Captive of Darkness (Heart of Darkness Book 1) Read online

  Oh, God. Not this. Not now. “I know.” My voice was small.

  “I don’t want to leave you.” His tone was soft, almost enquiring.

  Was he feeling sorry for me? Oh, God. I couldn’t bear it. I dropped my gaze. “I’ll be fine. I can take care of myself.”

  There was a long silence. “Sarah Miller has asked me to court her.” His tone was flat.

  My heart squeezed painfully in my chest. One moment. Just one moment to compose myself.

  I looked up into his beautiful face. “Oh, lovely. She’s perfect for you.”

  He nodded curtly. “You know what, on second thought, we can leave the haircut for another day. I’m tired.”

  He pushed back his chair and headed out of the room.

  What? Was he angry with me? I dropped my head into my hands. Dammit, I should have been more enthusiastic about Sarah. He probably thought I hated his choice. I needed to go up and apologize, but then I’d have to fake happy, and right now, with the tears building in my chest, that wasn’t an option.

  Best to leave it till the morning.

  I washed up and waited another full ten minutes before heading up to bed. Sarah Miller, the buxom barmaid. Sarah Miller would have my Finn. Except he wasn’t mine.

  Tears stung the corners of my eyes as I finally made my way to bed. Finn’s door was firmly shut, like a barrier between us, a thick silence that made me want to scream. Usually, I’d knock and say night, but it felt wrong to do so now. Now that he would be courting Sarah, now that he was preparing to walk away from me. I turned away from his door and slipped into my room, eager for the oblivion of sleep.

  But with sleep came the nightmares. This one was familiar. It always started off relatively pleasant with a boat on a silver lake. It rowed itself through the churning water as a gentle breeze ruffled my hair, but even in my dream, I knew what was to come. Any moment now, the boat would tip over, and I’d be pulled under; I’d wake up gasping for breath. Except tonight, the dream was different. Tonight, silver gates came into view, so wide and so tall that they had no end. The boat bumped against the lake bank and my dream-self climbed out, boots pressing into the soft, moist earth. The gates, those gates … I had canvases of those gates. But what lay beyond? Fear gripped me and held me back. No, it said. You need to wake up now. No need to venture forth. No need to know.

  But my feet had minds of their own, fighting the fear and pressing on. Through the gates and into the twisted forest beyond. Crack, rustle. Something was there. Something was watching me.

  Wet pants to my left. Ominous laughter to my right.

  Time to stop. Time to go back.

  And then a figure appeared, cloaked and wreathed in gentle light. He carried a staff, but his face was in shadow.

  The only way to move forward is to go back. His voice was gentle yet authoritative. The only way to heal is to recognize the wound. The only way to survive is to purge the oblivion heart.

  Shadows leapt at me with claws and talons and hunger. The fear won, tearing me out of sleep into the gray-tinged light of pre-dawn. A small, silvery shape sat on my chest, staring at me.

  “Roxy.” I reached up to pet the dormouse, and she scampered onto my pillow to tickle my ear with her whiskers as if whispering mousy secrets. She was a comforting presence, always there to soothe me after a nightmare. I rolled onto my side and pressed my nose to her small, soft, warm body, waiting for my heart to slow its frantic pace. Nightmares were par for the course in Justice, but this was the first one where I’d encountered a speaker. His words echoed in my mind, until committed to memory, until sleep pulled me back under.

  I woke to the sound of boot falls headed down the hall. Late. I’d overslept. Grabbing my gown, I rushed down the stairs in time to see Finn step out the front door.

  “Finn!” I made a grab for the door, catching it just before it closed.

  He turned on the porch step, his brow furrowed beneath his winter hat. “Go back to bed, Wynter, it’s early.”

  I licked my lips, and his gaze fell to them. Warmth tickled my belly. “I just… I didn’t want you to go without making up.”

  “Making up?” He cocked his head slightly. “What are you talking about?”

  “After last night.” I ducked my head. “I’m sorry. I do like Sarah, I just … I’m just going to miss you so much.” My vision blurred, hot with the threat of tears, and crud, my voice had gone all thick with emotion.

  His warm fingers cupped my face and tilted it up to his. “Crudding heck, Wynter …” He searched my face. “I’ll always be here for you.” His breath was warm on my skin, skating across my lips. Too close, forbidden by the boundaries we’d set for ourselves.

  I closed my eyes, releasing wet tracks down my face.

  “Oh, Wynter … please …”

  I opened my mouth to explain, to ask him to disregard the tears, to tell him I was happy for him, but my words—my very breath—were captured by the press of his lips on mine. Soft, tentative, but enough to stop my heart for a fraction of a second, and then he was pulling away. His azure gaze clouded.

  “Finn …” His name was a whisper on my lips as he walked away.

  A gust of icy air swirled down the street toward me, shaking me out of my daze, and then the smell hit me—sharp and electric. It twisted my gut into impossible knots. No, it couldn’t be, not yet. It was too soon. It will be okay. We’ll be okay. We always were. Was that laughter on the wind?

  “Finn!” I took a step out the door.

  Finn paused outside the gate and looked back at me. “It will be all right,” he said with conviction. “I promise.”

  I opened my mouth to reply, but the words stuck in my throat. I was halted by the sight of what had appeared on Finn’s forehead.

  A mark that appeared only once a year.

  The Silver Mark.

  The mark that would take him away from me.

  Chapter Two

  The chains gleamed and clanked as I hauled them up to the bedroom. Thick and heavy, they’d be damned impossible to get out of. They were perfect for the job. The poultice Pat had applied to my hand was still working. There was no pain. Thank God, because I’d need use of it later.

  Dad was already passed out in the living room after too much ale laced with a little of Pat’s special brew—she’d made it for me a while back. A concoction to put him to sleep to stop him from drinking much more. It would serve to keep him out of the way tonight.

  But the plan was nothing without Finn. Where was he? He should have been home a half hour ago, but it was a Friday night, and he’d probably stopped off to see Sarah at the inn where she worked. My chest tightened at the thought. Any other Friday and I’d have joined them for some merrymaking. I’d have put on a cheery face and congratulated Sarah on their pending courtship. I’d have played the sister everyone expected me to be, but not tonight.

  I wound the chains around Finn’s bedpost and used a padlock to hold one end in place. It was a small room and had belonged to Dad until five years ago when I’d turned fourteen and Finn had insisted that Dad move onto the sofa, since he spent all his time down there anyway. Jeremy had been right about the two-bedroom comment. Sharing had become awkward as we grew older, especially as Finn’s body had changed, bulking up and becoming more muscular. Especially as mine had blossomed into the soft curves of womanhood.

  My love for Finn—my need for him—had morphed into something I didn’t understand, until now. But it was too late, it just couldn’t be. He’d taken me under his wing as a sister, the town knew us as such … But that kiss … The press of his lips to mine … No. None of it mattered if I couldn’t save him.

  Finn’s space was neat and orderly, the opposite of mine. My room was my sanctuary, my haven from the crazy, ignorant world we lived in. A world none but a handful of us seemed to really see for what it was.

  The curtains were thrown wide to invite the day in, and the window was slightly ajar to let in the crisp winter air. Except today, the air was pregnant w
ith expectation and the room was bathed in the crimson rays of a dying sun, a portent of what was to come. With a shudder, I pulled the window closed and glanced down the street for signs of my Finn. Come on, it’s pot roast night. You love your roast. But pot roast was no substitute for Sarah’s heaving bosom, and time was running out.

  Had Mother been able to see? Had she been cursed to know the truth like me? But there were no traces of my mother in our home, not even a picture, and Dad only spoke of her to say she’d been a beauty who’d died too young. Died giving birth to me in the dead of a winter so harsh the midwife hadn’t been able to get to us in time to help her. There was only one hospital in Justice Falls, two farms, a factory, and a mill. We used hydraulic power generated by a power plant by the sea. We were an island cut off from the world by a fate we hadn’t chosen, a fate we chose to ignore. But not tonight. Tonight I would circumvent fate.

  My room was a higgledy-piggledy mess of clothes and books, paper, ink, and paint. The smell of turpentine hung in the air, and my latest canvas stood on the makeshift easel Finn had put together for me. Dark, twisted trees with branches knotted in agony glared back at me, and from deep within the gray and brown flora stared two piercing amber eyes. It would go with all the other canvases in the basement. With every other nightmare I’d painted, because nightmares were abundant in this town. The only difference was, while others wore theirs as red-rimmed eyes and haunted gazes, I purged mine onto a canvas.

  My cloak was slung on the bed. A present from Pat—one of the only other people that saw the truth. It draped over me, blocking out the chill, and then I was headed down the stairs, out the door, and into the snow-covered streets in search of Finn.

  Snow. Forever snow. Months and endless months of the white stuff that chilled my bones and bit at my nose. Thank goodness our harvest had been good this year, or the lengthy winter would have been the end of our tiny community. The world was muffled as my boots crunched through the fresh fall, leaving a temporary imprint in my wake. Roxy poked her nose out of my cloak pocket and sniffed the air. Whiskers twitched, and beady eyes explored. Ha, when had she clambered in there?

  “Back in there, Rox, it’s way too cold for you to be outside.”

  Roxy ducked back into my pocket. I swear the dormouse understood every word I said. She’d adopted me several years ago, hanging out on my windowsill while I painted. There’d been no need to gain this one’s trust, she’d been fearless and bold. She came and went as she pleased, but she was never gone for more than a day or so. What was the life of a dormouse? Did she have a family of her own?

  Distractions. Distractions from the real issue at hand.

  Finn.

  The streets were eerily silent. Even though the people of Justice Falls couldn’t see the truth, they felt it, because every year, on this same night, they’d retreat into their homes, into taverns and inns, or cluster in groups, driven by the primal need for safety, not knowing what it was they hid from. Ignorance was a bliss I’d been denied. Because I heard them. I smelled their arrival on the air, and I was powerless to stop them, but tonight would be different.

  The local inn came into view. The Hungry Boar was a favorite of Finn’s. A family-owned establishment going back over half a century to before all this had begun. The barmaids were especially sweet, and my brother, it seemed, was sweet on one of them. Sarah, the pretty brunette with the conker eyes and the kiss-me lips, held court behind the bar. Her voice was a melody and her laughter a song, and yes, it made me sick to think of them together. But if you loved someone you had to be happy for them, right?

  A gust of icy air hit me in the face, stinging my cheeks and pushing me back, as if the elements themselves were attempting to prevent me from getting to Finn. My gaze went north, toward the reason for everything that was wrong with Justice Falls, to where the chasm ripped through the earth. To the reason we were cut off from the world.

  To the south was the ocean, but any ships that left never returned. The chasm … It was all because of that chasm. The anomaly no one spoke of, the phenomenon everyone pretended didn’t exist, as if burying their heads in the sand would make it all go away.

  Roxy poked her head out of my pocket again, as if to say stop monologuing and get inside. I stroked her head and gently nudged her back into her hidey-hole before pushing open the inn doors. Warmth caressed my cheeks as I stepped inside. Music, gentle and sweet, swelled in the air—Gareth playing the ukulele on the tiny podium they’d erected for the entertainment to hold court. He looked up at my entrance and smiled sweetly. I grinned back, and his cheeks bloomed pink. He was a lovely guy who wanted me as his sweetheart, but there was no spark at my end. There never was, not for anyone in this tiny, godforsaken town. Not for anyone except the one person I couldn’t have.

  Gareth jerked his head toward the bar. I nodded and wound my way through the cheery throng. It was busier than usual this evening. People would have been drawn here, to the warmth and the lights and the illusion of security, but if they wanted you, then there was no place you could hide.

  A bearded man shuffled out of my way with a smile. I blinked up at him, trying not to stare at his forehead, at the symbol etched into it in silver light. He wasn’t the only one. There were others, dotted about the room. Unsuspecting victims of a fate that no one except a select few would recall. Names that would be wiped from memory come morning. Pat and I called them the Silver Marked. But they weren’t my problem. I couldn’t save the world. But I could save—

  “Wynter!” Finn’s hand closed on my wrist, and he tugged me up to the bar. His eyes were bright, and his handsome face was flushed.

  How many had he had?

  “Finn, we need to get home.”

  “Do we? Do we really need to do anything?” He pulled me against his side and kissed the top of my head. “A glass of mulled wine for my beautiful, talented sister.”

  Why had he put emphasis on the word “sister?” Unease prickled my scalp. He was acting strange.

  Sarah dimpled. “I can attest to Wynter’s talents.” She did a twirl behind the bar. “This is the dress she made for me last week. I love it.”

  Yes, yes, very nice. “Finn, we need to leave, right now.” I looked up into his face. “Please.”

  Finn frowned down at me, finally alerted by the urgency in my tone, it seemed. Although he came across as jovial and devil-may-care, he was a sensitive soul with a boundless amount of empathy, and I wouldn’t let them have him.

  “What’s the rush, Wynter?” he asked softly.

  The rush was branded into his forehead in the form of a silver glowing symbol that no one but I could see. I met his stare, blinking back the tears that threatened to spill down my cheeks, wanting only to hold on to him, to keep him here with me.

  He lifted his tankard, drained it, and then slammed it back on the bar. “I’ll see you on the morrow,” he said to Sarah.

  Her eyes clouded in disappointment, but she plastered a smile on her face. She really was perfect for him, but I couldn’t help the stab of jealousy that pricked at me.

  We burst out into the night, the air sharp with the threat of a storm no one else would see.

  “Wynter?” Finn grasped my shoulders and turned me to face him. “What is going on?”

  “Finn, please. Just trust me. Just trust me this once, and I promise I’ll try to explain everything tomorrow.”

  He stared deep into my eyes, searching for something that I couldn’t offer him, not yet. And then he sighed. “I trust you, Wynter. Always.”

  I took his hand and broke into a jog. Cutting it fine. We were cutting it too close. No time for the brew. No time.

  Pat waited at her gate, her expression pinched. “It’s coming,” she shouted over the blustering wind.

  Her gaze slipped to the night sky and grew unfocused, and then her attention fell to Finn, to his forehead, and her hand flew to her mouth in horror.

  “Get inside!” My voice snapped her out of her daze, and she stumbled up her garden pa
th and into her home.

  “What was that about?” Finn asked.

  “Nothing. Just … I’ll explain later.” A lie, because it didn’t matter what I told him, he’d forget the words the moment he’d heard them. I’d wasted too much breath trying to make them all see.

  Finn let us into our house, where even the silence couldn’t block out the raging of the winter winds. Dad still slumbered on the sofa. He’d be out cold till morning, which had been the plan for Finn too, but there was no time to feed him the pot pie, no time for digestion to work its magic and spread the sleeping herbs into his bloodstream.

  He shrugged off his coat, and I grabbed his hand and pulled him up the stairs.

  “Wynter, you’re scaring me,” Finn said. “What is this?”

  I pushed open his bedroom door and dragged him in. His eyes widened at the sight of the chains, and he shook his head in confusion. “Wynter, what the crud?”

  I turned to him and reached up to cup his face. “Crudding heck, Finn … I …”

  “What? Wynter, you know you can tell me anything.”

  “I love you.”

  There was too much in those words, every ounce of longing and forbidden desire, every iota of promise that I could muster. It all spilled into those words as my instincts urged me to bare my soul to him.

  I took a shuddering breath. “I love you in ways I shouldn’t. I should have told you sooner, but I was scared, I still am, but there are scarier things out there and no time for regrets. I need you to trust me right now. Can you do that?”

  He scanned my face, his mouth soft, his eyes dark. “Wynter … I—”

  “No. No time.” No time for the rejection or whatever he was going to say to let me down gently. That could wait. “Sit.”

  The air vibrated, and a shudder ran through my bones. They were coming.

  “Please, just trust me.” I shoved him onto the bed and then grabbed the chains and attempted to wrap them around him.