Beyond Everlight: an Urban Fantasy Novel (Fearless Destiny Book 1) Page 14
Two slender males stood at opposite ends of the work surface, chopping and dicing so fast that their hands were blur.
“Meet Tyrol and Fren. They’re twins.”
The twins stopped working to look up and offer me a smile.
“Do you be needin somefin missus?” asked one.
“We ‘as fresh bread, cheese, and grapes if you is wantin a snack.”
I shook my head. “I’m fine thanks.”
They nodded and went back to work.
“So,” Vale clapped his hands together. “I think that covers what you need to know.”
So far he’d shown me four ballrooms, three studies, an empty storage room filled with furniture, the library, and the kitchens. That was all I needed to know? Made me wonder what Erebus was hiding. For example, I had no idea where their chambers were, not that I intended to go visiting, but what if I needed to speak to one of them for some reason? I wanted to argue, to insist he show me more, but the dull ache in my leg warned me that it probably wasn’t in my best interests. Erebus had offered me a short enchanted route to my chambers the other night, but today Vale had taken me everywhere the long route. I guess it made sense. I needed to remember how to get places.
Vale was already heading back to the stairs. “Shall I show you back to your chambers?”
My heart sank. I didn’t want to be cooped up in my room all the time. Erebus had promised to train me, so maybe I could do that.
“Where is Erebus? He said he would train me.”
Vale paused at the bottom of the steps, his brows shooting up. “Really?”
“Is the idea that preposterous?”
He shook his head. “No. You were Fearless of course.”
“Then what?”
He pressed his lips together. “Do you enjoy gardens?”
“What? Um . . . I guess.”
He smiled. “In that case, there is something else I could show you.”
***
Vale dropped me off in the courtyard before claiming he had jobs to attend to. The garden was a huge rectangular shape surrounded by the fortress walls, but open to the churning night sky. Black pulsing vines clung to the stone, weaving up and around the many arched windows that looked into the courtyard. Moonflowers threw off their vanilla and sandalwood scent, and night orchids filled the air with a chocolaty aroma. There were other blooms too, strange fantastical white flowers that I had no name for. I wandered through the garden revelling in the night air, the touch of magick on my senses, and the silver fingers of moonlight that ran over my skin. I lifted my chin to look up at the moon. It peeked down at me from behind a black mass that slowly crept across its surface like a dark caress.
Okay, so I wasn’t a garden person, not usually, but maybe that was because I’d never been in a night garden before. There was something otherworldly and magickal about a garden at night, and one that only bloomed under the moon was something entirely different. I wandered down the slender winding path made of cobblestone that opened out into a glittering pond. A stone bench provided the perfect place to sit and reflect.
I parked my butt and stretched out my leg, massaging my thigh muscles. The dull ache was back and the thought of trekking all the way back to my room made me cringe. I could have done with some of Cimren’s yellow powder right about now. I’d just stay a while. Watch the shapes darting about beneath the surface of the water. It was almost hypnotic, and then the water began to ripple outward in a circle, as if something were pushing upward, outward.
Something big.
I tensed, ready to bolt just as a head emerged from the dark glittering water. Two emerald eyes regarded me from an alabaster face.
I cocked my head. “Um . . . hello?”
The head emerged fully—completely bald, slender nose, a slash for a mouth, and a neck that could be broken with the flick of a strong wrist. He rose further, baring his barrel shaped chest, slit neatly down the sides by gills that opened and closed. His pale skin bloomed with a network of purple veins.
“You are a she, but not she,” he said.
“I’m Kenna. Who are you?”
“Adamaris. Kenna, you are not she.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He glided toward me. “Now she is gone. Do not be she.”
His green eyes were huge, wet, and imploring. I just wish I understood what he was trying to tell me.
His gills vibrated, his nostrils flared. He backed up and slid back under the surface of the water.
“You like the garden?”
I squealed like a pig, hand going to my chest to stop my heart from punching out of my ribs.
I looked up at Erebus. “You scared the crap out of me.”
“You didn’t hear me approach? Strange for a Fearless.”
I looked to the pool, about to tell him about the strange man with gills, but decided against it. The creature had bolted as soon as he’d heard Erebus coming. My gut warned me to keep quiet.
“I was daydreaming . . . or night dreaming.” Urgh, that sounded pathetic.
He seemed to buy it though, moving around me to take a seat on the other side of the bench. He settled himself, his massive frame taking up most of the seat. He was wearing dark pants tucked into heavy boots, and a waistcoat that left his chest and arms bare. His skin gleamed enticingly in the moonlight and his profile was all harsh lines highlighted by silver. He made a strikingly intimidating figure. I made to look away, but then he spoke, pulling my gaze back to his face with his deep vibrating timbre.
“If you enjoy the garden, then please feel free to come and go as you please. I’ll make sure no one disturbs you.” His gaze was on the pool.
Was he referring to the water dude? It was on the tip of my tongue to ask. After all, Erebus had spared my life, he protected humanity, and from what Sabriel said he was a good guy, but my gut rolled and I kept my mouth shut.
“I wasn’t expecting something so . . . beautiful, in the midst of Evernight.”
He smiled dryly. “Evernight wasn’t always such a barren place. All you see in this garden once grew out there, but the merge, the gateway, the hoard, and the hunger of the denizens have stripped it of life.”
“But haven’t the denizens always been there?”
His silver gaze tracked my features. “Yes, but they weren’t always this monstrous. The magick here has been tainted and twisted. It affected the denizens, the animals, and insects that lived here. It infected them, turning them into something else entirely. It created new beasts to roam the land, and what was once a peaceful outland was turned into a horrific prison for anyone banished here.” His eyes narrowed. “You sense it don’t you? The magick?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
One side of his mouth lifted. “Yes, most mortals can sense its presence, the prickle that races over their skin in a particular spot where magick is thick, the ripple of air at the nape of their neck when a gust blows a cloud heavy with magick their way. But you can smell it, see it . . .”
I stared at him, heart rate kicking up. “How can you know that?” I hadn’t confided that to anyone, thinking it was somehow connected to the fact that I could see the djinn’s real faces.
He shrugged a massive shoulder. “My dream pool could not hold you. It was an educated guess.”
My shoulder slumped. Sabriel’s theory that I had Twilighter genes was starting to look like a certainty. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but there was something I was sure how I felt about.
“When do we start training?”
“I must take a short trip. A few days at the most.”
“And then we train?”
He nodded. “Training will help you assimilate with your limb.”
“Yeah, and then I can go out and kick some denizen ass.”
He was silent for a long beat, and when he next spoke his tone was gentle. “You can be free in a year. Are you sure you wish to risk your life outside these walls? The training can simply be that—training.”
He sighed. “No, Kenna. I’m just offering you an alternative.”
“Well I don’t need one. This is what I do.” It was all I knew.
“Very well, we begin upon my return. Be prepared for pain.”
Pain was my frenemy. Bring it.
CHAPTER25
I barely knew Erebus, but it was as if his absence had leached a little colour from the atmosphere. A few days he’d said, which couldn’t be more than a week right? I really wanted to start training. Inaction was my enemy.
I entered the dining room to find Vale and Samson drinking some kind of beverage from goblets. It definitely didn’t look like tea or coffee. Man, I could kill for a cup of tea.
The djinn watched me approach; Samson with a scowl and Vale with a smile. The chair I’d occupied the other day was empty and so I slipped into it. There was a goblet in front of me and a jug of whatever they were drinking, but I didn’t really fancy trying it.
My stomach gurgled.
“We don’t have to put up with this you know,” Samson said to Vale. “Erebus is away, we don’t have to tolerate this . . . human.”
He said it like a dirty word, something vile and disgusting.
I clenched my jaw. Okay, so he didn’t like humans. It wasn’t worth the hassle fighting back.
Vale looking me up and down with his dark eyes. “Well, I for one find her charming. So small and delicate.”
Small? Me? I stifled a snort, because I suppose compared to these mammoth creatures I was pretty dinky.
Samson raked me with his derisive crimson eyes. “Vale, your desperation for diversion is becoming depressing, not to mention delusional, especially if you could find this pathetic one-legged freak charming.”
Heat surged through my body and before I could think my goblet was sailing across the table toward Samson’s head.
It connected with a thunk.
Samson leapt to his feet; his face a contorted mask of barely contained fury, and made to lunge across the table. Vale’s chair scraped across the ground as he jumped to my defence, but I didn’t fucking need him to defend me. I was on my feet, muscles quivering, pulse racing, ready for whatever he had to throw at me.
“Enough!” Sabriel’s voice froze Samson in his tracks. “Erebus may not be here but I am.”
He looked different, taller and broader. His cerulean eyes blazed with inner fire, and he was transformed from a graceful, almost feminine creature, into a formidable one.
Samson turned his head toward Sabriel, his lip curling. “You think I give a damn what you think?”
“No. But you won’t cross me either.”
“Samson, please. Just go,” Vale pleaded.
Samson’s jaw tensed. His eyes were mere slits when he turned them on me. “You’re a novelty. Nothing but a novelty, and when you wear off, then I’ll have my fun.” His lips curled in a sadistic smile that sent a chill up my spine. He kicked his chair and stormed from the room, taking the tension that crackled in the room with him.
My pulse was still pounding in my head and I slowly uncurled my fists, absently noting the half crescent marks my nails had cut into my palms.
“Kenna? Are you alright?” Sabriel’s hand landed on my shoulder lightly.
I turned to Vale. “What did he mean by that?”
Vale shrugged. “I have no idea.” He sighed and sat back down, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Sit down, Kenna. It’s over.”
He didn’t add the for now, but I heard it anyway. It looked like Samson would be a thorn in my side while I remained here. I sat back down, feeling suddenly deflated.
“You need to control your temper,” Sabriel said softly. “Samson won’t be cowed by it; in fact he feeds upon conflict.”
“Sounds like the hoard.”
Vale snorted.
But Sabriel was right. The rage had come from nowhere—sudden and fierce. The Before Kenna would have controlled it, harnessed it into cutting words. But the After Kenna was a cocktail of pain, anger, and uncertainty.
One of the twins appeared with a tray carrying a tea pot, and what smelled like sausage and egg. My stomach took charge, making appreciative noises as the goodies were set on the table in front of me.
“Eat up and then we’ll take a stroll,” Sabriel offered as he poured tea for me.
I blew out a breath, expelling the ugly darkness the altercation had churned up inside me, and tucked in.
Good food can do amazing things for morale, and five minutes later the world looked a little brighter.
“Seriously, this is sooo good. The best sausage I’ve ever had.”
Vale’s brow crinkled. “Sausage?”
I paused mid-bite and held up the sausage speared on my fork for his inspection.
“Vale . . .” Sabriel’s tone held a warning.
Vale ignored him. “We call it rodent.”
I choked and spat out the masticated meat.
Vale patted my back. “Are you alright?”
I took a huge gulp of my tea to wash out my mouth then stared at the sausage . . . the rodent on my plate. Man, it had tasted so good.
“You did that on purpose didn’t you?” Sabriel said.
I slid a glance Vales way to find him smirking.
He shrugged. “Entertainment is a little light around the fortress and her reaction was pretty entertaining. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“So it’s really . . . rat meat.”
Sabriel sighed. “Their rodent is vastly different from the human realm rats, which carry disease and all manner of things. Their rodent is bred for consumption.”
It should have made it okay, but it really didn’t.
“What about the eggs? Please tell me these are egg from chickens.”
I looked to Vale who was looking over my head at Sabriel as if for direction.
I held up my hand. “You know what. I don’t want to know. It tastes like egg and so its egg.” I scooped up a forkful and popped it in my mouth. Egg.
***
“So Vale already showed you around the fortress?” Sabriel asked.
I nodded.
We wandered toward the library, taking our time. The sconces fixed to the walls flared slightly as we passed.
“Although, I doubt he showed me everything. This place is huge.”
Sabriel paused. “It is, plenty to explore . . .” He raised a brow and cocked his head.
“You want to snoop?”
“Do you want to snoop?”
Gosh, I was torn. It felt kinda icky to snoop, but at the same time I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to this place, and didn’t I deserve to really know the place that would be my home for the next year?
“Trust me. We won’t go anywhere where we shouldn’t, just places that Vale may have missed.”
It was better than sitting on our arses doing nothing. “Let’s do it.”
Several twists, turns, and staircases later, we found ourselves on a corridor neither of us recognised. There were no sconces lit here. The air smelled musty, stale and unused. A chill seeped off the walls, settling on my skin and sinking into my bones. It would have been black as pitch if not for the shuttered arched windows that ran along the wall on the left. Razor thin slivers of moonlight cut across the corridor like horizontal silver stripes.
“Creepy much?”
Sabriel’s eye whites gleamed in the dark. “Maybe we should head back.”
“Scared?”
His lips tightened. “Hardly.”
But I knew what he meant. There was something forbidden about this floor. Something forgotten, but my feet led me down it anyway. There were several doors on the wall to our right. I turned the first door handle to find it locked.
Great.
The second one was the same, as was the third and the fourth.
“So much for exploring.”
There was one more door at the end of th
e corridor. Sabriel reached for it and twisted the handle. It rattled but wouldn’t budge.
“Great.” I sighed. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I can show you the garden, have you seen the garden?”
Sabriel shook his head.
We began to walk away just as a soft click cut through the thick silence. Sabriel and I locked gazes and then both turned back to the door as it swung ominously open.
CHAPTER26
I t was an invitation, right? The fortress was enchanted and it was letting us in . . . I took a step toward the room.
Sabriel gripped my elbow. “Maybe we shouldn’t?”
“Seriously? A locked door just sprung open of its own accord and you want to walk away without checking it out?”
Sabriel pursed his lips. “Fine. But let me go in first.”
“My hero.”
He slipped into the room, and I followed a moment later, a light feeling in my chest. The room was pitch black and I stumbled into Sabriel.
“Shit.”
“We should go.” Sabriel voice was tight.
A soft whoosh filled the air and the room flared with light. I blinked, allowing my eyes to adjust, and then stared at my surroundings. The light quivery feeling in my chest melted away. I’m not sure what I was expecting: hidden treasure, a chained up beast, maybe a secret garden. Something. Anything. But not this.
Not a bedchamber.
It was a pretty fancy one though. High four-poster bed, long ornate dresser with a massive oval mirror studded with gems, plush rugs, colourful tapestries on the wall, and a fancy chandelier dangled from the ceiling lit with what looked like a hundred candles.
Yeah, it was fancy, but it was just a bedroom.
I shook my head. “Let’s just go.”
But Sabriel was staring at a something on the wall. A large painting that had been slashed to fuck. He moved toward it as if in a daze and raised a hand to smooth the shredded canvas back into place. I caught the curve of a delicate jaw, the tumble of crimson hair, and the flash of emerald eyes. Sabriel cleared his throat, dropped his hand, and strode toward the door.