Chapter 11
Lirael
My eyelids grew heavy despite my best efforts to stay alert, and I felt myself starting to drift.
Just rest for a moment, I told myself. Just close your eyes for a few minutes.
But the moment my eyes closed, the memories came flooding back.
---
I was ten years old, small for my age, my silver-gray eyes still too large for my face and my hair that dark brown that would only gradually shift to moonlit silver as I grew. The Hartfields had taken me in six months earlier, presenting themselves to the world as benevolent philanthropists rescuing an orphaned child.
For the first few weeks, I'd actually believed them.
The first crack in the illusion came over something trivial—a compliment from one of Mrs. Hartfield's friends about my "unusual eyes." I'd seen the flash of jealousy cross Victoria's face, quickly suppressed, but thought nothing of it.
Then my things started disappearing. My favorite books. The few possessions I'd been allowed to keep. And the small silver deer they'd given me as a pet—a creature I'd loved with the desperate intensity of a lonely child—began to grow thin and listless despite my careful feeding.
I found it three days later, locked in a storage closet where it had starved to death.
Victoria was the one who told me about the "special dinner." She said it was a celebration, that Mrs. Hartfield had cooked something wonderful just for me, and she smiled so sweetly as she led me to the dining room that I never suspected.
The meat was tender and perfectly seasoned. I ate three bites before I noticed Victoria watching me with an expression of such gleeful malice that my stomach turned to ice.
"Do you like it?" she asked, her voice bright with false innocence. "It's your little pet. Mother thought it would teach you not to get attached to things."
I remember the fork falling from my numb fingers. The way the room seemed to tilt. The way my vision blurred as tears began to fall for the first time in months.
And I remember the way those tears crystallized the moment they left my skin, transforming into tiny droplets of luminescent liquid that hit the tablecloth and began to glow.
Moon dew.
The Hartfields' eyes had gone wide with shock, then narrowed with a greed so naked it made my skin crawl. Mrs. Hartfield reached out with shaking hands to collect the droplets, holding them up to the light with an expression of religious awe.
"Do you know what this is worth?" she breathed.
I learned very quickly after that. They started with emotional manipulation—showing me pictures of dead animals, telling me stories designed to make me cry. When that stopped working, they moved to physical pain. High-intensity artificial moonlight that burned my skin. Silver-laced whips that left scars even my healing abilities struggled to erase. Isolation chambers that cut me off from all natural energy until I was so weak I could barely stand.
And through it all, Victoria stood and watched, sometimes even helped hold me down, her face bright with vindictive pleasure as she talked about all the beautiful things she'd buy with the money from my tears.
---
I jerked awake with a gasp, my heart pounding and my skin slick with cold sweat. For a moment I didn't know where I was—the gentle rocking of the yacht, the distant hum of engines, the narrow corridor outside my cage all blurred together in my disoriented state.
That was ten years ago, I reminded myself fiercely. You survived it. You're still here.
But my face was wet, and when I touched my cheek my fingers came away damp with tears I hadn't realized I was crying. In the dim light of the corridor, I could see them beginning to crystallize on my skin, that telltale shimmer that would be like a beacon to anyone with enhanced senses.
No, no, no—
The scent hit me a second later, that distinctive fragrance that normal humans couldn't detect. Sweet and cold, like night-blooming jasmine mixed with freshly fallen snow, with an underlying note of something ancient and wild.
I scrambled to wipe my face clean, my movements jerky with panic, but I was too late. I heard the soft click of his cabin door opening, felt the change in air pressure, and then he was there, standing just outside my cage with his golden eyes fixed on my face with predatory intensity.
He was wearing a charcoal silk robe, loosely tied, his feet bare on the polished wood floor. His hair was slightly mussed, and there was a sharpness to his gaze that suggested he hadn't been sleeping. He looked dangerous and far too alert for whatever ungodly hour it was.
For a long moment he just stared at me, his nostrils flaring slightly, and I saw the exact instant he identified what he was smelling. His pupils dilated, his lips parting, and something that looked almost like wonder crossed his face before it was replaced by cold calculation.
"Well," he said softly, crouching down until we were at eye level. "Isn't this interesting."
I said nothing, keeping my face carefully blank even as my mind raced. He knows. He can smell it.
His hand moved through the bars, his fingers finding my chin and tilting my head up with surprising gentleness. His thumb brushed across my cheekbone, collecting a tiny droplet of moon dew that hadn't fully crystallized yet, and he brought it to his nose, inhaling deeply.
"Moon dew," he murmured. "I'd heard the legends, but seeing it in person..." His eyes met mine, and the fascination in them made my stomach clench. "What were you dreaming about, I wonder? What memory could hurt badly enough to make you cry after all this time?"
Go to hell, I thought, but kept my expression neutral.
He smiled, slow and dangerous. "You're good at this. Better than most." His fingers moved from my chin to trace the line of the collar. "But I've been reading people for longer than you've been alive, and you're not quite as unreadable as you think."
Then, without warning, he opened the cage door. "Come here."
Every instinct screamed at me to refuse, to press myself into the back corner of the cage, but the memory of the genetic lock's pain was too fresh. I moved forward slowly, and his hands closed around my upper arms—firm but not bruising—as he lifted me out.
Instead of the violent handling I'd braced for, he swept me up almost carefully, one arm beneath my knees and the other supporting my back, and carried me toward his cabin. I went rigid with fear, my hands instinctively pushing against his chest, but he just tightened his hold slightly.
"Easy," he said, his voice low. "If I wanted to hurt you, I would've done it already. Right now I just want you somewhere I can keep an eye on you."
The words should have been threatening, but his tone was almost... conversational. As if we were discussing something mundane instead of my captivity.
His cabin was all dark wood and expensive fabrics, with floor-to-ceiling windows showing nothing but darkness and the occasional glint of moonlight on water outside. The bed dominated the space—a massive platform bed draped in charcoal silk—and my stomach dropped as he carried me toward it.
Please, no—
But he set me down on the edge of the mattress and stepped back, moving to a built-in cabinet where a crystal decanter waited. He poured himself a drink, then settled into an armchair across from me, regarding me with those unsettling eyes.
"Relax," he said, taking a sip. "I'm not interested in that kind of entertainment. Not yet, anyway." His lips curved into a slight smile. "You're far too tense for it to be enjoyable, and I prefer my partners willing and enthusiastic."
I didn't know whether to be relieved or more terrified.