Page 1 of The Devil In Blue
He will look for you.
He will find you.
He will destroy you.
Words ingrained in my mind, spoken to me every morning and every night. He willlookfor you. He willfindyou. He willdestroyyou.
They never told me whohewas, only that he would be my demise. I didn’t know what he would do to me if I ever saw him. Whether he would hurt me or imprison me. Hate me or use me. Kill me or damn me. I didn’t even know what he would look like. A man? A shadow? A demon?
After my parents died and the world came for me, I almost wished he would find me. Destruction would be the ultimate escape. Oblivion would be the final door I had to walk through to meet the darkness. Instead, I watched every year pass with agonizing sluggishness, trapped in a prison. But this prison had no bars. This prison was made of flesh and bone and was filled with voices that whispered horrid things to me. Bloody things. Violent things.
Violent things some minds could not fathom.
Those who see only when they’re awake could never imagine the worlds I wander when I sleep and therefore cannot understand fear. Fear had become my blanket and it cradled me. It cradled me and nurtured me until I created something else. Something I will never escape. Something bound to me like my bones and skin. I cannot exist without them and yet they ache, split, and bleed. I am a house of pain.
And the creature fear pulled forth from my soul enjoys it. She’s sadistic and punishing. She hates me for giving in except I don’t know what I gave in to.
Nothing in my life has made sense for a long, long time.
I was absently stroking my brush through my unruly golden tresses when I heard the cathedral bell toll. I bristled every time that deep, brass tone sang from town. A town close enough to hear and yet far enough away that prying eyes could not see past the hedges of willow trees surrounding the manor in which I lived.
Aedon Heights was a fourteen-acre estate packed full of foliage inside high brick walls covered in vines. In the winter, the trees and plants turned to gray, scraggly things that looked like the starved beggars on the streets of Cragborough. The cathedral took up a ridiculous amount of space and despite the drab style of the buildings surrounding it, it was made of fancy brick with meticulous mosaics on the domed ceilings and bright stained glass windows.
It was an eyesore. I could see its steeple from my window and as the bell continued to chime, I stood from my small vanity with the cracked mirror and walked over to stare blankly at the gaudy thing. From my room, it was vague, but I knew too well what it looked like up close and inside. I’d been on my knees praying to statues many times before on the hard, stone floors.
I was still dressed in my nightgown at that early hour. I had no need to change out of it since there were no plans to leave the manor that day. Autumn made the air cold and my fire had gone out, leaving nothing but a pile of gray ash on my hearth. But the cold did not bother me. Not like it used to. Frost salted my windowsill so I knew the snow would be coming soon. I liked the snow. It made everything seem pure when I knew all too well how impure everything was underneath.
Including me.
But Lucien liked to pretend I was not tainted by the shadows. He liked to pretend I could be cleansed, but he had no idea how wrong he was. I knew one day his assumptions would damn him. And perhaps I’d be the one waking with blood on my hands.
Looking down at my pale, long fingers, I wondered what they would look like painted red and dripping coppery warmth. I wondered what my dress would look like stained with such filth. The slightest spot on any of my dresses prompted Lucien to buy me something new. I’d gone through so many gowns that I’d lost count, but Lucien enjoyed buying me clothes. I was a doll of sorts. I had enough garments to spare.
The heavens are watching you,a voice inside me said.Be good lest you attract the wrath of Malvec.
“No,” I muttered to myself, leaning against the wall to stare once more at that ugly cathedral through the autumn mist. “He doesn’t exist. Nothing does outside of this.”
I didn’t enjoy the voices in my head. Not that I could ignore them. I also couldn’t dismiss the possibility that they would one day be more than voices. Maybe one day they would drive me back into the insanity from which I was pulled. All people warred with themselves. All people had wretched minds that they kept locked away. But not all people had memories of things that weren’t their own and yet felt like their past was missing at the same time.
Perhaps I was a devil in the pale, cold skin of a woman. Perhaps one day, torturing it out of me would work. But not yet. Pain had only enticed it to stay thus far. It had grown to love it.
Maybe I had too in a twisted, sick way.
There was a knock at the door and a raspy woman’s voice on the other side, making my head turn.
“Briar,” Catlyn said. She was the only one to brave venturing to the top of my lonely tower to retrieve me. Lucien didn’t dare climb those stairs. “Lucien would like you to dine with him this morning.”
I took in a breath of the crisp morning air as a frigid breeze wrapped itself around my throat. I begged it to squeeze, but it only teased.
“Should he not be at the cathedral already?” I asked.
He went to worship twice a week. He used to drag me with him, but when he noticed how it affected my mood, he left me at home.
“He has taken today off,” Catlyn said. She hesitated a beat before solemnly saying, “It is your birthday.”
I’d forgotten…
Which birthday was it?
