Dark the Night Descending (The Paderborn Chronicles Book 1)
Page 23
“I have performed for you a service,” the eallawif said, watching her but not answering the question. “For that, you owe me a gift.”
“I consented to no bargain,” Megrithe replied, pulling up her sleeve to see a black rose imprinted on the smooth skin of her arm anyway.
“Then I will take your life into my hand again. There was so very little of it left.”
“No,” she said hastily, pushing the fabric down again to cover the mark and curling up tightly in the bed, trying to protect herself from the memory of her invisible foe. She couldn’t think about it. She couldn’t think about it happening again. She wouldn’t. “No. Please. What gift do you desire, Mistress?”
The eallawif nodded slightly. “You have told me already what it is you cherish above all,” she said, moving closer.
“Oh,” Megrithe whispered, feeling the blood drain from her face as she remembered what she had said to the eallawif upon their first meeting. The Guild. She had said that her work was the most important thing to her. “I have – I have nothing else. Nothing.”
“Then it is precious enough to exchange for your life.”
Megrithe quickly wiped away the tear that had snuck down her cheek and tried not to let any more escape. The eallawif was right. But without her position, what good was breathing?
The Guild had been her family, her home, her sole purpose for so many years. What would she do – what would she be if she didn’t have that to shelter her anymore? She would be alive, at least, with a chance to make some sort of good use of her days, and that’s more than she could say for Arran Swinn, she reminded herself guiltily.
“Mistress, I implore thee,” she said eventually, trying not to show just how much it hurt. “Accept this gift I offer you.”
The eallawif smiled and leaned forward, touching her lightly on the forehead with her fingertips. “I accept your offer,” she said, and the new mark on Megrithe’s arm started to tingle like frostbite. She ducked her head down to rub at it and try to make it stop.
“He will need you soon,” the eallawif said in a soft whisper, close to her ear. “He is trapped. He cannot be trusted. Find him. Find him before he shatters us all.”
Megrithe looked up sharply, a thousand questions on her lips, but saw nothing but the empty air. The eallawif was gone.
EPILOGUE
The light had vanished by the time Arran opened his eyes again. Instead of the crimson glow of the unformed earth, there was just darkness. Darkness of sorts, he revised a few moments later as his pupils adjusted to his surroundings. There was some glimmer of dimness in front of him, but it illuminated nothing. There were no objects to catch the edge of light: no tables and chairs, no cloth-covered windows, no curving crests of shoulders or deep pockets of shadow that might contain the features of a face willing to tell him where he was.
He had died. Hadn’t he? The pain in each breath indicated that the eallawif’s dagger had done its work well. But he thought he was standing upright. Or perhaps he was floating in the sea, splayed and sodden like a discarded fishing net, all sense of gravity erased from his impossible thoughts. He had died.
But there was pain and there was breath. He was under the impression that both of those things ceased to exist once the soul had flown from its cage of flesh. He knew how to kill a man, and he knew he had done it well. So why was he breathing?
“Help,” he tried to say. No one answered. “Help me,” he said again, screaming with all the power of his addled thoughts, but not even making a sound. Maybe he was lying down.
There was a strange taste in his mouth. Not the salty tang that had plagued him since Faidal’s trick. It was dull and metallic, almost but not quite like blood, and his throat hurt enough to make him think that maybe he had swallowed too much rough sand or some shards of jagged glass.
It seemed like proof that he was still inside his own body, though, which was both comforting and somewhat distressing. The notion of continued life in such a barren and lonely purgatory did nothing to cheer him, nor did the idea that he only drew breath because he couldn’t even manage to kill himself properly. If this was his hell, a memorial to the pain of suspended success, then it was a fitting one. As with so many things, he had failed even that test.
There was nothing but the darkness to cradle him, and nothing but the slow spike of his ragged breath to hear. There was blood, now, in his mouth, and it was thick and raw and aching. There was nothing else, and he was alone.
“Help me,” he whispered, begging the darkness, but no one was there.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jennifer Bresnick is the author of The Last Death of Tev Chrisini and The Spoil of Zanuth-Karun. Born and raised on Long Island, NY, she now resides in the Boston area, fervently avoiding all discussions about professional sports.
When she isn't writing down the conversations in her head to give them an appearance of respectability, Jen enjoys getting bossed around by her cat and spending time at the archery range.
Please visit www.jenniferbresnick.com for more information about Dark the Dreamer’s Shadow, the second volume of The Paderborn Chronicles, and other upcoming works.