by Sunny
“The High Lord’s private residence.” I halted and gazed up at the black stone structure. Memories both good and bad were associated with that towering construct. Much like my feelings for the man who lived there.
“Your father?” Talon asked.
“That is a matter debated by many.” I took a step forward and was brought up short. Nico stood on the grassy path, unmoving.
“Come on,” I said, urging him forward.
“Lucinda.” Nico’s eyes were fastened on the rising black monolith before us. “You just said that this is the High Lord’s private residence.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Nico swallowed. “Could we not go see your brother instead?”
“I would have preferred that myself. But this is closer, and we have arrived here safely. I need to tell someone about everything that has occurred.”
“All right,” Nico replied. But still he did not move.
I felt exposed standing like this, out in the open, flanked by a black Floradëur and a pale, living, breathing, heart-pounding Monère. Both were rare, never seen before by many. Wanted by all who saw them. We’d been lucky that no one had come upon us yet. But then, few demons dared trespass on the High Lord’s private lands, another reason I had chosen that portal.
With great reluctance, Nico allowed me to lead him to the front door made of a blue black metal alloy. I knocked. The door opened immediately.
A demon dead male of imposing height and freakishly lean build loomed over us like a physical echo of the mournful edifice he cared for, wearing his usual attire: starched white shirt, waistcoat, and duck-tailed jacket.
“Hello, Winston,” I said. He was close enough so that he was within the sound barrier and could hear us.
The tall demon took in everything in one quick glance: my presence and that of my strange companions, my sound shield. His eyes widened only a tiny fraction.
He swung the door open and gestured us hastily inside without a word.
“Who’s Winston?” Nico whispered as we stepped inside.
“The butler of Darkling Hall.”
The interior was immaculately clean, furnished in heavy wood tones, accented with dark forest green and gold trim, unchanged from the four centuries since I had last set foot here. We watched as the gawkishly tall butler closed the heavy door. He pressed something, and the walls trembled and ground quaked . . . soundlessly. Winston’s mouth moved.
“What did he do? What is he saying?” Talon asked fearfully, his tall body pressed up against mine. It was a little disorienting to have to look up to him.
“He set the wards. Now nothing can enter or leave here until they are released. As for what he’s saying . . .” I dropped my shielding. “I think he was just telling me we can speak freely now, that no one can hear us.”
“Correct.” Winston bowed, stiff and formal. “Princess Lucinda, you and your guests are welcome here.”
“Thank you, Winston. Is the High Lord up?”
“Yes, I no longer sleep away the days,” a voice said from the grand staircase. As he slowly walked down, it was as if a deity descended from heaven. An odd thought to have for the ruler of Hell. But then Blaec had always seemed bigger than life—or death—to me. Others might see a simple man of average height and lean build, dark of hair except for the solid silver wings flaring at his temples. It was in his eyes, however, where the true weight of his years rested. Eyes dark brown like Halcyon, like myself, but with a chilly remoteness, an impartiality, a blankness. Disengaged eyes that had slowly withdrawn from me and the rest of the realm, coldness filling in the space where emotion had once been. A seeping chill that had begun with my mother’s death, her final one, and become icier as the years passed, and I had lost what I had once loved most, a warm and happy man, the loving father that he had been, both in life and in death.
Power made Blaec what he really was. It leaked from him, trailing behind in his wake like a fine fragrance, a weighty essence that drifted down to you in invisible waves as he neared. Nothing that he did consciously. It simply exuded from him and pressed down upon your skin like a heavy blanket, power so ancient and so vast that it made your bones literally ache.
He reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped, his eyes sweeping over us. “Lucinda,” he said. And something inside of me took a breath, for his eyes were no longer remote, no longer frozen in icy withdrawal.
“High Lord.” I bowed. Beside me, Talon and Nico went even further; they dropped to their knees.
With an elegant wave of a finger, he bid them rise. “Who have you brought to me?” asked the High Lord of Hell.
“These are my men.” Something flickered in Blaec’s eyes at my words. “The Monère warrior is Nico, the rogue that the High Council requested our help in returning to Mona SiGuri.”
He didn’t ask how the holy hell Nico was able to exist here. He simply inquired, “You returned him?”
“Yes, and then I took him back once my duty was accomplished. I claimed him for myself.”
“That is not what a guardian usually does.” No rebuke in his words, just a statement of fact.
“I know. That is why I wish to resign my position.”
Those dark eyes drifted quietly over us. “Come have a seat.” He led us into the sitting room and sank down gracefully into an armchair. “I have a feeling this will take some time.”
I perched on the chaise longue across from him, bracketed by Talon and Nico.
“Finish your introductions, please,” Blaec said.
“Talon is a Floradëur that I found kept in secret by Mona SiGuri.” I went on to explain how Derek had brought Talon to that other realm as an infant. And how the former guardian had tried to take back from me what he considered his property. Of how we had fought, how I had almost died. And why Talon had bound us—the three of us, accidentally. To save my life.
“So that is how the Monère can walk this realm,” Blaec said. “An old Indian burial site. You are more reckless, Lucinda, than I ever was.” And though the High Lord’s tone was mild, his eyes were not. A flicker of power thickened the air for an oppressive moment before it ebbed away.
He inclined his head first to Talon, then to Nico. “You have my deep gratitude for saving Lucinda, although in doing so, you have complicated all of your lives.”
“Can the ties be undone?” I asked.
Nico drew in a sharp breath. Talon tensed beside me.
The High Lord’s answer came after a thoughtful pause. “What you have done, this binding, between three and not two, has never been done before. Therefore I do not know if it can be undone. What we know of the bond a Floradëur can share with a demon is scarce little. The last bond to exist ended before you were born.”
“Born as a demon, or on Earth?” I asked.
“Your Monère birth.”
“Then over seven hundred years ago.” A long time ago, even for us.
“Why are there no longer bonds like ours?” Talon asked.
“A most pertinent question. The answer to that, however, is not so easy to tell.” The High Lord’s voice deepened into a smooth, flowing cadence, almost like that of a storyteller. “Your people once mixed freely with ours. We existed in harmony. Things began to change, though, in Xzavier’s reign, the ruler of this realm before I. A rumor spread among the demons that drinking the blood of a Flower of Darkness—if you drank enough of it—could restore a demon back to life. A new name was coined for you: the black flower of life. Your people became hunted by mine, and were slaughtered by them. The Floradëur withdrew to Hell’s outermost lands, and the demons that ventured out after them oft never returned. What used to be bonds of friendship has grown into a harsh enmity.”
A profound silence filled the room.
“So Floradëurs and demons are not friends but enemies.” Talon bowed his head. “Is the rumor true, that we can restore life to a demon?”
“I have never known it to be so,” said the High Lord, “but mayhap you can tell me that be
st. Derek drank of your blood for over six and twenty years, did he not?”
Talon’s head dipped in affirmation. “His power would increase for a short time, but his heart never beat, nor did he change in any other way I could discern.”
“Then you have your answer.”
“What about separation?” I asked. “If the ties cannot be broken, what happens when those who are bound are kept apart from one another?”
Blaec fixed his enigmatic gaze upon me. “When the bond is as fresh and new as yours, I do not know. All I know is that the ties grow stronger with proximity and time. That the longer the bond exists, the more likely that when one dies, the other does as well.”
“I promised Talon that I would return him to his people, that I would see him home. I intend to keep that promise.”
“It was a promise made before we were bound,” Talon said.
“We cannot be together,” I told him gently. “You are just as rare down here in Hell as Nico is with his beating heart and white living flesh. You cannot reside among the demons. Only with others of your kind. Do you not want to see your people? Be with them once more?”
Talon was unable to deny that yearning. “Yes, but I want to be with you and Nico, also.”
“You cannot. Not safely. You can only be safe among others of your kind.”
Talon stared at me as if I had betrayed him, and perhaps I had by not telling him this sooner. But what could I have said to him: Oh, by the way, we demons hunt you Floradëurs and eat you up. Why don’t you come with me and trust me to return you safely back home?
“I promised to return you home, not to stay with you. Nico has to be with me. He has no choice if he wishes to live. But you can sustain yourself apart from me. You have a choice.”
“Not true,” Talon said. “You’re not going to give me a choice, are you? You’re going to bring me back to my people and leave me with them whether I wish it or not. I can feel that in you, that you’ve already decided.”
He had read me accurately. “You are correct.”
“Then you are no better than he was, the demon you call Derek. You allow me no choice.”
“I am a demon,” I told him harshly. “You should know by now not to trust any of us. To just fear us.” But it was not fear I saw in those black eyes. Just anger and sadness.
“It’s partly because of this,” Talon said softly. “Because I can read your emotions. Because I can feel you. You want free of our tie. If it were possible to break our bond, you would do so.”
Another truth I could not dispute. I turned back to the High Lord and made my request. “My lord, I would ask that you keep Nico here, safe and protected, while I bring Talon back to his people.”
Those dark, intelligent eyes considered me for a moment. “In return,” Blaec said quietly, “I would ask that you allow two of my men to accompany you, to keep you safe.”
He didn’t try to make the request a command. No need to. He knew he had me. That was one of Blaec’s greatest strengths: knowing his position, and the position of those around him. He knew, unfortunately, that I had nothing to bargain with. And that I dared not risk the short journey to Halcyon’s residence with Nico’s white pulsing flesh and Talon’s tempting darkness so vulnerably visible.
“Very well,” I said, “if that is your condition.”
“It is.”
“Then so be it. But I will be in charge, not your men.”
“Agreed,” he said, and our bargain was sealed. With a nod from the High Lord, Winston left the room. A moment later, the foundation shuddered and the house groaned with a loud and terrible sound.
“What was that?” Nico whispered.
“The house ward released,” I told him. The sound of an arrow whooshing into the air filled our ears. “The High Lord’s guards will arrive here soon.”
“Will they have to fight off all the demons who are going to come running when they hear my heartbeat?” Nico asked. His breathing and the resonant pulsing of his heart were the only sounds in the room.
The High Lord leaned forward. With a languid wave of his hand, Nico’s life sounds suddenly ceased.
“Shit,” said Nico, his hand flying up to cover his heart. To feel its reassuring thumping beneath his hand.
“I did not kill you,” the High Lord said with a slight smile. “Just muted the sounds of your body.”
Nico relaxed his hand, took a deep breath, and turned to me. “If he has muted my life sounds, then I can go with you.”
“No, it will last only a few hours before he will have to renew it. Our journey will take one full day, perhaps two.”
“I don’t have a choice, either. Do I?” Nico asked.
“No,” I said, making it an even consensus. Both of my bond-mates were unhappy with me now.
“It will be best for Lucinda if you remain with me here, Nico,” the High Lord said. “Your well-being is tied to hers now, and she is more prudent with your care than she ever has been of her own. You will be a good incentive for her to return in one piece.”
I doubted Nico and Talon realized that Blaec meant the words literally. His comment, though, made me remember something else. “There are two others that I have claimed, High Lord. Another rogue, Stefan, and the Mixed Blood ward he raised among the humans, a young man named Jonnie. They are officially registered under my name in High Court records. I would wish to have them listed in our ledgers also, along with Talon and Nico. If anything should happen to me, I would ask that they be protected and cared for.”
“For once you think of the future, Lucinda,” Blaec said, “and you no longer cut yourself apart from others. What has brought about this change?”
“She fell in love with Stefan,” Nico said. “The rest of us are just accidental accruements.”
“Indeed?” said the High Lord, noting the spots of color darkening my cheeks. “First Halcyon and now you, Lucinda. It seems my children are showing a sudden, unusual fascination with Monères.”
My children. His casual words made me bleed inside.
“Your son, at least,” I said roughly. “I am not your daughter.”
“You have never stopped being my daughter,” Blaec said, with something horribly like compassion in his eyes. Compassion mixed with aching sadness.
I shook my head, opened my mouth to refute his claim when a knock sounded on the door. It swung open and five demon warriors walked in.
A score of them resided in a guard house situated in the north corner of the estate, the closest distance the High Lord allowed, and they patrolled the vast boundaries. It was a twenty-minute leisurely stroll from the guard house and outer perimeter; a five minute sprint if haste was required. They had more than sprinted to have arrived here this quickly. Yet they had remained totally silent and undetected until that knock. I’d known they were formidable warriors, some of Hell’s best fighters. But I had forgotten the impact of seeing them in full battle readiness, fangs fully emerged, claws lengthened, eyes red and flashing. Even I wanted to flinch beneath those hard, fiery stares.
Talon began to shiver. Nico went utterly still beside me.
Only when the demon warriors had assured themselves of the High Lord’s safety did that brittle battle-ready tension begin to ease. Well, as much as possible, having five big royal guards gathered together in one room. They seemed to fill the space, and it had been a generous one before they had entered. Now with their presence, their naked, violent threat permeating the room, it didn’t seem so large anymore.
Three guards were new to me, their skins without my golden darkness, younger than I. But two I knew from my earlier days, their skins darker than even my dusky gold, closer to the deep bronze of the High Lord’s. Ruric and Hari of the dragon clan; the High Lord’s ancestral lineage. They were the last of that long-lived line, along with my brother Halcyon and the High Lord. Only four left. Once I, too, had been considered a part of that noble line, but no longer. My name had been removed from the records after my mother’s claims.
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nbsp; Both warriors were tall but there their commonality ended and the contrasts began. Ruric, which in the Old Language meant rock, was appropriately named, for that was what he resembled. He had an almost brutal ugliness to his looks, his face craggy, features rough, lips too thick. His jawline was jagged and blunt, his deep-set eyes a little uneven. The coarse heaviness of his features was reinforced by the hulking massiveness of his body. But it was his eyes, a light eerie pale green, hard, cold, and flat, that made one want to shiver as Talon visibly did. At two and one-half times my width, and almost twice my height, he was one of the few demons I hesitated to tangle with.
Whereas Ruric was brutally ugly, Hari was painstakingly handsome in a sulky bad-boy way. With sharp-bladed features and hooded eyes, both dark and cynical, he was arrogant and abrasive and as clever as the monkey he was named for. Tall, but almost wiry thin. As quick to smile at you as he was to snap off your hand, almost never still. Ruric, on the other hand, was like the rock for which he was named—motionless, until action was called for. Then he could move in a blur of blinding speed. They were both fast, both deadly, savage fighters. And I knew before he spoke, who the High Lord was going to choose to accompany me.
“No,” I said.
“I agreed that you would be in charge. Not who would go with you,” Blaec said calmly, while I cursed myself for that lack of foresight.
Ruric and Hari were the only guards whose stares did not linger on Talon. They focused instead on Nico, on the movement of his chest as he took in and released breath, though no sound was heard.
“Is he a new demon?” Hari asked. A reasonable assumption. The newly dead sometimes still made the unconscious motions of life, and only those fresh to the realm were so pale.
“No, he is Monère still,” Blaec said. “I just muted his life sounds.”
The two senior guards took the High Lord’s statement with an unblinking calmness I would not have been able to manage were I in their place.
“How can that be, High Lord?” Ruric asked in a low coarse rumble, his voice pitched almost painfully deep.
“Nico is bound with the princess and the Floradëur. That is what allows him to walk this realm and survive it.”