THE JEALOUSY OF JALICE

Annilasia dragged herself through the rubble of fallen dead trees, the only sound her boots scuffing the ground. Anger boiled in her as she replayed the conversation with Jalice—only, the conversation never ended as it had in reality. Most often, she ended her fantasy by lashing out with aether and tearing the chieftess to shreds.

If only it had gone that way. Inzerious certainly thought it should have.

“You’re weak, Bloodspill,” said the dokojin. “Too much order instead of chaos. You should’ve ended that woman in a bloodbath.”

“Where are you going?” asked Elothel.

Annilasia halted. She hadn’t detected the mirajin following her. Emotions had a tendency to sabotage her skill at staying alert. “You heard the Tecalica. I’m banished.”

“You shouldn’t travel this forest alone. Mygo said the remaining flayers fled before I emerged with Jalice, but it would be arrogant to believe they’ve gone far.”

The tattoo she’d seen scrawled on the flayer’s hide sprang to mind. She wasn’t even sure what the presence of Terrizo’s skin meant, or if it was worth mentioning now. Perhaps the morbid practice of skin stealing implied the monsters were sentient. On the other hand, it could’ve been a morbid instinct.

Annilasia pursed her lips and turned to face Elothel. The mirajin, hunched over beneath heavy garb, appeared frail now despite faer colorful web of veins. Inzerious screeched, chanting demands that she annihilate Elothel.

“They won’t be bothering me anytime soon,” said Annilasia. “I don’t plan on staying in the forest long.”

“The Sachem may yet live—and Dardajah in him. Are you abandoning the quest to overthrow him?” asked Elothel.

Annilasia snorted. “Not in the slightest. But Jalice has made it clear that she has no interest in that. She’s too wrapped up in defending her self-proclaimed innocence. Besides, she ended up being useless. We know little more than we did before coming here.”

“That isn’t true.”

Annilasia eyed Elothel curiously. “What do you know?”

“What you call the Black House is from before the Residuum Era. A dungeon placed among the stars using an ancient technology,” stated Elothel. “The poison Jalice spoke of served a purpose during the Last Great War. You wouldn’t understand the specifics, and now is not the time to delve into all of its implications. Regardless, it means the Sachem’s mind was changed even before Dardajah possessed him.”

Annilasia frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“He’s contracted something. Not quite a disease, but something certainly mind-altering. It explains his obsession with Jalice. The dokojin gave Jalice what she wanted with that poison.”

Annilasia balked. “Are you saying the dokojin held up its end of the deal?”

Elothel nodded. “The two struck a deal while translated. The Black House is somehow configured to a vibrational frequency that permits dual lucidity—presence in both the Terrestrial Realm and the Apparition Realm. Dokojin are deceivers, but they’re bound by the same laws as any other spirit in the Apparition Realm. Dardajah had to fulfill its end of the bargain.”

“Why does it matter if the poison worked or not? Why should I care that the dokojin had a proimse to keep?” asked Annilasia. “In the end, and regardless of what the poison accomplished, Hydrim is still possessed by Dardajah.”

“As I said, there are layers to this,” Elothel reminded her. “I believe there are three: the disease of the poison, the curse created by Jalice and Dardajah’s agreement, and Dardajah’s possession of Hydrim. They’re interwoven, but each must be addressed as separate issues.”

“I don’t care about diseases or curses,” said Annilasia. “I care about the possession. I can’t end the Sachem’s tyranny if Dardajah possesses another person after I kill Hydrim.”

“You’re missing the point,” said Elothel. “There might be a way to save him. The possession might be easier to exploit if we can cure the disease and break the curse first. With Hydrim’s mind healed, and the curse broken that gives Dardajah claim over his body, it should be easier to expel the dokojin from the Sachem’s body.”

“Tell me that’s your way of a joke,” Annilasia scoffed. “I never wanted to save him. That man deserves no mercy. He’s committed as much wickedness as the dokojin orchestrating it. Dardajah wouldn’t stay in him if Hydrim didn’t want it to.”

“That isn’t true at all,” said Elothel, a note of caution in faer tone. “You can’t speak to the war between a person’s soul and the spirit that hijacks their body.”

Annilasia grew rigid. The sentence described her own circumstances far too closely. Did Elothel know about Inzerious? Perhaps the mirajin had noticed something about her behavior. It had been hard to hide her agitation regarding the dokojin’s growing influence over her. She still had no idea what had occurred during the patches of lost time—those confusing moments when she’d be doing one thing, only to startle awake in new surroundings. It was possible that during those blackouts she—or rather Inzerious—had done something to pique the mirajin’s suspicion.

“It knows,” screeched Inzerious. “End this monstrosity before it tries to end us. Burn faem out like a dying star.”

Annilasia clenched her jaw, not keen on taking on a mirajin. “My concern is with Dardajah. I’m going to rip it from that man’s body and obliterate it. Somewhere in between, I’m going to end the Sachem in the process.” She squared her shoulders. “But I can’t do that without using aether. I could still use your help. A mirajin can utilize aether without reproach.”

“I can’t support your methods anymore, Annilasia,” said Elothel solemnly. “It’s my duty to Sahruum to seek out the most peaceful resolution to any problem. It’d be reckless to ignore the Sachem’s altered mind, or the pact Jalice made that validates the dokojin’s claim to his body. Sahruum might even deem it evil to bypass those elements without trying to resolve them first.”

“Then we part ways, mirajin.” Annilasia turned to leave.

“Where will you go?” Elothel called after her. “If you adhere to banishment, you won’t be safe in these lands anymore.”

She stopped, still facing away and wishing the mirajin would stop pestering her. “That may not be true. There’s a rebellion in the form of a new tribe called the Vekaul. They want to topple the Sachem too. They might take me in.”

“Regardless, you have no need of that aether book. Set your mind to a just cause, and be rid of it, starborn.”

Her hand instinctively jerked to the satchel. Inzerious exploded into a frenzy.

“It can’t take the book,” the dokojin chattered. “I will drain your soul if you allow that to happen, Bloodspill. Now, end the mirajin!”

“I told you I need to deliver it,” she lied. It wasn’t true anymore. Korcsha was dead by what Annilasia could figure from what happened in that dreamless space. But Inzerious’s threats were far more binding than her obsolete vow to Korcsha. “Apparition vows demand I follow through.”

“Don’t do this,” fae pleaded. “Don’t go down this path.”

Annilasia bristled. A tense charge sparked the air as aether danced around her. Inzerious had the right idea. Maybe she should just end Elothel. Sparing faer life during the Hunt had proved pointless. She didn’t really need the mirajin anymore. Elothel was powerful, but so was Inzerious. With the dokojin’s compliant aid, it would be easy to snuff out the light that sustained this stubborn entity.

“Mirajin scream when their lights go out,” Inzerious cackled. “Light back to light, lost and consumed in the bleak abyss. Kill it! I want screams. I want to stamp out its miserable aether until it’s nothing but disassembled light.”

“I’m just delivering a damn book,” Annilasia stated.

“Mygo told me what you did out there to those flayers,” Elothel announced. “You will regret this. This won’t end well, starborn.”

The aether had built like a storm cloud. Annilasia quivered as she held the energy at bay even now, akin to flexing the string of a bow. Before Inzerious and Korcsha’s book, she had been revolted at the concept of wielding aether. Now it came as naturally as flourishing her sword. A miracle considering she didn’t even have a wand.

All it would take was a flash of provoked irritation. The smallest offset would drive the aether down on the mirajin. She wondered if Elothel sensed the charged energy. Probably. But Inzerious would protect Annilasia. The dokojin would extinguish any aether Elothel might throw back at her.

“I regret only that I saved that wench back there, and that I allowed you to convince me to do so,” she snapped before resuming her march into the forest.

This time, she knew the mirajin wasn’t following. She refused to flinch with Elothel’s eyes on her back, even as a fresh gash split open on her shoulder. If Elothel called after her, she didn’t hear it over Inzerious’s frenzied howls.

A part of her realized in that moment how ironically similar she was to the Sachem. She had decided to keep the aether book because of a dokojin in her soul. She’d used the obliatore card from within it to fell the flayers and had almost unleashed aether on Elothel.

Hydrim had used Dardajah’s powers to destroy lives—had used his power to end dozens of mirajin.

The discomforting comparison spawned a counterargument in her head. She was different—she wasn’t slave to a dokojin like Hydrim was. Perhaps Inzerious held some captivity over her, but ending the Sachem had been her aim from the start, and she needed aether to end him and his unholy union with Dardajah. Only aether could snuff out aether, and given Elothel’s refusal to aid her, she was left with Inzerious. She would use the dokojin to her ends, not the other way around. Then she’d get rid of the accursed entity.

Her thoughts returned to Jalice. Banished. That stupid woman thought she could banish her. Dark fantasies played out in Annilasia’s mind of what she planned to do with the chieftess once the Sachem was handled.

The next time I see you, Jalice, it will be with your husband’s blood on my hands. Then it’ll be your turn to pay for your sins.