Lorelle of the Dark, page 33
“Lorelle!” Tovos shouted. The Dark surged within her, but it couldn’t dominate her this time. The blue-and-gold threads rose up and fought in a way she’d never been able to before.
Tovos tried to make her limbs move. She countered him. Khyven noticed she’d stopped struggling.
“Lorelle?” he whispered in her ear. She craned her neck and looked him in the eyes, those deep brown eyes that were so similar to her own.
“Khyven…” she whispered, the one word, the easiest word to say. But she could say more now. “You bonded with me!”
“I told you I would.”
“It threw off his control.”
“That’s what I was hoping.” He winked.
“I think I love you.”
A grin spread across his face. “Took you a while.”
“Lorelle!” Tovos thundered. “Take my hand!”
“I really want to cut that bastard’s head off,” Khyven said.
“But let’s not touch him.”
“Slayter’s a smart guy.”
“Let’s do as he says.”
“Let’s.”
“You’ll have to carry me,” she said. “He’s still… so strong. I don’t know if I trust myself to run.”
“You hold him off. I’ll hold you.”
He gathered her in his arms and stood.
“We’re going?” Slayter looked up from where he’d been trying to chip a symbol in the rough steps with the edge of a jeweled chalice.
“We’re going,” Khyven said. Slayter blew out a relieved breath and limped up the stairs.
“My pouch. The Plunnos.” The Dark surged inside Lorelle. She winced but managed to fend him off. Still, her strength was waning. “Quickly.”
They reached the landing and Khyven set her in front of the swirling lights of the Thuros. His hands flipped open her pouch and found the Plunnos. “What do I do?”
“Throw it at the colors,” Slayter said.
Khyven didn’t hesitate. He flipped the Plunnos dead center at the archway. It clinked against the colors and bounced back into his waiting palm.
“This has been educational,” Slayter said, “but I think I’m done with the noktum for a while.” He hobbled into the colors and vanished.
“Lorelle!” Tovos’s voice thundered throughout the cavern. His black, oily presence surged over the golden threads of her soul and he broke her will for a moment.
Her body twitched, but Khyven grabbed her, hefted her into his arms as she thrashed, and charged into the swirling colors.
Chapter Fifty-three
Lorelle
Lorelle watched the dancing flame of the candle on her nightstand. It didn’t cast any shadows, she had made sure of that. Her room was filled wall to wall with bright lanterns, and only the barest hint of shadows had room to grow between the many light sources. Though the night was dark outside, there was no shadow bigger than her little finger in the entirety of her room.
She crouched in the corner, exhausted, but unable to sleep. It had been two days since Khyven had carried her through the Thuros, away from her horrible mistake. It had been two days since she’d murdered Zaith, two days since she had nearly killed everyone she loved.
She wanted to die. She thought a lot about suicide.
She’d murdered a man, had slit Zaith’s throat. She still felt the short sword in her hand. Felt the thrum up her arms as it cut deep. Felt it over and over again.
Her heavy-lidded eyes stayed fixed on the candle, the guilt and remorse burning through her like she’d ripped her soul in half again.
Since they had returned from the Great Noktum, she’d refused to leave her room. Shadows frightened her. She kept expecting Tovos to emerge from them, to take control of her again and make her do something horrible.
So, she surrounded herself with lights, never sleeping, barely eating. Her friends had come by, knocked at the door, left food, tried to talk to her, but she wouldn’t look at them. She couldn’t face them, any of them, after what she’d done.
She even pushed away her burning desire to find Rhenn. In her blind desire to chase one friend, she’d almost killed the rest. She shrank from the idea of chasing after Rhenn like she shrank from the shadows.
She huddled into herself, clasping her knees to her chest, keeping her back to the wall and staring at the candle.
Her body ached with the need for sleep, but she couldn’t close her eyes.
Every single thing she had done in the Great Noktum had been a disaster. Bonding with the Dark, giving Tovos control of her. Trusting Zaith.
And the dragon…
She’d had a chance to keep the dragon confined for another thousand years, and she’d set him loose instead. All those lives… All those innocent Nox, burning, dying. Aravelle. Maid Hoxa. Zaith’s family. Everyone… All because of her.
And now, because of her, Vohn lingered in some half hell, bonded with the noktum like she had been, except worse. His body was gone. He was the Dark, no more than a wind and a voice.
A knock sounded on the door.
She blinked heavily but kept staring at the candle. She knew it was Khyven. He checked on her almost every hour. She felt the bond with him flare when she saw him, joyous at his nearness, but she didn’t deserve joy. She deserved to die.
She expected him to be there, but she suddenly realized her soul-bond was not reacting to the person on the other side of the door. It wasn’t Khyven. Slayter? But no, if it was Slayter, the knock would have been irregular, excited. The mage was always excited about everything he did, it seemed.
She briefly wondered who it might be, but the curiosity withered within her, just like everything else. It didn’t matter. She didn’t want to talk to anyone.
“Go away,” Lorelle said quietly.
There was a brief silence, then Shalure opened the door. She squinted at the bright light and stepped inside.
Shalure?
She was the last person Lorelle had expected to see.
The baron’s daughter entered and gracefully pushed the door shut behind her. She looked amazing. Her tumbling auburn hair was washed and pushed back from her forehead with a light blue bow. Her dress was of the same blue and hugged her curvy body, belted at the waist by a black belt hung with pouches.
The vague, naked woman floating on a haze of shkazat smoke was gone. She actually looked like her old self. Young and vital and beautiful.
Shalure squinted around the room like she was counting the bright lights, then turned a sad look on Lorelle. Shalure held up her hand. In it was Lorelle’s weather-beaten little journal.
Shalure raised her other hand and carefully formed two symbols with her fingers.
Thank you.
She tucked the book into a pouch on her belt.
“You learned the language,” Lorelle said.
Shalure carefully made several symbols.
I had some time on my hands.
“I’m happy for you,” Lorelle said. “Now would you please leave?” She didn’t want to talk to anyone right now, least of all Shalure.
But Shalure didn’t leave. Her fingers were moving again. The first word took longer as she had to spell it out letter by letter.
K-H-Y-V…
“Khyven,” Lorelle interrupted, supplying the name for her.
Shalure nodded, and she made more symbols with both hands.
He told me what happened.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Shalure thought a moment, then pulled out the book and flipped through the pages. She snapped it shut a moment later, looked back at Lorelle and made more hand motions.
I promise not to say a single word about it.
Shalure’s lips made a ghost of a smile, and Lorelle clenched her teeth.
“Thank you for visiting me,” Lorelle said, “but I don’t need your help. I don’t want your help.”
I know.
“Then leave.”
No.
Shalure crossed the room and sat on the bed near where Lorelle crouched against the wall. It was all Lorelle could do not to scream. She wanted to fling all the loathing she felt for herself at Shalure.
You gave me something, she gestured. I’ve come to give it back.
“You can keep the book.”
Not the book.
Lorelle frowned. “What do you want then?”
Khyven told me what happened. He told me about your friend.
“Shalure, I’m not going to talk about…”
But Shalure’s hands were moving fast, almost frantic in the effort to get the words out.
I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that happened.
Lorelle felt the grief and sadness rise up all over again. She felt her hand on Tovos’s dagger. She felt the jerk and resistance as Zaith’s throat gave…
“Just go.” Lorelle looked away. “If you want to pay me back for the book, then just leave me alone.”
Shalure gestured, but Lorelle didn’t look.
Shalure’s finger touched Lorelle’s cheek, and she flinched.
Please, Shalure gestured frantically. Please… This… What I have to tell you. This is what I must give back to you.
Shalure held up a hand as if to stop Lorelle from interrupting.
Your friend. The knife… Shalure gestured carefully.
Lorelle began to cry softly. “Just get out. Please get out.”
You didn’t do that, Shalure gestured.
“I can still feel the knife in my hands. I can still feel…” Lorelle said raggedly.
Shalure got off the bed and knelt before Lorelle. She took Lorelle’s shoulders in her hands and squeezed.
You didn’t do that. She released Lorelle’s shoulders and gestured, The Giant did. He cut into your soul.
“I held the blade! I brought everyone I loved into the noktum!”
She shook her head. The Giant controlled you. Your friends came after you. You didn’t make those choices.
“Please just leave!”
But you are making this one. Shalure gestured to all the lights in the room, then she reached forward and put a gentle hand on Lorelle’s heart. Your friends care about you. Let them help you.
Shalure gave a sad smile. Those were the exact words Lorelle had said to Shalure when she’d lain in a fugue of shkazat smoke.
“It’s not the same,” she said, looking away.
Shalure caught her chin, pulled her back, and gestured carefully.
It is. It is the same.
She tapped herself on the chest, then pointed at Lorelle.
“I almost killed them!”
Shalure took Lorelle’s hand and pushed her own into it, held it tight, then gestured with her free hand.
But you didn’t.
“I almost did…” she whispered.
And I almost killed myself with poison smoke. But I didn’t. Shalure squeezed her hand. Because of you.
Shalure pulled her into an embrace and the dam finally broke. Lorelle sobbed, and the woman simply held her, soft and warm and without judgment. Shalure didn’t seem in any rush to let go, and they stayed that way for a long time. Lorelle cried until she had no more tears left, until the exhaustion of the past weeks overcame her. As Lorelle sagged in her arms, Shalure gently lifted her, laid her in the bed, and pulled the covers over her.
Lorelle slept.
Chapter Fifty-four
Lorelle
Lorelle crouched on the lip of the Reader’s Library, her belly so low it almost touched the stone, her knees on either side of her head. The night was quiet and cool, an autumn stillness like it was holding its breath before the plunge into winter. The noktum cloak unfurled around her as if on an invisible wind, shielding her from any eyes watching below.
She dropped to the second story window, the cloak following her like a sea creature and settling protectively around her once again. She’d visited this exact place before, walked right into a Reader trap. She hadn’t seen whatever magical alarm they’d set for her. She’d been blind in so many ways back then.
She set Slayter’s disk on the sill, completed the missing line in the dried clay with a sharp fingernail. The soft orange glow spilled across the sill and up the frame of the window. A dark orange mass crouched at the upper right-hand corner.
“It’s right there.” Vohn’s voice flowed to her from the Dark that resided inside the noktum cloak.
“I see it,” she thought back to him. After a few days of practice, she’d mastered the knack of communicating with Vohn. In his new, amorphous state, he couldn’t leave the noktum, but the cloak was always connected to the noktum.
She set the second clay coin Slayter had given her on the sill next to the first, completed the missing line, then put it on the exact spot where the dark orange node had appeared.
The new coin glowed orange. There was a little flash, and the node of the alarm spell dimmed like a dying coal and then went out.
She tested the latch. It was unlocked just like the last time. She opened it and slipped inside. With her back against the curved ceiling, she side-stepped lightly along the decorative six-inch ledge and silently closed the window.
Books and scrolls and bound sheaves of paper lined every wall below her. The seven aisles of large bookcases stretched across the length of the room.
As before, the place was empty.
She dropped to the top of the nearest bookshelf and silently padded along it.
“The next row over, end of the aisle,” Vohn’s voice came to her from deep within the noktum cloak.
Vohn liked to talk to her, and she wasn’t about to discourage that.
The upside to Vohn’s transformation was that it suspended the physical body in the state it was in when the transformation happened, which meant he’d been able to suspend his own death.
The downside was that becoming one with the Dark put the Shadowvar at risk of losing his identity.
So, the more he talked, the more Lorelle liked it.
She leapt lightly from one stack to the next, never breaking stride. She reached the end, dropped to the floor, and blended with the shadows before the shelves.
The last time she’d come here, it had been to steal a Plunnos, and she’d come alone.
This time, Lorelle wasn’t making that mistake. She wasn’t going to try to control the situation all by herself. She didn’t need to control every single thing. She had a family to watch her back. Whatever they did, they’d do it together.
Rhenn was still missing, yes, but it could wait for now. Lorelle wasn’t about to leave Vohn swirling in the darkness of the noktum, possibly vanishing into nothing, when she could do something about it.
“There it is,” Vohn said, somehow spotting the needed volume before she did.
Lorelle quietly slid the thick volume from the shelf. A History of Nokte Shaddark, Volume 4: The Banshees, by Ohgonte Vanshor.
She pulled a third coin from her pouch, completed the symbol, and laid it against the volume. Both the coin and the volume glowed orange, then the glow slowly faded.
She tucked the book under her arm and left the Reader Library just as swiftly and silently as she’d come, escaping into the night.
Not a single Reader tried to stop her, and according to Slayter, not a single Reader would know the volume was missing, at least by any magical means. They’d have to discover its absence by old-fashioned happenstance the next time someone went looking for that particular book.
She and Vohn returned to the palace, descended the two flights to the basement level where Slayter had his laboratory, and slipped through the door.
Slayter sat on a tall stool, his stump propped on a stool next to him. It had been a blistered mess when they’d returned from the Great Noktum. His prosthetic, while a marvel of ingenuity, left something to be desired regarding comfort. Lorelle had salved the blistered stump and wrapped it, and Slayter had spent the last two days under orders to keep it elevated. She was pleased to see he was following instructions.
The mage worked over a small stone cauldron with a liquid the color of an orange—predictably—swirling inside.
“You have it?” He looked up. She tapped the volume lightly with her fingers.
“I felt you using the spells,” he said, letting out a tired breath. “I fear I’ll have to take a nap soon.”
Activating one of Slayter’s spells still pulled energy from him—three times as much, actually—but Slayter had insisted on the necessity of it.
She set the book on the table. She had combined her healing knowledge with Slayter’s magic craft something into that could save Vohn. As Vohn explained it, when he rematerialized from the noktum, his body would be exactly as he had left it. He will not have aged a second, and his critical wound would still be critical.
Lorelle and Slayter would have to work fast when he reappeared, which meant the more they could do now, the better that inevitable moment would be. Slayter was creating a spell that could arrest time around Vohn the moment he returned. The mage had asked for the book because it was the only volume that discussed this Shadowvar transformation. Slayter hoped it would help him understand things about the transformation that even Vohn might not know. Even one tiny bit of knowledge might be the difference between life and death when they reconstituted Vohn’s body.
Slayter swore he would not risk bringing Vohn back from the Dark until he was certain Vohn wouldn’t die because of it.
For the first time, Lorelle suspected Slayter was actually being meticulous and not as scatterbrained as he usually seemed.
Slayter was an odd individual, and the more she learned about him, the more she wondered just how many levels he was operating on at any given time.
“How long until we try to get him back?” she asked.
Slayter blinked tired eyes and looked up at Lorelle with a weary smile. “A day. Maybe three. I am moving as quickly as I can.”
“I know you are.”
“I understand your urgency, Lorelle,” he said. “I do. But I don’t want to make a mistake.” Slayter was clearly unwilling to take any chances when it came to Vohn’s life. It was sweet.
“I know.”
“We’ll get him back,” Slayter said. “Then we’ll pour everything into the search for Rhenn. Now we have the Plunnos. We simply have to understand how to use it. We’re almost there.”
