Darkest Knight

by Karen Duvall

  A flat round stone had been rolled in front of the opening to the cave. I gave it a tug, but it wouldn’t budge.

  Aydin grabbed hold of one edge and gently, almost soundlessly, rolled the stone aside enough for me to see in.

  I handed Aydin my knapsack and mashed my back against the rock wall to make myself as small as possible so I could gaze into the open room. It appeared to be a bedroom occupied by five small beds. The linens were clean and quite pretty for such a dismal place. There were even decorative rugs on the floor and stained glass sconces with low burning flames on the walls. Bouquets of red roses sprouted from ornate vases positioned on dainty whitewashed tables beside each bed.

  I saw four women huddled on one bed, arms around each other as if to console one another. The fifth woman lay alone on a different bed, her bare back facing me. Even my ordinary eyesight let me see the bleeding gashes that striped her flesh.

  That clinched it.

  Without a second thought, I squeezed my way through the slender opening and sprinted for the blood-soaked bed.

  As I ran across the stone floor to the bleeding woman, I heard a collective gasp from the others. One even screamed.

  When I got to the bed, I held my fingers to the woman’s throat. No pulse. And her skin was cool. She was gone.

  “Why didn’t you help her?” I asked the others, who all sat gawking at me. “She’s dead.”

  “We know she’s dead,” one of them said. “We did try to help, but it was too late. She’d lost too much blood.”

  I gazed down at the body again and saw that most of the blood soaking the sheets came from below her waist. “Did she miscarry?”

  The one who’d spoken up nodded.

  “And she was punished for it,” another one said before breaking down into sobs. “Her husband whipped her, over and over, until she passed out.”

  Oh, my God. This had gone far enough. These women were leaving with me right now. I stood and waved them toward the opening in the wall. “Come with me.”

  They sat frozen, eyes big as a deer mouse cornered by a cat. Then they all began shaking their heads at once. So I asked, “You want the same thing to happen to you?”

  Each of them stared down at their pregnant bellies. Some were further along than others, but all were heavy with child.

  “There’s not much time. I have a place to take you, somewhere safe.” I grabbed one by the arm to pull her to her feet and she yanked away from me. “What the hell is wrong with you people? Can’t you see the danger you’re in?”

  “Not nearly as much danger as you,” said a voice from the other side of the room.

  Xenia stood staring, her heavily made up eyes trained on me like I was a morsel of food she craved. She moved toward me and I instinctively stepped back.

  “What’s the matter, Chalice?” Her words sounded deeper than usual. She sounded just like… “Scared of your own sister? You hurt my feelings.”

  twenty-two

  “XENIA?” I STARED HARD AT HER, LOOKING for the lost girl who was too frightened to dedicate her life to the knighthood. What had happened to her?

  She shook her head. “I’m afraid you have me mistaken for someone else.”

  “You can’t be her.”

  “Oh, yes I can.” She bent her head and gazed up at me through her lashes, her grin sinister and playful at the same time. “You people are so much fun to play with. I’m amazed how gullible you are.”

  I was too stunned for words. I blinked, trying to clear my mind of the image I had of sweet, obstinate, troubled little Xenia. But that girl was a lie. Xenia never existed. It had been Maria all along.

  “You lived in our house,” I stammered, my head pounding with the shock of having believed her lies. “You laughed with us, cried with us, grieved with us. Yet you were the cause of that grief.”

  There was a subtle shift in her features, a softening of her stormy eyes. Then she firmed her jaw and her lips stretched into a wicked smile. “Fooled ya.”

  “How could you?”

  She shrugged. “How couldn’t I, you mean. After everything I’ve been through? Come on, get real.”

  Oh, I’d come on, all right. I moved toward her, my knife heavy in my hand. “You murdering little bitch.”

  She laughed. “Oh, my. Brave words from someone whose life could be over with one snap of my fingers.” The second her fingers snapped, all the air left my lungs.

  I grabbed my throat and crumpled to my knees, my knife clattering to the floor. It didn’t seem possible. How could her ability function when mine did not?

  “Don’t forget who and what I am.” Her fist opened slightly and a wisp of air cooled my throat. “I’m hardly human anymore. My body has been nourished by the Fallen’s blood since I was a baby. I’m more angel than human now, and much stronger than you’ll ever be.”

  “You mean you’re more demon,” I rasped through my constricted throat.

  She squinted at me and nodded. “You could be right about that.” When her hand opened all the way, so did my lungs. I swallowed as much air as I could heave in all at once.

  I gagged on my dry tongue and lunged for one of the vases to snatch out the flowers it held. I downed the water in greedy gulps.

  “So tell me, Chalice.” Maria swayed from side to side like a child listening to a favorite tune, her black cloak billowing at her sides. “Is my mother well?”

  I coughed before saying, “Your mother is in pieces.”

  She offered a comical lift of her eyebrows. “Oh, that’s right. She got hacked to bits for heresy.”

  I had no response to that because it was true.

  “She could have lied and lived.” Maria stopped her swaying and her voice sounded wistful now. “But instead she martyred herself and threw me away like a piece of garbage.”

  “Geraldine did not throw you away.”

  “That’s not what my father tells me.” She stood still now, all playfulness gone from her voice. “He rescued me from the midwife who planned to make me her slave.”

  “He lies as badly as you do. That’s not what happened.”

  “You better watch what you say about my father.”

  I needed to play this right and antagonizing her wasn’t the way to do it. A troubled girl lay somewhere underneath Maria’s demonic facade. This was Geraldine’s daughter, a Hatchet knight, and in spite of what she’d done she was still family.

  Brute force wouldn’t work against her, seeing as how I had none, so reasoning with her could be my only hope. Speaking of brute force, where was Aydin? I hoped he saw what just happened and went to warn Barachiel.

  Maria flashed me a sudden smile. “Where are my manners? Let me show you around.”

  Spinning on her heel, she headed for a doorway that I assumed led to the rest of the cave.

  “Xenia…I mean Maria,” I said, saying her name as gently as possible. Her mind was obviously unstable and I needed her to believe I was open to whatever she needed from me. The lies Pharzuph had told her poisoned her against her mother and against all of us. Once she knew the truth, she’d realize that what she had done was wrong. “The woman on the bed is dead.”

  “Oh?” Maria stepped over to the corpse and the four remaining women cringed at her approach. They were scared to death of her. “So she is. Do you know what she did?”

  Unsure how to answer, I just nodded.

  “Killing a knight is punishable by death,” she said without inflection. “Her unborn child was a priceless life we couldn’t afford to lose. Now it’s gone.”

  I wanted to say the child’s death was no one’s fault, but I doubted Maria would agree. She would only get more angry. “I understand,” I said, trying my best to sound agreeable. “Hatchet knights sired by the Arelim are precious and—”

  “No!” she shouted. She turned on me, her eyes blazing with fury. “Not a Hatchet. The Hatchets are dead. This child was intended for a new knighthood.”

  Confused, I frowned and shook my head.

 
; Maria’s demeanor flipped back to charming as she calmly said, “My knighthood. The Order of the Darkest Knight.”

  The woman was stark raving mad.

  She narrowed her eyes at the frightened little group on the bed and flicked a hand at the body. “Clean up this mess. Your husbands will be here soon and I suspect Ravachiel will be in a foul mood. Poor angel is mourning the death of his child. Let this be a lesson to all of you!”

  She stomped off toward the exit. “Chalice, I have something to show you.”

  I gritted my teeth and offered the women a sympathetic glance, then mouthed the words, I’m getting you out of here. None of them looked convinced.

  I followed Maria out into the cave. It was huge and dark and magnificent. The walls glittered as if made of stars and the floors were carpeted in enormous animal hides larger than any beast I’d ever seen. Tables made of ceramic tiles held works of art from cultures I never knew existed. I would have studied them more closely if my eyes worked like they were supposed to. Even if they did, I was too distracted by what Maria had to show me. It was enough to make me wish, if only for a moment, that I’d gone completely blind.

  “I’d like you to meet my pet, Shameena,” she said, grinning at the female gargoyle chained to the wall beside a red velvet throne trimmed with gold and onyx. The creature snarled at me, its large hairy breasts making its broad chest appear even broader. It had a distinctive baboon face and I could have sworn it was related to my deceased gargoyle, Shui.

  “Poor Shameena has been lonely without a companion, so thank you, Chalice, for bringing one for her.”

  Ice flowed through my veins right then, but when I saw Aydin chained to the opposite wall, my heart almost stopped. I ran toward him, but a black winged angel lunged out of the shadows to stop me.

  “Are you mad? They can’t be in the same room together!” I yelled at her.

  “Are you jealous?” Maria asked, a grin splitting her deathly pale face. “You can have him back, you know. On one condition.”

  My heart raced and my mind was speeding to catch up. Where was my father? “I won’t bargain with you,” I told her. “Where’s Barachiel?”

  She shrugged. “He’s here with his brothers. They have a lot of catching up to do.”

  I felt sick. I held on to my stomach and it was all I could do to keep from retching. I stared hard at the squire who had made a vow to her sisters only to betray them. I wasn’t as angry as I was disgusted and disheartened. And very much alone.

  “Now,” Maria said, brushing her hands together as if to rid them of dirt. “Let’s get down to business.”

  My hopes had been dashed and from what I could tell since arriving here, my life was as good as forfeit. Things couldn’t possibly get any worse.

  “I would very much like you to join my order, to become a Darkest knight,” Maria said.

  My answer was a no-brainer. “No.”

  She tilted her head to one side. “And I want you to wed your guardian angel and conceive his child.”

  I barked a laugh. “Not only no, but hell no.”

  Maria nodded and paced in front of me. “Then you leave me no other choice but to bond you to your gargoyle, Aydin.”

  “What?” She couldn’t be serious. I’d been there, done that, and was determined not to let it happen again, ever. Aydin’s curse would lift as soon as he ate Shojin’s heart. “You can’t do this.”

  “I sure can,” she said. “And I will. I have a shaman standing by to tattoo your neck and commence with the ritual. You do remember how that works, don’t you?”

  I swallowed. I remembered only too well.

  There came a loud clanging of chains as Aydin thrashed against his constraints. He’d heard Maria’s bargain.

  “If I take Rafael as my mate, you’ll let Aydin go free?” My heart sank even further. What would I do without him? I wasn’t sure I’d have the will to go on. However, if I made this promise to Maria, it would buy me time to figure a way out. The tiniest flicker of hope warmed my heart.

  She nodded. “I’m giving you a choice and it’s a win-win for you either way. Use your angel-mate to conceive and bear a child for my order, or live out the rest of your life with a gargoyle or as one. Winged or not, it makes no difference because your love will keep you together.” She laughed and sang the last bit like it was a nursery rhyme.

  My eyes burned and the answer I was about to give scorched my tongue. “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll take Rafael as my mate.”

  “Excellent!” Maria clapped her hands like an excited child.

  I glanced over at Aydin, who stared at me silently for a few seconds before his head drooped to his chest. I prayed he realized I was working on a plan to fix this. He knew me well enough to know I’d not give in without a fight.

  “Why now?” I asked Maria.

  Maria leaned forward as if hard of hearing. “Excuse me?”

  “The Hatchet knights have existed for centuries. Why did you wait until now to kill us all?”

  She nodded slowly. “Well, you see, it all has to do with my mother. Everything starts with her. Everything.”

  It was true that Geraldine started our order, was the first to mate with her guardian and bear a child, and the first to be condemned for her actions. I didn’t know what that had to do with Maria’s murder spree. “So?”

  “As long as her remains were in the mortal realm, I was stuck on this side of the veil, inside this beautiful cave my father made for me.” She waited for me to say something, but I only listened. “I tried to leave, to go to her and learn the whereabouts of my sisters, but a barrier lay between me and the outside world.”

  “Why?”

  Her laugh was bitter. “Isn’t it obvious? My mother didn’t want me. She hates me because my father loves me and she made sure I could never leave this place.”

  That made entirely no sense. Geraldine wasn’t a sorceress and didn’t have that kind of power. Her only power was, and is, her psychic link with the Arelim. She was the most humble, gracious and loving person I’d ever known. “Maria, your mother thought you were dead.”

  Maria stiffened and her stormy eyes widened with rage. “Liar!” She pointed at me and marched up to stand before me, her face barely an inch from mine. Her finger jabbed me in the chest as she said, “She deceives you. She deceives everyone. My mother is a vicious, hateful woman who thinks of no one but herself. I wish she was dead.”

  Wow. Pharzuph was the deceiver and probably the one who had kept Maria imprisoned here from the start. He wielded that kind of power, not Geraldine. He’d only let Maria loose now so that she could kill the competition before Geraldine had a chance to become whole and live again. Pharzuph was afraid of her. I wish I knew why.

  Maria shook her head and sighed. “Let’s not quarrel, Chalice. We’re sisters. We have a new knighthood to prepare and we must do it together. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  A smile twitched falsely at the corner of my mouth. “Of course.”

  Her answering smile was sweeter than I expected. “I’m so happy to have you here with me. I really enjoyed getting to know you at Halo Home. You and I are so much alike and I’ve been so lonely… .” Her eyes filled and she blinked quickly while turning her head to look away. “It’s getting late and I’m famished. You look a bit peckish yourself. Can I offer you some refreshments?”

  I shook my head. “No, thank you.”

  She shrugged. “I hate to eat alone, but I never actually do.” She clapped her hands. “Let me introduce you to my companion for the evening.”

  Following the direction of her gaze, I zeroed in on a curtained doorway. The drape opened and a black-winged angel stepped through leading another dark angel on a chain attached to his bound wrists. My breath caught and I gasped. It was Barachiel.

  I lunged forward, but the angel leading Barachiel caught me before I could touch him. He wrapped an arm around my waist and lifted me up, my legs kicking out at whatever I could reach. He held me like I weighed no more than a loa
f of bread. Barachiel didn’t meet my eyes when I called to him. He stared stoically down at his feet.

  “You keep doing that,” Maria said to me. She waved her hands in a rush of motion. “Do you always swoop in like that?”

  “Only when the people I care about need help,” I said through gritted teeth. “You’re hurting my family!”

  She scowled and folded her arms. “Well, I was hurt first.”

  She stomped over to her velvet throne and threw herself onto it, then leaned back against the cushions. Waving her hand at the angel holding me like a sack of potatoes, she said, “Bring them to me.”

  He obeyed, setting me down at her feet and jerking Barachiel over to an iron ring mounted on the cave wall. There was too much space between my father and me to reach each other. I knew Barachiel had strong magic he could use to free himself, but something or someone prevented him from doing it. I bet Maria had threatened to hurt me if he didn’t comply. I would never forgive her for that.

  She held her hand open and the dark angel who did her bidding placed a slender, curved knife onto her palm. “Thank you, Soriel.”

  Leaning over the armrest of her throne, she reached out to grab hold of Barachiel’s bound hands. “You won’t feel a thing,” she told him before slicing the blade across his wrist.

  She yanked his hand up to her mouth and greedily clamped her lips over the wound. The sucking sounds she made while feeding echoed against the cave walls and sent a shudder of revulsion through me. I again looked at my father’s face. He was resigned to fulfill whatever bargain he had made, but I saw deeper thoughts in his eyes. He wasn’t about to let this go. His set jaw and the sneer on his lips told me someone would pay for his humiliation.

  Maria finally released him and sat back, her lips red with blood. A drop of it dribbled from the corner of her mouth and she swiped the back of her hand across her chin. She smiled with teeth stained from her meal. “Take him away.”

  Soriel unchained Barachiel from the wall and led him back the way they’d come. My father didn’t stumble, didn’t look up, just dutifully trudged beside his fallen brother. But I could tell by the stiff way he moved that he was furious.