In the Darkness

by Charles Edward

  Denua locked herself in the box. She removed all her devices, including her sword and shield, and set them aside so they couldn’t affect the Renewal. She was vulnerable now to the focus and its energies. Vulnerable to anything, really.

  She strapped herself in the chair. Outside, the girl strained against her bonds.

  Denua steeled herself and grasped the focus.

  Light came before the pain. She crushed her eyes closed as tightly as possible, but still she was blinded. Then the heat. It was as if the thinnest thread of iron had always been at the core of each bone and tooth, and now it turned white-hot. As her bones seared, the muscles in her body contracted, all pulling at once, all trying to tear free.

  She was bathed in sound. A scream that might have been hers, joined by another. And another sound, shrill like a hawk’s scream but rising higher and higher until it threatened to shatter everything.

  Denua shattered first.

  She floated in a place of endless darkness with no up or down. A scaffold of bars and staves and bands, all of a metal that was not metal, interlocking, stretched infinitely in every direction. She had no body, no way to turn to see, but she knew it was so. The parts of the construct nearest her moved. Staves rotated, releasing other elements from their notches. Those elements shifted and moved to a new configuration. The change reverberated through the structure, a wave of change that traveled as far as she could see. Then the pieces settled back into their new order and the staves turned again and—

  Her body broke through the surface of the world, and she heaved for air with deep, ragged breaths.

  She was lashed in a chair with her head thrown back. She looked up as she tried to get enough air, up through a pane of glass, up at a great crystal eye. She thought she saw movement in it, maybe a last glimpse of the construct behind the world, retreating into the crystal’s murky depth.

  When her panic settled and her lungs stopped burning, Denua looked again and saw nothing but distorted reflections in the crystal.

  The burning and light were gone, but every muscle ached. She knew from long experience that the aches would be with her for about two days.

  When Denua recovered enough to move, she unclasped the chair’s restraints. It took a few minutes more before she dared to stand. She donned her equipment and exited the box with great care.

  She paced around the chamber slowly at first but with growing confidence, and soon all the parts of her body seemed to fit right again.

  Denua unlocked the chamber door, and her people reentered. The college guardswomen went to the room’s center table to remove the girl’s body, a husk of dry skin shriveled tight against the bones.

  The body would be returned to the college for a hero’s burial, along with stories of the girl’s bravery and resolution to preserve her people.

  “Get Uliette’s security report,” Denua told one of her guards. “And get me a mirror. I want to see if I’ve changed at all.”

  * * *

  Evin woke in a soft bed. He felt far away from himself and didn’t have the strength to sit up. In fact, his head was so heavy that it was too difficult for him to look around. He was tired, but he wasn’t walking or frozen up by the pendant. Had it released him?

  He found he could move his fingers. He lifted a hand and slapped it down on the bed to hear the sound, just to be sure.

  There was a stir of excited conversation. People were in the room, getting closer.

  He was asleep before they arrived.

  The next time he woke, a lady was there, someone to help him be well again. Big cities had places for that, and there was a word for her, but Evin couldn’t think of it. No, healer. That was the word. She had milky skin, like a child, long black hair, wide eyes made larger by color painted on the eyelids, red lips, small and delicate ears. She was fairly pretty. She held a goblet, ornate with glittering gems, and she lifted his head to help him drink.

  The medicine was a surprisingly thin liquid. Astringent and burning, but he tasted hints of herbal flavors, cherry…wine? Did they give wine to people who were starved?

  He choked on it a bit, making a mess on the too-white bed. Ashamed, he searched for her eyes, but she dabbed his face with a cloth and laid the goblet aside. She urged him to settle back, leaned over him with something to clean the bedding, and tucked the sheet around him. While she worked, he glimpsed her breasts: small, tight, and perfect snow-white mounds. She wore a pendant with an odd, very old-looking stone cross. For a moment during her efforts, it hung down to touch him, and his blood turned to ice. He didn’t want it to touch him. Breath came in panicked sips, and he would have clawed away if only his body worked properly. But his struggles were so weak that she seemed not to even notice them.

  When she finished and moved away, he wanted to weep with relief. Yet he was grateful for her care. He tried to say thank you, but it didn’t work. His sounds were feeble.

  She was so beautiful!

  He slept again, and when he woke, he looked around for her. Others were there. They came to him. Someone dipped a porridge into his mouth, and others examined his body. He was ravenous, but they didn’t give him much, the stingy bastards, and the lady wasn’t there. He was sorry she wasn’t there.

  And then one time she was, with more wine. She was beautiful in a way Evin had never seen in women from the village. She stroked him like his mother had done when he was little, and she made him feel better. He was impatient to get well so he could get out of the bed.

  Or pull her into it.

  Oh, he wanted her. It felt right, but why? His mind was numb in every other way. He probed his thoughts and found only emptiness where feelings for Gareth should have been. He should have been angry or ashamed at that, but the numbness took those emotions, as well. Desire and arousal didn’t exist for him—except when she came near.

  What had Cydrich done to him?

  Days passed. Someone else, a man, was helping him get up. He was ashamed to find he had soiled himself. The man helped him to a chair with a chamber pot in it and, after, cleaned him up. Something was weird about that. When they returned to the bed, it was clean again. All too quick. Was he dreaming?

  Healers gave him more porridge. He lost track of how often he ate, but he was able to lift the spoon now, and they gave him more of the stuff. And when he was too tired to eat, they took it away.

  With a start, he remembered that he carried a message. He reached up to his neck. The pendant was gone, thank the lords. That was why he could rest. He wondered why nobody asked him about the message, but without the pendant there to force him to do anything about it, he kept quiet and waited and prayed to get his strength back.

  * * *

  “Ugh,” Evin said, struggling to get out of the bed by himself.

  He needed the chamber pot, and he was tired of being propped up like an old man. He was stronger these days. It was just a bit of a struggle to make it there, but he was determined to go on his own today. A healer, a woman—not the beautiful one he wished to see—stood close by. He waved her off and tottered to the chair. Yes, maybe he sat too heavily and maybe he had to drag the fabric of his gown back out from under his seat, but he made it.

  The healer clapped and smiled warmly at him.

  He smiled back and thought about how he would have bowed, if he were hearty again. He had a vision of falling face-first off the chamber pot and then shitting himself on the floor. Silliness would have to wait.

  After relieving himself, he stood, just a bit unstable, and the healer touched him back there with something that made him clean.

  “What is that thing? What are you cleaning me with?”

  She gave a little laugh. “It’s called a cleansing wand. Touch, and the soil is gone. They told me you were not from the city.”

  She was kind and pleasant. Happy to tutor him.

  Working his way back to the bed, he said, “No. I’m from a little village. Laforet. They make furniture there.”

  “Oh yes, fine pieces.”


  Too pleasant.

  “Mademoiselle, why is everyone being so nice to me? Why am I here in this infirmary?”

  “Here, let us get you back into bed. You remember you came to the palace, yes?” She took his arm and helped him into the bed.

  “Yes, but—”

  “The queen saw you and took pity. We are her personal healers, and you are her guest!” She beamed at him. He was supposed to be honored and grateful now.

  He fell back onto his pillow. “That makes sense. I didn’t give her his message, then.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, but she will see you again when you are well. Perhaps soon.”

  Soon. He could get this over with and be free to leave. But what happens then? Where can I go? He couldn’t go back to his village even if he knew the way. He would be blamed for Tyber’s murder. The mayor would never let him live.

  And what would he tell the queen when he saw her? Without the pendant to make him follow Cydrich’s instructions, would it be better to tell the truth? But from the queen’s point of view, Cydrich’s story might not really be a lie at all. Cydrich had found a monster and slain it. Could the queen understand that there were good monsters?

  “You are troubled?” the healer asked.

  “I don’t know.” He sighed. “I was sent by the demon hunter Cydrich to carry news to the queen. I’m worried about what will happen when I talk to her.”

  “Do you think she will punish you if she doesn’t like the demon hunter’s message?”

  Evin shrugged. “Why is Cydrich a demon hunter? Why him? And why do we need him?”

  She looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “In your village, people may know little about the past. Do you know that our lands used to be part of a much greater kingdom, called an empire?”

  He shook his head.

  “The empire ruled all the world from a great city. But barbarians came from the east, armies of men and goblins, attacking again and again until they reached the city and destroyed it. The empire died away.”

  “So now we’re afraid of goblins,” Evin said.

  “Exactly. Hundreds of years ago, the barbarians came to Elyrria through Lombardie, but the queen drove them back. Sorcelrous devices protect the borders now. No army can march across our lands without the queen knowing immediately. To prevent corruption from within, the demon hunters destroy any creature from the underworld they can find.”

  Hundreds of years. Everyone knew the queen was undying, but…lords!

  After fighting monsters for hundreds of years, the queen would never believe Gareth’s innocence. Best to tell Cydrich’s lies, because in them, Evin was innocent of any crime. Telling the truth could never bring Gareth back or fix anything that had happened. It could only get Evin killed.

  * * *

  One day, the healers looked him over and pronounced him well. They gave him strange clothing, stuff that merchants who visited his village sometimes wore. Hose, braies, shirt, and doublet. The doublet was finer than any clothing he had ever seen, made of a soft fabric that had been dyed in a bright, rich blue. The clothing bothered him because he feared he would spoil it somehow and offend the queen. He might hate her for the ways she had hurt his family, but it would do no good to upset her.

  When he was presentable, guards led him from the healers’ rooms and into the castle’s corridors. The halls were purest white where the stone was left uncovered. Banners and flags hung from some walls, paintings from others, and occasionally they passed fine tables placed for the sole purpose of holding a pot or statue.

  The castle was bigger than he could have imagined.

  A woman joined the group. She stepped in beside him and introduced herself as the captain of the queen’s guard. After Evin greeted her, she said, “I’ll be present as you speak to the queen.”

  The guards led him to a small chamber and bade him enter. The guard captain went with him.

  The room was dominated by red fabrics and dark woods. Its major feature was a fireplace surrounded by shelves filled with codices, many more of them than Madame Tabeau ever owned. There were tall and well-padded chairs in front of the unlit fireplace. Beside each chair stood a little wooden table holding a jeweled goblet. The tables were ornate, expertly carved, and polished to a rich glow. He wondered if they had come from Laforet.

  As he crossed the room, he saw that someone was already sitting in one of the chairs. He got closer, and his heart leaped. It was the beautiful healer! She looked up at him and smiled. “Evin, please come sit.”

  “Uh, hello.” He sat across from her. Why was she here? To report on his recovery?

  “Your Majesty,” the guard captain said in greeting and stepped back.

  The woman nodded at the captain and said to Evin, “Now I will hear Cydrich’s news.”

  What? Evin looked at the guard captain, then the woman across from him. They’re serious. “You’re a healer, no? You can’t be the queen.”

  “Indeed I am the queen,” she said, a smile playing at her lips.

  He could see she was not offended by his mistake, but why? “Your—Your Majesty. You came to see me with the healers?”

  “Yes, I took an interest in you. You nearly died to bring me a report. Please speak now.”

  Trying to contain the shock and keep his face neutral, Evin relayed Cydrich’s fiction. When he was done, the queen sat back in her chair and said, “Cydrich has such a talent for finding these creatures. There never seemed to be so many before he began hunting them.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” the guard captain said. “Difficult to say if their number is increasing or if Cydrich has special expertise in finding ones already here.”

  The queen looked back to Evin. “Have you told us all Cydrich had to say?”

  He nodded. “I think so.”

  The captain said, “His story agrees with what he told us when we put the charm back on him.”

  Evin’s blood ran cold. Did they not trust him? Or were they testing Cydrich? Thank the lords I decided to tell Cydrich’s lies.

  The queen leaned forward again. “Evin, you have done what you were required to do, and you are perhaps well enough to travel. So now we must decide what to do with you.”

  He didn’t like the sound of that. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  The queen left him to fret for a moment as she took the ornate, gem-encrusted goblet on the table beside her chair and drank. She bade him do the same. He picked up its twin that stood near his own elbow and tasted. Wine, the same dark red as before. He drank in hope that the alcohol would calm him.

  The queen said, “You are a strikingly handsome man. Has anyone ever told you that?”

  “N-no.”

  “One might think you were a noble, not a farm boy from a tiny village.”

  He was afraid to correct the “farm boy” assessment, so he had no reply.

  She smiled brightly. “I have decided to invite you to stay here at the castle for a while.”

  Evin stared numbly at her as she awaited his answer. He must have heard her correctly, but the words didn’t make sense. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I’m not sure I understand. You want me to stay here, in your castle…with you?”

  “Yes.”

  Impossible.

  He hadn’t forgotten that this was the woman who had hurt his family. It was her law that had trapped him under Tyber’s thumb. It was her law that had condemned his uncle. She’d taken Teffaine to consume with sorcelry. Without knowing her, he had hated this woman for years.

  He remembered this, that he had and should hate her, but the hatred was just a fact. It seemed very distant, like a thing shut away in a box. Had Cydrich’s sorcelry taken it away? And what did it really matter? He would be foolish to stay here and risk doing something stupid, but he would be far more foolish to offend the queen by rejecting her offer.

  He looked at her, and warmth spread through him, warming him like the wine. She wasn’t as he had imagined, not at all. She was beautiful, and she had been ki
nd to him.

  “I see you’re smiling,” she said. “Does that mean you won’t refuse me?”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty. I will stay.”

  The queen stood, and he assumed the interview was over. He got up to leave but was taken by surprise when the queen stepped close and put a slim, white hand on his arm.

  The queen kissed him.

  It was just a little kiss, lips touching, mouths closed, but he had to close his eyes and restrain himself from clasping her body against his own.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Evin was shown to the castle’s private apartments where he would live with the queen. He was given his own room and an entire wardrobe of the fantastic and uncomfortable clothing, as well as a valet to help him dress properly.

  The queen’s chamberlain assigned a servant named Amaury to train him in the castle’s manners and customs. Amaury began by teaching how ensorceled devices influenced every aspect of life in the castle. People relied on them here, unlike in the villages, where they were practically unknown.

  Some sorcelry would ensure Evin’s safety, such as the devices that would prevent bringing poisons into any of the rooms Evin and Denua would frequent.

  Sorcelry could also be used for convenience. Amaury gave Evin a cleansing wand and told him to use it at least daily, especially to clean in his mouth. Amaury showed him how the stone at the tip of the wand could not be touched; although it was always dry, it slipped through grasping fingers.

  “When the spark wears out,” Amaury said, “you will be able to feel the stone a little. That tells you it is time to replace the wand. When the spark is gone, you will be able to grasp the stone and the wand won’t cleanse anymore.”

  Classes in manners and etiquette were the most painful. Every noble rank had a name and a manner of address completely unrelated to it. For example, a duke would be addressed as Your Grace. There were many noble ranks to learn.

  However, the worst aspect of etiquette had to be mealtime. In the private apartments, he could eat as he pleased and use his hands and a knife like a normal man. But at a feast, the rules were different. There were too many utensils and too many nonsensical customs. For example, each guest had a water servant. When you wanted a drink, you waved for the cup, drank, and handed it back to the servant. To let a cup touch the table would be a serious embarrassment.