Chapter 20
My hard mattress scratched against my skin. My eyelids were heavy and reluctant to crack in the dour light seeping through the window. Sorrow shackled my bones, and nothing of me yearned to give myself to this day. My mind felt frail. Frail as withering petals, and I did not wish to bear a day beside Prince Evandor and this house of the damned.
My quarters were frigid, frost nipping the tip of my nose. A river of chills began at the ribbon of my neck, swelling within my chest and trailing down my legs. I pinched the blanket to lift it over my body, but something stopped me. Something hard and covered in rime. I knew then—it was not winter that left my body cold. I was being held down by the throat.
Sleep tore itself from me. I trembled, sensations expanding. My heartbeat swelled in the veins of my neck.
I couldn’t breathe. A scream shattered my ears. My eyes shot open.
A carved hand latched my throat, strangling me against my bed. I wheezed and rasped broken breaths, grabbing the stone arm, and raring to tear it away. Amelia’s statue towered over me. The promise of death chiseled her thin lips, and her brows were molded straight.
It was horrid.
You are a murderer, Rhoswen. The voice of a monster and a woman intermingled within the screams. You needn’t the Shadows of the dark to taint your heart.
I yearned to cry, to beg for my rescue, but her chokehold held me captive. I wrung in the shamble of bedding, desperate to sever from stone, but Amelia held me in her rigid grasp.
“Deceit,” I gasped.
Amelia shrieked, You pray to the gods, you kill in their name, and you think this justifies you? You do not know what you do not understand, Rhoswen Fallen.
Colors wash from my face. My arms lessened their struggle—my final breath neared the end of its use. Amelia, this woman of stone, began to fade into the backdrop. Her lips curled as my eyes began to roll back.
Before all fell away, I caught a glimpse of an ebony, veiny hand—its fingers were bony, each wielding serrated nails. It reached around Amelia’s stone waist, then an identical hand emerged and grabbed her arm. Then a tail. A long tail with a sharpened point. I could practically feel it twisting around my spine as it coiled Amelia’s neck.
I might have been frightened, but I knew—
Deceit?
At the god’s touch, Amelia began to crumble.
Her chokehold loosened, and my ribs cracked in a deep breath, violent and life-giving. I kicked myself backwards, my head smacking against the bed’s headboard, as I stole distance between myself and the deformity of stone and god before me.
Amelia’s neck twitched beneath Deceit’s tail, and she spoke with moving lips.
“Death will not befall this house!”
Deceit reached his hand over Amelia’s mouth and pressed her cheeks together, the stone dissolving beneath his unholy touch. Amelia cried. Her brows arched, not in pain, but in sadness. I studied her as I could, but at each place the god held her, the stone was disintegrating. Deceit’s tail was a circlet around her neck. The stone gave one final crack, and the debris of her head fell to the ground.
Amelia’s statue turned to dust.
And there, standing behind the shattered statue, there stood a god.
I nearly gasped, but I knew this god… this creature before me.
Horns encroached the edge of his temples above the hollow of his cheeks. A thin mouth stretched from one edge of his face to the other. But it was his eyes that captured my gaze, where every shade of greys and blacks speckled like radiant stars. His pupils were as white as chalk.
Deceit’s tail flicked, long and slender, with a spear sharpened at the end. His nails clicked against the cracked stone, one by one. Tap, tap, tap.
The God of Deception, the deity in my head, was haunting.
His voice spoke more clearly than I had ever heard it before, deep and gravelly.
“Come, Rhoswen.”
I smelt his breath—ancient like the wood of laurels. His hand stretched out before me. As I crawled from the bed, my feet touching rubble, my eyes mapped his arm, following the veins and thin muscles. My hand vanished beneath the god’s. His skin was raw like leather.
Deceit before me, I closed my eyes, and the god pulled me from the bane of slumber.
…
Air slugged down my throat. My spine wrenched from the mattress as I wailed my body upright. The grim dark stung my eyes, crusted and tender. It was still night. I winced. A sharp vein split my temple like a current tearing my skull.
Vera’s snores ruptured the silence.
I held myself beneath the shamble of blankets, cradled and waiting. Waiting for another manifestation of Amelia to reach from the darkness and capture me. My head fell into my palms as I tried to make sense out of the senseless.
The god lingered in the corners of my mind, crawling forward. A soul lurks in the estate, unable to rest. You’ve piqued the interest of many a mystery, Rhoswen.
Is she of the Shadows? I asked.
A young woman whose fate left her tethered to this place. A soul in distress, plaguing the corners of dark leaden.
I was being haunted.
I moaned, weary of the uncertainty that laid my path.
Deceit.
The god waited for me to speak, though I believe he knew my curiosities as his bind tensed against my mind. A tail, thin and sharp, curled along the knots of my spine. I could now feel the raw texture caress my bones.
That was you? I asked. Behind the statue?
Splintering in threat, his words were quick. Forget what you have seen.
The sensation of life, painful as living was, poured through my veins and to where the god remained heavy. I tried to soothe the strain and gather a calm place for this strange savior in my mind. What he felt, why he appeared guarded, I could not say. He was a god, and I was his servant. Though still, I let my curiosities lie. Thank you for what you did.
The gratitude of man is as useless as a knife fabricated of parchment, but your obedience is of greater worth. He uttered again, Forget what you have seen.
I let him rest—burrow back into the dark where he strung into the corners like sticky oil.
I lay for only a moment, my thoughts relentless in pursuit of clarity. Shadows, dark lords, hauntings. My mind was overshadowed by cherished memories of the guild, my cheeks wet with tears, and I tore myself from my bed, leaving Vera to sleep without my lurid thoughts buzzing beside her.
I strode down the corridor with light steps.
Not a sound disturbed the quiet. My bare feet were frigid against marble tiles, and I yanked my sleeves down to hide my hands from the cold.
I did not fear the dark like this—that quiet dark that let one think and wander without disturbance of nightmares or Shadows. This was the dark I sought in my father’s house—no servants, no crowns, and no voices chasing my back or whispering in my ears. I was alone. And in this dark, I was safe. Safe from obligations and appearances, and the lies I forged as I took up the mantel of the gods.
In the dark, I was free.
Something odd happened as I stood in the center of the front room—I smiled. I did not entirely know why. Perhaps it was the absence of all these influences and enigmas. As I twirled my bare feet against the ebony tiles, all was silent. Jones let the fires die hours ago, so it was only me and the moonlight sneaking past the curtain’s cracks—a slim tide of ivory stretching over the room. It was beautiful, how the moon lifted the ebony from the tiles and dissolved the darkness beneath its kiss. Straying beneath the pale light, I watched my shadow spin again, swooning in the nightfall.
But then, there was a figure lurking in the shadow I cast, stiller than the statues of this estate.
I stopped, nearly stumbling, and the second it took for my dress to settle from its twirl was excruciatingly long.
“Please, do not let my coming interrupt you.” Lord Alistair’s voice shattered my haven with a tone I could not quite understand, because I could not yet understand him. But I did know, as he leaned against the wood frame with his arms crossed, that he was studying me. He stepped towards me from beneath the wood frame, and I stepped back, slipping from light and into shadow. His face hardened, his mouth a firm wire.
“Apologies, Miss Fallen. I’ll leave you.”
Alistair turned to return the way he came, and Deceit crept forward, watching. Waiting for his servant to abide by her covenant—to know the secrets of this house.
“I could not rest,” I called into the void between us.
The lord showed me his jaw from over his shoulder.
“I thought I might occupy my sleeplessness with mindless wander,” I said, inching my foot forward, my toes playing with the moonlit tiles.
“Why is it you wander, my lord?”
“Who says I wander?” Lord Alistair fidgeted with a book’s binding in his hand, fingers flicking against his auburn journal.
I fought the desire to hold the journal in my gaze, so I held the lord in my gaze instead.
“Forgive my assumption. Lords do not wander, do they?” I asked, and Alistair looked at me, his frame following to face me.
“Lords are too busy tending to important matters to be wandering.”
His jaw lifted.
“And who says I am busy?”
“Is that why you were watching me? You’re between tasks?”
“Dare I ask, Miss Fallen—who said I was watching you?” The flicker of a grin came and left.
“Do you always ask the wrong questions?”
My lips swung in a brief upturn.
“Not typically, no. Though I do have a difficult time knowing what the correct questions with you are.”
“And why is that?”
“You’re not like the other lords I have met.” I tipped back into the seeping light, my toes sweeping the tiles in cadence with my words.
“And this house is not like the others I have lived in. The ancient wood is unique, your reign is reaching, even the sky weighs differently over me. And the men in your company are… ambitious, I’d say. Men with their own intentions.”
“They are, yes. Which makes the right questions all the more important.”
“Though I am not guaranteed an answer with you, regardless, am I? Be the questions right or wrong.”
Lord Alistair slowly shook his head.
“But you are more than welcome to try.”
I bit my lip as I thought. There was one question begging release—one tethered to the magic this lord wielded. I stood in the spotlight, the moon draping over me. Lord Alistair took another step forward, but I did not tug back the distance. As he neared, my eyes pulled higher and higher, until the lord’s nose nearly touched the light I stood beneath.
“What thoughts do you chase, Rhoswen?” His eyes traded between mine, as though to find my question in my irises.
“You look at me differently tonight,” he quieted to match the stillness.
“or perhaps that is only the moonlight in your eyes.”
I studied his gaze—the dark gems forged in night—and something beneath my chest awoke in unease.
“There is no moon in your eyes, my lord.”
“Not all are so fortunate.”
“I suppose I am only trying to understand you,” I said.
“I’ve never known a lord who wields magic. And I’ve never known a lord to cast out Shadows.”
“And I’ve never known an advisor to leave their duties. Neither one who brings an unexpected guest.”
My heart sank.
“Will you dismiss her?”
He paused for a breath.
“I never said that.” Behind his back, Alistair’s journal sounded like cracking embers as his fingers toyed with the bindings.
“So long as your sister needs a home, she is welcome.”
I tucked my chin in a subtle bow, looking at the haloing tiles.
“Your graciousness is appreciated, my lord.”
Deceit shifted behind my eyes.
Another step was reap—Alistair took his place before me in the moonlight.
“Rhoswen, I did not think you would return. When you left, I…”
My eyes climbed the lord’s frame, following his jaw, and I stumbled into the abyss of his eyes. Nothing of hollowness. They were rich and outpouring with a depth I could not peel away from. Those dark waters.
We stood in a stillness I did not understand, and I did not wrestle, did not fret, as the Everlaides shone us beneath pale light.
Alistair found his words.
“In your time here, had I been spoken to the way you were spoken to, I would not carry the same devotion to this house as you do. If you had not returned, I would not blame you. There have been unfavorable circumstances presented since your arrival.”
I stifled the imagery of Hendry Baird falling in the lord’s wine cellar, drawing my thoughts to what remained before me—this Raven Lord swallowed beneath Andrael’s only giving light.
“I am well acquainted with unfavorable circumstances, my lord. And I am devoted to this house. Beneath the wings of the raven, I will remain. That is, until you have no use for me.”
The lord’s hand stilled at his back. His voice was low.
“I doubt such a day will come.”
That something lingering beneath my chest—it was awake. Awake and startling.
Deceit’s low breath filled my ears and swayed beside my veins.
“What are you reading?” I asked, ignoring the hushed sufferings beneath my chest. At my question, creases drew between the lord’s brow with a tilt of his jaw.
“Was that another wrong question, my lord? I only assume a man with a book might read it.”
Seemingly willingly, Alistair plucked his journal from the dark behind his back. The white light softened its shade and called attention to the years of wear, from aching spine to nicked cover.
“Is it a book of tales or history?” I prodded.
“Love and loss, or perhaps war and triumph?”
To my surprise, the lord cracked a page, revealing his messy penmanship.
So soon, before I could drink in what was revealed, Lord Alistair lifted my chin with the authority of one finger.
“What secrets do you seek, Miss Fallen?”
No darkness stained his temper, and no suspicion was known to me. His question appeared genuine. Lord Alistair lowered his reach and held me in his gaze.
“This is not a script you read, but a script you write.” My tongue flattened between my teeth.
“I suppose my question remains—is it of love and loss or war and triumph?”
“It is merely what I have learned of Andrael. Of all the mysteries, she is the most of these. It is she who creates what we cannot comprehend. Andrael’s history is plagued with both love and loss and war and triumph.”
“And where is your attention most keen?”
Lord Alistair did not answer, but took to his journal, shifting through pages where illustrations and letters blurred. There was a familiar outline, an illustration of the olden church outside the king’s castle walls—holy grounds tormented into a house of Shadows. Between pages, the Amulet of Light sputtered like a dying flame—vibrant, then vanished. Deceit scraped behind my eyes, the god too absorbing what he could.
Then, the pages rested.
Alistair crept to my side and offered me the journal. Something ravenous sparked in me, like a wolf’s craze before the kill. I denied myself the instinct to tear the book from his hands and run. My stance hardened as the lord stood beside me, and I lifted my hands. As the journal exchanged keepers, Alistair’s fingers brushed against mine, and my heart, it… It didn’t matter. I ignored it.
I lifted the journal closer, expelling it from the dark. My eyes followed the lines, the strokes, and bends that portrayed landscapes. Mountains, riverbanks, landmarks, wildlife. All was drawn out, the entire realm scribbled from one page to the next. And each depiction carried an indication of where these lands were and who swore their name beneath the Torrance crown. The Calhourn’s estate was drawn in parchment and ink. The shield emblem was scratched beside Lord and Lady Morrigan’s name. Percy’s followed beneath, and an enlivened pain coursed through me.
I cleared my throat.
“You have seen the entire realm.” Each page whispered to my budding infatuation to know the secrets buried here. Perhaps beyond the secrets of this lord, this script knew Andrael in ways I did not. Perhaps Lord Alistair himself understood this realm in ways I did not.
“Why have you ventured so far? Why have you documented the other houses?”
I turned another page to find a scribbling of red and burgundy ink—similar to the markings on Andrael’s map where the Amulet of Light was drawn. I winced and held the journal closer to my eyes.
Lord Alistair’s hand was a smudge in my vision. Moving quickly, he seized his journal and snapped it shut. I shuddered in the abrupt quake, my legs prepared to slip back into the shadows. I lifted my gaze to him, concerned I’d overstepped.
But he was calm.
“That is the right question.” Once more this night, his lips tugged at the ends for a mere spell. Austerity set in.
“When you first came to the estate, you had claimed my father to be old and cruel.”
“I am sorry for what I said that day.”
“Please, do not tell me what you believe I wish to hear. As you have said, you have a difficult time understanding me, and your assumptions of me have been misplaced thus far.”
An unexpected blush crawled up my neck, heat swarming in my face. Lord Alistair’s eyes lowered from mine, his soft dimple tormenting my cheeks further.
I clouted my cheeks in my born complexion, Deceit’s gift exchanging rose for ivory.
Alistair raised his eyes back to mine and continued.
“Before my father’s passing, he was entirely occupied in his rule—ensuring the elves remain west, the fortification of Tharen Crest, the protection of Cindermoor, and arranging alliances throughout the realm. You and I share the belief that men have their own ambitions, and I sought to understand their beliefs without the accompaniment of their running mouths.”
Be wary of his words, the god warned. Just as you, the lord will tell you what you wish to hear.
“How did you go about this?” I asked, entirely enticed.
“I studied my father’s contracts, ventured to the lands of other lords, and I kept my own men within my trust.”
“And who is it that the Lord of Ravens holds in trust?”
My inquiry made him look as though someone told him to drink poison and be glad for it. His voice lowered.
“Not all questions will be answered.”
I hushed.
“How disappointing.”
“Indeed.” Alistair set his journal on the nearby table, leaving my curiosities to stew in my mind.
“Might I ask you a question, Miss Fallen?”
“Will it be the right question?” I asked, soft grin, flitting.
He delayed for a breath—those burdens upon him washing my grin away—and in his exhale, he asked something I would not expect.
“Why have you cried this night?”
My brows rose at the center, wearing the shape of sorrow. I had come here to escape, just for a moment, to leave my mourning behind closed doors and fall into the dark. But this lord had seen me. He had seen me when I did not want to be seen.
Lord Alistair lifted his hand, slow and careful, as though not to scare me away. But he was a lord cursed by Shadows—he granted me fear for simply being. At least, that is what I believe as my blood violently chased my heartbeat. But, when my feet stayed, when I did not slip back into the dark, I wondered if it was truly fear that caused my blood to be a torrent. Where a trail of dried tears cracked upon my cheek, Alistair’s thumb followed, coarse and scratching. But still, his touch was kind and warm.
Do not, I told myself, and the god tensed.
Do not, Deceit said, annoyed, but I did.
I shed a regrettable tear, my mind rapt by the ruins of the guild. It slipped down my cheek, following the very trail its siblings had taken. Before the tear could drip from my jaw, it was caught by Alistair’s thumb. He wiped away the residue, his palm warm where my eyes bled more waters.
I lowered my gaze, shrinking my spine, and tucked my face behind my curtain of hair.
Alistair’s words, if any were to come, had fallen mute. I only heard the unwelcome woes that escaped me. Another tear fell, the moon illuminating my droplet of lament, and the tear catapulted against the tiles, severing into broken pieces. I was severing into broken pieces. It was as though the moon now ridiculed me, shining over me in vile pleasure.
I starved myself of light and lurched back into what I’d originally sought—darkness. Protection. Escape. Alistair’s hand fell from me, and he stepped forward and said my name so quietly, I barely heard it over my weeping.
“Forgive me, my lord,” my voice cracked.
“I should rest.”
“You needn’t apologize, Rhoswen.”
I curtsied as I had beyond a hundred times before, but this was the first time tears were worn like an accessory. I defied my instinct to keep my face lowered. Lifting my eyes, peering through the waters, Alistair had fashioned himself in the same darkness I did. Stolen from the moonlight, he ventured to me and set a hand upon my back.
The god hissed.
My palms lifted, and I pressed Alistair away, begging isolation take me whole.
Voices hushed in the hall nearby.
“There is something not right about her. How long has she been in the Raven company?” A man uttered.
Another man replied.
“Mere weeks. And it has been wretched weeks, indeed.”
Alistair and I broke eyes in the same moment, peering at the hall’s mouth, Alistair standing behind me. Two men strode into the front room.
“Rumors say she has served many houses in recent years, each falling to the hand of the—,” Briarwood’s dagger eyes marked me.
“Gods.” Loathing strung in his tone.
“Miss Fallen, it is rather late for a woman not to be abed.” Something contorted his brow when he looked up at Lord Alistair.
Lucien stood at Briarwood’s side.
“Gentlemen.” The Lord of Ravens took his place beside me with hands latched behind his back.
“Rather late for social hour, is it not?”
“The realm never sleeps,” Briarwood declared as his eyes continued to scour my skin.
I glanced at Lucien. His blue eyes reflected the pale light, like two beacons burning into my skin. His scowl was becoming too familiar for my liking.
“Lord Alistair, apologies for the late night intrusion.” Lucien was ill fit for deception—I could hear the lie oozing from his mouth.
“Lord Briarwood and I have not seen each other for some time, and Andrael presents a thousand new stories each day. There is much to discuss.”
I struggled to hold these two men in my water-washed gaze.
“Please, excuse me.” I amused Briarwood—“I must be abed.” I lowered my eyes to the tiles.
Alistair reached for my wrist, his calloused touch snagging my sleeve.
I glanced up timidly and hushed as I looked into the dark of his eyes.
“Goodnight, my lord.”
His slow breath aided in drying my tears, his warmth like an invited disease—I shouldn’t have been comforted by the hints of sage, but it was a scent as warm as his touch.
Without offering another glance at the two midnight connivers, I fled towards the banister.
Alistair whispered to my back.
“Goodnight, Miss Fallen.”
Sifting through the corridors, I reemerged into my quarters with tears drenching my face and neck. I fell into bed, listening to Vera’s snores.
Tsk, tsk, tsk. The god stretched out like a feline, pressing against the dome of my skull. I did not speak, did not attempt to defend myself. This night, I was what Deceit claimed me to be—weak. Your tears taste like acid, my dear. I am growing sick of the flavor.
I shifted from my back to my side, looking at Vera’s slackened mouth, where a brook of drool became a pond upon my mattress. Though she could not kiss herself, Slumber appeared to be with her. But myself—what benefit does Deception give in the hours of nightfall when there are none to deceive? I softened my skin to clay and manipulated my face, focusing on the lingering burn.
I pinched my eyelids shut and left them there, trapping the tears.
Deceit prowled. The gods cry, a renewed revenge stirs in the afterlife. This work, the fall of your people, was at the hands of Shadows. Do not forget to what drives your tears and who set them in your eyes—the lords of this age.
I recited Deceit, Retribution is past due.
Lord Alistair Raven was to fall before the end of days.
Only… What if, just as Percy, this lord was not—
The god gnashed his teeth and swelled in my mind. His horns and knots and bony fingers were like broken crystal, nicking all sides. He put an end to my thoughts.
The clay, my skin, hardened with my eyes pinched shut. Fragments of the past filled the dark void of my sight. Before I fell asleep, the warm echo of Alistair’s thumb chased my tear, and I saw the lasting darkness in his gaze.
With Deceit’s low hiss, I slipped into dreams.