Page 89 of In the Ravenous Dark
I flex my toes experimentally. Wiggle my fingers.
Several times in life, I’ve felt like my body was simply monstrous. When I first bled on what disappointingly became a monthly basis, it was as if my body had decided to betray me, wounding me from the inside out. And when I woke up with the bloodline covering me head to toe, it was as if I’d beenturnedinside out, exposing my family lineage and my veins to the world. I’ve heard that pregnancy and childbirth are raw and primitive in their violence, one’s body nigh splitting itself in twain with plenty of blood and gore to go around, but I don’t know firsthand, and now I’ll never know, because I’m dead.
I’mdead. My body moves—responsively, sensitively—but it doesn’t breathe unless I tell it to, out of comfort or the need to speak. I’m not a shade, and yet I have a stab wound in my chest that goes to my still and silent heart.
Except… before my eyes, the wound begins to fill in, eventually sealing over. The pink fades from my skin in mere moments, leaving only the smooth, too-pale expanse of the inner curve of my breast underneath my bloodline. It’s as if a healer is working on me with blood magic. But it’s only my body. It simply heals on its own. Because it’s powered by magic and not life.
Iam a horror now. A monster.
Distantly, I hear how strained my voice is. “Ivrilos, this is bad. Wrong.I’mwrong.”
He tries to smile. “You know I’m the last person to judge you for being dead, right?”
“What am I?” I nearly shriek. “What is this?”
“Shh,” Ivrilos says. And he puts a hand on my shoulder.
He puts a hand on my shoulder.
He deals with the shock of it incredibly well. Surprise only flits over his face, there and gone. And then he leans into me. It’s a weighted, wonderful feeling. So different from the still, horrible presence of my own body. He pushes me back onto the bed, sitting next to me in the same motion. He pauses for just a moment, makes a decision, and tosses his legs onto the edge of the bed. He slides down next to me, facing me on his side.
For a moment I can’t think of anything except his body, lining the entirety of mine. We’re in bed together. Sunlight plays softly over us, gilding our limbs. Making us look alive.
I’ve been in bed with a few people. But never Ivrilos. It’s hard to focus on anything else, even though he’s trying to show me something. His arm propped beneath him, he keeps a hand on my shoulder, his fingers playing casually along the bare skin over my collarbone as if this is the most natural thing in the world. As if we’ve always done this. The other hand, he raises above me, palm up.
“Remember how I said your body was like a raft, and I was weighing it down, because of our bond?”
“Yes,” I whisper, even though I’m struggling to remember anything at all.
“Now it’s like we’ve completely rebuilt it to hold the two of us. I’m not dragging you down anymore. You’re alive… but not. Only now, the problem is that we’re too much.” His hand, glowing warm with sunlight, dips toward my chest. I want it to keep dropping, despite what it symbolizes. “We’re imbalanced, like the blight. The river—the living world—doesn’t really want us anymore. It’s trying to shove us out. We’re running aground rather than sinking.”
“So… I need a stronger life force to paddle. To stay in the current.” My eyes widen. “Someoneelse’slife force.”
Blood. That was why the thought of it made me ravenous.Stilldoes.
“It’s a temporary solution to the problem, and one only an undead bloodmage—a revenant, I believe you’re called—can fully utilize.” His voice is so gentle. As if trying to soften the name, something with so many edges and so much violence.
“Utilize? You meandigest,” I say, disgust rolling through me. “Magically speaking?”
I feel him nod.
I turn into him, bury my face in his shoulder. Goddess, he feels so good. He evensmellsgood. Cool and clean, if ever-so-slightly musty. Like the stone of a cave. It’s almost enough to take my mind off what he’s saying:
I’m arevenant. I drinkblood.
My body is separate from the living world now, a dead end, tethered only by blood. I can feel it in the stillness of my limbs and belly: I’ll never get sick again. I’ll need no food. I’ll never need a chamber pot again. I’ll never have children.
It’s a small consolation that I won’t have my monthly bleeding anymore. Not that this is a fair trade.
Ivrilos reaches up to smooth my hair. “At least this way, your body can contain my essence safely. You’re more than my anchor here now—you’ve become my vessel. I imagine that’s why we can touch. You can’t rot anymore, because you’re not alive. You’re… preserved?”
Again, his tone is so gentle. I like him touching me. I like not rotting. But everything else makes my gorge rise.
“Ugh,” I say, burrowing deeper into his neck, wishing I could block out everything but the feel of him. “So what is the permanent solution?” My voice is muffled.
His words are all too clear, unfortunately. “There isn’t one. You maintain a steady diet of blood until… well, you’re already dead,so until your body either starves or gets damaged enough that it can’t sustain us, and then your shade and mine finally pass to the underworld. My own feeding might help with your hunger, though I’m not entirely sure. I fed… a lot recently, down there, and I think that’s what gave you the strength to wake up and heal.”
I go still. He wraps an arm around me. I can’t believe we’re lying in bed together, but I can believe other things even less. It’s all so awful, what he’s saying. The hunger I’m feeling. The silence of my heart.
