I push the tavern door. It smells of dead yeast and cold stone.

  "Belladonna?"

  The name is eaten by the silence.

  I take the stairs. My hand finds the bannister. The wood is slick with a film of damp grime.

  My good leg finds the step. The wooden one follows.

  A door at the end of the hall is open just enough to bleed a line of light. A faint rustle from within. I put my hand on the wood. I push.

  Rory is on the bed. His body is a pale shock against the room's stale darkness. He's naked, save for a grey wool sock bunched around his ankle.

  A grin splits his face. "James! Took you long enough. I've been holding this heroic pose for an hour and my left arse cheek has fallen asleep."

  My mouth opens. No sound comes out.

  Rory lands barefoot, his frame swaying as he finds his balance. Manic lights shine from his pupils.

  "I've finished the threat assessment," he says, his voice low. "The dust bunnies are neutral, for now, but the woodlice are planning something. I can feel it in their tiny, treasonous little legs."

  His joke hits the stale air and dies. The manic lights in his eyes gutter. The grin becomes a line. He looks away.

  My hand flies to my mouth, a useless gesture to hide the face that is not working.

  A smile. I need to give him a smile.

  The muscles in my face pull. A grimace. A twitch.

  A spasm in the flesh, where the smile should be. I follow it to its root, and a memory comes loose.

  It had been a quiet night in the tavern. The only sound was the slow drip of a leaky cask and the groan of the building settling in the cold. Rory was slumped over the bar, his finger tracing a name he would not say in a puddle of spilt ale.

  'She said my jokes were… loud,' he muttered to the wood.

  My hand did not hesitate. I slid a fresh pint across the bar until my knuckles brushed the back of his. 'She's got bad ears, then,' I said.

  A small smile touched Rory's mouth.

  The memory recedes, leaving me in my own skull. The warmth of it still clings to my chest.

  The warmth rises from that spot, up my throat, to my lips.

  James's smile finds my face.

  The manic light reignites in Rory's eyes. He takes a small, hesitant step forward. His mouth opens, closes, then opens again.

  "James," he breathes.

  The door opens. Belladonna stops on the threshold.

  She takes in the scene. Me. And a naked man holding his sock like a weapon.

  She pinches the bridge of her nose, her eyes closing for a long second.

  Rory sees the gesture. His heroic defiance collapses, leaving a sheepish grin in its place. "Bad timing?"

  "Rory," she says. Her voice is flat. "Pants. Chair. Now."

  He scrambles for his trousers. As he pulls them on, she turns her back on him.

  "The door. Guard it."

  He finishes dressing and offers a salute with the sock. She shakes her head, a slow, heavy motion.

  "Just... go, Rory."

  As he passes her to leave, a muscle at the corner of her mouth hitches, breaking the hard line of her lips for a fraction of a second.

  She leads me into the spare room. The door clicks shut behind us.

  A portrait of Queen Lilith owns the space. It is the only thing on the walls.

  Belladonna stops in front of it, her arms crossing.

  "I painted this," she says. The words are quiet. "When I hung it here, my father didn't speak to me for a week. He saw a tyrant."

  Her hand lifts, her finger tracing the Queen's mouth. "The Elders saw a dangerous example. Said her kind of survival has a price no sane village would pay."

  She turns from the painting, her arms uncrossed. Her stare is sharp. "They're all fools. They see a queen on a throne. I see a woman who refused to be broken."

  Her voice hardens. "She is a survivor."

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Her arms cross again, a shield locking back into place over her chest.

  "This Inner Circle," I say, my voice steady. "Who gives the orders?"

  Her pupils dilate for a fraction of a second. She takes a sharp breath. The kind you take just before plunging into ice-cold water.

  "There is a man," she says. "His voice is the only one we obey. You have not earned the right to hear it."

  "Then let me earn it. I can help."

  My mouth opens. Closes. I force the words out.

  "I think my grandmother is the Mimic. She's the monster you've been looking for. What do we do?"

  Her head gives a small, pitying shake. The look you give a dog that does not understand the trick.

  "James," she says. "Your grandmother is not the Mimic. She never was. She was the bait."

  The floor tilts under my feet.

  "The real target is the person it becomes next."

  "What do you mean, 'bait'?" The words are small, dead things in the cold room.

  Belladonna turns from me. Her reflection joins the Queen's in the portrait's dark, varnished surface.

  "The Circle's philosophy is simple," she says. "The Mimic is a parasite. It seeks to upgrade. Nora was a weak host. Old. Frail. She was never the endgame. Just a temporary shelter before it moves to a stronger home."

  The Queen's painted eyes seem to watch me, cold and curious.

  Belladonna turns back, her own eyes now holding the same cold light.

  "We were never hunting your grandmother, James. We were waiting to see where she would lead us."

  The room shrinks to a single point of light. Her eyes.

  She knows. This is it. The end.

  I have to speak. A sound. Any sound. "Did it work? Did she lead you to it?"

  She shakes her head. "No. The trail went cold the moment she vanished."

  The world swims back into focus. My knees go weak with it.

  She turns to the window, her eyes finding the grey smear of the woods. "We have watchers on the fringes of Evershade. If Nora is out there, she will be found."

  Her words are a wall, rising around the village. Larkvale. The cure. Gone.

  There is only here.

  The house. The husband. The father.

  The cage.

  "Its weakness is the ghost," she says. "The Echo of the person it last consumed. It haunts the creature. It drives it. It will be drawn to the people they loved. To protect them. To finish their promises."

  Her eyes lock onto mine. "We don't hunt the monster, James. We watch the people its victims left behind. And we wait."

  A question, born from the deepest part of me, escapes before I can stop it.

  "But is it evil? What if it hates what it is? What if it's afraid?"

  Her face goes smooth. A sheet of still flesh.

  "That kind of thinking is what gets people killed, James," she says, her voice gentle. "You put a monster down before you start feeling sorry for it."

  "But has anyone tried?" I ask, my voice low. "To talk to it? To understand?"

  She looks at me as if I am a child who has just asked if you can make the swamp be dry.

  "Talk? You can't talk to a void, James. The records are clear. It doesn't talk. It eats."

  The word 'it' lands in the quiet room. One creature. One monster. Alone.

  "So, there's only one of them?" The words are tight in my throat.

  She gives a single, sharp nod. "One. No pack. No family. No kin. It doesn't breed. It doesn't die. It just continues."

  The idea of forever hatches in my gut. My mind tries to find the end of it. It runs forward, through the slow rot of a thousand forests. It watches the same trees grow from mud, fall to mud, and grow again. And it finds no end. Only the path, stretching on.

  My voice cracks on the words. "It doesn't die? How can you possibly know that? You're sixteen."

  She just looks at me. Her expression doesn't change. She lets my insult die in the silence.

  Then she speaks. Her voice is a quiet, level blade. "I know it."

  The thought of Eli's pact is a fire in my bones. To grant a life without end. That is the power of a god.

  Who is it?

  I have to know.

  "So who made it?" I ask. "A creature like this doesn't just happen. Who is its maker?"

  Belladonna's focus shifts to her hands. "That's the right question." She studies her fingernails, turning them over in the flat light. "We've been looking for them a long time."

  "There are stories the Circle tells itself," she says, without looking up. "Stories about a monster under Morvain. They're good for new recruits. Gives them something to fight."

  She lowers her hands. "But the evidence points to a man. Not a myth."

  Her eyes lift, finding the portrait of the Queen on the wall. For a moment, she seems to forget I am in the room, her attention given entirely to the woman in the frame.

  When she finally turns back to me, the soft line of her mouth hardens, settling into a thin, horizontal scar. "The truth is, we don't know. All we know is what it leaves behind. It doesn't leave a body. Just a piece. A trophy. Like teeth."

  Teeth.

  The story Grace whispered in a dark room was never a secret.

  It was a file.

  My history. My origin. A line in their ledger.

  My eyes lose their focus. The room blurs, the colours bleeding together. Belladonna is a shape. A mouth, moving.

  The air in the room turns to glass. My breath is a trapped, frantic thing against it.

  My eyes lock onto the portrait of the Queen on the wall. A single, cold point of focus. I force a breath.

  They are looking for a maker. Could the Voice be it?

  The words stumble out of me in a rush. "What if it's a puppet? Guided by a voice only it can hear?"

  She scoffs. "A voice in its head? James, that's a child's story. It's a mindless animal."

  You do not speak my name.

  I jolt. A full-body flinch.

  The leash around my throat, the one I knew was there, has just been pulled. Hard.

  Belladonna's chin lifts a fraction. "There. You understand now. There is a way to end the cycle. We just have to be disciplined."

  She is correct. Discipline is required. Yours is failing. You are a risk. This will be corrected.

  A sudden, sharp pressure builds behind my eyes, as if the Voice is trying to claw its way out.

  Belladonna turns her back on me, and walks into the hall.

  A scrabbling sound from the end of the hall stops her. A black shape perches on the sill. A raven. It clings to the ledge, its claws a scraping sound on the stone. A roll of parchment is pinched in its beak.

  She slides the window open and takes it without a word. Her fingers unroll the damp paper.

  "You were right," she says, her back to me. "About Nora's son."

  A pause.

  "It's him."

  She turns, the parchment now a tight roll in her fist. "Nora's love will drag the Mimic to Maximus. We're watching him."

  She walks to the top of the stairs and stops. "You have to be strong now, James. For her. For Pip. Go home. Be the husband she needs."

  She waits. Her silence is an order.

  I give a slow, stiff nod. I turn, careful not to let my arm brush against hers as I pass. The small space I leave between our bodies is a chasm.

  Only when my good foot touches the bottom step do I hear her own descent. A series of sharp, quick taps behind me.

  She halts just behind my shoulder. I can feel her presence, a cold spot in the air.

  "I will take care of everything else."

  Rory stands by the tavern door, shoulders bunched, tight to his ears. He holds the sock like a broken tool.

  Belladonna stops. Her head gives a sharp, involuntary jerk. She crosses her arms.

  "You're actually doing it," she says.

  A manic grin cracks across his face. "Sentry's duty, Commander," he says, his voice too loud. "The dust mites have been informed."

  She shakes her head.

  He flinches, the grin faltering.

  She turns to me. Her voice lowers. "His family kicked him out. I'm letting him stay here."

  My head tilts. "But this is your place," I say, my voice low. "If he's staying here... where are you?"

  She pulls on her gloves. Each finger sheathed.

  "The Elders' hall," she says. "Ursula's old room. It has a good lock."

  ? Featured Web Novel

  "The Reaper of Death has Arrived."

  Humanoid gators that summon fire. Mutant gorillas with fists that crush stone. Trees with red bark and gold leaves. An endless ocean. A bright world with a sunless sky. This is Penumbra, where human sins manifest as monstrous beasts, and every sin killed prevents it from taking hold in the real world. Miles is yanked here (rather violently) and handed a scythe, a cloak, and a pretty awesome skill. The first of many. This isn't the life he'd have chosen, but the gods of this world chose him to be the first Death Affinity Reaper in generations and have given him the opportunity to change everything. To reroute the entire future of humanity.But at what cost?

  | LitRPG Isekai | Weak to Powerful | Book 1 Written |