Dark One's Mistress (Dark One Trilogy Book 1)

by Alien, Aldrea

  "No, please. I'm innocent, I tell you! Goddess, please help me!"

  Foreign words, resonant and a little bit guttural, coiled up the steps to greet her. A flash of silvery-blue light brushed the stone at the foot of the stairwell.

  "N—"

  Abrupt silence unfurled before her, winding its icy fingers about her neck.

  Despite the heat of the torches, she shivered. Dear Goddess, give me strength for what I must do. What were they doing to those men? At least it hadn't sounded like Tommy. What if he's next? Three men had exited the iron wagon, how many had they gone through already? Would there still be time to stop them?

  Clara scurried down the last few steps to halt as the final curve fell away and the dungeon lay open before her. A relatively bare space to what she'd expected; more akin to a tomb than a prison. Where were the chains and cells? And why... Why were there no prisoners?

  Tommy crouched near the bottom of the steps. Beside him stood the wagon driver, along with two others wearing the red and black garb of the lord's men. Their attention seemed focused on one of the criminals as more guards dragged him out into the middle of the room, silently passing the kneeling figure of the third man who'd left the wagon. The man drew himself upright and stepped back from—

  Clara clapped her hands over her mouth, smothering a gasp. Standing in the middle of the dungeon, surrounded by an array of circles and glyphs drawn onto the floor, was Lucias.

  The guards shoved their prisoner onto his knees before their lord. Still not uttering a word, the man tilted his head up. On the steps, with his arms wrapped over his own head and a soft moan issuing from within his self-made cocoon, Tommy rocked back and forth.

  She bit her lip. With the men fixated on their lord, it shouldn't be too difficult getting close enough to the boy without alerting the guards either side of him. Crouching, she took another step closer, freezing as one of the men shifted from one leg to the other.

  Out in the middle of the room, Lucias placed his hand on the man's upraised head and spoke. Words she couldn't understand, uttered in the same resonating, guttural tone as before, spilt from his lips. The air crackled, lifting the hairs on her neck and arms. At the pair's feet, the lines encircling them shimmered, the glyphs flaring in a bright, silvery-blue burst before fading.

  Clara squinted. The light continued to blaze around the kneeling man. It arced from him in great ghostly flames, then dimmed to a faint corona only to spurt anew.

  Still talking in the strange language, Lucias removed his hand from the man's head. The glow rose with his fingers. It pulsed to some unheard beat, taking the form of an upright man before crushing down to a palm-sized ball. Then, with a flick of his wrist, the light vanished. "Stand," Lucias commanded, his voice hollow. "Return to the others."

  The kneeling man obeyed. Moving stiffly, he halted by the guards who bent down to haul Tommy to his feet.

  Crying out, the boy struggled. He lashed out with foot and fist, too wild in his flailing for his blows to connect with much force.

  "No!" Clara staggered down the last of the steps after them, stopping as they all faced her. The men, both criminal and guard, watched her with their flat eyes. Just like the men who'd kidnapped her, and the old women who attended her during the day. Lifeless. The light. What had it been? What has he done? What could he possibly take from them?

  "How did you—" Lucias scrubbed at his face, dragging his fingers back through his hair. "I am ceasing to find your attempts at escape amusing," he snarled. His head snapping around, he glared at the nearby men as if they were responsible. "See she is returned to her quarters and make sure there are at least two of you guarding her door." His gaze dropped to Tommy whilst the lad was forced to his knees before him.

  No. A hand clapped onto her shoulder, pulling her backwards. She shrugged it off and raced across the room before they could stop her. "Leave him be!" Collapsing at Tommy's side, she wrapped an arm around the boy's shoulders, briefly aware how her hand barely made the final curve.

  It was always hard to remember he wasn't a small boy. For some reason his form tended to shrink in her mind, although common agreement on the streets made him two years older than she. "It's okay, Tommy." She smoothed his hair, steadfastly ignoring the urge to then wipe her hand clean on the folds of her skirts.

  "Clara." Like a frightened child half his age, he snuggled against her, pillowing his head on her shoulder.

  Lucias glared down at her, his heavy brows furrowing. The light had taken over his eyes, turning them into silvery-blue orbs. All around them, the circles glowed and pulsed. "Release him at once!" he demanded, his voice taking on the guttural note.

  Tommy wriggled in her arms. Whimpering, he buried his face into her armpit. Clara sorely wished she could do the same.

  "Please, my lord, I beg you, don't harm him." Her grip on the lad tightened. "Tommy's never done a thing to anyone."

  His expression did not falter. If anything, it hardened. "He must have done some thing to end up here."

  "Does he look to you as if he's capable of any sort of crime?" Minor theft, maybe. Who would care if he took the food no one else would want to eat? No one had been bothered by him taking such items before. Not enough to warrant a trip in the iron wagon. Poor boy must've been scared half to death. And by the look in the two criminals' eyes, Lucias planned to take Tommy closer still. She shrank back. What had he done to them?

  Lucias sneered. "Looks have nothing to do with it."

  Although a small part of her agreed, Clara shook her head. "I know him." She'd witnessed a horse kick out at the boy, sending him flying across the street and into an alley. Tommy had emerged with several fresh cuts and scrapes. He'd then hobbled up to the horse, patted it and apologised to the beast. "He wouldn't hurt anyone." She doubted he'd even the capacity to dislike, never mind hate.

  "Those who come here have already been found guilty. I cannot release him."

  Clara no longer knew whether she or Tommy shook more. "Then give him to me. To be my servant." Someone who could aid her in escaping without alerting Lucias.

  One brow twitched up. His face darkened, the silver-blue light in his eyes increasing as his gaze flicked from her to Tommy. "What would you want with a page? You're unlikely to have any errands which my men cannot handle."

  I could make some. A letter to her mother would be precedence. Having him discover the way out would be better. "Please."

  Lucias hesitated, seeming to mull over her request. "No." He stepped closer, towering over them. "I cannot let him wander these halls with him still in full possession of his soul."

  His soul? Was that what Lucias had taken from those men? She'd never have thought their lifeless gaze was because of their missing soul. She swallowed the bile rising in her throat. "Let me have him as my personal servant and I-I swear I..." Taking a deep breath, she let the words out in a rush, "I'll stop trying to escape."

  "You—" The silvery-blue light in his eyes vanished in a blink, allowing them to regain their original dark colouring. "You'll what?"

  "I'll stop trying to escape," she repeated, her voice little more than a whisper. Trapped here and the only one who'd care, let alone help, would be a young man who thought of himself as a boy. Her chest tightened at the thought. "I swear it."

  Lucias frowned. "You'll stay in exchange for the lad to keep his soul? And with the understanding that, should you decide to try escaping, I shall resume his punishment, for regardless of whether you think he's in the wrong or not, his fate has already been decided."

  She nodded. A tear escaped down her cheek to fall on Tommy's shoulder. She'd been so close! I could be halfway down the mountainside by now. But no, they'd taken him. And why? She wished she knew. Whoever had thought it a good idea to be rid of him, had also taken her last chance at freedom.

  The glow emanating from the circles died. A handful of torches dotted the room. Their light, so common after the unworldly shimmer, sparkled off the elegant curves of pale stone set into the gr
ey slabs of the floor.

  "Deal." Lucias marched over to where his men, and the newly-recruited criminals, still waited at the foot of the stairs. "Take the lad with the others," he said to one of the guards, "and have him adequately enrobed. Gettie will know with what. But no armour." He glanced over his shoulder at Clara and Tommy. "And make it known he is not to be given any weapons." His voice echoed behind him as he trotted up the steps.

  The man Lucias had spoken to bowed. "As you command, master." He swung around to face Clara and Tommy, his eyes bearing a familiar flatness. The soul that powered him stolen.

  Master. She hadn't given any thought towards the word when Sirius had first used it to address his lord. It was a common enough saying in Everdark to be dismissed. Now she could all too readily hear the intonation. Master of their lives. Of their souls. What did he do with the souls once he had them? Did he use it to power his magic?

  And what of her? My patience is not eternal. His words. Would he take her soul too if she kept refusing his company? Her stomach quivered. The trembling fast spread outwards, robbing her of any strength.

  The men tore Tommy from her grasp. Clara couldn't stop them. She couldn't stop anyone. Least of all Lucias.

  Chapter Eight

  She stared at the painting before her without truly seeing it. Somewhere on the outer rim of her thoughts came the vague awareness it was a woman, dressed in a black gown or a colour close to it.

  Someone cleared their throat. A dark shape hovered on the edge of her sight. "I hear your page has returned from his errand." The figure took on the more recognisable, yet no less ominous, form of Lucias.

  She nodded. Yesterday, as Tommy's first task, she'd given him a letter for her mother. The boy had gone off with, at Lucias' insistence, a couple of armed men for his protection. This morning, he had returned with a response.

  Of all the people to miss her presence, Clara thought it would've been her mother. But no, not Marian Weaver. She'd mourn her husband's passing until her death, yet couldn't care less if her daughter, her only child, was trapped with their lord. Not having Clara there to take up needless space and money seemed to have been her only concern. On top of it, she'd the nerve to ask if the Great Lord wouldn't mind compensating her for the loss of Clara's abilities.

  On the edge of her vision, she saw him lean against the railing behind them. "I'm sorry. It must've come as quite a shock."

  Clara shrugged. He couldn't be blamed for her mother's callousness. Why, her mother had revealed in the letter that she'd been meaning to match Clara with the cobbler on Main Street. Arranged without even a mention of it to me. The widower was twice her age, with children nearly as old as she and no doubt looking for another wife to add to his brood.

  She could imagine her father coming up with such a ridiculous idea. He would've at least listened to her when it came to preference, but her own mother? She'd planned to hand me over next month. Her teeth ground together. She refused to be disposed of like chattel.

  Lucias let out a soft, considering hum. "I've done as you've asked with the boy. Are we back to you not speaking to me now?" There was an edge to the words. Cool enough to slip its iciness into her gut.

  She shivered despite herself.

  He cleared his throat. "I fully believe you shall keep your word and have even given you leave to walk the Citadel unescorted as proof of my trust in you." True, the hallways and rooms may have been hers to wander whenever she felt like it, but he hadn't granted her access to the gates. One foot into the courtyard and she could feel his men watching her every movement. "What else can I possibly do to redeem myself in your eyes?"

  You could set me free. She spun to face him. "You steal men's souls." Bad men, granted, but surely no one could do something so heinous as to deserve that as punishment. "Why would you even need them?"

  Silence filled the room. Her question echoed up to the ceiling several floors above.

  His shoulders hunching, Lucias stared at the floor before them. Here, the natural bleakness of rock had been given a touch of colour by way of a narrow rug running the curved length of the landing. Like most of the decor, it was a dark red.

  Then at last, he sighed. "It wasn't my idea, if that's what you mean to imply. This..." He sneered. "This gift has been passed down through my family, from father to son, for... I make it eleven successions now."

  Eleven successions. Hundreds of years. They'd been stealing the souls of the kingdom for hundreds of years. "But... why?" What use could they be?

  "I've little idea what my ancestors aimed for. We seldom get the chance to meet our grandfathers but, according to my father, my grandfather preferred using the power to punish those who deserved it. My father followed in his footsteps." His head drooped, his unbound hair obscuring his face. "And so must I."

  "You could just stop."

  "You sound like my mother. She'd no perception of this land's life either." His head tilted, sending a ripple across the unkempt locks "Tell me: if I stop, what would we do with the criminals who would've been brought here?" The glint of his eye came through a break in the curtain of hair. "They'd still be around, you know. A crime doesn't just go away because it's no longer punished." He tucked the hair behind an ear. "And we no longer have prisons big enough to house much beyond a dozen or so men. I suppose you could hang them all, but it'd be a waste of a perfectly good resource. Is it not better for the kingdom if they serve to protect what they once tried to destroy?"

  She shook her head. "They've been given no choice."

  The soft, contemptuous gasp of a laugh escaped his lips. With his hands clasped behind him, he left her side. "I can relate," he murmured, the words all but lost over the thud of his boot heels against the blood-red rug.

  Clara trotted after him. "You? You've more choice than anyone here." More than her. Certainly more than the men he commanded. "How can you possibly understand?"

  He rounded on her. "I've more choice than most? We are under constant threat of war and the presence of our army is the only thing stopping invasion."

  Even living at the heart of the kingdom, she well knew the volatility of the relations with their neighbours. "What does it have to do with taking—?"

  "Who do you think makes up the main force?" His shoulders shook. The dark eyes glittered with repressed anger. "Would you rather free men, good men, be pressed into service and die whilst the murderers and thieves of the land grow fat?"

  Her mouth worked silently whilst her mind struggled to find an answer. Of course it wouldn't be better for honest men to fall in place of the corrupt, but to willingly drive those who'd no choice in the matter to their deaths seemed just as wrong.

  "It was my grandfather's idea." A hand, seemingly of its own accord, flicked towards a painting. It held a man garbed in black and red, his face lined in a permanent frown. "Or may have been my great-grandfather's, I forget exactly." Again the hand twitched. She daren't let her gaze wander to the wall. "No free man has been conscripted for decades. What would've been soldier's wages have been used to better the kingdom instead. And, more importantly, those who would've destroyed the land would instead fight for the freedom of others."

  And die without ever knowing such freedom again. "You could change it."

  "It has been this way for over six hundred years. Since our reign first began, we've had numerous kingdoms attempt invasion, but they've never won. Despite their best efforts, we've never been conquered." He shrugged. "It works. Quite well, in fact. In light of such evidence, I'd be a fool to change it."

  Clara frowned. Had she imagined the catch in his voice? The subtle twang of an old wish one has long known would go unfulfilled. Taking people's souls, especially those of criminals, couldn't be pleasant.

  Their idle wandering had taken them to the foot of the stairs leading up to the northern wing. The paintings had aged with each frame. Eleven successions. Apart from the newest one hanging at the head of the stairs to the lower floors, all of the portraits depicted men. She couldn't rec
all seeing Lucias amongst them. Eleven pictures. Her gaze fell on the wall's last painting. Was this the face of the man who'd started it all? He certainly didn't look congenial, but hardly threatening either.

  "Lord Kerwin the... Vanquisher."

  She glanced over her shoulder at Lucias. The name sounded familiar. It couldn't be. "The first Great Lord?" This atrocity went all the way back to the founding of the kingdom? Surely she hadn't heard right. Someone would've found out by now. Everyone would know.

  Lucias bobbed his head. "He was indeed. And aptly named as it so happens."

  Clara peered at the portrait. Vanquisher? The wizened face spoke more of an old scholar than some mighty warrior. Certainly at odds with the image the old stories used to conjure. But then, a sorcerer would have other means at his disposal than brute force. "How exactly did he vanquish his foes?"

  "It's said he originally designed the gift to only be used for his enemies, the rival nobles of the land, and their more... meddlesome underlings. Then he would have them order the attack on the outlying settlements." He paced the narrow section between the wall and the railing. "This was back before a true kingdom had been forged, you understand. There were many enemies then. The land had long been divided into little, squabbling estates and they fought over practically everything."

  She nodded. Her knowledge of the kingdom's past may not have been as good as his, but she knew there'd been much fighting at the beginning. "What happened in the end?" He'd died, obviously.

  But there was much about what she'd been taught that she was beginning to doubt. Distinguishing which parts were real and which were false didn't seem quite so easy anymore. Especially when she couldn't be certain of which facts to trust. What had been glossed over to shield the common people?

  "He was, I believe, slain by his own son. He grew a little bit... Well, unhinged at end."

  Unhinged. With all those men blindly obeying his will. How bad could it get with such power at his command? Feeling cold, she put her back to the painting. "In what way exactly?"