The last chapter may have been confusing, so I'll briefly explain it. The intruder in Serrina's dream was Roger's spirit, a vestige of him that had remained strong enough by feeding off Kyra's mother, who is described as a powerful conduit. The person in the second half of Serrina's dream was Lasha, Serrina's twin sister, who gave Serrina a valuable clue in how to lock Roger away.
SpectralLady: Glad the last chapter made you shiver grin Must admit, I've always been worried about dealing with a character who the author has already finished off, but I just couldn't resist featuring a daughter of his blood.
Zerrin: I shan't repeat your comments, but I loved them!
Conte's Secret: Chapter 14
Flame exploded from the creature's skull. It grinned at Serrina, at how her right hand was stuck in its eye sockets, laughing at how she wriggled, shrieked and tried to pull free. Then the flames began eating the creature in noxious gusts of dark flame. "What are you?" she howled, trying to jerk her fingers out of its eye sockets, but magic held them there. Her shouts turned to pleading as the heat grew around her hand, "let me go! Don't make me—"
Its laugh was a hysterical cackle as she pulled harder. Her two fingers throbbed like she was forcing them into a furnace: she couldn't take much more! "Please!" she sobbed.
She gave one last shriek then fumbled with her left hand, pulling the dagger from the small of her back, and swept it around, whipping it through the creature's head. Breathing raggedly, the head still fastened around her fingers, smoke curling up from it and her hand, she spun on her heel and ran to the water trough, slamming her hand down into it.
Steam exploded out of it and the head's cackling changed to roars of agony, making Serrina shudder with the inhumanity of it. Then the head began to dissolve, falling away from her fingers. Tears ran down her face at the pain of it and she refused to move her hand from the trough for many minutes.
Finally there was nothing left of the head. She jerked around, now conscious that there may be something left of the demon creature. "What are you?" she called as she focused into the shadows, searching for the creature. She eased her throbbing hand from the cold water and shakily looked at her hand. It was red-raw, bleeding and furrowed as though eaten by the hell-fire. Hefting the dagger in her right hand, she stepped closer to where the demon-creature had stood.
Gone.
Disappointment overwhelmed her as she realised that it could have been the one that murdered Lasha, or her father. Miserable with pain, she uttered a curse and went back into Lasha's house. "I wish…" she said softly then stopped herself, feeling foolish.
In the kitchen, she searched hidden cupboards for bandages then clumsily tried to bandage her arm.
"Salve for that, milady," Dora said in a subdued way. "It's too burnt to press it into a bandage. You bathe it while I prepare some burn salve." She fetched a large mortar and a pestle, then went to another cupboard for her store of medicine herbs. She began grounding the herbs into a sticky paste with the mortar and pestle as Serrina patted her arm dry gingerly, hissing between her teeth as she did so.
"Is that what killed milady Lasha?" Dora asked softly, bringing the pestle to Serrina, bidding her to sit down at the table. Serrina obeyed, "yes, it is. You saw it?"
"More than that, milady," Dora said softly. "I believe I know what they are. I believe they are deathlings."
"Deathlings?" Serrina breathed and leaned closer, her eyes fierce with the need to know. "Tell me!"
"They come near the end of the year, and only then," Dora said softly. "They dance to the spirits' tunes. That's what my grand-dam always told me. You must find out which spirit is singing the tune they dance to. For this spirit will always have a terrible purpose for the deathlings. They are never idle."
"So Lasha…and Father…" Serrina said softly.
"The deaths they give, are never idle," Dora said, lowering her eyes. "What they did to Lasha, and to his highness, will never be accidental, nor careless. Deliberation is the deathling."
"How can I kill them?" Serrina demanded.
"Beheading," Dora said. An ironic smile twisted at her lips, "as you found out. But never let your right hand near them ever again."
"Why?" Serrina grimaced as Dora spread salve over her arm, gently kneading it in with her fingertips.
"Once in hellfire, lose what's dear, twice in hellfire, lose all here," Dora intoned.
"Translation?" Serrina said, annoyed.
"Once burned by hellfire, you lose a part of you. Twice burned by hellfire, you lose all inside you and what's left is nothing but a deathling. No heart, no soul, no life, no mind."
Serrina shuddered and looked at her hand. "So I've been once burned by hellfire? How come I don't feel any different? What exactly have I lost?"
"You shall only know once you see it," Dora replied and began wrapping the bandage around Serrina's arm. "Now hold still, milady."
"Tell me everything you know about the deathlings, please, Dora," Serrina asked quietly, holding her arm still.
Dora smiled faintly, her eyes focused on the deathlings. "They obey only the spirits, never the living. They must stay in tombs during the day, only coming out after sunset and returning before dawn. If you find the tombs where they were summoned, if you lock them out of it, they will wither in the sunlight."
"Wonderful," Serrina murmured, amber eyes thoughtful. "Tombs. Any tombs in particular?"
Dora frowned over Serrina's arm, "no. You'll have to check every tomb, I'm afraid. And how many tombs are there, milady?"
"There are tombs not even known," Serrina said downheartedly. "There are mass graves from battles, there are the royal tombs, there are the dark graves for the ashes of criminals. Sometimes families shirked on the money to bury their loved ones and just buried them in poorly marked gardens outside the city."
"They'll be within the city," Dora assured her, "if they have only the night to travel, they will be within the city."
Serrina smiled in relief and nodded, as Dora finished pinning the bandage. Serrina stretched out her arm as Dora knotted another bandage into a sling, and Serrina fitted her arm into it, feeling silly. "I hope this heals soon," she remarked and didn't wait for Dora's answer.
Instead she went upstairs to the room that had been Lasha's.
The disarray left by the deathlings had been tidied until it was as neat as Lasha would have left it. Now Serrina went to the bed and lifted the mattress to look under it, but she couldn't see anything there.
"That's what Lasha said," she murmured, remembering the dream she'd had last night, or rather it had been a nightmare. Roger of Conte had been there but Lasha had come…or had she waited until Roger was gone? It was a befuddling, misty memory of a dream now, beaten down by the throbbing of her hand.
She struggled again to shove her right shoulder under the mattress so that she could use her left hand to search deeper. This time her fingers brushed against something hard: something cold, so cold that it sent a shudder through her as she gripped it and dragged it out.
This is it.
Serrina weighed it in her hand; she appraised the item's tarnished black appearance. It was a tarnished lock. When she ran her fingers over its cold metal, she felt the indentation of sigils and letters there, but her eyes refused to reveal them to her.
Laying the lock on the bed, she reached into her pocket for the key. It was warm in her hand, especially compared to the lock's coldness. When she slipped the key into the lock, it refused to turn.
"I'm not the right person," Serrina murmured, frowning, then put the key and the lock into her bag. "I'm leaving, Dora!" she called down the stairs. Dora was sitting hunched over in the chair by the fire. A book lay open at her feet.
"Light reading, Dora?" Serrina teased, reaching down to pick it up and almost put it into Dora's lap, then stopped. The smile was vanishing from her face. "Dora?" she asked normally.
"Dora?" she asked again. She reached a hand to Dora's down-turned chin, tilted up Dora's face. It sagged heavily in her hand, and the skin was cold and wet. "Dora?" she asked softly.
"Dora," she said softly, then let go of Dora's still chin. She stepped forward and kissed Dora's hair then stepped away, and left the house at a run, to the stables. "Amara!" she whispered loudly. "Come!"
The stable door clicked and the mare stepped out, her pale tail whisking nervously as she high-stepped to her mistress and whickered softly, uncertainly.
"Yes," Serrina told her softly, "we are alone, Amara. You, I and Kyra are very alone in all of this." Then she gave a bizarre laugh, pulled herself up onto Amara's bare back and pressed her heels to Amara. The mare sprung forward as though stung and burst into the gallop, leaping over the closed gate and vanishing into the cobbled street beyond it. "Please let Kyra be safe," Serrina whispered.