Lorelle of the Dark, page 11
“Why have you returned?” The Lord repeated.
Zaith clenched his teeth. There was no conversing with Lord Tovos. All he gave were commands and questions. And all he wanted was action or immediate answers.
“I was wounded.”
Silence.
“By a Human?”
“It was a bit of luck, My Lord. Nothing more. It won’t happen again.”
“Come to my tower.”
“My Lord, I must tend to my wound—”
The cloak engulfed Zaith and he hastily prepared himself. He squeezed through the darkness again, screaming as it wrenched his wound.
Chapter Thirteen
Zaith
The trip was far shorter this time, and the pain far less. But Zaith still fell to his knees at the base of a massive wall. His hair flared again, throwing purple light across the grass and black stone. He snarled and put it out. He climbed to his feet, his fist tight against the hole in his belly.
Controlling his breath, he looked up at the monolithic castle that had shown up at the edge of Nox Arvak last week like an angry father who’d finally found his disobedient children.
The five thin towers with their conical roofs pierced the sky like black spears. The black grass of the courtyard was trimmed to perfection. Lord Tovos didn’t like artwork of any kind, including sculptures, so there was nothing but the wrought-iron fence with its spikes pointing in the same direction as the towers.
There were no shortage of naguils, though. The giant owl-headed lions wandered the courtyard. Their skeletal wings never fully folded against their backs, instead extending high above, trailing wisps of smoke.
They’d sensed him, of course. The monsters were intelligent, loyal, and they could smell intruders. No one entered the environs of the nuraghi without the naguils noticing. They instantly recognized him and left him alone.
Zaith belonged because Lord Tovos said he belonged, because Zaith wore the Lord’s noktum cloak. The silky black fabric could not only spirit him through shadow and noktum, but it changed Zaith’s scent to the monsters.
If Zaith had been an intruder, the naguils would have pounced and disemboweled him, rending him apart with their mighty claws and beaks before he could scream.
He turned and entered the castle through the servant’s door. It was a long hallway, wide enough by Nox standards but narrow to the point of insignificance to one of the Lords, stretched out straight before him. To the right and left inside the door were two stairways in equally “narrow” corridors. There was no foyer, only the most brief and utilitarian architecture for servants to enter, quickly do the Lords’ bidding, and leave without being noticed.
He took the left stairway and leapt up them six at a time, holding his side and growling through the pain as the movements pulled at his wound.
The Lord, of course, hadn’t told him where to go, but Zaith had never visited anything in this castle except his own room on the third floor of the castle proper—which was about six floors worth of stairs to a mortal. Only the most useful servants were given quarters so high up, so there were only a half dozen rooms in the small wing. He’d seen a Wergoi up here once, two doors down from Zaith. The squat, muscled dwarf had given Zaith a dour glance before leaving without speaking a word. Zaith imagined the Wergoi as a representative of his people, like Zaith was a representative of the Nox, but he really had no idea. The Wergoi must hate it up here, though, so high in the air. From what Zaith understood, the whole race preferred to spend its time digging beneath the earth.
Zaith entered the room, unfastened the black enameled clasp on the noktum cloak and threw it at the shadows behind an overstuffed black chair. The cloak spread out like a giant bird’s wings and melted into the darkness. In moments, it was gone and only the black enameled clasp remained, glistening on the shadowy wall like an ornament.
Zaith crossed to the cabinet on the north wall. The Lord could have teleported him anywhere, but he’d tossed Zaith at the base of the castle by the servant’s entrance.
He plucked his wound kit from the wrought iron night cabinet and sat on the edge of his bed. He gingerly pulled the bloody pieces of tunic from his wound, wincing, then peeled his ripped tunic over his head and laid it next to him. He looked down at the wound: a two-inch puncture just beneath his ribs, laying open meat to the bone.
The strike had been true and had very nearly succeeded.
He measured a length of thread, cut it with his dagger, and fixed it to the needle. Uncorking a clay jug, he splashed Arvadian dark gin on it and clenched his teeth as the pain came.
The air in the room shifted. It was subtle, and if Zaith hadn’t experienced the effects of the noktum cloak firsthand, he wouldn’t have noticed.
He glanced at the corner by the door.
Lord Tovos stood there, towering over the furniture in the room, more than twice Zaith’s height. His nose was long and pointed, his eyes like black slashes in his face, and his expression, as ever, was angry. His arms were long and as wide as tree trunks, his legs the width of gin barrels. He wore loose black leggings, a thick black belt, and a tight shirt of black scale mail that looked like it was made of actual dragon scales. Zaith had been in Lord Tovos’s presence a half dozen times now and it never got easier. His hatred of the Lord always fled in the wake of the Lord’s presence as Zaith felt he was shrinking to the size of a mouse, becoming smaller and smaller. That angry gaze leached away Zaith’s confidence, leaving behind only fear and a thin thread of silent rebellion.
“I did not order you back,” Lord Tovos said. “Yet here you are.”
“I told you why. I need to fix this before I can continue.” Zaith applied a russet-colored paste to his wound, feeling the lightly magical salve enter the wound and begin to do its job. He picked up the bandage.
Lord Tovos flicked his finger and a hundred invisible needles stabbed Zaith’s side, working into his flesh around the edge of the wound.
Zaith turned his face to the ceiling and clenched his teeth, stifling a scream as the needles stabbed him over and over. A growling noise escaped him and his body shook, but he would not give the Lord the satisfaction of the scream he so clearly wanted.
The pain vanished. Zaith gasped and looked down at his bare torso. A crooked gray scar zigzagged across his skin, ugly and efficient.
“The Luminent girl, what does she know?” Lord Tovos asked.
Zaith bared his teeth, his limbs trembling with the Lord’s callous handling of the wound. He longed to draw his daggers and slash Lord Tovos’s throat until it was nothing but tatters.
But Zaith had attacked the Lord before, and he’d lost his sister. Zaith had other family to protect.
“Nothing,” Zaith replied. “She seeks her friend, Queen Rhenn, but she can’t work the Thuros.”
The Lord’s lips tightened. Clearly not the answer he’d wanted. “Then we need her to come here.”
“Yes,” Zaith said so quickly he nearly stepped on the Lord’s words.
Lord Tovos raised a cold eyebrow.
“I have already begun,” Zaith continued.
“Bringing her here?”
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
Zaith turned his head away from the frigid eyes of the Lord. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t hold Tovos’s gaze for more than a few moments. It felt like the coldness inside that gaze would frost him down to his bones if he looked for even another moment.
“I am baiting the hook,” Zaith said.
“Are you.”
“Lightlanders are stupid, blind, and slow,” Zaith said. “But they are also stubborn. If I simply kidnap her, she will resist. If she thinks she is betraying her friend, she’ll die before she’ll say anything. We need her to want to be here, to follow me willingly into the dark.”
Tovos raised his head and looked out the window over Zaith’s head.
“Why is Lorelle’s friend so important?” Zaith asked. “Why chase this queen? This Rhenn Laochodon?”
Lord Tovos moved past Zaith to the window, as though he could see the object of his search on the horizon.
“Why chase Rhenn Laochodon?” Lord Tovos murmured contemplatively. At first, it seemed like the Lord wasn’t going to answer. Then he began talking, almost as though Zaith wasn’t even in the room.
“Because I think I know what Nhevalos is doing,” Lord Tovos said. “And I’m going to catch him this time. I’m going to kill him.”
Nhevalos. The Betrayer. The Lord who had turned on his own kind, who had turned on the darkness. When Lord Tovos returned, Zaith had scoured the books in Aravelle’s library, had read everything about the Giants that he could, and Nhevalos was a name noted often. He had betrayed the other Lords when the war with the Lightlanders began.
“He is joining Human bloodlines,” Lord Tovos murmured. “Thickening the original concentrations of our experiments from ancient times.”
“Concentrations?” Zaith asked.
“Humans, Nox, Taur-Els, Shadowvar—every mortal race that creeps across the land and supposes themselves self-determined… All were created by us. And for certain Humans we went further. The masters mated with servants, mingled the potency of our blood with theirs, long ago. Which means the legendary heroes of their kind have Giants’ blood in their veins. These select groups became the leaders, of course. Naturally, they took command because of the potency of their blood and the strength of their souls. They formed the first kingdoms of the daylight lands. And even now, millennia later, some Human royal families still have our blood flowing in their veins.”
“And the more of the Lords’ blood they possess—” Zaith murmured.
“The more powerful they are,” Lord Tovos finished his sentence. “How do you think Humans learned to wield magic in the first place? Traces of our blood attuned them to the magic. The higher the concentration, the more potential power they can wield. This is at the core of Nhevalos’s plan. I think he is joining ancient bloodlines.”
“To challenge you with these Humans with the blood of the Lords? To make an army of them?”
“Possibly. But I doubt it. That is what Nhevalos did last time, and he never takes the same avenue twice. He sneaks like a cockroach, scuttling into cracks that have not yet been seen. But I see him. I know what he is trying to create.”
“Powerful Human mages?”
“Of a specific kind. There is a Human legend of a warrior named Ora Lightbringer. Supposedly, Ora single-handedly battled one of my kind to the death. I did not see this battle firsthand, so I dismissed it as ludicrous, a tale trumped up by the victorious Humans. I thought there was no chance a single Human could undertake such a feat. But I have had seventeen centuries to ponder it. I have had seventeen centuries to grow my own arcane powers and I finally stumbled across something interesting. Suddenly, the tale does not seem so far-fetched.”
Lord Tovos went silent, as though his external musings had gone internal.
“What was it?” Zaith prodded.
Lord Tovos turned his head and glanced over his shoulder at Zaith before turning back to face the window. “Do you know what Lore Magic is?”
Zaith searched his memory. “One of the five streams, My Lord. Rare.”
The Nox did not use any of the five streams of magic. They had not received that particular gift from the Lords. Instead, they’d been blessed with the ability to join with the Dark. Zaith had done some research on the abilities of Humans. He knew the basics of the five streams of magic. “It predicts the future, doesn’t it?”
“It manipulates the future. Of the few Humans who have talent for magic at all, even fewer have the ability or the patience to use Lore Magic. Human lives are like brief flickers of flame. Effectively utilizing Lore Magic requires long vision, patience, and a soul that burns low and lasting. Most Humans lack this capacity. But…”
Zaith waited, feeling that to interrupt the Lord again might cause him to stop his verbal ruminations.
“During my long contemplation, I read the journals of one of my Noksonoi sisters, Avanisos. She died in the Human-Giant War, but beforehand she stipulated something interesting, an unorthodox application of Lore Magic. Her initial thought was that it was ludicrous for Humans to attempt Lore Magic at all. Their lives flamed out so quickly, how could they possibly live long enough to see their plans come to fruition? From this basis, she explored, experimented, and observed. In the end, she postulated a wild idea: What if Lore Magic might be used in a quicker fashion than was previously known? A battle fashion, if you will. Instead of planting and nurturing possibilities over decades, centuries, or millennia, Lore Magic could—if carefully twisted to this one purpose—be used to predict tiny events. Immediate events. Like if a sword was about to skewer you, or an arrow come at your face, or to predict when your opponent was going to leave themselves open for a killing strike. A warrior with this kind of ability could avoid being hit, could find every weakness in an opponent and exploit it.” Lord Tovos glanced at Zaith over his shoulder again. “A warrior with this kind of ability could possibly even kill a Noksonoi single-handedly.”
“Ora Lightbringer.”
“Ora Lightbringer,” Lord Tovos echoed. “It would, of course, take a high concentration of our blood to allow a Human to utilize Lore Magic in this way.”
“And the Betrayer is joining bloodlines.”
“I think he is trying to create more Ora Lightbringers. And I think Queen Rhennaria is one of them. She stormed the Usaran palace in one night, at the one place where Vamreth could not bring his potent army to bear, and where he foolishly fought her personally, at the one time she might have succeeded. Her coup reeks of Lore Magic. Everything in the perfect place at the perfect time. And Nhevalos knew I was watching, which is why he spirited her away.”
“To protect her.” Zaith marveled at the scope of it.
“That is why I want Rhenn Laochodon, Glimmerblade. He’s made her a Greatblood—joined at least three bloodlines of old—and somehow taught her this experimental, accelerated Lore Magic. I think he is planting these Greatbloods throughout Noksonon for the coming conflict. Giant Killers, if you will. So, I must have her. I must peel her like an onion to find out how Nhevalos has accomplished this.”
“Why not just kill her?”
“And how many more just like her are there?”
“Destroy Usara then,” Zaith said. “Kill them all.”
“Kill them all…” Lord Tovos stared out the tall window again. “Yes, that’s exactly what we tried seventeen hundred years ago. Nhevalos baited us into that trap as well, and we… lost. We rushed around, stepping on Nhevalos’s little fires of rebellion. But the more we stamped, the more rebellions flared up. Kill them all? Nhevalos may want me to kill his little pets in Usara. These incidental Humans are but pawns littering my path, each one leading where Nhevalos wishes me to go. Each a piece to be sacrificed to draw me further into his game. No.” Lord Tovos shook his head. “Nhevalos feints and withdraws. He lures and lies. The lives of his pawns mean nothing. The Greatbloods… that is what must be uprooted. His plan for them, that is what must be killed.”
“The rebellions. You mean the Human-Giant War.”
“In the war, Nhevalos flicked sparks at dry tinder and we went running after them. But he had piled that tinder to draw our attention. He wanted us running around stamping out fires. If I slaughter those Humans in Usara, the news of my reappearance will spread across Usara to Triada, to Laria, to Imprevar. The mortal kingdoms will awaken. The rallying cry will go up. No, I will not walk into Nhevalos’s traps this time. I will dig carefully until I uncover every spidery root of his plan. Then I will rip them all out at once and watch the hope drain from his face. My allies are secrecy and darkness. There will be time to blaze a path of destruction—and I look forward to that time—but I will not trumpet my position just yet. Not until Nhevalos’s plan is exposed. Not until I have the upper hand…”
Lord Tovos turned and brought his burning gaze down upon Zaith, who held the stare as long as he could before bowing his head.
“Get the Luminent. Bond her to the darkness. That is your job, Glimmerblade. Your only job. Put aside these matters you cannot hope to comprehend.”
Zaith ground his teeth. “Yes, Lord Tovos.”
“And if you fail me…”
“I will not, My Lord. I need no more than a week to—”
“You have two days.” Lord Tovos seemed to fall into his noktum cloak, and he was gone.
Chapter Fourteen
Lorelle
Lorelle landed on the cobblestones and ran for all she was worth. She might not be able to break Khyven’s grip once he had ahold of her, but by Lotura she could outrace him. Even if Khyven could have made the jump without breaking his legs, he’d never catch her.
She clenched her teeth as the burn roared through her, making her feel like her skin must soon blacken and curl at the heat from within. She ran blindly, turned down this alley and that, running and running until she skidded to a stop, breathless, at the edge of the wharf. A dimly lit pier ran out into the water, a half dozen boats hitched up to it.
She’d never spent any time at the Usaran docks. She had not spent time at any docks since her family had left Laria. The ports of Lumyn were grand, and she’d seen them every day as a child, but when her parents traveled to Usara and made friends with the king and queen, all the interesting things seemed to be inside the palace. With her new best friend. With Rhenn.
She walked onto the pier, pushing a hand to her chest and biting her lip. She looked at the dark waters glimmering with silver moonlight. Far offshore, those glimmers abruptly ended where the darkness of a noktum swallowed the light, and she stared at that consuming darkness. Something about it seemed… peaceful. She had always feared the noktums ever since her harrowing escape with Rhenn. But these past days, the sunlight only seemed to heighten the burn within her. She stayed out of sight during the day. Nighttime, on the other hand, soothed her, and she wondered how much more soothing it might be inside a noktum, in a place where there was never any light.
