Lorelle of the Dark, page 10
She’d managed to hide it from him to this point, but he wasn’t an idiot. He’d sensed something was wrong, and now he wouldn’t relent until he found out what it was.
The fire inside her heightened, and she wanted to scream. She bit her lip.
She had to break away from him, come up with a good excuse.
But the pain kept her from thinking clearly. She couldn’t think of anything clever, anything he would believe.
“Khyven,” she said, every muscle in her body clenching as she tried to make her voice sound normal.
“How is she?” he asked.
His question startled her and she came to her senses. He was talking about Shalure.
“She’s… fine now. I purged the shkazat,” she said quickly.
“Thank you.” He smiled, and it melted her. She wanted to rush to him, throw her arms around him. She took an involuntary step toward him.
“Of course,” she said through her teeth, stopping her advance.
“You’re a bit of a miracle, what you can do with those herbs.”
The frayed half of her soul burned through her, rising to a new height, urging her to take another step, to leap across the distance between them. She held it in check.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“What do I want?” Khyven’s compassion hardened. “To know about Shalure. To know about the welfare of my friends. To know about you, for Senji’s sake. You’re in pain. Why are you trying to act like you’re not?”
The flames seared and scorched her and she knew the moment she touched him the pain would vanish. All she had to do was—
“I have to find Rhenn,” she bit out the words. She had hoped to say something to convince him to leave her alone, but she simply couldn’t think straight long enough to formulate it. She turned away.
His hand closed on her arm, soft but firm. She jerked, staring at him in horror. He’d moved so fast, so silently, she hadn’t even heard his approach. She’d forgotten how fast he was. He was gentle, but with his greater mass, his grip stopped her dead.
The raging fire vanished, and she gasped. Instinctively, she put her hand over his. The skin-to-skin contact tingled joyously. She drew a quick breath.
“S-stop,” she managed weakly.
He put his other hand on her arm. She shivered. Gods! She felt like a rabbit trapped in a hutch. Their gazes locked, there was only a foot between them. The frayed tendrils of her soul reached out to him, going into him.
“Let me go,” she whispered again, without conviction. She didn’t want to go. She wanted to melt into him.
“Let me help you,” he said softly. “You’re in pain. You’re hurting so badly you’re barely able to talk. The look on your face… I’d do anything for you, Lorelle. Anything. Don’t push me away.”
Her heart blossomed with joy and the flames vanished. She drew a long breath like she’d been holding it in for minutes. This was it. The tendrils of her soul reached out, touched him, going deeper, trying to re-attach to that piece of herself that now lived inside him. Her thoughts scattered. Her resistance crumbled.
“Khyven, I’m… I did something—”
“Slayter told me,” he interrupted. “It’s all right. We’re going to help. We’ll find a way to undo the soul-bond.”
His words shocked her, snapped her out of her euphoric slide. She blinked.
“You don’t need to hide it from us,” he continued. “There’s a way to fix this, no matter what anyone says. And I don’t…” He faltered. “I don’t care who it is. I just want to help.”
She heard the lie in his voice, saw the anguish on his face at the idea of her bonding with someone else. The half-bond was working on him, too, pulling him inexorably toward her, even though he didn’t know it.
“I will find a way.” He touched her cheek with those big, rough hands, and she closed her eyes—
“No!” She twisted out of his grip and backed away.
Fire flared inside her, consuming her as she disengaged. It hurt so much dark spots appeared in her vision and the room began to spin. She reached out to catch the wall, to steady herself. Lotura, the pain!
Khyven’s large hand closed over hers again. “I’ve got you.” He slid an arm around her waist, steadying her. “I’ve got you.” The fire vanished and pleasurable tingles shot through her again. “Please, Lorelle. Rhenn’s not the only one who loves you. Slayter, Vohn, me… We’re all here to stand beside you no matter what. We will solve this.”
“Khyven… let me go,” she begged. “You don’t understand. You have to let me go.”
“It’s not just—”
Khyven hissed and released her. He held up his left hand—the hand that had been gripping hers. A thin line of blood marked the back of it.
“The maid asked you to let her go,” a familiar voice said from the dark. “That’s thrice now. Best do it.”
Lorelle spun, saw a thin, silver sword poking out of the shadow by the window. A tiny spot of Khyven’s blood shone on the tip. The shadows shifted, showing the barest hint of a silhouette.
The Nox!
His dark cloak looked like it was made of the hallway’s shadows. She couldn’t see his face or even most of his body, only his hand and that thin silver blade. She heard the Nox draw breath to continue his verbal reprimand…
But this Nox didn’t know Khyven.
Khyven had trained for two years to respond to threats lightning fast, to roll with pain, to get to his enemy at all costs, because failing to do exactly that meant death.
Khyven spun, a dagger appearing in his hand like he’d been holding it all along. The Nox grunted and Lorelle realized Khyven had already thrown a different dagger and it had hit its mark.
He leapt into the shadows, slashing where the Nox had been, but the blade passed through empty air.
The Nox’s dark chuckle emerged from a shadowed alcove six feet up the hall, and Khyven faced the noise. His dagger jumped expertly from his right hand to his left, and he drew his sword. Steel rang in the quiet hallway.
The Nox half emerged from the shadows, a hand on his side. He watched Khyven with glittering eyes.
“Khyven stop!” Lorelle shouted.
“Well, well, well,” the Nox said. He held up a black hand, blood shining on the tips of two fingers. “Fairly exchanged, Khyven the Unkillable. Blood for blood. You’re fast for a Human.”
Khyven stepped smoothly in front of Lorelle and she felt a rush of cool air over her skin as though a wind had blown up the hall behind them, flowing over her and Khyven toward the Nox.
Except the hallway was still. That wind hadn’t come from… anything natural. She didn’t know where it had come from.
Then it hit her. That wind was coming from Khyven himself! Or… not from him, but because of him. She felt it through the half-made soul-bond. She was feeling… his magic, whatever made Khyven nearly invincible in combat.
He was going to kill the Nox.
And the idea terrified her.
You want a Plunnos? I’ll take you to one. The Nox’s words echoed in her mind.
“Khyven wait,” she said.
But he was already stalking his prey, his body loose, ready. His sword levitated in front of him like it had a mind of its own. He held the dagger close to his side, ready to block or throw. A trickle of blood snaked from the back of his hand to his wrist.
“Listen to her, Human.” The Nox faded into the shadows, disappearing from view. “She’s trying to save your life,” the Nox said from their left, at least twenty feet from his previous location.
Lorelle started, but Khyven barely flicked a glance in that direction. He stared at the alcove of shadows ahead.
She peered into the thin shadows where the Nox’s voice had last come from, next to an open window. The Nox wasn’t there. He couldn’t be. The shadows weren’t large enough to hold a person.
His voice! Lorelle thought. He can throw his voice!
That’s how the Nox seemed to be all around her in the alley. She’d kept turning, following her ears. He’d been taunting her.
But whatever magic flowed through Khyven wasn’t fooled. Somehow, despite the Nox’s magical abilities, Khyven knew exactly where he was.
“You know him?” Khyven asked tightly, moving forward half crouched, his gaze fixed on the shadows.
“I…” She didn’t know what to say. “We’ve met.”
“You let him into the palace?”
“He’s… my friend,” she lied. She didn’t know why. She didn’t know this Nox, and he could be every bit as dangerous as Khyven was treating him.
But she felt compelled by the Nox. She’d denied him the first time he’d come for her, but if she was honest with herself, she had to know what he knew. Even if it was a lie, she had to know for sure. His offer had seemed, against all rational thought, like a line to a drowning person. She couldn’t afford to let Khyven kill the Nox.
Khyven spared a quick glance over his shoulder, narrowed his eyes as though he scented the lie.
“Please,” she said.
He hesitated, then shook his head. “He cut me, Lorelle. What if he’d cut you?”
“He isn’t going to cut me.”
“What about Vohn? Slayter? What about everyone else in the palace?”
“He thought… you were trying to hurt me,” she said. Her heart pounded harder with each lie, and the burn seared through her. “He doesn’t know you.”
“Doesn’t know me?” Khyven focused on the shadows ahead again.
“Just let me talk to him.”
Khyven’s posture shifted, and he rose slowly from his fighting crouch. His sword arm stayed at the ready, but the hand with the dagger lowered.
“He’s gone,” Khyven said.
“How do you—”
“Who is this creature? All I could see was a dark blur…” He trailed off, and his eyes went wide. “Is he…?” He lifted his chin like he was preparing to get punched in the face. “Is he the one?”
He meant the failed bond. He thought this Nox was the one she’d attempted—and failed—to soul-bond with.
She almost blurted, “No!” but stopped herself.
That could be perfect. If she confirmed his guess, it would keep him from guessing the truth. It might make him stop chasing her.
She opened her mouth to say it… but she couldn’t. She just couldn’t bear to lie to him again. Not about that. She sensed that if she lied to him about the soul-bond a door would close in her heart forever. And maybe in his as well. It might ruin any chance she ever had to…
“Just… let me handle this,” she insisted.
“I can’t.” He shook his head. “You’ve allowed this creature into the palace—”
“Creature?”
“What is he?”
“If he is a creature, then perhaps so am I,” she said.
“What does that mean?” Khyven asked, frowning. “Are you saying he’s a Luminent?”
“He and I have more in common than you think.” She leapt a dozen feet away and landed lightly on the windowsill. The pain flared inside her as she distanced herself, but she gritted her teeth and grabbed the stones of the sill.
“Lorelle!” Khyven spun and stalked toward her like he wasn’t going to let her jump out the window.
“He won’t hurt anyone,” she said, not knowing if that was true at all. “Trust me.” He lunged toward her.
This time, she was faster. His hand closed over open air as she jumped out the window.
She dropped to a balcony two stories below and glanced up.
He didn’t shout after her, didn’t leap after her. He just looked down at her like a boy who’d lost a footrace competition. His shoulders slumped and he let out a breath. She jumped from the balcony and landed softly on the cobblestones of the courtyard.
“Lorelle…” Her keen ears caught his heartbroken whisper four stories above.
Soul burning, she ran into the night.
Chapter Twelve
Zaith
Zaith D’Orphine closed his eyes, fell backward into the embrace of the magical cloak, and left the Human palace. He felt the cold wind of the noktum flow over him, felt the darkness breathe through him. The cloak was a gift from Lord Tovos, an artifact that enhanced Zaith’s ability to move through shadows, but that wasn’t its greatest power.
As long as its wearer was completely shrouded in shadow, or standing inside a noktum, the cloak could be used to teleport.
Only certain Nox could bond with the cloak. Only those who had inextricably bound their souls to the Great Noktum through the Cairn and become one with the darkness. Only Glimmerblades.
Zaith could jump from one shadow to another within a room, or around a building. If he took time and concentrated, he could move distances much greater than that.
Now he teleported from the shadows of the daylight world into the nearest noktum. From there, he traveled far away from the backwater Human kingdom of Usara. He traveled south almost two thousand miles.
The Lightlanders thought they knew about their world. They saw the noktums as splatters of leftover darkness of a bygone age, magical remnants, nuisances to be avoided. But the Lightlanders were like Frovian ticks on the back of their giant host. They thought they ruled their little patch of hide, all the while completely ignorant of what a Frovi even was, let alone where it was taking them.
Unbeknownst to the Humans, all noktums were one noktum. They didn’t seem connected, but they were. The darkness seeped below ground, flowed like rivers. It spun like webs above ground with strands so thin a mortal eye could not perceive them. The blotches the blind Humans saw were the organs of the Great Noktum, yes, but they were all connected by veins the Humans could not see.
Zaith traveled those veins now, squeezing through them with the powerful magic of the noktum cloak.
He arrived at the base of the great nuraghi, and the pain nearly tore him apart. Zaith clutched his stomach and fell over at the base of a tall, gnarled Varka tree. In his days as a Glimmerblade he had been stabbed and sliced, hit with clubs and rocks, but he’d never felt pain like this before.
He opened his mouth as he tried to master it, writhing on the ground in the wake of the cloak’s magic. His black hair flared an incandescent purple.
Then the pain was gone. Zaith lay on the dark grass, shivering and panting.
That had never happened before. What could have caused it? The only thing he could think of was that he’d never used the cloak wounded before. It was as though the darkness had sensed his wound and tried to rip him apart.
Grina’s dark eyes, he wouldn’t try that again! The next time he was wounded in the Human lands, he would simply stay there to tend the wound.
Of course, he hadn’t expected the Human to be able to hit him, either. That should not have happened.
The Human could not possibly have seen him. Zaith had shifted from shadow to shadow. He had even thrown his voice with the Tallyx. Lorelle had far better hearing and dark vision than the Human, and she hadn’t been able to find him.
But the man’s dagger had come straight at him. If Zaith had been even a fraction slower, it would have lodged in his chest just beneath the breastbone, a killing strike. He’d have died tonight.
Zaith had lingered after, the dagger deep in his belly, and bantered to allay suspicion as to how badly he was hurt, but the moment he felt he could retreat, he had done so.
He clenched his teeth, pulled the dagger out, and dropped it. Keeping one hand tight to his belly, he maneuvered himself to his hand and knees. Grina’s bloody nails, it felt like all his guts were going to spill out.
The man… this “Khyven the Unkillable” was a local hero of the Usaran Humans and supposedly a talented killer, what they called a “Ringer” because he’d learned his trade in the Night Ring of Usara. Zaith had barely given this “hero” any thought. Humans were Humans, after all. They were slow and blind.
He’d have to be more careful. Even as stupid and sluggish as they were, even Humans could score a thousand-to-one lucky shot every now and then.
Zaith levered himself to his feet, closed his eyes, and let the darkness of the Great Noktum fill him. It seeped into his soul like thick oil, filling him, reclaiming him, bringing him back into the fold, although the wound remained.
He took a deep breath and made the light of his hair wink out.
He opened his eyes to the city of Nox Arvak. The tall, muscled arms of the oak trees spread out before him. The Darkwood Palace rose in the distance, alerting any travelers that this was home to the Nox.
The Great Noktum wasn’t just mother to the Nox. All manner of beasts and races lived within its eldritch embrace. There were creatures far older, far more powerful—and smarter—than the Nox. Thank Grina that most of the smart ones seemed entirely uninterested in boundary skirmishes or preying upon the Nox. As long as the Nox didn’t invade the territory of those ancient beings, they stayed where they were.
There were plenty of predatory beasts, though. The Lightlanders lived with creatures called “herd animals” whose purpose was purely to eat grass and feed predators. There were no herd animals in the noktum. Every creature was a predator here, and even some of the plant life.
Zaith started toward the welcoming oaks, dreaming of the Nox healer Caelera’s gentle hands, the hot bowl of water she’d use to clean the wound. Her deft hands as she stitched him up.
Suddenly, the darkness yanked at his soul. It felt like fingers plunging into the coils of his entrails and squeezing. He hissed, holding his belly and clenching his teeth.
“Zaith,” Lord Tovos said through the dark, his presence vibrating into Zaith’s mind and translating into words.
For a futile moment, Zaith clung to the thought of Caelera’s gentle ministrations and healing. But there was nowhere in the noktum Zaith could resist the Lord. He had tried, and his sister had paid the price.
“My Lord,” Zaith replied. Though the Lord’s voice was internal, Zaith spoke aloud. He had not yet mastered how to create that vibration through the dark, how to speak as Lord Tovos spoke.
“Why have you returned?” Lord Tovos asked.
“It is only a brief stop, My Lord—”
