leaving her to die on the floor, her husband found her… their children were with her parents in the city.” There’s a long pause and tears fall down her cheek.