The Forbidding Blue
THE FORBIDDING BLUE
THE PARTING BREATH SERIES
BOOK 3
MONICA LEE KENNEDY
Copyright © 2016 Monica Lee Kennedy
All rights reserved.
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For my beautiful, lovely sister. You are who I want to be when I grow up.
And a special thanks to my husband, Mama, Marianne, Dani, my editor Bridget, and my generous, thoughtful beta readers.
To view a map of the world, please visit: www.monicaleekennedy.com
Table of Contents
GLOSSARY
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
Dearest Readers
Glossary
Alatrice - Brenol and Darse’s home world
benere - goodwill, goodness, seeking betterment for self and others
berida - refreshment service of the Tindel
bethaida - underground home of the Tindel
cartess - fate of a person
cartontz - protector of nurest
digit - unit of measurement equivalent to the width of a finger
frawnish - winged people living in Granoile
freg - unit of currency
Genesifin - book of fate
gertali - group that travels together in the desert
gortei - oath of protection given to Massada that makes the person taking it a guardian
greno - unit of currency
hete - first summer
hitze - second summer
juile - race typically found in Selet where they are fully visible
lunavidola - heavenly lights in Selet, also a marked time for courtship
lunitata - race of people who emanate light
lugazzi - neutral land between terrisdans and surrounding Lake Ziel
malitas - evil spirit attacking Massada
maralane - water people of Lake Ziel
marking - joining fingers as sign of union amongst Tindel
matrole - unit measuring distance
nurest - person with special connection to a particular terrisdan
orbit - unit of time (equivalent to a year)
pedasse - juile footprints
perideta (peri) - blue frozen desert surrounding the terrisdans
polina - law enforcement
raptili - reptiles in Alatrice
scrutar - tax collector in Alatrice
sealtor - mail deliverer
sealtoz - post office
sefent - markings of degeneration caused by the perideta
septspan - seven days
soumme - spouse
spherisol - ball used for heating and light by the Tindel
Stronta, Veri - the two moons of Massada
terrisdan - tract of land in Massada, thirteen total
teritra - mosaic picture in public juile houses
The Three - Abriged (Eye), Tofinaol (Hand), Ceriton (Voice)
Tindel - people living in the ice desert
umburquin - race typically found in Selenia
visnati - race typically found in Garnoble
wind's kiss - weathering of the skin, usually the face, caused by the desert’s elements
CHAPTER 1
The players are set; the game itself, though, will remain a lethal mystery.
-Genesifin
Rashel’s jaw clenched, squealing under the violent pressure of bone and teeth, and her eyes lazed into the folds of her skull, though they returned to a state of determined purpose as soon as the pain subsided. Her body was damp and stank of human sweat.
How the spirit loathed that rank scent. It caused its rushing rage to boil into greater brutality.
She disgusts me. They all do.
Yet still, the spirit had nowhere else to go. The world had swallowed it in all its concreteness and now it must live out its existence here in the baseness of the tangible.
I will make them regret trapping me here, it thought. I will turn their world into flames and misery.
“Tell me where the sword is,” the spirit demanded again.
“I cannot,” Rashel finally breathed. Her auburn hair clung damply to her cheeks and neck. A few strands lingered in her mouth. Her weary body lay supine and mangled. Crimson drenched her clothing.
“Cannot? Or will not?”
Her pupils tightened in fear, but her voice echoed out defiantly. “Is there a difference?”
“Is there a difference between your pain and your daughter’s?” he asked coldly.
Her mouth twitched.
Yes, that is your weakness, isn’t it? the spirit thought.
“It changes nothing,” she replied faintly, but her face sagged as if all her bones had shrunk at the thought.
She rolled her head heavily a few digits to gaze across at her daughter, Claera. She was just three orbits old. The child could not comprehend what was happening—or perhaps she could all too well. She huddled in the corner, whimpering with cheeks streaming. Claera’s tinny voice was racked with heaving sobs as she wailed over and over, “Mama, mama, mama…”
Claera locked eyes with Rashel, and the child nearly found a moment of consolation, but she quickly recoiled in confusion as a warm stream splashed across her face.
He was urinating on her.
The child wept and sought to avoid the putrid mess, but her uncoordinated limbs and hysteria coupled with his previous blows and kicks had certainly not improved her capabilities.
“Dadda! Stop!” she cried.
Rashel feebly held up her hand in reassurance. “That isn’t Da, sweetie.”
He smiled cloyingly. “Yes I am. I am your Da. Your mama is lying to you.”
Rashel shuddered and sank into the floorboards. “Just be done with it.”
“I will be done once you finally choose to help me.” His dark eyes bore with loathing into Rashel. Even after all the physical pain, she still cringed at the mere glance.
“I will not help you. I will not. Be done with it,” she repeated.
As morning approached, the wailing from the child pounded through his eardrums. He suddenly sickened of the entire enterprise, and his frustration seized him with hotter fury. His fists quivered and knuckles hued white.
“I will let you watch while I tear her apart like a leaf,” he hissed venomously.
She choked on her sobs but still spoke the bold words. “I will tell you nothing. Be done with it.”
~
Colette woke with a sta
rt, jolting Brenol from his own world of dreams.
“You ok, Col?”
“Yes,” she replied in the dark, but her jagged breath betrayed the truth.
“What’re you worried ’bout?” he asked. His speech was slurred with sleep, but soon his mind began to stir.
He rolled over and slid his hand across her belly. It was smooth and beginning to bulge. His fingertips lingered, hoping for a movement from the growing babe. Although the skin remained placid, a warmth filled his chest: My child. The one we never thought possible. He wondered if the awe over this miracle would ever fade into accepted normalcy. He prayed it would not.
“I-I…”
“It’s ok. I’m awake now.”
“I just don’t know. It was a terrible dream.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
She sighed. “Not really.”
Brenol drew her close and enveloped her in his arms. She could feel his heart beating sturdily and his radiating heat seeping comfortingly into her skin. “You don’t need to worry. I’m right here. Jerem’s gone,” he mumbled sleepily.
Within seconds his breathing slowed and his limbs relaxed in heaviness.
It’s not Jerem I fear, she thought, shuddering despite the warmth of the bed and his body draped across hers.
She longed to brush it aside as a dream, but her nurest instincts recognized the strange flavor of intuit—even if it had been ages since she had last tasted it. There was a truth here whether she acknowledged it or not. The soil of Massada was whispering, but to what purpose she could not guess.
Colette reluctantly explored the images, and again the dark eyes of her dreams bore into her, and her spine tingled in disquiet. So dark. The eyes are so dark. Darker even than a juile’s. She bit her lower lip in concentration—and repulsion—but could not discern meaning from the hellish scene.
What are you saying to me, Veronia?
She cringed as she met silence. It did not matter that there had been only silence for seasons and seasons; it hurt as though this were the first time.
Why can’t you just let it go? Let Veronia be? she asked herself, furious again that the childish hope within refused to die. A tear trickled sideways across the lunitata’s face. She swept it away angrily. How she wearied of this unending expectation, this firm belief that Veronia was not lost and would one day awaken. It only kept her agony fresh, her hunger alive.
To be one with a broken and void entity was wrenching. Veronia was alive, but a sigh to the booming thunder it once had been. The poison of Jerem had wiped away communication, power, personality. The healing hos had done miraculous work across Massada, but not enough. Veronia was comatose, fragmented. And would never again be what it was. Never.
Yet you’re speaking to me. What are you saying?
And why now?
Colette exhaled, realizing how tense her entire body had become. Every muscle was strained and aching.
Perhaps Bren’s right. There can never be good in the nurest connection.
Calm, Colette. Calm.
The lunitata forced her lungs into long, easy breaths. The subdued snoring of the man beside her offered a gentle comfort, and her face slowly eased from its hard creases. She sought to match his rhythmic inhalations and closed her eyes as their breathing unified. The dream dissipated in the serenity of the moment, and she gently berated herself for the histrionics—all was well, or at least would be in time. One by one, she directed her neck, limbs, back, and jaw to relax, and she experienced the soft surrender as her body sank in submission.
But as she approached the sweet precipice of sleep, the evil orbs flared alive and glared at her again in vivid clarity behind her closed lids. She gasped, her entire body stiffening in rigid terror. Colette’s hands trembled as she raised them to shield her blanched face, yet the image was seared in her mind.
He wants to hurt me.
He wants to hurt everyone.
Brenol stirred, and a bizarre impulse to hide overcame her. She felt like a child—afraid to whisper the dark things of the dream world lest they stir alive and rush in to snatch away her life with the speed of a spark: present in one moment, gone the next. Colette did not think, she merely succumbed to the insane sentiment to conceal herself. She exaggerated her breathing and willed her body into limpness. Brenol—still half-drunk with sleep—shifted, wrapped his fallen arm tenderly around her, and returned to his repose. Colette waited for his deep breaths to even and then circled her arms protectively around her belly.
Three watch over our child. Our miracle.
She closed her eyes again. The eyes were now but a memory, yet still she cradled her stomach as though they could see the vulnerable creature inside. Her lips quivered, but she eventually forced even them to a death-like still as she feigned sleep.
~
After several moons, Colette no longer responded with visceral intensity to the nightmares. Her eyes opened with a pained agony, and at times her body was drenched in a feverish sweat, but rarely did she cry out or thrash. But it did not mean she had grown accustomed to their foul flavor.
She inhaled softly and gently brushed Brenol’s arm from her side. It landed heavily upon the blankets, but he did not stir. She lumbered her awkward body sideways until she could slide to her knees and labor up to a stand. Her swollen feet elicited a hushed creak from the floorboards, but Brenol slept on soundly. The child within was eerily still, as though it alone knew the gravity of her experience.
In the main room, Colette paused. Upon the wall rested a looking glass—a gift from her mother on the day she vowed soumme. It was an elegant square, about the breadth of two hands, edged with turquoise mosaic tiles and glittering opals. As she creaked forward towards the glass, she experienced a mingling of disappointment and unsurprise at the person staring back. Her exhaustion was marked. Her shoulders sagged and her cheeks were gaunt and colorless. Her thick golden hair was mussed from tossing, and her emerald eyes were joyless and shrouded with dark circles. Her jaw was clenched tight and lips thin in agitation.
Another, she sighed.
The dreams came frequently now—almost nightly. But she was never given the same scene twice. Each was a fresh horror. The villain’s face fluctuated like the phases of the moons—different in appearance, yet undoubtedly the same. It puzzled her, for although the skin and features waxed and waned, the eyes never changed. They were sinkholes of evil.
Is this real? Is it just here in Veronia or across Massada? How could it possibly be?
The soil might as well be dead beneath her toes for all the response she received.
She walked the cool floors to the next room, grateful they made no groan under her load. Brenol knew her nights were troubled, but she had evaded his probing glances and questions with idiotic persistence. So many times she had parted her lips to speak to him, to finally break the dam of long-held secrets, but each time her voice had failed her. And his pained eyes affirmed his knowledge of her suppression.
Colette shook her head as if to dispel the demons. “You are being mindless, lunitata. Has this babe made you lose your wits?”
Her voice had been quiet, but the silence of the house magnified her words.
Enough.
She settled herself to the desk and placed ink to paper.
There’s only one way to know…
~
Brenol rose, sleep still heavy in his veins. He was surprised he had slept this late, even at the close of harvest. He stretched and with furrowed brow wandered to the other room in search of his soumme. He was not worried for her safety, but other concerns had been sprouting over the last several moons. Colette woke regularly with hooded eyes and limbs as cold as the dreams that chased her. She insisted upon silence, but every word unspoken had left her more strained.
He did not think it could be Jerem that still haunted her. And when he named the old ghost to her with the hopes of drawing out the truth, reticence had prevailed. So Brenol was left to guess and brood.
Brenol craned his neck around in a cursory glance. The room was empty, and a sigh began to form on his lips, but then he stopped and found his face instead quirking up into a smile; she had been here not long ago. He entered fully and brushed his hand lovingly atop the smooth wooden desk resting against the wall. He had crafted it for her last season, and her pleasure had been evident in the burst of light from her glowing face. His own features relaxed, and he rested his hand upon the chair’s back. The seat had been pushed aside for her belly to evacuate with greater ease, and the habitual pen clippings lay in a neat pile beside a thin stack of paper.
Not long at all, he thought. She had not written her mother in some time, and he hoped this was nothing other.
Brenol strode out the back doorway, his body contracting in the cold, but smiled faintly as he spied his soumme. He hugged his arms and breathed white as he shuffled out toward her. Colette sat on a rock facing away from him, eyes toward the dawn, with the morning light encompassing her in its amber curtain. Her once-dark hair was now the shade of golden wheat, for the lunitata grow blond from conception until their birthing. It sparkled like moving waters despite her motionless frame.
I cannot say which shade I love more.
In these moments, he did not loathe living in Veronia with its closed, limp eye and did not regret living without the conversation of a terrisdan. In these moments, there was Colette and there was love, and that was enough. It was the other moments that stung.
“Col?” he called. His voice sounded thin in the frigid air.
At her name, she arched her neck sideways, and Brenol perceived the strain in the emerald eyes. Her face was stretched thin across her cheeks in a troubled expression. She was disturbed to her core.
Brenol swept the distance between them quickly and kneeled before her seated figure. His knees soaked up the morning condensation, but he gave little notice. His hands slid to rest on her thighs, and he gazed at her with tender concern. “Col, what is it? Please, tell me… You can’t carry it alone anymore.”
She shook her head, but still spoke. “I can’t say what I don’t know.”
“Please. We can’t go on like this… Is it the growing winter? The icing?”