deadly divinations

Chapter Three

The smile that lit Grudge's face was enough to make weaker stomachs than Sorrow's go sour. She reached within the bodice of her dress and pulled out a thin vial of yellow liquid. Sky's eyes became wide with fear as she, like all the others standing around Sorrow, stared at the vial in Grudge's stubby fingered hands. They all knew that the girl had stolen the Honey Serum of the Sons from the stock their Mother kept hidden in her sleeping chambers. As she stood there, gazing at the slender glass container, Sorrow knew that she couldn't back down. Stepping around Sky, Sorrow extended her hand and took the Serum from Grudge.

Tales had been told to them when they were younger. Tales of the dreaded things that the Serum did to the Sons who drank it. Ghastly hallucinations, a feeling of complete and total ruthlessness that crashed over the drinker, vision of the horrors that awaited them. The Serum was what made them realize that it was there fate to serve their father Father as he deemed fit. None of the Untouched Daughters knew what it was that the Sons did, but they knew that they weren't things that the gods would have condoned. Sorrow stared at the yellow liquid and wondered what she would she when she drank the Serum.

Inhaling slowly, she locked eyes with Sky. "Don't do it." the younger girl said. "I beg you."

Sorrow continued to stare at Sky, silent as one of the stone statues that stood in the middle of their fountain baths in the Daughter's Hall. After a long moment, Sky tore her eyes away from her friend's and looked down at her sandle-shod feet. Turning a defiant gaze towards Grudge, Sorrow pulled to cork out of the top of the vial and brandished it before the crowd of girls standing around her. "Bottom's up." she growled viciously.

The glass was cool against her lips but the Serum burned like fire. As it washed over her tongue, Sorrow tasted the single drop of honey that was placed in the mixture. Then came the sweet and spicy taste of the Dragon's venom that made up most of the concoction. The hallucination-inducing part of it. Finally, the warm copper flavor of Moon Elf's blood that brought on the feeling of ruthlessness. Violent deaths boiled their blood in their bodies and infused it with the ability to make the drinker feel what they felt in that last moment of life. Sorrow was only vaguly aware that the girls were running away from her, going to get their Mother no doubt, and that the empty vial had slipped from her hand to the ground. She dropped to her knees as the venom took hold of her mind and she was overtaken with images of things she never imagined her brain could paint.

They lay there in pools of their own blood, Sons of Darkness. A slender shadow cast itself over them and obscured the look of horror plastered on their face that the flickering torchlight offered up for viewing. They looked even more grotesque than they would have in pure moonlight. When she knelt down beside one of the nameless Sons, Sorrow caught sight of the person responsible for killing them. Within the thick pools of blood, she saw her own refection. The hair surrounding her slender face was blue-black in coloration, her eyes were crimson, the face more mature but there was no use trying to deny that it wasn't her. A pair of daggers rested in her hands blood smeared her face and tunic. As she continued to stare into the reflection, Sorrow couldn't believe what she was seeing. This creature couldn't be her. It just couldn't be!

"What has happened here?" Mother Fresia shouted. Her voice sounded distant.

Sorrow turned slowly, half expecting to see a horror strikened Mother. There was no one there behind her. Turning her face upward, Sorrow saw that swirling mist hovered above her. There within the mist was her Mother's worried face and the cerulean sky beyond her. This isn't real, the voice in her head reminded her. Turning her attention back to the dead Sons, Sorrow shook her head. This motion was enough to clear whatever fog the Serum had cast upon her mind. Slowly she came out of her trance and felt her Mother's cool hands upon her damp face and slowly her vision cleared.

"What happened to you, Daughter?" she asked softly.

"I tasted..." Sorrow began, her fingers finding the empty vial. Slowly she held it up for her Mother to see. "I tasted the Serum, Mother."

The look that washed over Fresia's face was one that made even Sorrow want to weep. She shook her head. "Someone tricked you into drinking it!" she hissed and in a fury she whirled on the young women ranged behind her. "Which one of you did this to her?"

Looks of complete disbelief washed over their faces as they gazed down at their Mother and Sister. Grudge's expression was one of absolute hatred, wheither for Sorrow or their Mother, Sorrow couldn't be sure. For a wild moment, she thought that she would confess to stealing the vial and hoodwinking Sorrow to drinking it. That, however, wasn't the case. All of them, even Sky, remained silent on the matter. When no one owned up to it, Mother Fresia turned back to her Favorite Daughter.

"Tell me what you saw Sorrow." she said in a flat voice.

Sorrow felt her stomach give a sickening twist. "They were dead at my feet, Mother." she said softly.

Her eyes widened and her voice was devoid of all emotion when she next spoke, "Who?"

"The Sons." Sorrow whispered.

"Sweet gods, no." the old woman whispered.

Rising to her feet, the Mother grabbed Sorrow's wrist and drug her to her feet. They hurried past the other Untouched Daughters and hurried back to the castle in which the Dark Ones dwelled. She continued to pull Sorrow behind her, the girl stumbling every now and then due to the fact that her body was still overcome with the effects of the Serum. As they made their way through the caste, Mother Fresia brought her into a part of the castle that Sorrow had never been. Deep under the castle proper rested a catacomb of dungeons and in the center of that maze of cells rested the First Son's Chamber. Sorrow had heard tales of this place from Cowan himself after one of her beatings but she'd never actually been brought down there. Her mind registered the path they took and shelved it away for future knowledge.

They reached a black laquered door after what seemed like an eterenity and on this door the Mother knocked three hard times. After only a moment, Cowan opened the door. His amber eyes shot to Sorrow's haunted gaze immediatly. In a moment, he knew why their Mother had brought her to him.

"It's happened then?" he asked in a whisper so soft that she almost didn't catch it.

Mother Fresia nodded but said nothing. Instead she pushed Sorrow towards him. Sorrow stumbled and fell forward into his waiting arms. Cowan looked down at her for a brief moment before turning troubled eyes back to his Mother. "You know what do." she said and in a swirl of black velvet she hurried back the way she'd come.

Cowan pulled her into the room behind him and her stomach gave a new sickening twist. A pair of chains hung from the cieling and all around them on the walls hung torture devices of every shape, size, and type. To the chains he drug her and clamped the manacles around her wrists. He untied her boots and removed them, tossing them in a corner of the room. He turned his face up so he could look at her as his hands went to the drawstring on her britches.

"You must know I've dreaded this for as long as I can remember." he said as he pulled her pants down.

His fingers made quick work of unclasping the silver toggles that held her shirt closed. Sorrow stared blankly at him, but her heart was pounding wildly in her chest. What was he going to do to her?

Once she was naked, Cowan moved behind her. A shiver ran down her spine as his fingers traced the silvery scars that traced her back. "The beatings aren't working, are they Little Sister?" he asked in a voice she's only hear him use when he tortured. Truly tortured. The beatings he issued to her were nothing compared to his true skill. She's watched him torment one young man one night at dinner. It was a form of entertainment that their Father enjoyed and used as a lesson to all his Children. It was something that Sorrow would never forget.

Cowan drew his hands away from her and the sound of his boots scrapping the floor as he moved closer to the nearest wall brought a new thrill of fear crashing down upon her. She heard him take something from the wall but she didn't dare look back at him to see exactly what it was. It was better not knowing. When he returned to her, Cowan placed his forehead on her shoulder.

"Know that I dont' want to do this." he pleaded in his torture voice. "Forgive me for this, Furiae."

Tears sprang to her eyes. One night, after a particularly bad beating, he'd asked her her name. She'd laughed at him and told him that he as being silly. With a serious expression on his face, he'd asked her once more for her name. Realization dawned on her and she whispered the name that her real mother had given her at her birth. From that night on, before every beating he issued her Cowan asked her forgivness and called her by her true name. This time when he spoke it, however, there seemed to be actual regret for his coming actions.

"Just do it, Brother." Sorrow forced herself to say.

Cowan lifted his head from her shoulder and positioned himself behind the girl. Cold steel was pressed against her skin in the next instant and a razor-sharp point traced it's way along each and every scar that covered her body. The pain that followed was so immense that Sorrow actually prayed for death. When the First Son came to stand before her, his dagger poised above her nether region Sorrow locked her blood-shot green orbs with his hollow amber ones. The moment the knife was drawn along the width of her sex, Sorrow let out a scream so loud it rang from the depths of the catacombs and even the corridors of the castle.

Throughout the Palace of the Night, people stopped to stare around them, a Mother sobbed into her hands as she listened to her Favorite Daughter's cries echoing in her skull, and a Father smiled maliciously.

Down in the First Son's Chamber, a young woman hung limply from her bonds and bled all over the Chamber floor and a young man loathed his very position in life within the Palace of Night. Both, however, were contemplating murder of the most vicious sort.