Chapter 5 Between Shadow and Flame #2
“Sit, child,” he commanded, voice deep as a cracked bell.
Maris obeyed, heart still pounding from the yard.
“I am Aldwyn,” he continued, inclining his head just slightly, “Lorekeeper to the Kingdom of Nythra. You will show respect to the teachings or you will learn nothing.”
She swallowed.
Aldwyn folded his long arms before him, studying her essence with an unnervingly calm patience.
“You are new to our world of the nightbound. You will begin at the beginning.”
He spoke with a rough but melodic cadence, shaped by countless years of speaking truths no one wanted to hear.
“Achyron was divided by five gods,” he began, “and each blessed their chosen children. But when the nightbound were born, the gods saw it as an affront to their laws.”
His voice hardened.
“Yseron, the god of war, drove entire armies mad with a thirst for blood. Brothers butchered brothers in his name until the land itself drowned in their bones.”
Aldwyn moved closer to the fire, its light dancing along the cloth over his eyes.
“Syrathe, the moon goddess, wove nightmares so potent they walked alongside men in daylight, tearing open their minds until they could not tell dream from truth.”
Maris shivered.
“Thaleia, goddess of the rivers, turned every waterway to poison, black and rank. Fields withered, children died of thirst or plague carried in the black tide.”
The lorekeeper’s voice broke for an instant, but he continued.
“Vaerith, god of flame, scorched the harvests until the earth cracked like broken pottery, and the people starved or fled to foreign shores.”
Maris tried to breathe, but it felt like stone in her chest.
“And what of the fifth?” she asked, voice small.
Aldwyn was silent for a long moment, head bowed.
“Eiren,” he said at last, “goddess of dreams and mercy. When the curses began, she vanished from prayers and from the world. Some say her kin destroyed her, fearing her gentleness would unmake their vengeance, had she survived maybe she could have stopped the curse in its entirety.”
A strange shiver passed through Maris at those words.
Aldwyn seemed to sense her shift, though he could not see her eyes.
“Do not cling to hope too tightly,” he warned gently. “Hope is a fragile thing here.”
Maris nodded, throat raw.
Aldwyn, she thought, committing the name to memory. He was sharp as any blade, but something told her he had no taste for cruelty.
If there was anyone in this place she might trust, even a little, it could be him.
By the time the afternoon sun dipped behind the dark spires of the Calyrix Castle, Maris felt as though her head might split open.
Aldwyn had droned on with the unstoppable rhythm of a river in flood, names and bloodlines, wars and betrayals until she thought she might choke on the weight of so much ancient grief.
She staggered from the scholar’s tower, dizzy, barely hearing Aldwyn’s curt, “Tomorrow, we will begin on the lineage of the Kingdom of Calanthe’s High Houses.”
When Maris approached her chamber door the wraith twins were waiting, silent as grave markers. One carried a folded gown draped over pale arms, shimmering like moonlit water.
Maris blinked.
“What is that?”
Neither answered. They merely pushed the heavy oak door open and ushered her in, guiding her toward the bathing chamber.
Steam hung in the air from a fresh copper tub, fragrant with crushed rosemary and sweet bay. Maris nearly collapsed as she stepped in, letting the heated water draw the ache from her bones.
When they finally lifted her out, drying her carefully with dark cloths, they held out the gown.
It was breathtaking, a flowing sheath of the sheerest midnight silk, clinging to every curve.
Its high throat was fastened with a jeweled clasp, but the back plunged in a deep V nearly to the swell of her hips, exposing the soft dip at the base of her spine.
Threads of gold shimmered like starfall when she moved, and tiny black pearls traced along the hem where the fabric brushed her ankles.
She smoothed trembling hands down her sides, catching her reflection in a tall mirror.
The Wraiths, unblinking, brushed her hair until it gleamed like a spill of ink, then stepped back to survey her.
Maris swallowed hard, memory punching through her chest…
“At least now,” Kael had told her, his voice cruelly calm, “you might serve a purpose.”
A purpose.
Her throat tightened. In her father’s crumbling farmhouse, she’d never been anything but an afterthought within her kingdom.
A lonely scrap of grief trying to survive in a world that had long since stopped caring.
Now she stood clothed in something spun from moonlight, about to dine with monsters who saw more worth in her than her own kind ever had — even if it was only to break her.
A purpose, she reminded herself again, though it made her heart twist. The Wraiths gestured for her to follow, and she stepped carefully from the room, slippered feet whispering on the cold stone floor.
The hall beyond was quiet but heavy, like the hush before a hunt.
And she could feel it, Kael’s presence pulling at her even through walls and shadows.
I am not yours, she promised the darkness, but the tiny flame deep inside her traitorous heart wondered what it might feel like if she were.
The great hall felt alive tonight. Hundreds of candles burned in iron cages shaped like coiled vines, painting the polished floors in gold and shadow. The nightbound nobles were gathered in their silks and velvets, masks of silver and obsidian hiding the worst of their fanged smiles.
A long banquet table groaned beneath platters of black-glazed meats, shining fruits that looked half-poisoned, and towers of candied herbs perfumed with honey. Dark wine flowed in crystal goblets like spilled rubies.
Maris was seated near Kael, barely breathing in her sheer gown. The place beside him felt too close, as if every brush of air might connect them.
He had been speaking with her quietly, voice pitched so no one else could hear. His questions came measured, but something behind them felt razor-sharp.
“What does that mind of yours think of this place, Maris?”
She glanced at him, startled.
“It’s a cage,” she whispered. Disdain, blatant in her expression.
His eyes, molten-silver, full of secrets, seemed to burn with strange light, he nodded.
“A gilded cage is still a cage,” he agreed softly.
As she reached for her wine, her fingers brushed the rim of his glass at exactly the same moment.
Their hands collided, skin to skin.
Maris gasped, his touch felt like lightning, a molten rush that sparked through every vein and seemed to set her bones alight.
Kael froze, too, eyes flicking up to hers, pupils blown wide. For a second the entire room seemed to vanish, leaving only the line of his knuckles against hers.
Then he drew back sharply, jaw tight, as if burned.
“Maris . . .”
Before he could say more, Corin and Riven appeared at his shoulder, bowing their heads with respectful coldness.
“My King,” Riven murmured, “we must have a word.”
Kael looked as if he would refuse but then nodded once, the muscle in his jaw ticking.
“Stay,” he ordered Maris, voice low. “No one will harm you.”
She barely managed a nod before he swept away with the generals toward a shadowy side passage, his cloak trailing like a living storm.
The second he was gone, the rest of the court seemed to shift. Like wolves scenting weakness, they prowled closer.
One in particular stepped forward, face half-hidden by a mask of hammered silver. His smile was too sharp, eyes too bright with unspoken cruelty.
“My lady,” he purred, offering a deep, mocking bow. His beautiful face set in an expression of conquest, “Might I claim a single dance?”
Maris hesitated, glancing after where Kael had disappeared but the noble took her silence for assent, seizing her wrist in an iron-strong grip.
The orchestra, a collection of nightbound who held instruments that wept shadow rather than strings, struck up a darkly beautiful waltz. The magic that thrummed through their melody twisted in the air, making her feel half-drunk with every note.
One dance, she thought, trying to calm the sudden wildness in her chest.
But the nightbound wine she’d sipped, glass after glass, unsteady and hot in her blood made it impossible to keep her head.
The noble pulled her close, hands possessive and roaming, steps guiding her through a swirl of dancers that blurred like painted ghosts.
Maris felt the floor spin, the music worm its way through her pulse, until every nerve was a burning fuse.
His lips brushed her ear, voice a cruel hiss:
“He cannot keep you his secret forever, little mortal.”
She shivered, forcing herself to stay upright, even as the world felt liquid and dangerous.
The dark King was gone. The room felt endless, its beauty edged in knives, her heart hammering far too fast.
Kael returned just as the final notes of the waltz were dying away.
The instant his eyes found her, locked in the arms of another, fury carved across his face like a falling blade.
The court fell silent at the sight of him even the musicians seemed to hold their breath as Kael stalked forward, dark magic rippling off his shoulders like a thunderstorm.
His gaze met Maris, and everything in her, the panic, the desire, the confusion seemed to catch fire.
Gods help me, she thought, what have I done?
-Kael-
The sight of Maris in that bastard’s arms nearly tore him apart.
The dark waltz, the scent of her skin under nightbound wine, the glow of candlelight catching on her hair and that filthy noble’s hands, holding what was his.
Kael barely remembered crossing the marble floor.
One moment he was watching her spin, nearly translucent in that gods-cursed gown, the next he was there, fingers biting into her waist, hauling her out of the noble’s grip with no more care than one might give, tearing a snake away from the path of a child.
Maris gasped, eyes wide, stunned.