THE JEALOUSY OF JALICE

“This isn’t real.” Jalice pointed out toward the corridor. “I ran away and left you to die. I know I did.”

Hydrim had taken a few steps towards her, but stopped at Jalice’s reaction. He smiled, and it was exactly as Jalice remembered it—warm, inviting, charming. The depth of agonized souls screaming within his previous words vanished, replaced by the deep voice Jalice had memorized so intimately.

“My Tecalica, where have you been?” asked Hydrim. “There was an ache in my heart, and I knew something was amiss.” He held out his hand.

Jalice itched to take it. This is what she’d wanted. The Sachem was here to rescue her. No more running. No more fear of warriors hunting her. Despite the fulfillment of this wish, she hesitated. A sinking despair gripped her.

He cocked an eyebrow. “Why so shy, my beloved? Haven’t you missed me?”

Jalice stammered in finding her voice. “How—how are you here?”

“Does it matter? I’m here, and I came for you.”

A dark glint in his eyes put her further on edge. Something about him seemed different, and it tempered her elation at seeing him.

His face softened, and he sighed. “You look so tired, Jalice. Come with me, and you can rest.”

Tears flooded her eyes, and she failed to keep them from falling. “I missed you,” she said between laborious breaths. “I prayed that you’d come for me. I prayed every day. You’re finally here.” She inhaled against a sob and wiped a hand across her cheeks.

Hydrim’s smile widened, and he gestured again for Jalice to take his outstretched hand.

Trembling, she slowly raised her own hand up. It was over. She was safe. Anticipation at the promised embrace with Hydrim overwhelmed her. She could already feel the comfort that would flood her at the touch of his skin.

A garbled cry, beast-like and harsh, sounded somewhere farther down the corridor, followed by a vacuum of wind that seemed to steal the air around them. Then silence.

Only a second, but that was all it took. A weight lifted from her.

Jalice understood what had happened. Elothel had vanquished the dokojin.

Like a breath of fresh air, her mind inhaled its first purified thought. No flashback unfolded, but the crypt of her memories tore open in a torrent of unlocked moments she’d forgotten existed. Her gaze lifted from the tiny space still separating their hands and latched onto Hydrim’s eyes. Dread tangled around her. She dropped her hand and pressed herself against the wall near the doorframe.

His smile dropped into a frown.

Jalice’s breath caught in her chest. She’d never seen this look cast upon her. Upon others, yes—those who deserved judgement and punishment from the Sachem. But never on her. He loved her.

“What’s wrong?” asked Hydrim. Agitation squeezed out the slightest hint of genuine concern in those words.

“Something happened here,” she whispered. “In this room, with you and me. Do you remember?”

His face remained dark. Something in his eyes warned her away from pressing the topic further. She did so anyways.

“I tricked you,” she explained. “I lied to you. I brought you here because I made a mistake. I made a bargain with . . . someone that promised to make you mine.”

“And I am yours.”

“But you weren’t,” she said. Her mind conjured an image of Kerothan, and her breath fluttered as she sighed. “You were in love with someone else.”

Jalice knew every part of Hydrim—how he talked, how he moved, how he thought. She’d memorized every line of skin ink that twirled across his skin. So, when the muscles on his face tensed in the slightest and his eyes flared like a consuming fire, she knew that something was wrong.

“I’ve never loved another,” he murmured, displeasure poisoning the reassuring words. “It is you who has been tricked, my beloved.”

Thinking of Kerothan sent Jalice’s mind on a trail of other memories involving her brother that, before this moment, she had struggled to access. She at first recoiled from these but, quickly relenting, soon released the tension holding them at bay. A foggy memory unfolded, adding to her anxiety.

“My brother came to me hysterical,” she breathed as she recalled the forgotten memory. “He looked like he’d had a run in with a wild animal—blood on his clothes, hair all disheveled.” She paused as Kerothan’s voice echoed in her head, then gasped. Her eyes focused on Hydrim, resisting the temptation to cower under his glare. “He said that you killed our parents. That they weren’t sick from the Delirium. That you’d lied.”

Her chest tightened as the last secrets of the lost memory unfurled. “Ikaul warriors came in and took him away.” She stared at Hydrim in horror over his lack of distress at this accusation. Her bottom lip quivered, but she managed to utter the question now haunting her.

“What happened to my brother?”

“Your brother died during the Purge,” said Hydrim, voice flat and tense.

“I never saw his body.” Fresh tears streamed down her face. “Something was wrong with me . . . We didn’t even bury him. How could we be so callous?”

“You’re clearly distressed,” Hydrim stated dryly. He moved towards her, and his outstretched hand flipped with the clear intention of grabbing her.

Jalice whipped back. “No, answer me!” Wide eyes observed Hydrim for what seemed like the first time since that fateful day in the Black House. “Annilasia said you were evil, and that you’ve done horrible things.” Jalice shook her head in disbelief—not at the possibility, but at how blind she’d been to this. “She was right, wasn’t she? You’ve hurt people.”

“Everything I’ve ever done has been for you,” said Hydrim. “The stars aligned to bring us together, and our souls are joined. But in order to keep that safe—to keep you safe—I’ve had to do things that some have claimed are sins. There are horrible people in this world, Jalice. I love you enough to keep you sheltered from those types of dangers.”

It should’ve been reassuring. She’d heard similar words over the years and believed them. For a moment, she almost believed the words now. The part of her that wanted to escape the tension begged her to believe.

This isn’t true. She forced herself to repeat this in her head. She couldn’t go by the Sachem’s word anymore—not after what her memories had revealed.

“Then why did you send warriors after me?” she asked. “They tried to kill me.”

“Because I was deceived, my Tecalica,” said Hydrim. “Your decoy betrayed you. She used aether to conceal her identity and pretended to be you while that tillishu whisked you away. My warriors were seeking the decoy, unaware of the treasonous switch that occurred.”

Jalice squinted at him. “Are you talking about Delilee?” Her eyes widened. “Is she alive?”

“No, she is not. Once I discovered her treachery, I made sure she paid for her sins against us.”

Jalice’s legs wobbled and threatened to give way beneath her. Delilee had survived that night of chaos—had pretended to be Jalice. Her mind wrestled with the implications but snagged on Hydrim’s admission. A broken sob shook her.

Delilee was dead.

Jalice swallowed and forced herself to breathe through her tightening throat.

“She was innocent.” The words fluttered in her panting breaths. “She was my cousin, and she was following Annilasia’s orders. She was innocent.”

Hydrim’s scowl devolved into a sneer. “I assure you, she wasn’t innocent.”

“Are you?” Jalice watched Hydrim for any sign that she was wrong. Any sign that would prove all of this was her paranoid mind crafting a waking nightmare. “Are you innocent? What happened to Kerothan?” She swayed on her feet, trying not to faint. “I’m not going with you until you tell me the truth.”

The tension in the room thickened the space between them. Shock paralyzed her. She was trapped. She’d never felt this way with Hydrim. He was her Sachem, the only one in the land who understood her. Who protected her.

“I killed him,” a harsh voice stated, slithering through Jalice’s mind.

The voice bit in her ears. It was inhuman—a crushing static of screams and howls that arced unnaturally into coherent words. Death and torture flourished inside it, welded together and nurtured by an anger that bordered on madness. Though no longer Hydrim’s voice, nor produced by his lips, cruel familiarity bubbled inside Jalice.

A convulsive shiver passed through her. Her throat tightened. The words swept at her like a blow, yet each held a power that took time to register. Jalice collapsed to her knees. The ceiling and walls bent in around her, threatening to swallow her and Hydrim.

He killed Kerothan, she realized. Hydrim—my Sachem—murdered my brother.

The confession, laced with such an impossible truth, drowned her. Gripped by distress, she didn’t notice the initial stages of transformation plaguing Hydrim’s form. When her eyes finally lifted, they bulged in horror. A primitive scream scratched through her vocal cords.

Hydrim’s skin lay on the ground in a discarded husk. Looming in his place, a grotesque creature snarled down at her. What had previously been his face stared back at Jalice with sunken eye sockets. Bloodshot eyes, pooling into crimson lakes, drove into her like spikes. As it stretched massive wings out across the room, thick globs of blood dripped from the feathers.

Dardajah. The name leapt up from the exhumed memories still twisting in Jalice’s mind.

“I killed him, Unworthy Bones,” the dokojin howled with pride. “I soaked myself in your brother’s aura as his soul tried to pass through the Apparition Realm. The bonebag was beyond terrified as I drank from the overflowing cup of those crippling emotions.”

Dardajah sneered, lips rolling away from rows of sharp teeth. “He screamed—from mouth and from aura. There’s nothing quite so rapturous as feeding on a soul as it is drained into void.”

Jalice shook her head and whimpered. Her muscles had abandoned her along with the logic to flee. She managed to scream, but this, too, was lost in the chaos. The room churned like a furious sea, creating a black expanse of twisting walls that caught in the phantom wind tearing between them. Her scream became lost in it, consumed by the wind and Dardajah’s voice.

“You stupid bag of bones. No one is coming to save you,” said Dardajah. “No one can hear you.”

The meager distance between them vanished as the dokojin lurched towards Jalice. Black wings wrapped tightly around her. She closed her eyes but couldn’t escape the smell of rotting death in its breath or the anguished howl in its voice.

“Hydrim, come back,” she wailed. “Bring him back.” Her lips formed the words, but no sound broke through the wind.

“Hydrim isn’t here anymore,” said Dardajah. “You lost him the moment you betrayed him all those years ago, Unworthy Bones. Now it is my time, and whatever knowledge you have of the Decayer dies with you.”

Jalice was confused by Dardajah’s cryptic reference, but she didn’t have time to consider it. This was her end. Her years of self-deceit had led to this moment, forged by a petulent jealousy harbored as a child. Kerothan was dead because of her. Hydrim was gone too.

Dardajah’s howl drowned out even the wind as a wave of aether flogged Jalice. The souldrain seared like fire, plunging her into a paralytic state of agony. An endless scream poured from her lips. Reality shattered. The room—and the vile scene it hosted—gave way to the pain. Awareness homed in on the sole realization of her imminent end, caught as she was between endless time and her remaining seconds of existence.

Jalice lost touch with the world around her. Bouts of pain from the souldrain seeped in, now somewhat distant and almost faded. Somewhere deep in her mind, she knew Dardajah was consuming her aura. This realization, even as acknowledged by a supressed consciousness, only provoked more terror, which the dokojin in turn devoured—a cycle that would eventually end with Jalice’s energy extinguished.

Her life played out in front of her in a strange pocket of time that seemed both rushed and meticulous. Memories that she’d forgotten now arose from the depths, adding yet another layer of distress. Mixed amongst them were fresh experiences she had no recollection of having partaken in.

Hydrim executing hundreds of Vekuuv on the conviction that the Delirium had besieged them.

Hydrim declaring the animal kin of the tribes as viable meat for consumption.

Hydrim condoning the abuse of aether and the corruption of the glass wands.

Had she been present for these blasphemous events, she would have protested. She would have never allowed these sins to transpire. Yet to her horror, she was forced to acknowledge that she had permitted them. Shame ripped at her crumbling soul.

As the souldrain dragged on, structured thought eroded. Eventually pain devoured her. The reasons for her shame and despair vanished, leaving only the power of these emotions for Dardajah to feast on. One last tangible thought fluttered like a clipped butterfly as the dokojin consumed all else. Remorse intertwined with it, a fragile thread holding under the domineering terror of the souldrain.

Kerothan, I’m sorry. Sahruum knows—I’m so sorry. Hydrim, forgive me. Someone forgive me.

Darkness consumed her. But not before a flash of pure light struck the shadow that was Dardajah.