Evenfall, p.21
Evenfall, page 21
I closed my eyes.
My failure should have, by all means, been a good thing in the current situation. If I couldn’t rip apart a segment of reality, a prerequisite to bridging the lands, Mordecai wouldn’t get what he sought. Not through me.
And yet at the same time, I felt so frustratingly inadequate.
I had to learn how to do this.
Otherwise, I would end up stuck in this world, Ada’s mission to retrieve and reunite the pieces burned down to ashes, and Somraque permanently under Mordecai’s reign. Not that I expected I would see much of the future if I outlived my usefulness.
Some situations were simply bad whichever way you turned them.
“Ember.”
I peered to the side. Mordecai was sitting next to me on the floor, his long legs crossed and back slightly hunched. Not the demanding prince any longer, it seemed.
“You opened a portal once. Not just a minor one, as mine are, but a gateway between worlds.” He fixed me with his sapphire stare. “You’ll succeed again.”
I lifted myself into a sitting position and tucked my legs beneath me. My fingertips danced along the gleaming leather of my boots, but I looked up at him as I confessed, “I can’t remember. I can’t remember anything about that night, Mordecai.”
He stiffened, a vulnerability creeping into his gaze. Several seconds passed before he said, softer than should have been possible given our earlier fallout, “We’ll find a way.”
“And then what?”
Mordecai didn’t answer. He simply stood up and offered me his hand. After a heartbeat of hesitation, I took it, warmth erupting where skin met skin. He pulled me up to my feet. His fingers lingered on mine for a second longer before faint, gentle tendrils of silver started to lap from the back of his hand.
Instinctively, I flinched and backed away, but Mordecai steadied me. His grip tightened, not enough to hurt, just to keep me from bolting, while his free hand came to rest on my hip.
I sucked in a breath, unable to do anything but hold his gaze as my mind fractured under the tenderness of his touch, the surety it infused me with.
“Don’t fear it.”
I glanced at the wisps of silver and shuddered. It wasn’t them I feared.
Mordecai’s breath danced across my lips. “The shadowfire is more than a weapon. It’s a shield.”
The silver washed over our entwined hands—a kiss of winter, a breeze of northern air. Serene.
“The choice of how you wield it is yours.”
My gaze dipped down to his mouth, to the way his lips moved so softly, harmoniously as he formed each word, as if he were crafting it anew.
“But it will always be a part of you. A companion. A protector.”
My own darkness rose. Tendrils of obsidian uncoiled from my waist and snaked up Mordecai’s arm. He shivered, the tremors traveling through his exhales, each vibration crashing into my skin like the waves of the ocean.
“Let them run free,” he whispered.
The warmth of his hand on my hip faded, and he was pushing away, the silver following until there was only me, surrounded by undulating embers of the darkest black.
A ghost of a smile haunted Mordecai’s lips, one my own mirrored. He stood perfectly immobile, only his shadowfire dancing in tune with mine, coiling to the rhythm of our hearts. Our souls.
I remembered then.
The alley.
The reek of alcohol.
Recoiling.
A tightening in my chest.
Darkness.
The man’s mouth contorted into a scream, a gateway for the shadows to steal the flicker of life.
My smile died on my lips, the shadowfire dispelling into nothing.
Mordecai was by my side as I staggered, whatever stability I’d felt now breaking down to brittle rubble. I buried my head in his shoulder and bunched my fingers in the crisp fabric of his jacket. I couldn’t hold back the pain any longer. His arms encircled my back, his chin coming to rest on the top of my head while I trembled and wept, letting out the turmoil I’d tried so hard to keep at bay.
Everything, everything poured out of me.
The nightmares, the fears. The shame.
And Mordecai embraced it all.
He trailed a hand up my back, all the way to my neck, then traced his fingers along my quickened pulse, again and again, the caresses building up a melody that called me up from the jagged depths and cradled me until my lungs functioned again.
Safe.
Even if the world was not, with Mordecai, I was.
He placed a finger beneath my chin, gently lifting it up, but didn’t speak. He’d said enough.
“If—if it’s my choice… Then why did that man…” I closed my eyes, another tear laying a scalding path down my cheek. “If I wield the shadowfire, then I wanted his death.”
“Perhaps,” Mordecai whispered, releasing my chin to brush a loose strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers lingered. “But not all deaths are equal. Not all make you evil.”
I lifted my gaze and sought out the intensity of his. My fingers dug into his jacket as, instead of away, I leaned in.
A breath.
That was all that separated his lips from mine.
“My lord…”
Silver exploded from Mordecai as he tore away from me. He snarled at the newcomer neither of us had heard approach. “What?”
The guard backed against the wall. His terror was palpable, even when I struggled to adjust to the sudden, harsh absence of Mordecai’s warmth.
“There—there’s a disturbance at the celebration.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
A different guard escorted me back to my wing after Mordecai stormed out of the training chamber, his shadowfire whipping behind him in angry tongues that cast the hallway beyond the threshold in pale, cold light. I had the distinct impression the sudden drop in temperature had little to do with the issue he had been called to straighten out. But what said issue had prevented.
He hadn’t looked at me as he left, though the stiffness of his spine, the slight angle of his body—they gave the impression that it had taken a lot to contain that glance.
And I…
I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt. About any of it, actually.
Once inside my wing, I sat down on the edge of my bed, half expecting Ada to show up and announce the disturbance was their way of getting Mordecai to leave the palace. I presumed he had no particular interest in the festivities now that he already had me trapped between his walls. His absence must have been noted, but even more so, had complicated infiltrating his stronghold.
After all, Ada’s plan relied heavily on Mordecai’s attention turned elsewhere and his forces spread out. That part hadn’t changed even after we’d lost the element of surprise—thanks to me.
I shifted on the bed, gazing absentmindedly at the fire as I waited.
No apparition came.
In fact, nobody came until Merayin and an older servant with a kind, grandmotherly face brought my meal on the first chime after noon. I cast one last look at the room, then walked outside before I could ponder on whether that was relief I’d felt when it became clear Ada wasn’t coming for me just yet.
I ate in my usual spot, with one of the books I had found the previous day keeping me company. To my surprise, it wasn’t poetry or tales spun as if plucked from dreams adorning its pages, but theory.
On magic.
The leather-bound tome was old, its paper thin and ink slightly faded. The language was archaic, too, but after a few minutes of reading out loud and immersing myself in its sound, I found a way to decrypt the words I hadn’t understood initially.
After I finished my meal and notified Merayin I was done, I took the book, along with a cup of tea, to the larger of the two sitting rooms. Bedecked in blue and silver accents, with upholstered, comfortable armchairs, and a view of Nysa just slightly less impressive than the one in the chamber of glass, it had quickly become my second favorite spot in the wing.
Ensconced in silence, I continued my studies.
The book carried no mention of a child born of all three faces of magic, but there were some intriguing details about the specific manifestations of power. Not entirely unexpected, most pertained to blood magic—on how Illusionists were able to breathe life into their imagination, how Magicians were attuned to the ways of the flesh, able to reach deep inside and artificially stir reactions. It was fascinating, but it wasn’t what truly held my intrigue.
My fingers traced down the page depicting a sword, lines of text spreading on each side of the illustrated weapon.
Portals.
All Mordecai had told me, all I had pieced together on my own back at home, was true. The knowledge should have been sufficient to slice open a rip right in the interwoven threads of reality. So why was I failing?
What was I missing?
If I had an affinity for both geo and temporal alterations, then, by all means, I should have excelled under Mordecai’s guidance.
Musing, I set my finger as a bookmark between the pages.
I’d overheard two heirs at a party once, saying that the High Masters were full of shit—that power wasn’t given, but a muscle that had to be flexed, again and again, to develop the needed strength. Dangerous talk… And something that most likely would never have happened if they weren’t thoroughly drunk. But maybe their words had merit.
Unfortunately, nothing in the book backed their theory, let alone provided hints as to how one should train said metaphorical muscle.
I closed the book with a gentle thud, then carefully rubbed my aching eyes to avoid smearing the faint line of kohl accentuating the corners.
Fine. Maybe I wasn’t able to wield portals—not yet, if I allowed myself some hope—but there was something I could do right now.
The remnants of my tea had gone cold during the time I’d spent with my nose stuck between the pages of the tome, but I drank every last drop of the delicious ginger flavor as I gathered the courage to stand up. I moved farther away from the armchair and table, finding a position on the thick rug that offered the most space.
One exhale.
Another.
I closed my eyes and reached for that icy lake inside me.
Now that I had a better grasp on how it felt, where those stirrings had always come from, finding it was easy. I ran my ethereal hands across its placid surface in light, loving caresses.
A companion. A protector.
Mordecai’s words slithered through my mind, his smooth voice grounding me and washing away the fear that was still keeping me contained. The moment those barriers fell, the moment I accepted the shadowfire as a part of me, it answered.
Like an animal, reassured that I had no intentions of fleeing should it reveal itself, the darkness came to meet me.
My eyes flew open, a soft gasp fluttering from my lips as small, playful tendrils of lustrous dark rose from my hand. I lifted it closer to my face, the movement careful—not because I feared the power, but because I was afraid of doing anything that might disrupt this kindling bond.
The obsidian tongues coiling through the air grew bolder, wilder as I smiled. My skin was cold where they unspooled from it, yet the sensation wasn’t unpleasant.
If anything, it felt right.
Fulfilling.
As if a part of me that had been missing for too long had returned at last.
The obsidian spread up my arm, the tips of the highest embers reaching just above my elbow—like a lively, resplendent glove. I savored its touch of ice, savored the way its tongues seemed to react to my every thought. Calming as I contemplated them. Then becoming vigorous once more as I let a kernel of joy weave its way from the depths of my heart.
Mine.
The shadowfire was mine.
I didn’t snuff it out when I went to stand by the window and gazed at Nysa’s blue-tinted rooftops spread out below.
Whatever the disturbance Mordecai had gone to deal with was, it didn’t seem to impact the pulsing core of the celebrations. The vibrant heart of the town.
Nysa was stunning. From above, the illusion of the blue sky was far more translucent, letting the life that teemed under its dome seep through.
I couldn’t see the people milling in the streets, but I could feel them.
The thrumming of their magic and lives alike, carried on the air and sifting through the slightly open window as clearly as if I were standing among them. I leaned into its caress, wishing—wishing I could share their joy. The normalcy of a pint of sowhl, with laughter bubbling from the clustered tables. The easiness of knowing there was no greater plan lurking in the depths, only the carefree enjoyment of the evening.
“Would you like to go?”
I whirled around at the voice, my back colliding with the edge of the wall where the stones dipped to nestle the window. Mordecai was leaning against the doorframe, his sapphire eyes turned on me, and hands resting in his pockets. His black hair was tousled as if the wind outside, caught in the throes of passion, had dragged its fingers through it, and painted a stark contrast to the immaculate way his clothes molded to his body.
The quickening thump of my heart pressed against my ears, the memory of how he’d held me in the hall as I broke down, then pieced myself back together, washing over my mind. The memory of what I had almost done, too, that desire to obliterate the last of the distance…
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, still not moving from his perch.
“You didn’t,” I admitted, wondering why that was. Why I didn’t lie to provide grounds for the spell of silence I’d fallen into when I’d seen him. “I was just…thinking.”
“So?” His gaze drifted past me to the window, then slowly settled on mine again. “Do you wish to go? Partake in the festivities?”
The shadowfire died down with nothing but a few embers still flickering at the tips of my fingers.
“It’s not like you would let me,” I said, quieter than I intended.
Mordecai shrugged and peeled away from the doorframe in a ripple of grace.
“Perhaps”—he crossed the room in four elegant strides, stopping just beyond my reach—“there is another way.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The guards standing watch at the exit of my wing hesitated only briefly when Mordecai dismissed them before he took me up the winding stairwell. Wordless, I trailed behind him, my gaze resting on his back as he climbed stair after stair, then turned right on the landing. The opposite direction of the chamber under the sky.
I didn’t know what he was planning, but something about the way his demeanor had changed when I agreed to his offer kept me from asking. He was as impenetrable as ever, only now, it wasn’t the stance of a merciless ruler that crafted his armor, but a resolve to retain my interest—as if he feared I would change my mind along the way.
He needn’t have bothered.
Still, Mordecai didn’t look back at me, not once, as he strode down a short hallway, then curved his fingers around an ornate handle—this one a full moon rather than the crescent ones dominating the entirety of my chambers—and opened one side of the double-winged doors. Only then, once he stepped to the side to let me pass, did his gaze slide over me. Over the pendant resting atop my chest.
But I was too stunned to pay him attention.
Driven forward by what spread before me, I stepped into the most exquisite ballroom I had ever seen. Ornate pillars rose from the polished floor, each of them crafted to appear as if spirals of clustered stars were reaching for the sky. And between them—nothing but glass and the infinite night. As with the chamber where we had taken our meals, the ceiling here, too, was clear. Only there were no slender iron beams supporting the glass. Nothing. As if the ceiling weren’t there at all.
I felt, more than saw, Mordecai walk up to me. His presence was a brush of heat against my back, and involuntarily, I closed my eyes, savoring this stolen touch. It—it didn’t feel like betrayal any longer.
I shivered as his fingers undid the band securing my braid then slowly, tenderly, tangled with the strands to let them fall free across my shoulders. Fleeting, faint caresses traveled down my arms before Mordecai spun me around so that I was facing him, his touch lost, but only for a moment.
His hands were tender on mine as he placed a small, silver dagger in my palm, then closed my fingers around the hilt.
My gaze flickered up to his.
The intensity of the sapphire was startling in the demure light of the room. With an expression too complex to read, Mordecai brushed his thumb against my skin, then guided my hand, and the dagger in it, to the palm he held upturned in the nearly nonexistent sliver of space separating our bodies.
He pressed the blade into the pale, unmarred skin.
When he felt my attempt to move away, his grip on my hand tightened. Not hurting. Not forcing. But steadying me, steadying the dagger as he drew a sharp line of crimson, the thrum of his blood saturating the air and reverberating through my very core.
I didn’t dare move as it spread, ensconcing the ballroom, transforming it. The magic’s caresses swept over my skin, the uniform I hadn’t bothered changing from morphing into a flowing gown of midnight blue, with only the glint of gold breaking up the rich color. The aureate details branched down from the bodice all the way to the hem, as if the stars themselves had found a new home there.
Mordecai’s blood-kissed hand slipped from mine, his other liberating the dagger from my grip and casting it aside. But as I followed its trajectory, as I expected to find it clatter onto the black marble floor, I saw—
Nysa.
The town’s square with its fountain of starlight rose around us, the sounds of revelry, the smell of sowhl and night filling my senses. I drank it in. The people lingering by the tables, chatting, laughing; the sweep of wind bringing a touch of cinnamon and apples as those who danced to the gentle, magnetic music whirled around.
And when I looked at Mordecai, I realized he, too, had changed.
