THE JEALOUSY OF JALICE

Jalice watched Annilasia while silently traversing through forest undergrowth. The tillishu seemed distracted and on edge. Jalice had several times caught her throwing hands frantically at her shoulder with a pinched look of frustration and pain. A few times, Annilasia had grasped at the satchel that hung around her shoulders as if to retrieve something from it, only to jerk her hand away while wearing a self-deprecating scowl. Jalice was afraid to ask about any of it. Annilasia had proven since the Fortress that she didn’t take kindly to questions perceived as a challenge of authority.

As the group made their way deeper into the forest, and the brightly colored branches overhead transitioned into a barren ceiling of limbless trees, Jalice obsessed over the events that had led her to this moment of journeying to the Black House.

Awakening from the memories had been jolting. The missing time she couldn’t account for since leaving Mygo’s bunker unsettled Jalice further. She recalled pieces, but most of the journey to the downlands remained elusive. Sparse moments of reality had seeped in between the bewildering scenes that overtook her surroundings, but eventually the world had drifted away for so long that she forgot it existed. The memories had become her reality.

Almost all were from her childhood. Only after a new scene unfolded in full did it settle in her mind as a memory belonging to her past. Faces long faded revisited her: a young Annilasia and Delilee, and a pre-death Kerothan. Even Jalice herself, so young and carelessly free in these memories, appeared like a ghost from some suppressed dream.

Yet Hydrim haunted her the most. He was a completely different person. With every new memory unveiled for Jalice, the vast canyon of distinction widened between the boy of her childhood and the man she’d married. Aspects of her husband previously overlooked and dismissed stood in sharp relief against the backdrop of this younger version. Time had worn him down in many ways, and his playful spirit had vanished over the years. Only when she’d found Elothel, hovering over her, had she escaped the maze of memories.

Her head pounded despite Vowt’s concoction to help counteract the symptoms. Her typically lucid thoughts were foggy, like she was dreaming and not fully awake. The world seemed distant and out of reach.

However, desperation to reach the Black House persisted with vivid allure. While her companions and the forest were tendrils of smoke between fingertips, the House’s beckoning was a blinding lighthouse beacon. It awaited her, consumed her, commanded her. Every step that took her closer intensified this sense of need to return to the Black House.

In turn, her mind taunted her with the unknown that awaited. Perhaps the House would show her something—or nothing at all. Dread clawed in her stomach with each passing minute that these uncertainties lived without answers. She wondered if the Black House even existed anymore. Mygo’s enforced silence did nothing to alleviate her uncertainty, nor did it keep her mind from drifting to indelible impressions created over the past several days.

Her brother remained at the forefront of these ruminations. Kerothan’s connection to Hydrim solidified with each returned memory. Ever since witnessing their kiss again, a queasy sense of unfamiliarity had gripped her. From what she knew of her husband, the kiss was out of place. Neither Kerothan nor Hydrim had ever mentioned an affinity for one another, and other memories failed to hint at any affection between them. Even Kerothan’s death during the Purge hadn’t affected Hydrim in a way that would suggest it.

This, and all other elements of the confounding mystery, raised the question of why these particular memories had been blocked. The kiss, her childhood, the Black House—perhaps they held importance of some kind. Or perhaps the why of the matter wasn’t the urgent mystery. Maybe if she learned how they’d been blocked, the why’s would become clear.

***

Two days of traveling passed, although the string of Jalice’s unanswered questions eternalized the journey. Once or twice, Mygo halted the group in order to scout the area with the help of Vowt and Annilasia. Whatever the group found was kept from Jalice each time, but she easily discerned the panicked way Elothel always surveyed the forest. She wasn’t sure if the group’s omissions were comforting or aggravating. Already caught between absorbing all that had transpired in less than a week, and a restless mind, refraining from adding more worries was perhaps best. Then again, the lack of confirmation left her slightly on edge, as if the others’ silence signaled something dire that they didn’t wish to burden her with.

At night, the group took shifts, with the exclusion of Jalice. She wasn’t a trained tracker or woodlander like the others, nor a mirajin. Also, the memory episodes were unpredictable. Elothel quelled these with aether, but the period of peace in between them kept becoming shorter and shorter after each dose.

Her interactions with the mirajin were brief, but Jalice could never shake the sense that the pair of eyes hidden behind the rudimentary set of goggles silently judged her. Nothing in faer mannerisms suggested this. As it was, fae treated Jalice with gentle care and never rushed off immediately after imbuing the aether, which often rendered her limp and too sedated to be left alone. Yet Jalice couldn’t banish the hounding shame in faer presence—always conscious of the Hunt decreed by her husband.

By the third night, this tension became too strong to dissolve with the aether. As fae cradled her head in the crook of faer arm and gazed upon the treetops, the question that haunted her crept out in a clipped whisper.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

Elothel lowered faer gaze to stare down at her. Every inch of face hid behind cloth or goggle, all expression masked. A gloved finger flashed to faer lips and lingered there to remind that Mygo’s command of silence should endure.

Her face flushed, but her heart quickened when the mirajin moved faer other hand to peel off the opposing glove. Despite having seen this before, her eyes widened in awe at the revealed translucent skin lined with colored veins that seemed to glow against the darkness overlaying the forest. Mystification changed to terror when fae extended the exposed hand towards her face, curling all but one finger that came to rest on her forehead.

A gentle voice of both masculine and feminine tones caressed her mind.

“Don’t speak aloud, starborn,” said Elothel. “Instead, frame your mind around the words you wish to say.”

Jalice gaped. She opened her mouth, which earned her a quick shake of the head from Elothel.

“Think, starborn,” fae said. “Don’t speak. I can hear your thoughts if you frame them into words.”

Her mouth snapped shut, and she concentrated on one single question from the dozen swirling in her head. “How are we doing this?”

“It’s a mind weld,” explained Elothel. Fae wiggled faer finger against her temple for clarification. “We should make this brief. This requires aether, and I should be retaining as much as possible for the event that awaits us.”

Jalice wanted more explanation but heeded the advice. She swallowed, attempting to hold back the hot tears blurring her vision. “Why are you doing this for Annilasia? Or me, for that matter?”

“Annilasia isn’t like the other tillishu. Her hands have performed the deeds of an assassin, and her heart is full of vengeance and anger. But she showed me mercy. She defied her orders, and for that I am grateful. When she asked for my aid in righting the wrongs of the Sachem against my kind, I decided to oblige.” Fae paused. “As for you, starborn, why do you think I am willing to ease your pain?”

Jalice bristled at the question, eyes dropping. “I truly don’t know. My husband . . .” She trailed off. “He said the mirajin lied—that they manipulated us into slavery. He said you tried to steal the Stones to try and control us.” She shook her head. “I didn’t question it. It was hard to believe, but . . . he’d been right about so many other things.”

“Do you believe him now?”

Visions of a youthful Hydrim flooded her mind, colliding violently with those of a commanding Sachem. “If I don’t believe him on that, then what does it mean about me?”

“It means you’re seeing the stars instead of the dirt,” replied Elothel. “You’re looking up and seeing the vastness of the universe rather than the ground that tries to convince you that it is all that is and ever will be.”

Jalice met Elothel’s phantom gaze behind the goggles. Tears continued to well in her eyes. “If I was wrong about him, will Sahruum forgive me?” A wave of peace enveloped her and sent tears rolling down her cheeks in cathartic release.

“Sahruum sees all. The Star Alignment tells all. Your placement in it has not been sealed yet, starborn. There is time, and time still to find a better way.”

Jalice sniffled and wiped at her nose. “I’m afraid. What does Sahruum want to show me at the Black House? What will I see?”

“No star dies without a burst of final light; no constellation forms without a future meaning. Sahruum steps into the tomorrows of the faithful and protects those who hold to the infinite wisdoms.” Elothel paused. “I will be at your side, come what may inside that place. I believe you have changed and are changing still.”

Elothel dropped faer finger from her head. Jalice stood fixed in that spot for several moments, suffocating and breathing, dying and rebirthing, caught between a dawn of admission and the dusk of a festering pride that had clung to her for nearly twenty years.