The Dead and the Dusk (The Nightmare Court Book 2)

by Val Saintcrowe

  He didn’t answer. He was still trying to breathe.

  A bit of smoke tore its way through his tunic, cutting the front and one of the sleeves. The bits of fabric fluttered away and fell to the floor. Her mist writhed over his bare chest.

  His skin broke out in puckered goosebumps and his stomach lurched.

  “Everything is dull.”

  He was shivering, and he concentrated on stopping that. He didn’t want her to see how much she unnerved him.

  “You don’t understand, of course, because I keep things very interesting for you by putting people in danger all the time and being unpredictable and keeping you on your toes. And are you ever grateful? Do you ever seem to appreciate me at all?”

  He wasn’t sure if he could do this. She was going to want things from him, and he wasn’t going to be able to deliver them, and he had to, because there was so much on the line now, more than ever.

  “Answer me.” Her voice was a plea, a whine. The mist was seeping under his breeches.

  He shuddered. “I… my apologies, Exalted One.” His voice shook.

  “I don’t want you to be sorry,” she said. “I want you… oh, I don’t know what I want from you.” She flung out her hands and the mist retracted.

  He fell immediately, thudding against the floor. His ankle twisted when he landed. He gritted his teeth, but he pushed up on his other foot, leaning against the wall for support.

  She closed the distance between them, placing her hand on his chest. She was earnest. “Truly, sometimes I fantasize about having you, and I think nothing will fulfill me until I do. But then I think about it, and I know myself, and if I do have you, then what will I fantasize about?”

  He panted. “You see? You say there’s nothing I do for you, but I live to serve you. I’m yours, Exalted One, you know this.”

  “You don’t do it for me,” she said. She leaned closer, her cold breath on his face. “You don’t want me.”

  “But if I did want you, I’d be dull.”

  She giggled. Her lips parted and she bit down on his lower lip.

  He gasped. It hurt. It frightened him. She was too close. He didn’t want her mouth on his mouth.

  She pulled away, dragging her teeth over his lip.

  He whimpered. He could have stifled it, but he thought she’d like knowing it hurt.

  “You say none of them want me,” she said.

  “Sometimes, I speak out of turn.” His voice was still trembling, gods take him. “You shouldn’t listen to me. I can only apologize again.”

  “Stop apologizing,” she said. “I have told you, I don’t want apologies.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want things not to be dull.” She sank her hands into her hair. “And they always, inevitably, are.” She gazed up at the ceiling. “You don’t even know how old I am. You don’t know how many hundreds of years I’ve been doing this, and you don’t care. You know I suffer, and you enjoy it when I hurt.”

  “I promise you, I don’t.”

  She lifted her gaze, her eyes glowing brighter than they usually did. She slapped him.

  He winced.

  “I hate you, Eithan.”

  He swallowed.

  “Well? Nothing to say to that?”

  “You told me not to apologize.”

  “Do you hate me?”

  “Of course not.”

  “You’re lying again. You’re always lying. Everything out of your mouth is a lie.” She turned her back on him, folding her arms over her chest. “I could break you, you know.”

  He felt bile rise in his throat.

  “First, I would make you kill Philo. I would tell you that if you didn’t kill him, I would kill Lian, and you would do it.”

  She couldn’t be serious. His stomach roiled. “You wouldn’t,” he managed. “You wouldn’t because then you wouldn’t have Lian to toy with anymore. You’d be very bored without Lian to threaten.”

  “Well, I could make another Lian,” she said, turning around. “This time with your seed.”

  “No,” he said. “No, I wouldn’t. I won’t.” He was seething.

  She smiled. “There. That’s the truth. That’s all I wanted to know.”

  He shut his eyes. She’d gotten to him. She always knew where he was vulnerable. Maybe he knew how to manipulate her, but she knew him too. He sagged against the wall. “I’m sorry, Exalted One, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “Stop. You bore me when you’re pathetic like that. I don’t want to break you. If I break you, you won’t be my Eithan anymore, and you are the only remotely interesting thing in this entire realm.” She was close again, smoothing her fingers over his face, over his bare shoulder, down his chest, lingering on his stomach.

  His breath was ragged.

  “Open your eyes,” she whispered.

  He did.

  She smiled at him. “My Eithan,” she crooned. “You are mine, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, Exalted One.”

  “Say it,” she said.

  “I belong to you.” His voice was a harsh whisper.

  She patted his cheek. “Yes. Yes, you do.”

  * * *

  Nicce wasn’t sure what drove her out of her room, but she told herself it was because she made a promise to Xenia, and she needed to go and do as she’d said she would. She would find Eithan and ask him if there was any way that they could get Xenia out of there.

  And it had nothing to do with… with wondering what Ciaska had made him do, and nothing to do with the way the thought of Eithan and the goddess together made her feel like something hot and scalding was stabbing her in the chest, and nothing to do with her concern that he might be badly injured.

  But when she found Eithan, he was clad only in his breeches and he was moving down the hallway without looking where he was going. He was trailing his fingers against the wall to guide himself and staring at the floor. He looked… beaten.

  She rushed to him, unable to help herself. She put her hands to his face and turned him to look at her.

  He recoiled from her touch, shying away, and then he recognized her, and his eyes flashed. “What are you doing here?”

  “I had to ask you something.”

  “You should be in your room.” He took her by the shoulders and propelled her backwards into an open doorway.

  Inside, there was one green floating ball that illuminated a collection of axes which were all hanging on the wall, gleaming as the light floated past them.

  Eithan shut the door. “We can’t be seen together.”

  She went to him again. She didn’t touch him. She reached for him and then she stopped. It was strange because she’d thought that she’d feel angry at the thought of Eithan and the goddess. Jealous. But… she only felt horror for him. What had happened?

  Eithan leaned back into the door, which was behind him. He dragged a hand over his face. “You’re not meant to want to be near me. You should be cowering in your room.”

  “What happened?” she whispered. “What did she do to you?”

  Eithan shook his head. He rested his head against the door and looked up, focusing on thin air.

  She waited.

  He slid down the door and sat down on the floor, his head still leaning against the door. “Nothing,” he muttered. “She tore my shirt and talked a lot, but she barely touched me. And she still…”

  Nicce slowly sank down to the floor too.

  He touched his temple. “She gets in my head.”

  “That’s worse, I imagine,” Nicce said in a quiet voice.

  He didn’t respond.

  She scooted over so that she was sitting next to him. She leaned against the door too. The door handle was just above her head. She had to slouch to avoid it hitting her head. She didn’t touch him.

  “You need to go,” he said.

  “Maybe you want to… to talk first?”

  “Nothing to talk about.” He sighed heavily. And then he moved sideways, and his head was in he
r lap.

  She let out a little breathy noise of surprise.

  He was facing away from her, looking out into the room.

  Carefully, afraid to do anything he wouldn’t want, she touched his hair.

  He sighed.

  She sank her fingers into it.

  For several moments, there was nothing except the barest movement of her fingers in his hair. Occasionally, she brushed his cold skin. Neither of them spoke.

  He rolled over, onto his back, his head resting on her thigh, and he looked up at her.

  Her fingers had been dislodged. She didn’t know what to do with them now. She reached down to touch his face.

  He caught her hand and brought it to his lips.

  She shut her eyes as he kissed her knuckles.

  “I want to kiss your mouth.” His voice was a dark rumble.

  Her breath hitched. “All right.”

  “But I can’t,” he said. “Not right now. It would be wrong in some way, right on the heels of… of her.”

  “I understand.” She did. She hadn’t come to him for kisses, anyway. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted him to kiss her.

  No, that wasn’t true. She did want it, but she wasn’t sure if she could forgive herself for wanting it.

  “I thought you were going to try harder to hate me,” he said in that same rumbling voice.

  “I am,” she said. “You’re the one who lay down like this.”

  “Should I sit up?”

  “No.” Her voice was too sharp, too quick.

  He chuckled.

  She curved her fingers, even though he still had them in his grasp. She brushed the edge of his chin. “You know, you’re not all bad, Eithan Draig. You care about people. You do what you can for them. You are noble in your own way.” Was she trying to convince herself of this, or did she mean it?

  “You’re going to have to pretend to be enamored of Absalom.”

  “What?” Where had that come from?

  “It’s the plan,” he said. “If you do that, Ciaska will see that I’m suffering, and it’ll be enough for her. Absalom charms all the girls. She’ll believe it.”

  “But when do we strike at her? Can I have a jewel? One of the ones we brought? None of you can wield them without agony.”

  “We don’t know what those will do to her, and we’re not going to use them until we have a plan. Right now, I haven’t thought beyond your safety. Let me secure that, and then I’ll try to think about the bigger picture.”

  “You don’t have to do this alone,” she said.

  He sighed. “Now, you sound like Absalom.”

  “Well, he’s right,” she said. “You take on too much.”

  He kissed her fingertips. “I can handle it.”

  “Xenia has a daughter.”

  “What?” He sat up, and she found she missed the pressure of his head on her legs. “What do you mean?”

  “She came to me, just now, and asked if I could help her get out of here so that she could see her daughter again.”

  “Gods take it,” he muttered. “I suppose that was an advantage of making sure the brides were virgins.”

  She gave him a withering look. “Can we do it? I hate the idea of forcing her to be here.”

  “She can’t go back.”

  “Surely, once Ciaska is dead—”

  “Don’t tell Xenia we have plans,” said Eithan.

  “I wouldn’t,” said Nicce. “I know we can’t share that with everyone.”

  “Ciaska has ways of getting information out of people. And she gets pretty suspicious. She’s got her weaknesses, but she’s not stupid. We shouldn’t underestimate her.”

  “I don’t,” said Nicce. “I would like to get Xenia out before that, to be honest. I feel like it’s my fault she’s here.”

  “It’s my fault,” he said. “But she can’t go.”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “There used to be another knight,” said Eithan. “His name was Zeffir.”

  “You told me this. He’s the one who captured the nightmare and got you all changed into the Knights of Midian.”

  “Yes, well, I didn’t tell you what ultimately happened to him.”

  “No, I suppose you didn’t.”

  “He fell in love with one of the brides,” said Eithan. “And he wasn’t supposed to be with any of the brides at all. Ciaska makes us bargain—”

  “Yes, I know about the bargain.”

  “Well, anyway, he… after Lian was born, he wanted nothing more to do with Ciaska, but then he fell in love with one of the brides, and they were sneaking around, and Ciaska would have found out, and she would have punished him, but it never came to that, because he tried to sneak the bride through the portal. And the minute she stepped through to the other side, she died.”

  “What? How?”

  “I wasn’t there, but I understood that the sunlight touched her and she caught flame. She burned to ash in moments.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. You told me, when I was going to be changed, that I would be like you, and sunlight doesn’t burn you to ash.”

  “Well, I lied.”

  “How out of character of you.” Her voice dripped sarcasm.

  “It’s… it’s similar,” said Eithan. “It’s just that whatever the brides are, they aren’t quite the same as what Ciaska made us. And most of her pets, too, the men she keeps around court. They aren’t quite the same either. She made us hunters. We have certain skills and advantages that the others don’t have. I don’t know why it is. I’m sorry.”

  She simply shook her head.

  He sighed and then he got to his feet.

  She stayed on the floor, leaning against the door. She looked up at him. “So what did happen to Zeffir?”

  “What do you think happened?”

  “Ciaska killed him for trying to take one of her brides?”

  “Yes,” said Eithan.

  She drew in a breath and let it out.

  Eithan offered her his hand to help her up.

  She narrowed her eyes at it. She wanted to insist on sitting on the floor for some reason. She wanted to decide what was happening. She didn’t like this, being stuck in this place and having no choice about anything. But she didn’t know enough about how the Nightmare Court worked to be on her own. She needed Eithan. So, she put her hand in his and she let him help her to her feet.

  They stood facing each other for several moments, holding hands, looking into each other’s eyes.

  “We shouldn’t leave at the same time,” said Eithan. “You go first.”

  She nodded.

  Slowly, he pulled his hand out of her grasp.

  She shifted on her feet. Should they say their goodbyes? Should there be some sort of gesture of parting?

  In the end, she turned and opened the door and walked out without saying or doing anything.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “For once in your very long life, I would like you to ask me for a favor instead of giving me orders,” said Absalom. He was in his room, arms folded over his chest.

  Eithan stood in the doorway. He’d only stopped at his own room to find himself another shirt before coming to talk to Absalom. “Fine. Will you please pretend to seduce Nicce, Absalom? That way, I can pretend to be jealous, and Ciaska will feel as if justice has been done without ever hurting Nicce?”

  “We should have found a way to get her blood before coming back,” said Absalom.

  “We ran out of time,” said Eithan. “Besides, she’s stubborn. She would have come regardless.”

  Absalom shook his head at Eithan. “Are you sure this is what you want? I’ll have to make it convincing.”

  “I know this. I can’t count on anyone else to be quite as convincing as you are. You can get any woman into your bed, after all, even Xenia.”

  “Actually, I don’t think I read that correctly,” said Absalom. “She may have been… I think it was an act on her part. She was only trying to get me to help her. She
thought if I had fallen for her, then I would help her leave this place.”

  “She asked you for help?”

  “I told her it was impossible.”

  “She went to Nicce as well,” said Eithan. “Apparently, she has a child she’s trying to get back to.”

  Absalom’s expression froze. “No. Truly? We drained her blood and separated a mother from her child?”

  “We didn’t know,” said Eithan. “And it was my decision, not yours.”

  Absalom sat down heavily on his bed, burying his face in his hands.

  “Absalom…” Eithan shouldn’t have told him. He knew his friend would take it too hard.

  “It’s only that we understand, being separated from Lian.” Absalom’s voice was muffled. “But we at least have hope of seeing him again.”

  “Every time we take a bride, we are separating a mother from her daughter,” said Eithan. “Those girls’ mothers never see them again. It’s a bad business, but we’re going to put an end to it.”

  Absalom raised his head. “And the brides? What will become of them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Will they be able to leave when Ciaska is gone?”

  Eithan spread his hands. “I suppose that’s possible.”

  “What if they all die when she dies?” Absalom laughed grimly. “What if we die?”

  “That’s not going to happen,” said Eithan. “Listen, there’s no reason to discuss this. We can’t do anything for Xenia, as tragic as it is. I wanted to talk about Nicce. It would be better if Ciaska feels as if she’s responsible for thrusting you together, so if you can find out something that Nicce needs and try to appeal to Ciaska for it.”

  “What does she need?” said Absalom.

  “Well, I don’t know.” Eithan shrugged. “I can’t figure everything out, can I?”

  Absalom glared at him. “I haven’t even agreed to do it.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Eithan. “So, you’re going to deny me just to prove a point?”

  “I’ve never seen you like this about a woman,” said Absalom. “Not even when we were…”

  “Human?”

  Absalom nodded.

  “Well, I don’t suppose I’ve ever been this way about a woman,” said Eithan. “It’s very inconvenient, if you want to know the truth. I wish I could stop it.”