Untethered (Dark Brilliance Duology #1)
1. Chapter 1
Chapter one
More saintforsaken rain.
It drowned the cobblestone street, casting a dreary gloom over an already dreary building. For being three stories and incredibly old, it only leaned a little and boasted a basement apartment shockingly impervious to filling with the town’s most frequent, murky visitor. It was unfortunate the streetlamps held no such claim. Each flickered out with a hiss, and a hush settled over the town of Ghadra like a drawn-in breath as the world went dark.
Lux felt it moments before it came, that knock at her apartment door. Despite the late hour, she’d been awake when the streetlamps failed, and with the loss of the shoddy, free light, shadows sharpened inside her. Deep in her bones, she knew: Death stole across this night. How fast or slowly it would reach her, she wasn’t always sure, but there was something about the way the rain pelted against her streaked windowpane that whispered soon, soon, soon.
The knock, therefore, was not so unexpected, and though it was late and her neighbors asleep, the door rattled and quaked beneath its uncaring ferocity.
Lux lounged in her favorite chair for a few seconds longer, swinging her legs back and forth and scribbling a final thought. Around a yawn, she said, “What a terrible night to die,” and meant it. The streets had to be ankle-deep with water by now, and despite the summer month, the rain never warmed.
The frantic fist outside the door continued, relentless in its pounding, and Lux began to worry the old wood wouldn’t withstand the assault. It would just be her luck for the door to completely give in to its age and crumble during a veritable downpour leaving her with no other option but to sleep on her kitchen table—or worse. She glanced at the dusty alcove where her precious books and loose-leaf pages lay stacked only a few inches off the floor. Maybe she should find them a new home after all. It wasn’t like it’d been her idea to put them there in the first place.
A resounding boom rattled the wall.
Allowing her head to fall back over the armrest, Lux rolled her eyes to the peeled ceiling. “If you insist.”
Swinging from the chair, she left the heavy book on her lap to claim her place and strolled up the few steps to her front door. It hung crooked, warped, and black, and when Lux felt particularly bad about herself, she sometimes thought it looked like her soul turned outward for all to see. Thankfully tonight was a night too busy for all that.
A click of the lock sent the door flinging wide. With only the fireplace from the room below casting any sort of light, it took her a moment to comprehend what she saw. Reeling, she clapped a hand to her mouth.
“What are you doing here?”
The young girl was soaked to the skin, light hair hanging stringy and limp, her pale cheeks awash in a cascading mixture of rain and tears. With eyes as frantic as her small fists had been, she bowed under the weight of another: a man, slumped, eyes closed, and a face drained of color. Despite her grumblings, Lux would have appreciated the sight—if this man were dead. Instead, every shallow breath pumped blood from the wounds decorating his chest, streaming all over her doorstep. Death in Ghadra meant money, but this? Lux curled her lip.
The girl sobbed, stumbling before righting herself. “I thought you’d help us.”
“I’m a necromancer, not a surgeon, you dolt! Bring him back when he’s dead!” Before the girl could protest further, she ground out, “And I mean dead , dead. Stiff, mottled, ashen, not… bleeding? ” Lux slammed the door on those shocked eyes, her heartbeat a relentless whoosh somewhere about her ears.
Blood . She shuddered. “Disgusting.”
Steadying herself against the railing, Lux stomped down the creaking steps. Rain continued to pelt the window beside the fireplace, as warped as everything else, and while it hadn’t bothered her before, now each fat drop burrowed into her skull and stayed there. Soon, the pressure would grow—too much, too fast. Squeezing her eyes shut, her stockinged feet sunk into the plush rug. She tried to concentrate on the familiar sensation.
“Breathe, you ninny.”
She climbed into the chair. Breathe. Clutching the book, she opened up its pages, inhaling its familiar scent as deeply as she could. It smelled of musty old parchment and herbs, and on the second inhale, the awful feel of a squeezed lemon eased, seconds ticking by. Her muscles relaxed as tension oozed from them. Rain became rain once more.
Ignoring her chipped cup of tea, Lux reached for the abandoned pen and paper on her side table, and though it hurt a bit to do so, she turned up the lamp. Without the streetlamp outside her window, she was forced to burn costly oil. No longer in a good mood, that annoyed her greatly. Why must everything this close to the wall, and subsequently the forest, be forgotten?
Spewing a few choice words for Ghadra’s good-for-nothing mayor, Lux ran a finger down the yellowed parchment of the book’s aged pages, finding where she’d left off. A dip into the inkwell continued her list. She’d been running low on too many ingredients for a while now, and it couldn’t be put off any longer. Not if the rich of this town wanted to die and remain so.
With a jagged laugh, she scrawled:
Bat wings—BLACK
Wyvern claws—DEW only
Blue rattler venom
Moth powder
Howler teeth—CANINES
She frowned, tapping the pen along the paper’s length. That last one would be tricky. Howlers didn’t die often; their teeth were expensive.
Thunder boomed and the entire building shook, the fire sparking and spitting before settling into a relaxed flicker once more. Lux’s pen paused mid-tap. Her unfashionably thick brows met, and she listened. Wheels. In the leftover silence, they rumbled over stone. Very few would brave Ghadra’s streets on nights like this. Pure nosiness led her to peer through the gap in the curtains.
Ah, a reaper. Head down against the onslaught of rain, a world-weary brown horse hauled an open wagon behind it. Limp and blue, a hand fell from its cloth covering, bouncing along in rhythm with the cart’s movements. A body. Two, in fact.
Lux wrinkled her nose.
Necromancy was costly: the exhaustion inflicted by reviving a soul was nothing in comparison to the overpriced items needed to perform the enchantment. Few of the poor could afford her services, and she couldn’t afford to do it for free.
The lumbering cart continued on.
That only left one place for the dead to go.
A resounding knock pummeled her door again. “Devil’s tits. Is the entire town dying off tonight?” With a forlorn glance at her now-cold tea, Lux strode up the steps.