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“You can be a real prick, Tom. Do you know that?” I was shouting now, mouth laced with copper from the blood that spilled from my bitten cheeks.
“The truth can hurt,” he replied, brushing past me as he paced towards his bedroom door. “I think you should go. Take the day to think how your moods affect others, and maybe if I am still here tonight, which I really do hope I am not, you can come back, and we will finish where we left off.”
I could have vomited across my bare feet. Tom truly believed that I would come running back, even after what he had said. And the truth was… I would.
Auriol was right about him—of course she was; my sister was a keen judge of character when it came to everyone but me. The price I paid for Tom and the distraction he provided was this. When things were good with him, they were amazing, but when they were bad… well, he had a way of worming into my feelings and causing more pain than the sickness that the vampire blood kept at bay.
Sometimes I wished to tell him. To see if he would have not had any lick of honest, caring emotion if I told him I was dying. Then someone would know. But he would use it against me… I had no doubt.
The door to his room screeched open, and Tom held it wide, standing beside it like a silent guard.
I was not fully dressed, my boots lost in the mess of his room. There was no time to find them. Defeated, I kept my head down as I walked away from his bed. I could have said so much to Tom as I left, but instead I bit down on my tongue to keep myself silent.
A firm hand reached out and grabbed my shoulder. His touch shattered the spell of silence. “Arlo, I hope I see you among the crowds today.”
He didn’t. Tom’s emotionless tone told me as much. It was as though he forced himself to say it, his own way of apologising for his brash reaction this morning. Tom didn’t care. He was simply saying what he thought I wished to hear to feed his own twisted conscience.
I looked up at him, standing half a foot shorter than him. “For your sake, I hope you are chosen by them.”
Tom smiled; it reached his eyes, as though the idea of it brightened his very soul. Then he replied, voice alight with hope, “As do I.”
4
Many years had diluted the story of how Tithe came to be. Although the story was Darkmourn’s ugliest scar, those who still clung to the realm of the living chose to forget it. Mother used to tell Auriol and me the tale repeatedly, as though it was her most important lesson for us to remember. Not that I could ever have forgotten.
It started with the witches, as all things do. Selfish beings whose personal vengeance destroyed the world as it was known. Vampires may be creatures of nightmares, but witches were the masters who pulled the strings of that dreamscape.
The beginning of the story was hazy, or unimportant, as I had deemed it. But I remembered it started with heartbreak; most called it that, but I recognised it for its ugly truth. It was revenge and jealousy, or love if you wished to give it a name.
It was the end that mattered most, like all stories. The world changed when a male witch had been sent to Castle Dread to kill the creature that lurked within its walls. He failed and thus doomed Darkmourn and the world around it. Jak, his name still a painful reminder to everyone, was the last Claim of the old world…
Which was why I never understood why Tithe had given a name to the elves’ visits and made a festival out of it: the Choosing. It was no different to the old Claiming, reminiscent of the tales of the old world. The Choosing was simply a way of giving a terrible thing a pretty name in hopes to hide the truth of what the day came with: thievery, elves stealing what didn’t belong to them, taking loved ones away as payment for keeping us safe from the vampiric curse that spread through the outside world.
I had vowed to never take part. It was my parents’ last wish before they both passed. And like the witch boy who could not kill the first vampire, I had failed. Now I raced through Tithe, searching frantically for Auriol.
I pushed through the crowded streets, slipping past people squashed together like fish in a barrel. A trail of disgruntled sounds and comments were left in my wake, likely because of the sharp elbow I provided those who didn’t hurry and get out of my way. I didn’t care, I just had to find Auriol.
Searching for her among the crowd was like locating a needle in a haystack. A fucking big haystack. The streets of Tithe were full of colour. Every person I passed was dressed in their best clothes; jackets of deep azures and red dresses so lush that it looked as though they soaked the material in their blood, and I wouldn’t have put it past them. Desperation could lead one down a strange path, and the occupants of Tithe were certainly desperate to get the attention of the fey-kind.
In comparison, I looked dull. From my knee-worn trousers, pale cream tunic and the brown leather jacket which had more missing buttons than remaining ones, I stood out in the crowd far more than those around me did. Everything about the way I had dressed screamed my obvious lack of care or interest.
Tithe sang with excitement. It was filled with voices of the town’s occupants and had been from the moment I was kicked out of Tom’s house until I returned home to find Auriol had already left.
Find her. Mother’s voice filled my mind. It wasn’t her, of course. The dead stayed dead unless changed by a vampire, and Mother was never given enough time for that to happen. Nor had father when he died weeks later.
I had to shake the thought of them both. If I was to find Auriol among the swollen streets, I would need to focus, not be distracted by the conjured whispers of ghosts.
Living close to the centre of Tithe, there was one window in our home that gave the perfect view to the cobbled-stoned square and lonely ash tree that stabbed through the ground at its heart, and I knew that was where I would find her. No matter the season, the tree never lost a leaf or its colour; a deep emerald green blended seamlessly with the dusting of gold that spread over the thick foliage of the tree.
Leaving home, I ran for the tree and stood beneath its shadow that the endless spread of its foliage cast across the heart of the town. The human that was named Tithe’s first Watcher had said he witnessed the tree burst suddenly from the ground, and the elves followed shortly after. It was such an outlandish story that I wished it was nothing but.
I was surrounded by youth. Faces I recognised well were adorned in face paints and hair twisted into ridiculous nests of curls. The boys stood taller, faces unreadable and mysterious, as though they believed their allure would be what the elves would find most asserting.
My eyes flickered across the crowds in search of her.
I had to remind myself to breathe as my chest stabbed with anxious pain. One hand was pressed over my heart, the other gripping onto the vial hidden within the pouch at my waist; its closeness had always comforted me.
“Welcome,” boomed a voice so great it made me jump. “I cannot express how warm my heart is to see you all so poised and primed. Tithe has always been overflowing with beauty, and every year I only imagine how hard it must be for our guardians to pick one to take with them. This year may be the hardest choice yet!”
