No. No. This isn’t right.
She’s dead. I saw her.
My gaze filters around the room to see more bleeding eyes. Their dresses change from black to white, and horrific wounds appear on their necks and chests. Then their skin becomes ashen, and dark blood spills across fabric, spreading outward like the day their death bell tolled.
A cold substance sloshes against my ankles. When I look down, thick blackish-red blood rises over my bare toes and the tops of my feet, a river of it. I stand abruptly, and the hem of my nightgown falls into the river. The blood rises rapidly up my gown and legs. It creeps by the second, rising up my body, crawling as though alive and trying to claim me as well.
Rayla grabs my arm harshly, turning me to her. Her dark hair is suddenly down, lying dirty and wet, framing her heart-shaped face. Her blue eyes are paler than normal as they glare into mine. “Why didn’t you warn me?”
I yank my arms away. “I could not.” But then hands are grabbing at me, more than one pair. They forcibly pull me this way and that. Nails sink deeply into my skin and claw as they try to retain their hold. I push most of them away, but more replace them before I can flee. My hair is yanked, and my gown tears.
Minister Alterre shouts my name again, in a demanding tone that has my head snapping up and my gaze finding his in the melee.
“The Devil lives in you, child. You do not belong here. You are not the Chosen.”
I gasp, and Grand Minister Judiah is there. I lift my head from the table and sit up straighter, from where I must have fallen asleep while studying. We’re in his study, and he sits beside me. His handsome face is a welcome sight and calms me from the nightmare. He doesn’t reprimand me for falling asleep. He simply points at the book in front of me, says, “Please proceed,” and nods.
I pick up the pen and dip it into the ink bottle at the top of the desk, then begin to jot down notes from the prophets of old. Few in our Order are given the privilege to study from this text. It is not the Good Book, but an extension of it. Something that’s been kept secret and safe for our leaders’ eyes only. I begin to scribble in haste because I’ve wasted valuable time in sleep, and I do not wish to return to the nightmare that had its hold on me.
The Grand Minister pets my back and smiles at me as I work quickly to record as much as possible. He’s a striking man, and his smile is a thing of beauty. Brown waves surround his tan face, and his blue eyes are both filled with youth and admiration. Sometimes when he smiles like that at me, my heart flutters in my chest. But I must not think of such things. He is, as I am, a tool for God to wield, and our looks do not determine the use we are to our redeemer.
When I finish my work, he rewards me by passing me a bottle of water. A few seconds later, he sets a small plate before me that holds a corner of a fresh loaf of bread. As I eat, he stands over me and grants me a special blessing, ending the prayer by anointing my forehead with holy water from the small bottle of it he keeps in his robes. Then he helps me to my feet and places a kiss on my forehead. It’s a brush of his lips, really. Merely skin on skin. Yet my entire body responds unnaturally, even though I try my best to control it.
As soon as I’ve finished with the bread, he places his palm at the center of my back, leading me to the door.
Instead of walking into the hallway and continuing toward my own quarters, I am suddenly horizontal and lying on my mattress. A small lit candle on the nightstand is nearly burned down to the dregs. The room carries a faint scent of incense. There’s a chill in the air, and my skin pebbles instantly.
Grand Minister Judiah is now above me in the bed. His robes are gone. An off-white nightshirt hangs off-center on his large, muscular frame. The black tattoos barely visible under his robes are present now, and even under his thin shirt, there’s a shadow of more dark markings on his skin.
“You did well today, and I’m sad to say that our lessons are nearing their end.”
His fingers are curled around the bottom of my nightdress. He rolls it and moves the hem higher and higher, revealing the swell of my thighs. My stomach somersaults as his fingers brush over my bare belly.
“To whom do we do this for?”
“God.”
“And why?”
“So that we may preserve humanity.”
“Yes, child.”
He smiles, gentle and certain, and his fingers slip to my center. My breath catches. My body answers him before my mind can retreat. Heat coils low inside me, and shame rises with it. I should not crave the sensation his touch stirs when we are this close. It is not something I should feel. It is something I should confess, so he can teach me how to control it. But I don’t. I never do. I’m too afraid he will stop visiting me altogether if I voice such things.
I bolster my courage and try to get the words out this time. “I need…there is something I wish to tell you.”
“What is it?” He stops momentarily, but his hands stay on my body, which doesn’t help the tsunami of sensations I’ve been battling.
I raise my eyes to his, then jolt back. I push up and scramble toward my headboard. The Grand Minister’s eyes are bleeding.
It’s then that I realize what’s happening, but like the times before, I can’t seem to stop it. I leave this nightmare only to fall into another.
In this new dream, I’m kneeling. As I take in my surroundings, chills spread over my neck and arms. The icy dampness of the cave is oppressive. As is the darkness, the sea of black rock.
Two dead maidens float in the pool of white and blue light. Their red robes billow around them like torn banners. One faces upward. Her mesh veil is gone. Her skin is chalk white and sunken, and where her eyes should be are only hollow black pits. As I watch, a white snake with light-green eyes slithers out one of her eyeholes and begins to make its way across the water toward me.
Suddenly, a white hand breaks through the surface of the water and grabs my thigh.
