Menace of Mine

A witch and her wildcard. Girls and their games.

The bells tolled, calling the girls to prayer. Avice watched them file toward the Sanctum in an orderly fashion, prayer beads clenched in frigid fingers, fur-lined cloaks enfolding winter-lean frames. Avice crossed the courtyard in the opposite direction, her eyes fixed on the bloody glow of dusk as the sun was subsumed into the western horizon.  

A few girls called out to her--solicitations, salutations, snubs--but Avice ignored them, head bowed, hand curled covetously around the bone dice in her pocket as she crossed the courtyard toward the High Priestess’s quarters. 

It had been a beautiful day, cloudless and crystalline in a way that made the sky feel interminable, boundless. Severe clear. Aside from the compound where the Sisters worked and worshipped, there was nothing around for leagues, and on days like this, Avice fancied she could look west across the rolling green fields of the Northern Glades, all the way to the cold, corrosive capital of Kaldervest. 

A pinch. A pained, pitiful groan. Avice glanced down at the bone strung around her wrist. It was cutting into her skin with painful pressure--a summons. Invidia was calling. 

Joy. 

Avice picked up her pace, biting her lower lip almost bloody as the string incrementally tightened its grip. The High Priestess was getting impatient. Avice knew from experience that if she dallied long enough, the string would score into the skin. On some days she made a game of it, reckoning with the pain until her hand was numbed, her fingers blue-black. The other girls found it a right lark; claimed the colour was a result of too much death magic. Claimed she was going necrotic, like her magic, like her mother. On other days, she raced to the High Priestess with swift immediacy, like a dog called to heel. 

Theirs was a relationship of pendulous extremes. On good days: a harmony. An understanding Avice didn’t have with anyone else. Goals aligned, whether that be in magic, malfeasance or general mayhem. Something that was shaped like love, but wasn’t. On bad days: a deep well of resentment, a broiling pit of it, malicious and malformed.

Avice reached the outhouse comprising the High Priestess’s quarters. She preferred to keep her rooms away from everyone else’s, away from the press of curious eyes, or the strain of eavesdropping ears. It was stone in its entirety. (Invidia had expressed a particular preference for buildings comprised of non-flammable entities. Her ‘healthy respect’ of fire remained a topic of great speculation amongst the Sisters.) It made the buildings formless and gelid, particularly when winter hit, and the Northern Glades’ notoriously inclement weather pummelled the compound like a battering ram. 

The front of the outhouse always inspired the same feelings in Avice: nostalgia, chased swiftly by a deeply pitted terror. She knocked once with a rapidly purpling hand. A voice from within, lovely and melodious, called, “Come in.” 

She entered the room more swiftly than politeness allowed, the hem of her cloak flying out behind her, spectral. High Priestess Invidia sat behind her large oak desk, its surface scarred with scratch marks and blackened with burns, a sheaf of parchments spread out before her. The miasmic green glow of her eyes was fixed vacuously on the papers as she twirled her quill with an idle hand. She glanced up at Avice’s harried entrance, gaze clearing. 

“You look tired.” 

Avice brought a hand to the string of bone at her wrist; the proximity to Invidia had allowed it to loosen its stranglehold. This was the High Priestess’s way: concern for Avice’s suffering whilst still being willing to cause it.  “Good eve to you too, High Priestess Invidia.” 

A flash of teeth. “Menace of mine.” 

“Anything interesting?” Avice motioned to the papers. 

“If you find rabble-rousers and tax evaders interesting.” 

“In all fairness, we do collect taxes under false pretences.” 

Invidia lowered the quill and steepled her fingers. Her gaze was mock-chiding. “This is a place of religion, Avice. Perhaps we don’t worship their preferred god, but it’s no wrong-doing to demand tithes, as is our due as a devout order.” 

“Pretty and pious. Engrave it on my tombstone.” 

Invidia loosed a soft breath that might have been a laugh. “Any nightmares? As I said, you look poorly rested.”

“Perhaps that’s because Amaya never f*****g shuts up. She even argues in her sleep, did you know?” 

Invidia clicked her tongue. There was a subtle rebuke in her eyes. Her voice was all honey. “Come now, Avice. Honesty, if you can manage it. The nightmares?” 

She gritted her teeth. “Nothing unusual.” 

“Him?” 

“He talks. I don’t listen. I’m awfully good at that.” 

Invidia’s eyes were agleam with something Avice couldn’t name, toxically green, irradiated. “What does he say?” 

Avice felt for the frayed edges of her temper. “He whispers sweet nothings in my ear, plans for domination of the entire world, armies of the dead, raised at my hand, the next Dread Witch, Avice Valeria Ectorius--”

“Don’t ever say that name.” The High Priestess cut through Avice’s ramblings with a voice like a scythe. She rose from her chair with such fluid fierceness that Avice found herself rearing back on instinct. She felt little all of a sudden, a child dwarfed by the indomitable force of nature that was Invidia. “You must never say it. That girl is dead.” 

Avice took a moment to regain her equilibrium. She buffed her nails against her cloak with feigned nonchalance. “Died in a fire along with her mother, I heard. A true tragedy.” 

Invidia went very still. There was a shared wound between them, a wound named Aella Ectorius. Her name was never spoken; her fate was a tragedy that they danced around with exacting precision. Avice wasn’t sure if Invidia had hated or loved her. The High Priestess was someone who felt things with such uninhibited passion that Avice was oft hard-pressed to distinguish her love from hate. All she knew was that Aella was a wound that had been left to fester--for them both--and it poisoned any purity of feeling that might have existed between them. 

She forced herself to meet the intensity of the High Priestess’s gaze. She knew, with one fleeting look, that she’d overstepped. “She’s dead,” Avice demurred. “I understand.”

And she was dead. Avice Ectorius--the Avice she might have been--died sixteen years ago. What had emerged from her ashes was as polluted and bitterly cold as the Vate. 

“See that you do.” For a moment, Invidia’s expression was pure ice, then, between one eyeblink and the next, it smoothed over; her stance went languid. She smiled, wide and wrong, wrong so wrong. “I have a gift for you.” 

Avice stiffened. Invidia was as mercurial and changeable as the tides. Her sudden change in disposition meant nothing good. “Oh?” 

“It’s in my solar. Come! Come!” 

Avice followed the High Priestess out of her study and into the adjoining solar. It was perhaps Invidia’s nicest room, hung with silks and tapestries from all corners of the world: Allavia, Sidonia, Aschere, Rava, and the Velios Isles. Whether Invidia was well-travelled, well-to-do, or merely a thief remained up for debate. Avice rather thought it was a mixture of all three. 

Usually, the solar acted entirely as a sitting room. On better days, Invidia and Avice sat at opposite ends of the damask couch, drinks in hand--be it wine or water--discussing anything and everything, or else maintaining an amiable silence. On days like those, Avice was reminded of just why she loved Invidia, despite everything. She was reminded that Invidia was magic, like her, and their magic was might. She was reminded that Invidia had been the only one to come for her all those years ago, the only one who understood the entire truth of Avice’s brutal initiation to the world. 

Today was not one of those days. 

For one thing, there was already someone in the solar. The man--so bloodied he was little more than a great amorphous bruise--was tied to a chair with thick rope, his legs and arms bound. Blood ran in rivulets from his nose, a gash in his forehead, a cut on his lip. A bright red bruise, already darkening to brown, bloomed beneath his right eye. The man spied Avice and spat furiously at her feet. 

Avice kept her expression carefully flat. “Your pet’s rather rude, High Priestess.” 

Invidia eyed the man disdainfully. “Are the accommodations not to your liking?”

The man bared his teeth. “I’ve had better,” he snapped. 

“Does he bite?” asked Avice curiously.

“Haven’t gotten close enough to find out.” 

“His bruises suggest otherwise.” 

“Ah. It was Amaya and Soleil who brought him in. You know how Amaya is.” 

Avice rather thought Amaya had the temperament of a rabid dog, but refrained from saying so. She stepped closer, eyeing the man’s attire carefully. He was unassuming: close-cropped hair; pallid, pinched face; bulky build. But his attire… “He’s with the Vigilae Magus.” 

“Correct.”

Avice whirled on the High Priestess, trying to parse her tone. “What is he doing here?” 

“He ran afoul of our wards.”

“By coincidence?” 

Invidia gave her a bland look. “That’s highly doubtful.” 

Avice agreed. The Vigilae Magus were the enforcers of the lex magica; in simple terms, they imposed magical law. They were also vicious animals, hunting so-called lawbreakers with the ruthless, single-minded intensity of bloodhounds. What constituted a breach of the lex magica remained a topic of great contention. They seemed to change their minds every other day. Mindmagic was a despised art; bonemagic even more so. Large gatherings of witches often found themselves accused of crimes they hadn’t committed, if only to force them to disband. Covens posed a threat to the might of the Witch Empire aristocracy, after all. What right did the Castrov royalty have to sovereignty if they could be out-magicked by some rabble-rousing coven? 

Magic was loved in the Witch Empire. Of course it was. 

Until a witch got a little too clever. 

It was for that reason that the Sisters of Sanctity existed. They were a religious order. Nothing more. They worshipped the God of the Good Death, the gentle Tsara, with her soft hands and her genial smile. They did not practice magic. That was the story--the lie--that kept them safe. And if the Vigilae Magus were sniffing around, they were in a great deal of trouble. 

“Have you had someone look inside his head?” she asked. 

“Soleil had a rummage around in there when he was caught. He has some mental defences, so she could only catch snippets, but she assures me he was scouting this area intentionally.” 

Avice went still. “They suspect us.” 

Invidia made a noncommittal noise. “They suspect something.” 

“Are there others?” 

“Just him for now. I imagine he was the scout.” 

“And what happens when he doesn’t return?” 

Invidia shook her head, lips a grim line. 

“Can Soleil not take the memory of this place?” 

“A good idea, but ultimately a useless one,” said Invidia. 

“How so?” 

“If he goes back to his cohorts with no memory at all, it looks suspicious. They’ll keep coming back. What we really need is to alter his memories entirely. He’d need to remember scouting and finding nothing of note. But his mind is too well-protected for that sort of intricate mind-magic. At least at Soleil’s level.” 

“So why am I here? I’m no mindmage.” 

“Misery is when the monsters get in, Avice. He first has to break. Then his mind might be malleable enough to mould.” 

Avice understood, but oh, how she wished she didn’t. “You want me to torture him?’ 

“I want you to dismantle him. I don’t care what that entails.” 

For all the years of the High Priestess’s warnings and rants about the B*****d Prince Casimir and his penchant for sadism, his proclivity for pulling people apart piece by piece, Avice often wondered if Invidia wasn’t trying to turn her into him. 

“This is a gift, Avice,” she continued. “You get to torture an enemy of the coven. The other girls wish to be so lucky.” 

And there it was: You’re special. You’re blessed. You’re better than the others. This constant battle. Yearning to impress the High Priestess, to please her, to pay her back in some small way for bringing her back to life all those years ago, whilst simultaneously yanking at the bit. Avice felt for the chain of bone around her wrist, a leash that the High Priestess could tug on when she was displeased, a reminder that Avice was owned rather than loved.

Avice steeled her mind-space. She imagined her head to be a Venus flytrap. Any unwanted thought that got close to the surface was consumed with voracious rapidity and then dissolved in acid. She felt her face fall flatly disinterested, mimicking her mind.

With little fanfare, Avice pulled her bone-handled blade from her boot and cut the man out of his bonds. He looked at her for a moment with the beginnings of misplaced hope. “What are you--” he began. 

Avice rounded the chair and tipped it up, sending the man sprawling. She used the toe of her shoe to roll him onto his back, smiling prettily. “You’ll forgive us girls our games.” 

He looked appropriately horrified now. “Games?” 

“The sort where I break your bones until you say something interesting.” 

“I have nothing to say.” 

“You could always do something interesting,” put in Avalon with calculated disinterest. 

Avice was nodding. “A merry jig, mayhaps.” 

The horror grew. “You’re f*****g insane.” 

Avice glanced up to see Invidia smiling. She always liked Avice best when she was at her most chaotic. Avice unleashed, she called it, as if she were some cataclysm or natural disaster. The string of bone around her wrist hummed, looking for connection. Avice manipulated her magic with a firm tug, unspooling it from where it resided in her gut. She swept to her knees at the man’s side with muffled curiosity, her hand finding his leg. He curled away from her on instinct, his eyes flashing briefly with a panicked sort of defiance. Avice recalled what it was to feel this way: cornered, trapped. The sick lurch of the gut. The anticipation of pain.

The world had become muted and hazy, painted into dream-like nebulousness. Such was the way of her mind-scape: bolted down and reinforced with iron-like strength, it created a partition, a sort of filter, between Avice and the world as she experienced it

She held fast to him, the magic in her string of bone connecting seamlessly to his leg. A tremor seemed to quiver through him. “Bonemage,” he hissed.

She held his eyes with a mirror-like glaze. “Confractus.” 

The man’s lower leg snapped with brutal efficiency. He made an animal sort of sound, wounded and whimpering, his body curling further in on itself. 

“Our progress requires the attenuation of you and your ilk. Your progress requires the opposite. It’s why we can’t let you go,” Avice said flatly. “We need to know what you want.” 

The man made a strange sound, half gasp, half groan. “We want you lot, you crazy b***h. We’ve been watching you for--” he laughed, high and horrible “--for weeks. We know you’re practising witches, and we know you’re no elemental mages. You have bonemages and mindmages and bloodmages. And you’re harbouring someone--someone important.” 

Avice stiffened. She turned to Invidia, who had gone still and stone-like. Her eyes gleamed with pinpoint potency, brilliant in their rage. “We have a traitor.” Avice shuddered at the pitilessness in her voice. “We need to know more.”

Avice clamped down hard on her mind-space. The way the man was curled up--foetal and fixed and frightened--set something ringing in her head, high and hollering like the Sanctum’s bells. “Can you not…” She trailed off at the fierce look on Invidia’s face.

“If you cannot bring yourself to protect what’s yours--to protect it with blood--” said the High Priestess, “you will never survive what’s to come.” 

Avice trailed her fingers, lingering and lover-like, up to the man’s thigh. He whimpered once, a keening sort of denial. Her eyes closed in her own form of denial. 

“Confractus.”