Nightborn: Totally addictive fantasy fiction (The Hollow King Book 2)

by Jessica Thorne

  Chapter 36

  Grace slid off the horse’s back. She didn’t know how they had made it this far. She’d passed no one on the road to Thorndale, all through the night and the following day, or at least that was what she could remember of it – it might have taken longer. She’d let the horse set the pace, walking, stopping when it needed to, carrying on as it would. She’d slipped in and out of consciousness but all she had to do was point it in the right direction every now and then, and try not to fall off. She was pretty sure something else was leading them anyway.

  Once she’d managed to stand on her own two feet, she heaved the saddle off its back and removed the bridle, expecting it to run off then and there. But the poor creature was as exhausted as she was. It just stood there, whickering at her softly, blowing air from its nostrils in a deep sigh.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ she told it and her legs gave out.

  Everything hurt. Everything. She pulled back her shirt to expose her side and the blood-soaked bandages. Damn, it was bad. Really bad.

  Well, she shouldn’t be riding long distances while wounded. She could almost hear Commander Craine’s disgusted tones.

  She unwound them and removed the dressings. What she saw made her wince. Black lines, like veins, came out of the wound, tracing across her skin. She could almost see them crawling onwards as she watched.

  ‘We will always survive,’ the Deep Dark told her. ‘As long as we have you, beloved.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Grace replied, not bothered how insane it looked, talking to the voices only she could hear. There was no one there to listen to her anyway. And the horse didn’t care. ‘I get it. But you can’t get out of me either, can you?’

  ‘Not yet. In time.’ It moved again, lines like molten metal creeping through her. Grace stifled a grunt of pain.

  There was nothing for it. She had to keep going. She had to leave Bastien behind her. He had a new life now. He was safe and she meant to keep him so. Free. Free of all of it. He couldn’t even remember her now, so it didn’t matter. Giving him that potion had been the hardest thing she had ever done. Filling his head full of pretty lies, letting him go… but she had to do it.

  She drank the last of her water. She hadn’t brought food because she had known she wouldn’t need it. Couldn’t have brought herself to eat it without throwing up anyway.

  Grace tried to walk to the cave entrance, but ended up half crawling most of the way through the ruins, and down through the half-collapsed tunnel. By the time she squeezed into the remains of the cavern, bathed in the glowing light of the Maegen, she was drenched in sweat and her whole body felt like it was on fire. Still she pushed herself onwards until she collapsed onto the broken throne.

  Her blood slicked her hands as she opened the pack, taking out the crown. The Hollow King had once had his own plan, and now it was up to her to fulfil it. Before, he’d broken the crown, given the warrant to Lucien Larelwynn and made the torc to go around Bastien’s neck. But he’d broken the crown to destroy it. That was what the story said.

  ‘What are you doing?’ the Deep Dark asked.

  ‘You mean you don’t know? I thought you knew everything?’ She laughed bitterly and the voices in her mind growled at her. Pain lanced through her again as it continued its campaign to gain control of her. Deliberate, punishing, vindictive.

  Her hands spasmed and she almost dropped the crown.

  Breathing rapidly helped her regain equilibrium. It wouldn’t work forever.

  ‘Grace, please…’ It sounded like Bastien’s voice. ‘Don’t do this.’

  She swallowed hard and kept going. It was a trick. It had to be. Bastien was miles away, lost to her, oblivious. He didn’t even know her any more.

  Forget me, she had told him. And he had.

  Tears stung her eyes again. Too many tears. She couldn’t seem to stop. Her body was shivering which was, frankly, a terrible sign. Her time was running out. Either the Deep Dark would consume her from the inside out, or she’d die before it could finish its job. Her whole body was caught between shock and determination.

  She held the crown in her hands, all the power in the universe in the grip of a dying woman.

  ‘Put it on, save yourself, save us…’

  Tempting, maybe. To hold such power, the power of the divinities, all the magic in the Maegen. Everything. She could wield the power of creation and destruction however she wanted.

  But what would she do with that?

  She was just an Academy officer.

  Grace pitched herself forward into the glowing water of the pool, taking the crown with her.

  Darkness closed over her head. She sank like a stone, into a body of water much deeper than the one in the cavern. On and on she plunged into the abyss, the crown dissolving in her hands. The pain in her side ebbed away, the blood coming from it mingling with the light.

  And then she saw him.

  The figure formed before her, tall and broad-shouldered, slim-hipped and beautiful, his face etched on her heart and those eyes, those eyes so dark she could lose herself in them. She knew his body intimately, knew the smile he wore when he thought no one was looking at him, when they were alone together.

  This wasn’t him, though. It just looked like him, an illusion.

  The Hollow King’s smile was nothing like Bastien’s.

  ‘You could have had everything you ever wanted, little Flint. Why give it up?’

  His voice reverberated and the currents of magic rushed around her, encircling her and drawing her to him.

  ‘You don’t know me.’

  ‘I know you well enough, mortal. You’re mageborn, nightborn, and something else. The Deep Dark offered you everything, and all you did was throw it away.’

  ‘The crown was nothing but evil and you know it.’

  ‘Evil?’ he laughed. ‘You understand nothing. That crown was mine. It’s a tool, nothing more. We are power, Flint. Power is neither good nor evil. That can only be assessed by how it is wielded. There was balance between the Maegen and the Deep Dark. Until… until there was not.’

  He held out a hand to her. Grace hesitated, but it seemed like a dare, like if she didn’t take it, she would fail some kind of test.

  He was right. He wasn’t good or evil. Neither was power. It all depended where you stood. What you did with it.

  ‘Show me,’ she said.

  ‘A command, Flint?’ The amusement on his face sent a chill through her. She didn’t want to amuse him.

  Images flashed before her, quick and bright, like slaps to the face, one after the other. So many images, memories of so many lives, so many pasts. She saw Bastien as he was, saw them together, kissing, the way he’d lain on the bed after they made love that first time, his arms behind his head, smiling up at her. Saw him as the Lord of Thorns, saw him leading Larelwynn armies into battle, saw him on his knees, saw him brought low by Lucien’s ancestors. She saw him with his friend, the boys they had been, here in the cavern at Thorndale.

  ‘You stole his life,’ she said. ‘You will not steal me.’

  ‘He stole my power, and he gave his life willingly to do it. Larelwynn stole his life and many after it.’

  And before that… before Bastien… The Hollow King was alone and broken. The nightborn rampaged across the land, and the roses of Thorndale burned with an unholy fire.

  ‘Flints,’ he said, and he almost sounded amused. Not what she had expected. ‘The most unpredictable and stubborn of the mageborn. And the most destructive. Look at you. You’ve died and come back twice. You’ve been pulled out of the womb of the earth itself twice. Three times dead and twice entombed… the old measure of divinity from a time your people don’t even remember. This is your third death, do you see? Your feet are firmly set on the path. Grace Marchant, consider all you have done. You’ve brought down kings and queens and given up everything to be here. Even your beloved.’

  ‘I didn’t want to. I had to.’

  His gaze turned speculative. ‘Did you? What abou
t his choice? You took that from him.’

  That was her shame, of course. She hadn’t let Bastien decide. Because he would have wanted to keep fighting and she couldn’t fight any more. She wanted it to be over. Perhaps she was the coward after all? ‘I had to.’

  ‘And couldn’t you have let him make that decision? You said you wanted to free him. But you wiped his memory in order to have your way.’

  The undertone to the words left her chilled to the bone. He made her sound like Aurelie. His truths were hard and bitter, cruel, but truths nonetheless. She had always said she wanted truth. She tried to pull away but the Hollow King was not about to let her go. Not yet.

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘Wasn’t it? I think it was. Maybe you’re the Larelwynn after all.’

  ‘I’m not a Larelwynn,’ she told him. She didn’t have a drop of royal blood in her. She was no one. ‘I know who I am now. I’m… I’m nobody.’

  ‘You were never that, Grace Marchant.’ His voice was almost kind. He touched her face, just as Bastien might have, a tender caress. She closed her eyes, longing for it to be real, even as she knew that it was not. This being was not her lover. He never would be. ‘No one is. Not really. It takes more than blood. Others would have you believe that but power, true power, is always in your own hands. I only surrendered power when I had no choice. But you… you give it up willingly, with nothing to gain from that.’

  ‘Nothing to gain?’

  ‘You’re dying, little Flint. Your third death. Don’t you realise that?’

  ‘I’ve been dying all along. It’s what being mortal is all about.’

  His hand tightened on hers. ‘You don’t have to.’

  She frowned up at him. ‘Everyone dies.’

  ‘Do they?’ He sounded bemused at the idea. Perhaps he was. Gods didn’t die.

  She stood there, in the darkness, the Maegen billowing overhead like a glowing sky, its luminous clouds swirling and dissolving. It was part of her, as much as the darkness was. She could see it now, the darkness and the light. Without one it was impossible to see the other. And here she was, suspended between the two of them, her blood flowing into the water, her life ebbing away.

  ‘Grace…’ His voice. It sounded like his voice and her dearest wish. So far away.

  But it couldn’t be.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘That isn’t real. It isn’t possible.’ The Hollow King framed her face with his hands, tilting it up towards his. She stared into the endless dark of his eyes, devoid of the warmth she knew and loved, his face but not his face. Not Bastien. The Lord of Thorns, the Hollow King, they were nothing without him. They might be magic and power and everything else, but without Bastien himself, there was no heart. No compassion. Not as she knew it.

  The Hollow King leaned in, as if to kiss her, but he didn’t. His lips, so like Bastien’s, lingered just beyond hers, so close she could feel the warmth that came from him, could feel his breath as it brushed her skin.

  None of this was real.

  It would be so easy to give in. She could become a goddess. But when you stripped away the exterior, the power, the riches, the eternal life… she still wouldn’t have Bastien. Not really. And he was all she wanted.

  ‘No,’ she breathed again. She had to admit it. ‘All I’ve ever wanted is the truth.’

  His hand moved again, cupping her chin, and the Hollow King gazed at her, studying her. And he smiled. And this time… this time it almost did look like Bastien’s smile. ‘Then you shall have it. All of it. The truth.’

  The other hand pressed to her side, right where the crown had stabbed her. Power flooded through her. She arched her spine, her mouth opening in a gasp of shock and water flooded in, choking her, drowning her. The light didn’t stop though, like a newborn star bursting into life it tore through her body, driving out the strands of darkness entwined around her heart, winnowing through her veins and purging her. She burned with a refining fire that scorched its way through her and her world turned iridescent.

  When the light overwhelmed her, it was a blessed relief.

  Hands seized her, hauling her half out of the water, smoothing her saturated hair back from her face. She gasped for air, in spite of her determination to be dead, because her body was ever a traitor and it wanted to live.

  All around her the Maegen glowed, moving as if it was a stormy sea, and the churning light it threw up hit his face. His beautiful, impossible face. Bastien held her, his expression frantic, his mouth forming her name. She couldn’t even hear his voice from the sound of the maelstrom in her mind, the fire that burned through her, roaring out its victory.

  And all at once it was gone. The pool went still, the light dimming to a faint golden glow like a reflection, and Bastien held her. He stood in the water, cradling her against him, holding her in his strong arms.

  Her Bastien. Even though that was impossible.

  ‘Talk to me. Please… please talk to me. Grace… please…’

  ‘Bastien?’ she managed.

  With a cry of relief he pulled her into his embrace, wrapping his arms around her and holding her against his chest until she thought he was going to smother her. She pushed back, but only gently, because she didn’t want him to let go. Not really.

  ‘How… how are you here?’

  He stroked her face, her shoulders, as if trying to reassure himself she was real, that she was healed. And she was. She knew it. The pain was gone, the darkness, the emptiness inside her. All gone.

  ‘Bastien, you’re meant to be in Rathlynn.’

  She’d drugged him. He shouldn’t remember her at all. And even if he did, she had betrayed him in the worst way possible. He should not be here.

  ‘I came after you. I wasn’t going to let you—’

  ‘But the lyriana root—’

  ‘Didn’t work, love. The healers think I had too much of Rynn’s antidote still in my system. And some say it only works on mageborn. I don’t know and I don’t care. I could never forget you. And you can’t make me.’

  She’d taken his choice away, the worst mistake she could possibly make. And yet somehow… somehow he was still the same. He had come after her anyway.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, because the Hollow King had been right and that was her greatest shame. She had taken his choice away. Like Aurelie had tried to do. Like the Larelwynns had done time and again. And she had known what she was doing but she’d still done it. How could she ever make that right? ‘Forgive me.’

  ‘Grace.’ His voice rumbled in his chest, and she felt it as much as heard it. His heartbeat was so loud, his body pressed to hers. She looked up into his face, so close to her. ‘Grace, there’s nothing left to forgive. My love… Can’t we just start again?’

  How could he forgive her just like that?

  ‘Start again?’

  Bastien kissed her, his mouth tentative at first, but his lips finding the answer to the question they posed quickly answered. She buried her hands in his long hair, fingers tangling in the black silken strands. Their mouths met, desperate for each other. She couldn’t seem to touch him enough, or get close enough to him.

  Was it more magic? Another enchantment?

  She broke the kiss. The collapsed cavern was empty. Somewhere the stone figure of the Hollow King was buried under rubble, but his spirit was still here, in the water of the pool they stood in, which lapped at their wet clothes, or just in the world around them. Light played like sunset on the roof overhead, light reflected on water. She didn’t know where that light was coming from and she didn’t want to ask. But she could guess. It came from her. Or through her… Bastien traced his fingers over her skin as if following lines or patterns. The light faded into her, like the setting sun.

  ‘We can’t go back,’ he told her. ‘It isn’t safe for you. They’ll start insisting that I rule. I can’t. I’m not a king. I never wanted to be, regardless of magic or blood or anything else. Marius was wrong about that, but not about you. How he knew,
I have no idea, but I’m not leaving you again, Grace. You get into too much trouble on your own. Not to mention the mess you tried to leave me in.’

  Her remorse must have shown all over her face. How could she hide it from him? ‘I didn’t mean—’

  His kiss silenced her again. ‘I know,’ he mumbled against her lips, as if reluctant to pull too far away. ‘I understand. But thankfully fate had other ideas, my love, and I will follow this path above all others.’ He traced a line of kisses down her jaw and along the line of her throat. Her skin warmed beneath his mouth. ‘What happened? Your wound… the Deep Dark…’

  ‘Gone,’ she told him. ‘The Hollow King drove it out, and healed me. He – I don’t know what he did. But… he said the balance was back and that was all that mattered. Not good. Not evil. Just… balance.’

  She felt his questing hands surreptitiously testing the area where the crown had punctured her side. He didn’t quite trust her to be honest about that then. But she didn’t care. All it did was make her shiver with pleasure and press closer against Bastien’s body.

  ‘We can leave,’ he told her. ‘No one knows where we are. We’ll go away, just you and me. They don’t need us, Grace. Come with me.’

  ‘Where?’ she asked, laughing at the urgency in his voice.

  ‘I don’t care as long as I’m with you. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere we can be alone.’

  ‘We’re alone here,’ she teased and the smile that flickered over his lips was wickedness incarnate.

  He lifted her and she wrapped her legs around his waist. Bastien traced her body with those clever hands. Her skin shivered in response, the pleasure growing with every touch.

  Somehow they managed to shed their clothes, heedless of the water. Its warm embrace lapped against them, cradling them together. His body worshipped hers and what could she do but return such veneration. She sank onto him with a kind of relief, a need finally sated.