Evenfall, p.10
Evenfall, page 10
That part of me that was inexplicably drawn to beauty in whatever form or state it existed marveled at the breathtaking designs. At the carefully matched colors that would have struck me as odd, incompatible, if I were not seeing them come together so seamlessly with my own eyes.
But not even that was enough to cordon me off from hearing Ada and Zaphine argue.
Removing myself from their immediate presence had made no difference. If anything, it seemed as if the walls and otherwise all-encompassing silence of the space had only amplified the sound.
A quiet groan rolled off my lips. I walked on, drinking in the garments and failing to block out the noise when my gaze fell on another door.
Thank the Sun.
The handle gave way under my fingers immediately. Just for a moment, I hesitated, looking over my shoulder to the delicate archway with its waterfall of beads separating the two parts of the boutique. The voices were there, but neither girl was in my line of sight.
I’d told Ada I wasn’t running any longer, and I meant it. For better or for worse, this was my life now—and she a part of it. So when I stepped past the threshold and into the darkened alley, with nothing but the tune of the revelry coming from the direction of the town, I hoped the fragile trust we’d built would be enough to assure her of my intentions.
All my concerns, however, were whisked away in a breath of relief as the door eased shut, granting me solitude. The spill of blue light fell upon the hem of my dress as I leaned against the wall, then let the night, the distant celebrations, and the faint thrum of magic, flood my senses.
There was a slight chill creeping down the street, cooling my cheeks and slipping beneath my cloak until I was forced to button it up and lift the collar higher. We had seasons in Soltzen, but with the constant presence of the sun, I’d never experienced true cold, regardless of what I might have believed. This—this was different.
There was a scent to it, something so sharp and clear it almost stung, only I couldn’t bring myself to call it unpleasant. My mind seemed to grow clearer, too, the hazy echoes of Ada’s and Zaphine’s bickering receding to give way to my own voice. My own thoughts.
Until now, I hadn’t even realized how much I craved to be alone—to have, if nothing more, just a few minutes all to myself.
Letting the sensation nourish me, I closed my eyes and rummaged through everything I’d learned.
I was in a new world—no, a different fragment of our world I had no idea existed until I plunged straight into it by means I had yet to figure out.
I was a child from Soltzen, a High Master’s daughter. But more than that, I was a living intersection of three distinct magic bloodlines. Someone who belonged to all lands, despite the jarring fact that I couldn’t seem to actually use my heritage.
And I was the one destined to reunite the broken pieces, make reality whole again. The One.
A snorting laugh slipped from my lips.
The first two points I could accept. The third, however, would take a lot more convincing. Not that I had any true desire to become Ada’s savior. I’d barely slipped one pair of shackles thanks to my sudden departure from my land. I wasn’t eager to willingly don another.
But on the off chance that Ada was right about everything…
I had to see things through to the end.
A bittersweet stench filled my nostrils, scattering my thoughts. I cracked open an eye, then instinctively flattened my back against the wall when I realized I wasn’t alone in the alley any longer.
“Are you well?” the stranger asked.
He was in his late twenties, handsome, his jaw strong and lightly stubbled. But his brown eyes were unfocused.
When his breath coiled through the air, I was assaulted by the distinct smell of sowhl as strongly as if he’d soaked me in it.
“I’m fine,” I said dryly, hoping it would be enough to put him off further conversation. “Just thinking.”
“And what kind of thoughts run through such a pretty head?”
He was closer now, more than bordering on uncomfortable, the heat of his body brushing against mine. There was no thrum of magic emanating from him, yet the crisp air became heavy. Suffocating.
My gaze flickered to the side, to where the door to Zaphine’s shop was slightly ajar as if a gust of wind had moved it while I’d been lost in thought. Discreetly, I angled my body towards it, but the stranger placed his palm against the wall, cutting off my escape.
His breath licked my skin. “Come on. It’s the Solstice. A girl shouldn’t be alone.”
“This girl isn’t,” I snapped, anger momentarily overpowering my unease. “My friend’s just finishing her purchase, and once she’s done, we’re leaving. Without you.”
I could almost see his mind working as his brown eyes shifted from dazed to focused, then back again.
“You’re lying,” he drawled.
An exasperated sound came from my throat even as the hairs on the back of my neck rose.
“Trust me, I’m not.”
Keeping my movements slow, unobtrusive, I lifted my left hand towards the pendant tucked beneath my coat. If I could slow him down just for a moment, it would be enough to slip away.
“Fine, fine, you’re not.” A wolfish smile. “But she’s not here right now… We still have time. You don’t want to stop the fun so soon now, do you?”
Stop the fun. The words sounded familiar.
Probably because this was precisely the kind of fun I wanted to stop.
And I had to do it now.
My heart hammered in my chest, but I rubbed my back against the wall, loosening the damn collar I’d pulled up earlier until the lapels parted haphazardly, exposing the neckline of my dress.
The stranger’s gaze dropped down to the swell of my breasts.
I gagged on the inside but was grateful for the distraction. My hand slipped up, inches from the pendant—
His fingers snaked around my wrist.
The stranger pinned my arm against the wall, the edge of the stone biting into my skin, then caught the other. I jerked, but whatever strength was in me fled somewhere beyond my reach.
His grip wouldn’t budge.
My mind swam, the thudding of my heart suddenly so loud I could barely hear his voice over the thunder echoing in my ears. His body was close, too close, towering over me until I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think—
Something snapped.
Not outside, but inside me. The charge spread from my stomach, flooding my veins, my lungs, my mind. A cry rose up my throat but never spilled beyond the confines of my flesh. I felt my whole body hum with a force I couldn’t name, a storm that thrashed and rolled within me. Until it broke.
Swirls of obsidian black lashed out from my flesh, the alley fading away as all I saw was the hunger blazing in the man’s gaze.
Then the fear.
His nails sank into my wrists, a death grip that might have broken bone had he squeezed just a little tighter. But the terror froze him in place as effectively as my pendant would have.
The darkness crept closer, higher, crawling up his limbs, his torso. It shifted and danced, every vine finding a rhythm of its own, yet never becoming anything less than a harmonious whole.
When it reached his chest, the stranger screamed.
His lips parted, the hoarse beginning of his cry tainting the night—and losing its power within it.
Stunned, I watched the shadows fill his mouth, watched them crawl into his nostrils and disappear into his body as it twitched and spasmed. His grip on me loosened, and he staggered back, clawing at his chest as if he could get the darkness out.
But I saw it.
I saw the hint of black appear in the corners of his eyes, saw it spread like spilled ink upon parchment, covering the white, then the brown, until it swept over the dilated pupils and the struggle stopped.
Until there was nothing but the deepest obsidian staring back at me, the man lying faceup on the ground.
Not moving.
Not breathing.
Paralyzed, I stared at the corpse. The tendrils of darkness crept back towards me, disappearing into my skin and leaving the alley untouched, as if they had never existed. But the man’s eyes…
They remained that endless pit of black.
I bit back a sob and staggered towards the door when a shadow at the mouth of the alley stole my attention. Bile burned at the back of my throat.
Had someone seen what I’d done? Had they seen me…kill?
I forced myself to look before my mind folded in on itself.
I froze.
Sapphire eyes, the silken spill of black hair…
Silver danced around his slender form, slowly, so slowly, cautiously, as if it were tasting the air.
My chest constricted.
Him.
Chapter Twelve
His blue gaze drilled into mine.
Even wrapped in terror, on the verge of shattering from the thought of the lifeless body that lay on the cobblestones and the darkness that filled it, the handsome lines of his face seemed to tether me. Ground me. His presence tightened my throat yet willed air to fill my lungs. It was as if I were falling into a spell—and I didn’t want to break from it.
My mind descended into silence, the murmur of the avenue becoming insignificant, as did the world around us. What had happened was a mere whisper on the wind, its weight pulled apart by the currents.
There was only Mordecai.
Only Mordecai and the strong, steady pounding of my heart as he looked at me, gazed at me as if I were the most exquisite, singular thing he had ever seen. The silver shadows lapped around his black clothes, as brilliant and as pure as moonlight, the vines growing, expanding in their languid dance—
A hand wrapped around my forearm and tugged me back from the step I had made in his direction. A wretched, silent roar shook my body when those beacons of sapphire were replaced by a sharp spill of artificial light that assaulted my senses, coupled with Ada’s frantic voice telling me to RUN.
The cocoon shattered.
Aware of Ada’s almost bruising grip moving from my forearm to my hand, I cast one last look towards the alley—now just a sliver of blue-tinted shadow visible through the door before it swung shut.
Gradually, I regained control of my limbs. We ran past the long line of garments, but I still stumbled over the threshold when Ada yanked me full force through the clattering beads into the front of the shop.
Zaphine’s eyes were wide, back flattened against the wall and hands hidden—undoubtedly ready to bleed, call up her magic if it hadn’t been us who’d come through.
It was the final shove I needed to shake off the remnants of the daze.
Ada kept barreling towards the door.
Zaphine hesitated for just a moment before she skirted around the counter, then paused, pivoting. She slid her body across the glass, reaching for something on the side the marble front concealed, then pushed herself away to join us on our mad dash out. My heartbeat was pulsing in my ears, a vicious, heavy rhythm I could not only hear, but felt, and almost drowned out Ada’s words.
Almost.
“The Crescent Prince.”
A sharp hiss ripped itself from Zaphine’s lips at the name. Between one moment and the next, something changed in the way she carried herself, an urgency. As well as fear.
She cast a look over her shoulder, as if checking if some undetectable protections were in place—or, worse, saying goodbye. It lasted no more than a second, then Zaphine trained her gaze up ahead, fabric rustling as we all made for the front door. The night air grazed my heated skin, its bite sharper than what I had felt in the alley.
A cloud of condensation formed as I exhaled.
The lights and the many illusions still swiveled and danced all around us, breaking up the perpetual darkness. But there was a sense of quiet out here that hadn’t been present before. A quiet that took the shape of five black-clad men, running in our direction.
With a snarling war cry, Ada sliced her dagger across her palm.
I leaned into her before she could call forth her magic, grabbing Zaphine with my free hand while already clutching the pendant in the other. Ada’s eyes flashed in understanding, and then the men’s steps were slowing down, the pulse of the city coming to a gentle, yet definite stop.
“It won’t hold long,” I urged, sensing how faint the magic was, how it struggled to keep our surroundings suspended.
Like paint, stretched so thin it was almost translucent.
The power was unable to truly permeate the buildings, the people, merely settled atop the surroundings like heavy dust—a temporary hurdle time would eventually overcome.
It felt wrong, the weakness, when I knew of the pendant’s true capabilities, but it would provide us the advantage we desperately needed to escape.
While Zaphine seemed momentarily stunned as life lingered in stasis, Ada didn’t miss a beat. Her fingers snaked around my elbow without giving up the contact even once, and I tightened my hold on Zaphine, tugging her along those few steps it took her to shed the stupor.
With an assured stride that bordered on running—the fastest we dared to move and not risk losing the touch that bound us—Ada led the way past the guards, their bodies frozen mid-move and hard-set eyes focused on an image that would not be there when they entered reality once more.
Ada paid them no heed. She kept leading us away.
From the too crowded street.
From the Crescent Prince.
Small tremors spread through my flesh as I held on to the waning magic, willed it to last just a little longer—
The hem of Zaphine’s skirt barely disappeared into the narrow path between two buildings Ada had chosen when the world sprang back to life.
Shouts ricocheted off the walls, distorted by the music that couldn’t have been louder than before, but struck me as nearly deafening.
I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but whatever surprise the guards had felt at our sudden disappearance, it faded faster than I had hoped. A series of whistles cut through the air, muting the festivities. It seemed as if the very ground beneath us vibrated with the heavy fall of boots and hooves.
We ducked backwards into a narrow passage. An inner courtyard opened behind us, the still-empty alley up ahead.
“Stars,” Zaphine whispered. “What was that all about?”
I lowered my gaze to the cobblestones as she looked at me, the wonder and intrigue written plainly on her flushed face overpowering the uncertainty lurking beneath.
I knew she was asking about the power more than the guards—or him. But…
Obsidian shadows filled my vision, the image of the man’s contorted features as the coiling wisps of dark seeped into his body, stealing away his life. No, not stealing.
Burning.
Like Telaria would have if Mordecai hadn’t stopped. Hadn’t chosen to damn her to a magicless existence.
Mortified, I looked at my coat, my hands, but my body remained the same. No whispers of darkness. Nothing but clothing and skin.
“The Crescent Prince found Ember,” Ada rasped when I didn’t answer. She squeezed her bloodied hand, the furrow on her brow revealing that somewhere, an illusion was forming. “I think he killed someone.”
The sowhl I’d drunk rose up my throat. I swallowed as I pressed my back against the wall, but couldn’t stop shaking.
Mordecai hadn’t killed anyone.
I did.
Chapter Thirteen
The tension never left me.
Even when I silenced that primal voice of instinct within me that spoke with utter certainty that the man had lost his life because of me.
Even when Ada’s illusions kept Mordecai’s men at bay again and again.
The two threads of fear clashed and entwined until I wasn’t certain what terrified me more.
The hunt.
Or the inky layer, obscuring the already nauseating truth of what had transpired in the alley.
I forced myself to focus on the surroundings, on Ada’s dexterity as she saved Zaphine and me over a dozen times. No display was the same twice, her imagination limitless.
Unfortunately, her body wasn’t.
With every minute, she was growing weaker. Although the thrumming of her power was hushed, the level of its potency wasn’t concealed, but cracked wide open for me to read.
I didn’t even have to see the tightness on her face or the way her step sometimes faltered to know that she would collapse if she didn’t give herself a chance to recover soon.
Zaphine must have come to the same conclusion because when we cut through the slumbering outskirts of the city and towards the mountains, she took over without leaving room for argument. Her magic flowed over our clothes, our hair, our skin, nothing but varying shades of gray and black to keep us blended with the landscape. Camouflage.
Some part of me recognized the beauty of how she worked, of the attention to detail that made her deception almost as perfect as the illusion Ada and I had been cloaked in that had rendered us invisible on our way into town. Still, that awareness was only a flicker of land in the turbulent waves my thoughts continued to be, regardless of how hard I tried to contain them.
I kept flashing back to the alley, some buried thread of darkness niggling at the back of my mind as if there was some shard of reason to it all. But if there was, I couldn’t reach it.
Sapphire eyes slashed the knot I had tangled myself into, but only to form another.
The Crescent Prince had been there.
As caught up in the inebriated man as I had been when he’d cornered me, I’d failed to see Mordecai lurking at the mouth of the alley. Could he have somehow called the shadows, masked his own in an illusion of darkness and brought down the man? Made it only seem as if they had retreated into my body?
Yet even as the words rolled through my mind, I could taste their falseness.
