Chapter 27
Noctua, Nerthus, and Solis knew that the Old Ones existed outside of death, so they could not be killed. Neither could they be bound or imprisoned. However, every hundred years or so, they needed sleep.
—OLD ONES, ANCIENTS, AND THE FOLK
The boat bumped the shore in an area thick with silver trees.
At first glance, it appeared no different from other parts of Iluna: blanketed in darkness broken by the glow from the trees, black gravel underfoot, and an eerie silence.
But as Damon helped her alight, she noticed the trees were brighter here, the air fresher.
The gravel underfoot was finer, brushed neatly as if raked.
He led her down a winding path to a door in what appeared to be a hill.
“This looks like a burial mound,” Thea pointed out.
He chuckled. “Perhaps it’s appropriate. I sleep like the dead.”
He put his hand to the door, and the shadows darted forward and dealt with a lock, a loud click in the stillness.
Damon motioned her in. A cramped entryway led to a hallway with doors inlaid with seashells and mother-of-pearl.
An intimate hush filled the silence, making Thea’s heartbeat loud in her ears.
As they walked quietly side by side, Thea sensed that he was nervous.
“You don’t bring people here much, do you?” she asked.
“Never,” he said simply. He reached out and the shadows unlocked another door before he motioned her into a room.
It was so dark, Thea could see nothing as she crossed the threshold, but she heard Damon moving around. He must know the place so well, he didn’t need light.
“A candle would be nice,” she suggested.
“Sorry,” he said, sounding contrite. “I don’t often bother.”
Candles flared to life, illuminating a bedchamber about twice the size of Thea’s.
A massive bed dominated the room, with black curtains enclosing it on three sides.
Lacquer end tables held colorful rocks, shells, and worn pieces of sea glass that reflected the candlelight, casting dots of light on the walls.
A shelf held books and scrolls, many of which looked very old.
Some were even falling apart, as if they’d been read over and over.
“You like reading?” Thea asked, nodding her head toward one of the shelves.
“Yes,” he said, and again she had the sense he was anxious. Was he so unused to sharing his personal space? Or maybe it was himself he was unused to sharing. “Though it’s not easy to acquire books. I don’t suppose you’d approve of how I’ve come by these.”
“Not gifts from your dear father?” she asked dryly.
He didn’t crack a smile. “No. He would call this a waste of time.”
Her smile faded. Maybe she shouldn’t make light of the shadow king. “Then I’m guessing you stole them on your trips to the land above.”
“You would be correct. For the most part, anyway. One or two are from Azra. The ones on healing. She thought I might be interested. But I have no talent for that. My shadows are more interested in letting blood out of bodies than keeping it in.”
Thea shivered, but she didn’t know if it was the mention of his shadows’ wish for violence or the chill in the air. Cold had permeated her bones on the boat ride, and the thin material did little to warm her.
Damon must have noticed because a blaze flared to life in a fireplace opposite the bed. Thea went to stand in front of it, putting her hands out to soak up heat. “Ah, that’s better.”
“You only have to tell me if you want something, and I’ll do my best to get it for you,” he said, coming to stand beside her.
He reached out, then hesitated. She turned to smile at him, welcoming his touch with a tilt of her head.
His fingertips brushed her neck as he moved a swath of her hair behind her shoulder, his hands running through it.
“Like the softest material ever woven,” he said in an awed hush.
She shook her head. “Azra made some clothes that were softer. I feel bad for ruining so many things, now that I know who sewed them.”
“She would understand,” he said, swallowing. “But let’s not talk about her. Or anyone else.”
Thea turned to face him, watching the way the light and shadow played over his impossibly perfect features. His shadows moved slowly, as if tired.
He shook his head, blinking. “There is something so alive about you. An energy that fills a room. My shadows felt it from the moment you came to my realm.” He paused, his lids growing heavy as he inhaled deeply.
“It’s like a breath of pure forest air, a wind from the mountains.
” He shook his head, his smile chagrined.
“I should not try to be poetic. I’m not good at it. ”
“Is this the kind of thing you say to the folk above to lure them here?” she asked, unable to stop herself.
He pulled his hand from her shoulder, tension in his shoulders. “I don’t usually have to go to the trouble.”
“Your good looks are enough to befuddle them,” she said.
His voice grew clipped, but she had the sense his anger was directed at himself. “My allure winds around their hearts, twisting them and tying them in knots, stealing their good sense, and dooming them.”
She believed that he regretted his actions, but she would not let him off so easily when he had trapped people’s spirits the same way her mother’s had been. She needed to know if his change of heart was permanent. “But you did it anyway.”
He met her eyes. “I did, though I hated it. It’s the only way to get power here.
The only way to draw some of the shadows away from my father, which he allows for some reason.
Maybe to test my strength. Maybe because he knows he is still stronger.
I have never understood the game he plays with me.
” Thea watched his face darken, his hands fist at his sides.
“But no matter how heartless I try to be, the shadows know my father is crueler. I can’t gain their allegiance. ”
“What about these?” she asked, lifting a hand to point at the ones that wove around his neck like a scarf.
He put a hand to his neck as if stroking a cat. “These ones don’t seem to care about cruelty, only emotion. I’m able to give them a surfeit of that. The hatred I feel for my father alone keeps them fed.”
Thea wondered how all this could end. “Aren’t you his heir? Won’t you take the throne someday, anyway? Why not end the dance, leave this place, and come back to the throne when he dies? Last night you chose mercy. You can’t go back to harvesting spirits. Surely, you see that.”
“The word heir is meaningless in this case.” Damon pulled a book from his shelf, opening its frail pages carefully. “Erebus is one of the Old Ones. He can’t be killed. He will never die.”
Thea’s breath caught at this confirmation of what the pixies had told her. The Old Ones were primordial beings who came before the Ancients. What hope did she have of fighting Erebus?
“You know that my father’s shadows are already finding cracks, coming into your forest, making new creatures out of whatever they find. What I don’t know is whether or not my father or Prospect is encouraging them or if the shadows are innovating on their own.”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters whether they are under my father’s control. If his ambition has outstripped his power and the shadows get free…”
The idea of bloodthirsty shadows running rampant in Thirstwood was horrifying. “How did you plan to dethrone him?”
“The same way the Ancients took power from the Old Ones. They put them to sleep.” Damon waved a hand toward a pile of scrolls. “Every three score years, my father has to go into a slumber for a full moon cycle. Without that sleep, he would start to age.”
Thea understood that basic need for sleep. Sylvans had to go into their birth tree about once every twenty years or so to rest for a few weeks. They also retreated into their trees if they were ill or injured badly. The tree’s energy repaired and rejuvenated them.
“There are signs he needs to sleep soon,” Damon said. “And he’s been pushing me to gather more folk for the dance. The more spirits guarding this realm, the more protected he will be in slumber.”
“And you plan to keep him asleep?” she guessed.
“There’s an artifact,” he said, his eyes shining. “The lute of slumber. If I could only get my hands on that… You’ve heard of it?”
“If you’d asked me that six months ago, I would have said no.
But now?” She thought of everything that had happened with the Solis Gemma, the artifact that her sister wore on her finger.
“My sister, Cassia, told me stories of artifacts, everything she discovered in her research about her ring. I understand you have one here. The silver cup of forgetfulness?”
He watched her, his eyes piercing. “Yes. It’s how my father makes the silver trees. But I don’t believe it would work on him. After all, he’s the one who stole it.”
“Did he steal it himself?” Thea asked. “His shadows could have helped.”
Damon regarded her thoughtfully. “I hadn’t considered that. I suppose he might never have touched it.”
“Which means he could be vulnerable to it,” Thea added.
After a pause, Damon sighed. “Regardless, there’d be no way to get him to drink from it. His shadows protect him.” He shook his head. “There are three artifacts that I know about: the cup, the lute, and the ring. Is it possible we can use the Solis Gemma to find the lute?”
Thea didn’t see how. It wasn’t as if the ring could answer questions.
“I wouldn’t pin my hopes on that. But if Cassia can help, she will.
” She hated to think that right now, Cassia must be worrying about her.
Enora, too. Rozie would be beside herself.
“I want to be able to tell my sisters everything, Damon. You said you had nothing to do with the magic that stops my tongue, but… is it true? Or can you tell your shadows to let me speak?”
Damon’s expression tightened. “I don’t know. I’ve never tried. But it’s one thing to trust you. It’s another to trust someone I have never met, even if she’s your sister.”
“I trust them with my life,” Thea said. “Isn’t that enough?”
“I trust no one like that,” he said, still skeptical. “Except Azra.”
That made Thea wonder. “It’s easier to trust family,” she said, hoping he would share how Azra was connected to him.
“Depending on the family,” Damon said bitterly, reminding Thea who his father was. “As to that, here’s the other reason I hoped I could win my father’s throne.” He picked up the book and turned the pages before handing it to her. “Read this.”
The text appeared to be similar to Old Sylvan, but it was an older form mixed with Runic. Enora could read Runic, but neither Thea nor Cassia had ever bothered to learn.
“What does it mean?” she asked, admitting, “I can’t read much of it.”
“A Seer prophesied that Erebus could be brought down by someone who shares his unnatural power. That the corruption of thrall magic would come back to haunt him in the form of his own creation.”
Thea tilted her head to the side. “You.”
“He’s sired many children over the years. He brought them all here, one by one, to test them. None of them survived. Only me. I believe he sees me as the one who could bring about that prophecy.”
Thea’s stomach roiled. “Why didn’t he kill you, then?” she asked, ignoring the surge of rage that threatened to cloud her logic. “Eliminate the threat.”
“He needs me to bring him new spirits. Since he either can’t or won’t go above anymore, and I have that ability.
” He paused, his eyes taking on that distant look she often saw when he talked about his father.
“And I think he enjoys tormenting me too much to let me go easily. Despite my efforts to hide it, I think he knows I despise the work he makes me do. And that delights him.”
“Did you ever think of just running away?” Thea asked.
He paused, his face closing off. “Of course I have. In fact, I had it planned out once. But… even if I could go back to where I came from, my father would find me.”
“Where you came from?” she asked, confused. Hadn’t he always been in this realm?
“I wasn’t born here,” he said, his expression wistful. “I lived in an area with lakes and streams, near a waterfall. When I was five years old, I was ripped from my mother’s arms and brought here alone, left in the dark with the shadows who tormented me to see if I could survive. I almost didn’t.”
“Damon,” she said, stepping close to him. Though she wasn’t the most practiced at offering sympathy, her heart ached, and she knew something needed to be said. “I’m sorry. What happened to your mother?”
“My father left her for dead after cursing her with a terrible illness.” A murderous light came into his eyes, but he rubbed his forehead, hiding his face from her.
“Anyway, he delights in letting me enjoy small victories only to punish me with them later. That was how the castle came to be. When I was about fifteen, I met some folk during my trips above. I actually enjoyed their revels and started to sneak out to them more and more. But my father found out and used one of his roots to bring many of them here. He took their spirits, in the end. I had to face the fact that people who had been kind to me were punished eternally for it.” He pressed his lips together.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Thea said, stepping closer.
He shook his head, negating that. “There’s something else in the prophecy. For Erebus to be defeated, a great sacrifice is needed.”
“From the person who defeats him? What does that mean?”
“I think it means I have to give something up.” He set the book down and looked at her. “Something I love.”
“Hmm.” She tugged at her lower lip, thinking. “Well, what do you value most?”
He braced his hand against the mantel as he stared into the flames. “There is someone I should have let go of long ago to protect her. The only person I know who ever managed to escape this realm, though she ended up coming back.”
He turned his head and met her eyes, one half of his face burnished by firelight. “She found where my father had taken her son and followed in secret, at great risk to herself.”
Damon paused, watching her reaction. Thea suspected she knew who he meant.
She merely nodded at him to go on.
“I gave her a safe haven—that small island hidden by my shadows—so I can visit. I have held on to the only good thing I ever had. The only person who ever cared about me.”
Thea’s heart clenched at the pain she saw in his eyes. “I wondered by the way she treated you and how you behaved toward her.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “Azra?”
Damon nodded. “My mother.”