Karhi Emelyn

Karhi didn’t know what to expect when he saw Sloane, but he hadn’t expected her to be covered in human blood with a throw blanket around her shoulders. 

She sat on one of the couches in Hazel’s living room, her knees to her chest, arms wrapped around them.  Mira sat next to her, hips and shoulders touching.

“What’s going on?” Karhi wanted to know.  He wasn’t sure if he should go to Sloane or not.  When he glanced at her, she didn’t look him in the face. 

No, definitely not.

“Alice has been attacked,” Hazel said solemnly.  Her gaze was impenetrable.  It was only her and Aoife here, Matadi somewhere else.

“What?  How?”

“That is for Sloane to relay,” Hazel said, turning to look at her.

Sloane looked up, and as she did, the blanket moved just enough for Karhi to realize she was only wearing a bra beneath the blanket.  Dried blood was smeared on her chest, arms, and hands. 

Sloane told them what had happened.  Her voice was hollow and numb.  Several times during her story, Karhi wanted to interrupt but Aoife and Hazel never did, and he remained quiet.

Finally, when she was done, Hazel said, “There were just blue sparks in the air?”

“Yes,” she said, looking down.  “Since they got in . . . I’m guessing that was the shield malfunctioning?”  Her voice was too quiet compared to her normal speaking voice.  He could feel her emotions like a quiet distraction in the back of his head.  Shock and anger.

Hazel nodded grimly.

“How?” Mira asked. 

Hazel shook her head.  “We’ve been having issues with the shield for the past couple months, but it’s gotten worse in the past week.”

Karhi’s brow furrowed.  “How is that possible?  Who maintains the shield?”

“The shield was created by the eldest three Praecantrix sisters,” Aoife said.  “Both at this castle and the one in Ireland.  And a couple of the hotels.  They taught Savita how to maintain and monitor the shield.  Savita has been searching for the source of what caused these magical breaches.  So far, she’s only been able to localize where some breaches originated.  The dining hall.  The top of the tower opposite the armoury.  A couple other places.”

“Do you have a map put together?” Karhi asked.

“Yes,” Hazel said.  “We cannot find a pattern to it.  Some of the spots are hubs that anchor the shield, but others are nothing.  The breezeway between this wing and the main castle, for example.  It’s not a hub, but it has been repeatedly attacked and savaged.  Both beneath it and on top of it.”

“No wonder I didn’t mind sitting there,” Sloane murmured to Mira.  Her voice was still flat, but Karhi saw Mira’s eyes light up with amusement.

“What?” Hazel said.

Sloane looked from Mira to Hazel.  “What?”

“What do you mean by that?”

Sloane shrugged one shoulder, shaking her head.  “It just feels like less magic there.”

“Are you a sensitive?”

Sloane nodded.

“Is that why you were sitting up there for hours by the time I found you the other day?” Aoife asked.

Sloane had sat on the breezeway for hours?  Doing what?

“I originally went up there because it was outside.  But after a while, the feeling of magic eventually settled, and it was a nice spot to sit.”

Aoife’s brow furrowed.  “Interesting.”

“Can I go take a shower?” Sloane asked.  Her voice was hesitant and uncomfortable.  “I’ll come back if you need to still talk about what happened, or whatever.  I just want Alice’s blood off of me.”

“That’s fine,” Hazel said.  “Please come back when you’re done.”

“Sure thing.”  Sloane got up and left without even looking at Karhi.  He really needed to fix that.

You do, Mira agreed.

He glared at her before smoothing his expression and asking, “Where is Alice?”

Aoife answered.  “She’s in the infirmary.  She’s stable, but she lost a lot of blood.  We have to wait until she’s been stable and full of blood for a few hours, and then we’re going to have Sloane turn Alice.  We’re close enough to her year mark for it.”

“Will you send Sloane away before her year mark hits?” Karhi asked.

“That would be ideal,” Aoife said.  “But we’ll have to see.”

Mira started to speak.  “Will y—” She cut herself off, her head turning towards the door, brow furrowing.  “What?”  Her eyes were moving from left to right, as if she was reading something.  “How are you . . . no, that’s not right.  Change and come back.”

“Mira?” Hazel prompted.

“Something’s wrong with Sloane’s room.”

“What do you mean?”

“I could still hear her after she went inside.”

“What?” Aoife said sharply.  “How in the hell?”

The door opened and Sloane walked in.  She wore a green sweater and had washed the blood off of her hands and face.  She had changed her jeans, too.

“I feel like this can’t be good,” Sloane said when she walked in, looking between Aoife, Hazel, and Mira.  She still wasn’t looking at Karhi.  He felt her concern, and a little bit of anxiety, like an insistent tapping against his mind.

“Mira, is this the first time this has happened?” Hazel asked. 

“To my knowledge,” Mira said.  “I pretty much am always tracking my family if they’re nearby.  I was waiting for her mind to disappear behind the barrier, but she walked into the room, and I could still hear and talk to her.”

“It was faint, and muzzed up with static,” Sloane said.  “But I could hear her.”  She stood by the door, huddled in on herself with her arms wrapped around her torso.

Something pressed at Karhi’s memory, like a fluttering in his head.  Breaking down magic . . .

“Hazel, can I see the map of everywhere the magic has degraded that they could find?” Karhi asked.  Things were starting to click in place, but he wanted to check first.

He saw her hesitance.  She glanced at Aoife, who also seemed hesitant.

He knew why.  If they had a map of the castle, they probably had a map of all of their weaknesses—magical hubs, points of entry, et cetera.  “I don’t need to see the nitty gritty.  If you could just show me a basic map of the castle, don’t even need every room identified, and just the areas that degraded, hubs or not.  Is that possible?”

Aoife mulled it over for a moment before nodding.  “I’ll call Matadi to meet us, since the map is his baby.  I’ll take you to the war room.”

Karhi’s eye twitched involuntarily.  The fucking war room.

Aoife saw it.  “Cyly saw Dr. Strangelove in theatres when it came out.  The name came from that.”  She sounded annoyed that she had to explain and even more annoyed that she had said it.

Sloane glanced at the queen, who was already looking at her.  “I know,” Hazel said. 

“You said not to take any lessons—”

“Some of my children suffer from hubris.  I know what I said.”

What the fuck?

Karhi did not get an answer about Hazel and Sloane’s conversation, but they did go to the “war room”.  It was just a larger version of Cyly’s study.  There were less books, and more tables, but the furniture was still comfortable—loveseats and settees mixed with wooden tables with claw feet and matching chairs.

In the centre of the room was an enormous table that was little more than a long, shallow box with legs.  It was filled with five or six inches of fine, pale sand.  There was nothing else remarkable about this table except that the tile around it was exceptionally worn compared to everywhere else in the room.  Karhi knew what to expect from the sand table.  He had seen its ilk in other places.

Matadi was at one end of the table, and Savita stood opposite him.  She wore a golden sari with red beading along the seam that went over her hip and down her legs.  Her hair was pulled back and plaited.

Aoife led them to the table where they spread out on either side, bracketed by Matadi and Savita. 

“Savita,” Hazel said as they entered.  There was a slight tilt to her voice, almost a question but not quite.

“I was able to modify the map as his Majesty requested,” Savita replied, nodding her head towards the table.

With that, Matadi tapped the table three times, and the sand began to shift of its own volition.  In seconds, it had resolved itself with crisp edges and sharp lines into a perfect model of the castle.  The courtyard was rendered in tiny detail with trees and even the small flower garden where he and Sloane had sat. 

He felt Sloane’s wonder, looking at the table as it formed.  He stole a glance to see her eyes wide on the scene in the sand below them.

“This is the castle,” Matadi said needlessly.  “And here is where we’ve found frayed magic.”  He held out his hand.  Each of his fingers were capped with silver up to the first knuckle.  Each cap had a thin chain connecting it to a piece of silver encrusted with small gems.  Another chain around his wrist secured the contraption to his hand.

Different parts of the castle lit up with soft yellow light.  Not enough to be bright, but enough to see clearly.

There were two towers lit up, not far from each other.  Two parts of the main castle glowed.  The brightest was the breezeway between the main castle and the Royal Wing.

“Where are these places?” Karhi asked.

“This is a tower across from the armoury,” Matadi said, pointing to one of the towers.  It lit up brighter for a second before dying down again.  “This is the tower where Alice was attacked; this is a supply close; this is the dining hall; and this is the breezeway.”  Each location lit up when he pointed to them.

Karhi looked at Sloane.  He hated that this was the first time they had really spoken in days, but he needed to see if his theory was correct.  “Sloane, I know you’ve been in three of these five places—the tower with Alice, the dining hall, and the breezeway.  Have you been in the other two?”

Sloane glanced at him.  He felt resentment in her look, but mostly just a heavy fatigue.  She looked away, stepping towards the table.  She tilted her head for a moment before nodding.  “Yeah.  I spent some time there a couple times.  I was talking to Devlin.”

Karhi didn’t know who Devlin was, but it didn’t matter.  “And the closet?”

At that she looked away from the table completely.  “Uh . . .”

“Sloane,” Mira said.  She stood next to Sloane and looked like an annoyed parent.  “Really?”

She shrugged, throwing her arms up.  “Whatever.”  He could feel a little bit of embarrassment creeping into him from Sloane.

“What?” Karhi pressed.

Sloane scrunched her nose before huffing out an annoyed breath through her nose.  “I hooked up with Amara in that closet.”

Karhi nodded, looking back at the map.  “The brightness of the light indicates how strong the attack on the area was?”

“Yes,” Matadi said.

“So, in order, it looks like the degradation from most to least is: dining hall, breezeway, supply closet, tower where Alice was hurt, and the tower across from the armoury.  Or, to put it in context, the place where Sloane drank dead man’s blood meant for Cyly.  Then, the place where Sloane spent several hours lurking and was later attacked by Saeran.  Then, the closet where she hooked up with someone, the tower where she and Alice were attacked, and a tower where she spent an amount of time.”

He could see Matadi, Aoife, and Hazel working it out in their heads.

“I would suggest you check out how Mira’s room and the dungeon is doing in terms of magic degradation.  We already know how Sloane’s room is doing.”

Savita was the first to say it out loud.  “She’s a cursebreaker.”  She sounded stunned.

That got Sloane’s attention.  “Cursebreaker?  Yeah, I’ve been called that.”

“By whom?” Hazel asked.  She didn’t look quite as stunned as Savita, but she was surprised.

Sloane glanced at Mira, who shrugged.  “She’s not a secret after what happened in October.”

“Queen Corvine,” Sloane said.  She glanced at Karhi for a moment before looking away.  “She calls me that.”

“Fuck,” Aoife said.  Her head had fallen back on her shoulders, and she was rubbing her eyes.  “Fuck fuck fuck.  Savita, we—”

“I know,” Savita interrupted.  “I’ll be right back.”  She left without another word.

Aoife looked at Sloane.  “How in the hell?”

Sloane was getting frustrated.  “What are you talking about?” she wanted to know, just short of snapping. 

“A cursebreaker is someone who degrades magic,” Matadi finally said.  “Please take several steps back from my table.  It’s very delicate and if you break it, it will take weeks to fix it.”

Mira took Sloane’s hand and stepped away from the sand table with her.

“Did you already know?”  Hazel asked Karhi.

He shook his head.  “No, I just put it together.  Sloane mentioned something a while ago about how the Queen of Ravens owed her a favour because she could interfere with magic.  And I realized that everywhere you had mentioned, Sloane had been.  And some places were places where she felt strong emotions.”

Aoife groaned.  “Heavy emotions degrade magic faster.”

Karhi continued.  “Others were just places she spent a lot of time in.  The dining hall had the worst of it, which makes sense, considering what happened there.  And she said she liked the breezeway because the magic eventually stopped bothering her.  Because she was degrading it.”

“Fuck me,” Aoife said.  “And this is just your passive ability?”  She shook her head incredulously.  “Fuck, Sloane.  You could destroy this entire castle if you were a few hundred years older and more disciplined.”

Karhi felt Sloane’s uncertainty like ice against him, and it reminded him of his duty.  He was her sire.  He should be taking care of things that she was too out of her depth to handle on her own.  He should have been doing it all along, instead of moping, but better late than never, he supposed.

“What does this mean for Sloane?” he asked.  “I imagine that it’s very likely that she was part of the reason why the shield failed when she was with Alice, but I can’t imagine she was the sole reason.”

Matadi was the one to answer.  “I’m waiting for Savita to come back from checking the shields, but I agree with that assessment.  Cursebreakers can be unparalleled in their power, but Sloane alone couldn’t have caused that breach.”

“Do you suspect that Sloane was involved?”  That was Karhi’s primary concern.  He, of course, knew better.  But he wanted to make sure that they agreed.

“I will defer to Aoife,” he said.  “I don’t believe so.”  Hazel was nodding in agreement with Matadi.

Aoife shook her head.  “Nor do I.  But I think we need to have Savita take Sloane’s memories.”

Karhi immediately felt Sloane’s fear.  “Why?” she asked.  “Why can’t Mira do it?”  Her voice shook.

“It’s a conflict of interest,” Aoife shook her head.  “We can’t—”

“No.  I won’t,” Sloane interrupted.  Her hands were shaking at her sides.  “Not after last time.”

“That won’t happen again.  We will only use a neuropath of Mira’s calibre—”

“Savita?” Sloane asked, nodding to where Savita had originally stood.  “I felt her in my head the fucking moment we walked in here.  I can only imagine how she’ll do with trying to pull memories out of me.”  Her voice was thick with disdain that only barely hid the fear.  Karhi could feel it rising in her like boiling water frothing over.  “I—”

Mira, who had mostly been quiet since they had entered the war room, cut her off.  “Sloane.”

Sloane didn’t even have a chance to react.  The moment her attention flickered to Mira, Karhi felt an immediate calming warmth flow over Sloane.  He felt Sloane’s indignation, but it was immediately swallowed up and dulled into vague annoyance.

“No fair,” Sloane growled without any real heat.

“The sooner we get this done, the sooner you get to leave.”

Sloane grumbled, but she didn’t argue.

The door opened and Savita re-entered.  “The shields were attacked by magic.  Likely, Sloane’s presence made it worse.  Somehow they had to have known that breaching close to her would be an issue.”

Karhi’s eyebrows rose.  “They knew she was a cursebreaker?”

“If they didn’t, it was one hell of a coincidence,” Savita replied.

Aoife was the one to speak next.  “Then we need you to go through Sloane’s head—make sure we didn’t miss anything.”

Karhi felt Sloane’s annoyance, but it was still dulled by the calm that Mira had forced on her.

Savita looked from Aoife to Sloane.  “I’ll be fast,” Savita told her.  “I saw what you did in the dungeons and I don’t wish for a repeat of that.”

Sloane’s jaw clenched.  She glanced at Mira, whose expression was neutral.  They must have had some telepathic interaction because Sloane finally said, through gritted teeth, “Fine.”

Savita clapped her hands together.  “Yes.”  She motioned to an armchair close to the door by a small table and another armchair.  “Please sit down.  Most people don’t feel my intrusions, but I know you’re not most people.  I want you to be comfortable.” 

“You want me to be comfortable?” Sloane asked, moving to sit in the chair.  “Don’t go in my head.”

“Unfortunately, not an option.  But I want to walk you through some breathing exercises to calm you enough to go through your memories.  Can we do that?”

Sloane shrugged one shoulder.

Savita pulled up another armchair in front of Sloane and sat close enough that their knees almost touched, but not quite.  “Alright, so we’re—”

You never explained to me why Amara lied about sleeping with that succubus.

Karhi clenched his fists to keep from jumping.  Sloane glanced at him while Savita continued to talk her into a breathing exercise.  He gave her a strained smile but didn’t say anything.

Aren’t you supposed to be keeping her calm? he asked.

I can multi-task.  I have a child that I have to calm down from meltdowns who has the same powers I do.  Sloane is a piece of cake when she isn’t actively in the middle of a flashback.

Karhi was too far out of his depth to argue with her, and he wouldn’t bother trying. 

Good man.  Now, tell me.

It wasn’t like Karhi could do anything useful while Savita asked Sloane questions to ascertain if she was truly telling the truth about everything that happened up to now.  Karhi knew Sloane had no idea what a cursebreaker could do before today.  Savita would find that, too.

Fine.  When a human or a living vampire hasn’t had enough blood for a long time, they will go into frenzy—the bloodlust drives us to kill and drink any human we come across.

That’s what happened to you when you were first sired, she said.

That was where he had gotten his nickname, Tuhkanharmaa.  Yes, he replied tightly.  But also, fledglings are prone to frenzy just as a hazard of being so new to being vampires.  So I had that twofold.  Which was why he had killed almost fifty people a month into being a vampire.

Ok.

Karhi continued.  We’re only driven by thirst, though.  There’s no emotional component.

Now, the ‘bae have the thirst for blood.  And the hunger for emotions.  And the ability to feel the emotions of everyone around them.  And they are basically a giant lure—anyone they set their sights on is immediately enamoured by them if they don’t have previous training to block it out.  He paused for a second.  And also, if their intended target doesn’t feel sexual attraction to the vampire.  Lesbian human with a male vampire.  Asexual human with any vampire.

Mira didn’t nod physically, but he could feel her acknowledging that she got it.

Now, imagine—you’re horny all the time, you need to drink blood, you need to consume emotions, you can make anyone want you, and you’re young with very little control and no way of blocking out anyone’s desires or your own.

He felt Mira’s understanding before she said, That’s a perfect storm for awful things.

Yes.  And with age comes wisdom and control, of course.  Faren is very careful about who he allows into power underneath him.  But for a long time, the ‘bae were viewed as savage monsters who could not be controlled.  It was why they were killed on sight before Hazel rose to power.

A lot of people still think like that.  And caution is warranted, sure, but the outright hatred is just based in bigotry at this point.  They have a much better grasp of the ‘bae nowadays.

So, Mira said, any time something happens around one of the ‘bae, even if they’re not behind it, they get blamed?

Correct.  So, if something bad had happened to Amara, Ciara could come under fire for ‘being the reason’, even if she wasn’t.

Hm.  Yeah, I suppose it would be a bad look if something happened to Hazel’s prized pet.

Karhi’s brow furrowed.  What?

Before Mira could reply, Savita said, “We are finished.”  She looked at Hazel.  “As suspected, she does not have any extra information, and she did not know what it meant to be a cursebreaker until today.”

Sloane was already standing up.  “Great,” she said.  “Good.  I can leave now, then?”

“Yes,” Hazel said.  “I would like if you could go to the infirmary and stay there until Alice is stable enough to be turned.”

Karhi felt Sloane’s apprehension.  “Is it . . . like a hospital?”

Hazel tilted her head to one side, considering it.  “Yes, I suppose it is.  You don’t need to stay in the infirmary, if it makes you uncomfortable.  If you could stay near it, that would work well enough.”

“Where is it?” she asked.

“I can take her,” Karhi volunteered.  The last time he had been here, he had spent a lot of time in the infirmary because Hazel had been badly injured in an assassination attempt. 

“Very well,” Hazel said.  “Please return once you are done.  I would like to speak with you.”  She turned to Aoife.  “Would you take Mira to Faren so they can resume the interrogations?”

“Sure,” Aoife said.  “Cyly’s study?”

“Correct.”

Wasn’t Karhi supposed to be doing the interrogations?  Why had he been replaced with Faren?

He quickly decided that it wasn’t worth it to ask right now.  He could feel Sloane’s annoyance with him seeping into his head like cold water.  Normally her annoyance was hot and angry against him.  The fact that this was cold—it had been sitting for a long time. 

He really needed to fix this.

He glanced at Sloane and nodded to the door.  She glared at him, but she went.