To Bleed a Crystal Bloom by Sarah A. Parker

An outside picnic seemed like a good idea, except this thick, fluffy toast doused in butter and a smear of honey is failing to sweeten the bitter taste in my mouth. It’s the first solid thing I’ve been able to look at in days without my insides knotting, and I can’t even enjoy it.

I scowl, stuffing my mouth full, back to the wall and staring out across the courtyard veined with exposed roots that dig through the cracks in the pavement. They anchor an ancient oak to the center, almost entirely caged by three castle walls of black, the tree’s branches providing a relatively sheltered sanctuary. The opening looks out on a stretch of grass that gives way to Vateshram Forest—the dense foliage bathed in a dreary, gray light.

Not a single blade of sun has broken through the clouds in days.

Thunder bludgeons the sky, and my gaze rolls up.

“That was a loud one,” Kavan mumbles, pushing caramel hair from his pale blue eyes. He peeks between branches at the threatening clouds, face pinched in a frown.

Vanth grunts, not even bothering to look up from the spot on the ground he’s been staring at for the past ten minutes.

His long, wheaten hair is pulled back in a low bun, seemingly a common look for Southern males. His appearance is sullen; striking blue eyes overridden by thin lips constantly set in a half-scowl that gives him a sour look.

Both Bahari guards are leaning against the oak’s knotted trunk, garbed in dark blue tunics and battle-ready boots that rise to the knee, gold buckles polished to a high gleam. Carrying spears everywhere they go, they’re ever ready to dive into war, and I’m ever ready for them to leave me the hell alone.

Thing is, they have no idea how to lighten their steps, and they trudge after me—more likely to lure danger rather than frighten it away.

I can no longer lurk or go privately about my business. Every move I make is chaperoned. They even stand outside the door, close enough to hear me pee while I’m using the latrine.

I sigh, studying my toast half wrapped in the waxy material Cook packaged it with. It came accompanied with a forced smile that never met her eyes and only poured salt in my wound.

“Is that nice?” Vanth asks, eyeing my toast.

“You’d know if you hadn’t insulted Cook by telling her she undercooked the veal last night,” I say, but all I get in response is a grumbling slur of words that bring me more satisfaction than they should.

I’d usually be having breakfast with Baze at this time, a thought that sits like lead in my chest. Though it’s been a few days since I showed him the real me, I just can’t bring myself to face him.

No breakfasts, lunches, dinners, training ...

Nothing.

Baze knows full well how much I struggle with my identity. I air that frustration with him every morning. Bastard had the antidote this entire time and chose not to use it.

Real friends don’t do that to each other.

The guards mutter between themselves about how much they can’t wait to get back to the South, and I take another bite, anticipating Vanth’s question before it ruptures from his mouth.

“Weren’t we supposed to set sail yesterday?”

“I still have things to take care of, Vanth. I’m a very busy person, you know.”

I don’t bother mentioning my deep-seated fear of stepping over my Safety Line; a leap I intend on ignoring until I’m all out of avoidance tactics. I haven’t been shoved out the door yet, and I’m hopeful Cainon will send those ships ahead of my arrival—buy me a little more time to ease out of my shell.

“So far,” Vanth proclaims, pinching the bridge of his thin nose, “all you’ve done is pick flowers, plant flowers, debark a tree, shed a bramble of all its thorns, collect rocks, accost a gardener for seemingly doing his job, shave moss off a boulder, pluck fungi off a pile of horse shi—”

“That reminds me,” I interrupt, rummaging through my knapsack with my spare hand. “Those mushrooms need to be cured, but first I’ll have to collect some thermal water from Puddles. Fingers crossed I have an empty jar in here somewhere or I might have to dart back up Stony Stem ...”

They groan in unison.

“Found one,” I announce, waving it around. I shove it back in my bag along with the remainder of my breakfast, right next to the rock I finished painting in the early hours of the morning while I was struggling to sleep.

I smile to myself.

It’s the perfect addition to my wall—the final piece in my current reach. With so much unfinished business storming over me, this is something I can control.

This rock belongs in its home, but I can’t place it with those two at my back, nosing in on all my business.

I close my bag, sling it over my shoulder, and stand.

“We off again?” Kavan asks, lifting a lazy brow while Vanth stifles a yawn.

Perfect.

I’ve been luring them everywhere since well before sunup, darting up and down Stony Stem on several occasions to retrieve things I’d purposely forgotten. I even got them to carry a few rocks up my tower—ones I’ve been eyeing for a while but were too heavy for me to haul.

I’ve never heard two grown men grumble so much.

I should be nicer to them, but the way their eyes crawl across my skin when they think I’m not paying attention has sown a caustic seed.

“Yup. Places to be, things to do. You sure you two don’t want to just ... sit this one out? I can swing by and pick you up later. Maybe bring you both some of the servant’s gruel?”

They push off the tree, sighing in perfect, disgruntled symphony. “We’re coming.”

Damn.

“Lovely,” I lie, flashing a smile. It melts right off my face the moment I turn for the wooden door pressed in the wall next to me and tug it open.

They may be good at sticking to me like a bad smell, but I have one very special advantage ...

I know this castle like I should know the back of my own hand.

They don’t.

I stalk down a hallway that has no windows—only sporadic sconces that cut the gloom into fiery segments. It’s a special hall, harboring all sorts of secrets. It’s the precise reason I chose to sit where I did while I ate my unsatisfying breakfast.

Take that little door to my left, and it’ll lead you in a roundabout way to Puddles. Take those stairs to the right, the ones that shoot skyward in an almost vertical manner, and you somehow end up in the kitchen a level below ground.

Take this inconspicuous hall that splits off into a shadowed elbow—the one I’m taking right now—and you’re being twisted up by The Tangle before you even register you forked off in the wrong direction.

A smile cuts across my face and I break into a sprint, worming my way through the wiggly hall at a ferocious speed, only stopping once I hit a sharp bend; back pressed flat to the wall as I listen.

Footsteps thunder after me, and my smile grows.

Suckers.

Sprinting again, I take shadowed side tunnels and stairwells, backtracking several times in case their senses are sharp enough to track my scent. Finally, convinced I’ve thoroughly lost them, I skip down a well-lit hallway with nothing chasing me but blessed silence.

I may never see Vanth and Kavan again, and right now, I can’t find a single lick of empathy in my heart to care.

I should be concerned by that slap of realization. The fact that I’m not only adds to the growing pile of evidence I’m trying to ignore ...

I’m losing myself.

* * *

Iwalk, lighting torches, casting my art in a golden sheen that lifts some elements off the wall while digging others deeper into the rock.

When I first stumbled upon this place, the compulsion to embellish it was too much to ignore. It was dark, tucked away, abandoned.

Private.

I began painting, one stone at a time; a mural of tens, then hundreds, then thousands of whispers all pieced together.

Sea-green eyes, a silver sword with a floral hilt, a half-eaten moon, storm clouds hanging over a wilted weed, a burning tree, pewter scales that ricochet light.

Pausing, I brush my hand over one of a white rose in half-bloom, revealing the hint of petals flecked with a familiar constellation of twinkly freckles.

The little boy always jumps out at me the most ... in one way or another.

I’ve painted him many times because he’s such a constant in my dreams. Visiting often, gifting me with that wealth of a smile and his reaching hands.

I let my fingers drift off the stone and keep walking—keep skipping my gaze along the individual rocks.

It took three years before I realized the tiny paintings were building something much bigger. That my whispers were the seeds of something I’d buried deep in the pit of my soul; germinating, reaching for the light of day.

Despite my efforts, it’s not the smaller paintings I see right now.

It’s the bigger picture they make up.

The crowd of people staring out from the stone—tall as me and just as lifelike, as if they have hearts in their chests that push real blood through their veins.

They aren’t whispers at all ...

They’re screams.

Some have angular marks drawn on their foreheads, some don’t. Some are closer, some are standing farther away, their features less defined as if my tiny, two-year-old memory was too hazy for my subconscious to paint a clear picture.

I keep walking, drifting past haunting stare after haunting stare, looking past the ghosts I didn’t intend to paint, trying to focus on the small pictures I did.

Failing.

They’re watching me; ghostly perusals scalding my skin and refusing to let me ignore them.

The first time I noticed one staring out at me from the wall, lording over me with eyes that seemed to follow my movements, I fell over. Ran from here so fast I forgot my bag and had to return later when I’d managed to compose myself.

That night, I saw the same man in my nightmares ... in pieces.

Saw him get feasted on by the same three beasts that haunt me every time I close my eyes.

I spent two months painting another section only to realize the little stones were all building blocks to yet another person staring out at me. Somebody else I’d seen burned bits of while I’d slept.

Somebody else who lost their life that day.

I realized I was painting a grave. Fixing faces of the dead down here in the dark where they could exist in a different way—an abstract eulogy that hurts to look at. Especially now. Because at the very end of this mural, on the verge of that hungry darkness, is the little boy who looks like me.

The real me.

And this whisper weighing down my knapsack ... it’s his final piece. I know it is, even though it’s not what I intended to paint.

It took him years to show up in the overriding picture, as though I’d hidden him deeper than the rest.

That thought feels dangerous.

I come to the edge of the light and drop to my knees, digging through my bag. I bypass the mouse-filled jar and pull out another heavy with freshly mixed mortar. My palate knife comes next, then finally the stone wrapped in cheesecloth.

No chisel. I won’t be decorating any more pieces.

This story ... it’s over. Today, I place the final full stop.

I unwrap the layers of material and look upon my work.

On this fist-sized stone, I painted a pair of hands much the same as Rhordyn’s sketch; soft and relaxed, at ease in their restful state despite the thorny vine I wrapped around them.

Boundthem with.

Those vicious thorns dig deep, spilling trails of red—such a stark contrast to the blue flowers sprouting from the vine. Feeding off the blood.

I use my palette knife to clear out the old mortar, then scoop a glob of fresh stuff from the jar, my hand unsteady as I spread it around before pressing the whisper into place.

I keep it hidden behind the flat of my palm, drawing deep breaths, trying to convince my heart to stop beating me up from the inside.

Because I know ... I just know that although my wakeful state has painted a pair of hands wrapped in a thorny vine, my subconscious has somehow woven it into the final piece of him. That it has put him back together again—no longer in bits scattered throughout my nightmares.

I may not jump into that abyss in my dreams, but this ... I’ve done this. Pulled crumbs of shadow from that chasm and dripped them from my fingertips, even if it wasn’t intentional.

I’ve done this.

The thought gives me courage to let my hand drop, though it swiftly snaps up to shield my heart.

The little boy appears to lift off the wall, as though he might push free from the stones and bridge the gap between us.

I hold my breath, waiting ...

Waiting...

But he just stands there with a puckered brow, peering out through wide eyes that look like crystals. Just stands there with outstretched arms and empty hands.

He doesn’t step off the painting like part of me had hoped he would. He doesn’t blink or breathe or smile.

He doesn’t tell me why I can’t let him go.

But how could he? I gave him rocks for eyes. Rocks for his ears and his mouth and his hands.

I pieced him together with mortar.

Not real.

A weight lands in my stomach, so heavy I stumble back.

My vision of him blurs and I blink at the haze, feeling a wetness slide down my cheeks. The sensation releases a plug pitted deep inside my heart, and suddenly my lungs are heaving, breath coming in hard, fast gasps.

My back collides with the wall, spine grating down stone until I’m sitting on the ground, knees caught against my ribs.

I look up into his eyes, map the freckles on his face, examine the painting like the open wound it is ... and I let myself unravel. Let my unbridled emotions dismantle me in a way that feels hopelessly insignificant. Because he’s in pieces.

I’m not.

And all the while he stares ... and stares ... and stares.

Unblinking. Unseeing. Yet I’ve never felt so seen.

I sit for what feels like hours, leaking my own self-hatred while I rock back and forth, wishing someone would wrap me in their arms and cuddle me.

The back of my neck tingles.

My chest stops heaving, face smoothing, as if somebody bunged the spill of my emotions.

I sense an overwhelming presence, like there’s suddenly less air for me to breathe. Less space for me to move.

So acutely aware of the blackness that seems to push against my side, I glide my gaze to the right and peer into the void ...

I’m not alone.

Someone ... something is watching from the shadows. I can feel their keen attention sliding over my skin like the sharp tip of a blade.

“Wh-who is it?” I rasp, only confirming my suspicions when rather than bounce back at me like my words usually do down here, they’re absorbed. As if something devoured them before they had the chance to echo.

I swallow, feeling every sense sharpen as I lower my hands to the floor and roll forward, perched on all fours while I reach for my bag.

Something rumbles—the sound deep and heavy, like a mountain’s growl—and I freeze, unable to breathe or speak or blink, every muscle knotting with a wild fear I’ve never felt before.

All I want to do is move. To scream and run and leave my bag and never look back.

But my instincts have other ideas.

They want me to keep my chin high, stare pinned to the dark. They want me to back away, showing as little fear as possible.

Although it makes no sense to me, for once in my life, I listen.

Slowly—so damn slowly—I begin to move again, keeping my eyes speared into the body of darkness while I grab my bag. Another sawing rumble rolls through the gloom, threatening to maul my composure into messy ribbons.

I snatch the torch and leap to my feet, lifting my chin and walking backward down the hall—every blind, unhurried step feeling like a feat in its own.

I don’t dare blow out the other torches as I go, knowing that if I do, I won’t be putting any space between myself and whatever it is that’s hunting me.

Let them burn out. Let them become nothing but charcoal nubs unable to illuminate my loss. A sheath of black to forever keep this graveyard safe—a nicety I wish Rhordyn had given me.

Committed to his lies rather than this painful in-between.

I stumble into the comforting light of the common hallway and slam the door shut, scurrying backward in a burst of frightened energy. My back collides with stone and I drop to the ground, drop the torch, legs trapped against my chest to quell the rising tremors paying tribute to the frantic beat of my heart.

Eventually those torches will blow out, and then this place will no longer belong to me ...

Perhaps that thought should lighten my shoulders.

It doesn’t.