This Dark Descent, page 25
Atara tossed her head and threw herself forward, breaking into one final, limping trot across the finish line.
The announcer’s voice cut through the thundering of hooves and blood.
“And in tenth place, Mikira Rusel!”
* * *
“WHERE IS SHE?” Ari barged into the makeshift stable, Damien and Reid at her back.
Mikira leapt up from where she’d been leaning against Atara’s stall, her exhaustion nearly dragging her straight back down. Atara had her right foreleg bent to keep the weight off of it. She whickered softly when Ari entered, lowering her head to be petted, and Ari slowed to capture the mare’s head in her hands.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, running her hand along Atara’s side. She stopped above the wound.
It looked terrible, the flesh rent by Gren’s knife down to the layers of muscle and fat beneath. Blood had matted in her dark coat and still leaked freely from the wound.
“Is there anything you can do?” Mikira held on to the stall door, helplessness overtaking her. If Atara couldn’t race, they were finished, but more than that, the idea that the horse might be permanently lame made her want to be sick. She thought of Ailene lying on the couch, the spark gone from her eyes.
“I don’t know,” Ari replied. “I usually never see golems again after I create them, but there’s a feeling…” She trailed off, her attention settling on something that the rest of them couldn’t see.
“What is it?” Mikira leaned closer.
“My magic. I can sense it, like a connection.” Ari pressed her fingers harder into Atara’s shoulder, and the horse huffed in annoyance but bore the pain. “Everyone be quiet.”
They obeyed as she closed her eyes and began to chant in Kinnish. Mikira watched in growing wonder as light wisped from her skin and gathered around Atara’s wound, before slowly knitting the skin back together.
When the light faded, the wound was gone.
“Thank the Goddess,” Mikira said in a rush of breath. “How did you do that?”
Ari stared down at her fingertips in distant wonder. It was Damien who replied, “I suspect since her magic formed Atara’s flesh, she had only to do the same thing again.”
Atara tossed her head, and Mikira grinned, collapsing into the nearest chair in utter exhaustion. She only realized she’d fallen asleep when she came to in an empty stall, Reid wrapping a bandage around her arm. She could feel the sting of disinfecting herbs across the bridge of her nose.
When Reid noticed she was awake, he seized a steaming mug of tea and thrust it in her face. “Drink this.”
“What is tea going to do?” she asked groggily but accepted the mug.
He blinked at her in mild affront. “What is tea going to—” He bit off the words, muttering to himself as he finished binding the wound. She didn’t miss how slowly he worked, his gentle touch, and the care he took.
“The others?” she asked.
“Are loading up Atara.”
“Pity,” said a saccharine voice. “I wanted to inspect the beast myself.”
Mikira lurched to her feet, the sudden movement leaving her dizzy. Reid steadied her as Rezek peered at them through the stall door. His sharp eyes took in Reid’s hand on her arm, and Reid quickly snatched it back.
Rezek traced one finger along the wooden groove of the door. “It seems you made an alliance. All anyone’s talking about is the rider that kept the others from finishing, though no one seems to know their name.”
Reid shot her a furrowed look of confusion, but Mikira ignored it. “That isn’t against the rules,” she said. “Not like targeting another racer and trying to kill them is.”
A smile curved Rezek’s lips. “Now, that would be a problem. I don’t suppose you have proof?”
Mikira gritted her teeth, trying not to say something she’d regret. Rezek’s fingers dropped to the door latch, and he flicked it loose. The door swung inward, and Mikira retreated a step, aware of every inch of space between them.
He took a single step inside. “Gren said your horse got injured. However did you manage to finish the race?”
Got injured, as if it hadn’t been Gren’s blade that did it.
“He was wrong,” Reid cut in. “It was another horse’s blood.”
Rezek came another step closer, his eyes still on her. “If you’re lying to me, Miss Rusel, the consequences will be far worse than any lost bargain.”
Reid shifted between them. Mikira wanted at once to disappear behind him where Rezek’s searing gaze couldn’t follow, and to tell Rezek to go to all four hells.
In the stretch of silence between them, a distant humming rose. She and Reid exchanged looks a second before the stable door flew open. A crowd had gathered outside, each craning their necks to get a glimpse inside. Their many voices coalesced into one: “Rusel! Rusel! Rusel!”
Every beat of her family’s name tugged at the fear inside her chest, unspooling it and fitting something new in its place. She seized Reid’s hand and pulled him past a scowling Rezek into the main stable. The crowd’s cheers redoubled, surging through her like the adrenaline of the race, buoying her.
From the back of the crowd, Damien and Ari watched her with knowing smiles.
Mikira glanced back at Rezek, who was staring at them with barely concealed annoyance. “I’m going to win,” she told him, and stepped into the crowd.
CHAPTER 30
ARIELLE
ARI CLOSED HER book of enchantments and rubbed her dry eyes, her head pulsing with a growing ache. She didn’t know how Damien did this for hours on end. Even now he was lost in the Racari at his desk, scribbling translations as he had been for the last several days since the third race.
Healing Atara had set off his curiosity, but all it’d done was make her more uneasy. Though she’d continued to wear her Saba’s necklace as he’d suggested, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very, very off. Everywhere she went, she felt the press of eyes, the inescapable feeling that something was always just out of sight. Her mind felt foggy and distant, her thoughts elusive things.
More than once, she caught herself wondering what would happen if she simply tore the necklace away and gave herself to the thing in the dark.
The wind howled, beating against the windows and tearing branches off trees. She let the sound soothe her. She liked to think of the power of the storm, to listen to it remake the world as it pleased. It felt a lot like the look in Mikira’s eye when the crowd had found her after the race—it’d changed everything about her, down to the way she’d held herself. She might not be able to enchant herself, but she had her own kind magic now.
Ari dropped the book onto a pile of others and went to pour herself and Damien a glass of whiskey, marveling all the while at how she could possibly feel comfortable enough to fix herself a drink in another person’s home. It was a small act, but it was the act of someone who belonged, and that was something she wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to.
“I think you might be obsessed.” She set his glass beside him, sipping her own. The various flavors shifted over her tongue, a pleasant burn trailing down her throat.
He glanced up distractedly, then turned back to the book, before realizing what he’d done and looking up again. “My apologies. My sister says I tend to lose myself in things.”
Mention of Shira sent a twinge of unease through Ari, though Damien claimed she had no designs on becoming heir. There were so many moving pieces circling around them: the Illinir, Damien’s bargain with Rezek, the Ascension to determine the next Adair heir, her troubling magic. She worried that sooner or later, one of them would come crashing down.
Damien glanced at the clock on the wall. “Is it really that late already?” He ran a hand through his hair and stood. “I have something I meant to give you earlier.”
He retrieved a flat white box from his room and held it out to her. She took it, curious, and set her glass on the desk. She ran her fingers along the black silk ribbon encircling the box. Foiled gold lettering repeated the same word over and over again: Sinclair, Sinclair, Sinclair.
It was a shop on Ettinger Street she’d only heard of in name, never thinking she’d have the chance to possess something from it.
“Open it,” Damien said softly, so she did.
Inside rested a dress of the most magnificent design she had ever seen. With careful fingers, she lifted it from the box. Black silk unfurled, sleek and glossy as a panther’s coat bathed in moonlight. Feathers of a deep crimson red gathered just below the waist and up along the sheer layers of black fabric that formed the bodice. Several trailed down the side, embers of color. They bobbed and shifted, like petals upon a pool of night.
“It’s beautiful,” Ari breathed.
“It’s for the Kelbra ball. I thought you might want to come tomorrow night.”
Once, that idea would have terrified her. Even attending the last race had been more public an outing than she’d had in a long time. But now the idea of stepping into that ballroom with Damien, Reid, and Mikira at her side only enthralled her.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Do you want to try it on?” Damien nodded toward the open door of his bedroom. A little thrill went through her, and she nodded.
The enchanted lights inside his bedroom were dimmed, leaving the room caressed in shadow. The windows were draped in dark velvet curtains, the bed pushed against the far wall awash with black silk sheets, still rumpled from being slept in. A book lay open atop one pillow, and a small collection of empty glasses on the nightstand made being here feel suddenly personal.
She closed the door and changed. As she did a series of clasps beneath her arm, music drifted in from the other room. She felt her face flush. Thankful for the solitude and the dark, she pressed a hand to her chest, where the tip of her Saba’s necklace pressed against the sweetheart neckline of the dress, and let out a slow breath.
Then she stepped into the foyer.
Damien surveyed the night beyond the windows, a glass in one hand, the other tucked casually into a pocket. He turned as she entered, his expression slowly slackening as his gaze ran along the length of the dress bit by bit. By the time his eyes returned to hers, Ari had forgotten to breathe.
“You look perfect,” he told her, and she drew the words into herself. Over the last few weeks, the fear that lived inside her had given way to something else, something that burned. She had yet to fully unroot that fear, but she had learned to build atop it.
Setting down his glass, Damien offered her a small black box. “I had this made too.”
She took it, removing the lid to reveal a thin gold band with an inset emerald. For a moment, all she could do was stare. The dress alone was worth more than she’d ever held in her hands, and the ring.
“The stone is flush with the band and without a back.” Damien slipped it from the box. “It will be in contact with your skin at all times.”
So she could use it to enchant herself at any time. He really did think of everything.
He gave her a questioning look, and she held out her right hand. Gently, he slid the band onto her ring finger. It fit perfectly.
“Do you like it?”
She ran her thumb over the band. “I love it.”
He held out his hand, and she took it without thinking, the same warmth she remembered from before, the same callused fingers.
A steady melody encircled them as he placed one hand on her hip, the other clasped about her own. She set her free one on the solid muscle of his shoulder, her fingers pressing into his back. His body was warm against hers, his fingers lines of fire on her hip. She loved how aware she was of his touch, of him. Things that had once felt foreign to her felt right.
The dance was not quick. It was made of slow, sweeping motions and gentle, back-arching dips. It left little room between them.
As they turned and glided, the press of Damien’s hips and hands guiding her, Ari’s body came alight. Something burned inside of her. She clung to that feeling, to the power that coursed through her body with the understanding that the look on Damien’s face, the intensity in his eyes, meant he felt it too.
The song slowed, then faded. They didn’t break apart.
“If I didn’t know any better, I might think you were trying to seduce me,” she breathed, unable to bring herself to look at him.
“It seems only fair,” he replied, voice low. “For what you do to me.”
The words curled around her like verillion smoke, drawing her in. She closed her eyes, her hand tightening on his shoulder. This wasn’t right. She didn’t deserve this. Not after what she had done. This contentment, this happiness—a monster did not deserve those feelings.
“You don’t understand,” she said softly. “My power—” She drew back. “You don’t know what I’ve done.”
Damien held fast to her, closing the distance she’d created. One hand reached out, tilting her chin up so they were eye to eye. “I told you, I am not afraid of you.”
Pressed this close, she could feel his voice reverberating in her chest. “You are magnificent, Arielle Kadar, and I will suffer no contradictions from anyone’s lips, least of all your own.”
Then he kissed her.
It was soft, and surprisingly gentle, like the brush of fingertips. She became utterly aware of the press of his hands against her body, one on her hip, the other sliding around to weave into her hair. Her fingers ran up his sides, curving into the lean muscles of his back. The pounding of the storm against the house drowned the skipping beat of her heart.
When he pulled away, her face felt flush with heat, her breath stilled in her throat. The slate-gray intensity of his stare held her pinioned, a bright desire alight inside them. She felt it too. Without a word, she pressed her lips to his once more, and lost herself to the storm.
* * *
SHE AWOKE TO find herself standing in the foyer.
It was dark, the lights extinguished for the night. Bit by bit, she became aware of the world around her. The dying embers in the hearth. The moonlight slanting in through the wall of windows.
She’d fallen asleep in Damien’s bed—she didn’t remember getting up, didn’t remember walking out here. Taking a slow, controlled breath, she looked down at her nightdress.
No blood.
Relief swept through her. She checked the bottoms of her feet and found them clean. It seemed she hadn’t wandered from the house.
Then her hand went to her neck—her Saba’s necklace was gone. She spun, spotting it in a pool of moonlight on the floor by the bed. Had it come off in her sleep?
What do you want? she demanded of the voice, but only silence returned.
She went to the desk, where the Racari lay as if waiting for her. She ran her fingers along the leather cover, and the book pulled at her. Come come come, it seemed to whisper. She felt herself tipping forward, as if she might slip beneath the pages and curl up there, content with paper and ink and words that made magic.
No.
Ari seized the book and flung it across the room. It crashed into a lamp, sending it shattering against the floor.
“Arielle?” Damien’s voice sounded far away. She clung to it, letting it draw her back up like water drawn from a well. He was in the doorway, wearing only a pair of trousers. Flashes of memory coursed through her: skin against skin, his gentle hands, words whispered on a breath. She’d never been with someone before him, and she did not regret her choice.
“The storm woke me,” she said without thinking.
Damien looked from her to the lamp, then approached the hearth to stoke the fire back to life. The moonlight played silver across the smooth olive skin of his back, and the urge to run her fingers down it rolled through her.
She sat on the chaise, and Damien joined her once he had the fire going. His arm curled about her shoulders, and she let him pull her close, listening to the sound of his heartbeat in his chest.
“I’m sorry about the lamp.”
“I don’t care about the lamp,” he replied. “I do care why you broke it, though.”
Her jaw set. How could she explain when she barely understood it herself? She both loved her magic and feared it. Felt enthralled by it and furious at it. It made her strong even as it unraveled her. She might not know what was happening to her, but she knew it had to do with that book.
It felt like it was taking control of her.
“I was angry,” she said softly. It felt like a lie. It felt like the truth. It encompassed none of what she felt and all of it at once, and it had taken her so very, very long to understand.
She was angry.
Angry at her family for how they’d kept her isolated for her entire life. Angry at the secrets they kept. She was angry at herself for what she’d done, angry that she’d fled. She was angry because she was scared, and because she was not. Angry that she didn’t understand, and that even as she pulled more power from the book, it pulled from her. Because on some fundamental level, she knew that was what was happening, and yet she could not bring herself to stop.
“I’m angry,” she said again. “And I don’t want to be.”
“Why not?”
She didn’t know how to answer that. All her life, her parents had told her never to draw attention to herself. Never to let her emotions get the best of her, lest she catch someone’s eye. She understood now that this was what they had been afraid of, that somehow, they’d known.
“Because it feels like losing control,” she said at last, sitting up so that she could see his face.
Damien was quiet, one corner of his lips turning in a way she’d come to find endearing. It meant he was thinking about something that had his undivided attention.
“Rezek Kelbra was once my closest friend,” he said at last.
That wasn’t what she’d been expecting. Rezek hardly seemed the type to make friends, and Damien was no socialite.
“We met after my family became a noble house,” he continued. “The other houses scorned us, the Kelbras included. We earned our position the same as any of them, but they still treated us as if we’d stolen it. But Rezek was kind to me. Neither of us quite fit in perfectly among our families, and we both had complicated relationships with our older brothers. And Rezek hasn’t always been so … vicious.”
