The Bitter Taste Read Free

make sure I die so that you will not
be alone for eternity.”
    He smiled and rested his head against hers
for a moment.
    “Thank you. I'm sorry, little sister. I never
meant to leave you alone.”
    “I know that, Tepil. I place no blame with
you.”
    “Will I see you again?” Tepil asked at
last.
    “One day. Either we will walk this place
together for eternity, or we shall join mother and father in the
afterlife.”
    She reached up and cupped Tepil's face in her
palm. She suppressed a shudder as her thumb slipped inside the hole
in his flesh, and she was thankful she couldn't feel his teeth
beneath her finger pad.
    “Good bye, my sister,” Tepil murmured.
    “Good bye, brother. You will rest in
peace.”
    She smiled faintly and moved away from him,
turning her back to him as she left the hut. She didn't look aback
as the door closed behind her, but she felt the void he left behind
as the greying dawn light forced him back to his body.
    She stood and watched the dawn. It was a
swirling kaleidoscope of colour, brimming with life and promise.
She turned her back to it, walking towards the cliffs where she
could look out over the lagoon. She knew he would be waiting there.
She had always known he would be waiting there- when she was
ready.
     
    *
     
    “I expected you sooner,” he said, not turning away
from the ocean view as she came to stand beside him. “I didn't take
you to be quite so sentimental...”
     
    “He was the last of my family, and I loved
him dearly.”
    Yau glanced up at him, terrified despite the
familiarity of his features.
    Finally he turned away from the view and
looked down at her. He was shrouded in black- not material but
something older than time. It clung to his body, moulding to the
musculature. He did not have flesh, but he did have the front of a
human skull over his face. The bone was old and yellowed. The jaw
hung loose, giving him a permanent open grin. Within the maw she
could see his tongue lashing about. She would have turned and run
away but for his eyes. When he looked down at her she was engulfed
and encompassed in the cold, uncaring beauty of the stars. She was
safe in that gaze and she did not fear him as she would have done
once upon a time. He had haunted her dreams all her life, walking
with her as a child. He had been there when her first blood came.
He had taught her the potions she had used to help the village. He
had been there in her dreams when her parents had been taken, and
he had held her in strong arms when she cursed the names of all the
gods. He was the only one she had any faith left in.
    “I’m ready,” she said at last.
    “I know,” he replied, turning to stare back
out over the ocean. His voice was deep and gentle in her mind. “I
feel the power inside you,” he said after a moment. “I have
nurtured and fed it for so long, but it has always remained
immature. I feel there is no fear in you now. You are ready to
wield the gifts I could give you.”
    He turned to face her fully and reached out a
hand. Yau looked at it before taking it and allowing herself to be
drawn into his embrace
    “Do you remember what I promised you?” he
asked.
    “I do, and I am ready to accept my
responsibility.”
    “I will give you unimaginable power. As I am
lord over the souls of the dead, so I will give you dominion over
their bodies- to use as you see fit.”
    “Yes,” Yau murmured.
    “Do you feel my power inside you? Can you
feel the dead; their bones calling to you?”
    “Yes,” she murmured, her hands curling in the
shroud of nothingness.
    “Accept it. Take the mantle and be my
consort. Create with me a line of prodigy with dominion over the
bodies of the dead.”
    “I accept it,” Yau said. “All of it.”
    She stared up at the skull, deep into the
night-sky eyes.
    He was strong, his grip around her solid. She
smiled and raised a hand to touch the skull. She remembered the
fear he’d once inspired in her, but now that fear was replaced. She
felt hope for