Corben's Thirst: The Thirst Within Part 1.5 by Johi Jenkins Page A

trashing form, and without a word slashed their swords through her chest.
    Charlotte!
    Her final scream shattered me.
    My soul froze. I just stood there, wanting to run to her but unable to move, unable to form a plan or even think. I could only watch the horror unfold before me. I had no command over my body. My lips were moving but no sound came out—I don’t even know what I was trying to say. I could only hear, could only watch—Charlotte’s screams had stopped, and in the next instant the Azra woman had bent over Charlotte’s still form, bringing the torch to her dress. The dress caught fire slowly at first, but as I watched, Azra’s hand moved over Charlotte, somehow spreading and feeding the fire as though the dress was coated in flammable liquid.
    Unable to cope any longer, I sank to my knees and welcomed the darkness once more as it took over me.
     
    ***
     
    A soft cry woke me up.
    Some hours had passed since Charlotte’s death. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I was certain. Without moving I looked out the window above me where I had passed out, and saw it was definitely nighttime, and although there was little moonlight, I was able to see everything clearly.
    My mind was fully alert; I knew where I was, and I was aware of my surroundings and of my body. I was numb but I could feel a strange new thirst. It would have been hard to ignore, the thirst, but for the fact that I also remembered clearly what had transpired. Charlotte’s screams echoed in my ears the second I came to, my mind replaying every detail of her death as clearly as if it had just happened. I shut my eyes trying to force the memory away, and focused only on her—her body, her soft skin, her laughter. And again I noticed that I was full of her.
    I could feel her inside me, her essence , with every breath I took. The feeling was so strong, so real, that for a second I questioned whether she was truly dead. But only for a second. I knew better than to raise my expectations. Charlotte was dead; I was only sensing her blood coursing through my veins as I had briefly the previous times she had healed me.
    Yet the feeling was so sweet that I didn’t want to move. I wanted to stay there and relish in the sensation of her . And I would have stayed there, feeling her, except for the cry that had woken me up.
    But I had something to do first. I sat up and forced myself to look out the window. No one was below, and where Charlotte had fallen there was nothing but blackened soil and charred gravel. Her body was gone.
    I stood up and turned around, ready to go looking for her body. But there was another yelp, louder this time. It was a baby’s cry, and had come from a large basket propped on a table by the trapdoor on the floor… the trapdoor which was mostly covered by a heavy chest. I was surprised to remember that I had seen the basket and chest when I had first woken up some hours ago and discovered Thierry’s body, but I had paid little attention to them. Yet every detail of the room was imprinted in my mind. But there was no time to dwell on this discovery.
    I crossed the room and reached the basket, noticing I moved much faster than I could hours before. But I focused on the baby before me. It was Alexandra; she was waking up and making soft baby noises that I knew would turn into full screams in a few minutes.
    On the table beside her was a note, along with some parchment paper and a bottle of ink. The ink on the note was mostly dry, but with my sharp new vision I could tell that it was still fresh underneath its surface—as if it had been written only a few hours before. As I focused on the note my wounded heart almost shattered again as I recognized the penmanship.
    Charlotte’s handwriting. It seemed as if she had written the note with haste. It read:
     
    My love,
    I have little time to explain what I have done, therefore I must attempt to be brief. I woke up from the commotion of the servants to find you and your brother almost dead.