NeverSleep

by Brindi Quinn

  NeverSleep

  The Eternity Duet: Book 2

  By Brindi Quinn

  ~

  Copyright 2014 B.E.L.

  Artwork by Ben Clemann

  Smashwords Edition

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is dedicated to Marley, Millie, and Howie – the three most serious guys I know.

  Also By Brindi Quinn:

  Heart of Farellah: Book 1

  Heart of Farellah: Book 2

  Heart of Farellah: Book 3

  Seconds: The Shared Soul Chronicles

  Sil in a Dark World

  The World Remains

  The Atto’s Tale Miniseries

  EverDare (Book 1 of the Eternity Duet)

  The Death and Romancing of Marley Craw

  The Ongoing Pursuit of Zillow Stone

  Prologue: Void & Gold

  A slumber sweeps.

  The colors rest.

  All that does not glitter is Void.

  Chapter 0: Sleepness

  There is no time here. Everything blends. Day and night melt.

  I feel her.

  She is close.

  When the dark parts of this place try to swallow me, she pulls. The mark on my shoulder pulls. We are united. Still.

  I think about whether or not she heard me on the last day. I told her what she needed to do. Did she hear?

  . . .

  A creature crosses my path. It is an enemy. I learn to fight it.

  And then I fight it.

  The creature is dark and has many heads. I weave in and out. I move like she moves. I confuse the heads. One of the heads opens its mouth to bite me. I slide beneath a neck. The creature bites itself. Dark liquid leaks from the neck. The creature falls.

  I move on.

  They say the world is different now. There are some in this place that can see beyond. Many of them talk for a price.

  She is worth any price.

  I barter a part of my soul to hear what she needs. She must feel alone. She hates being alone.

  A crystal.

  That will help her. That will comfort her until I can.

  Some wonder why I bother. They call her my servant. They call her my ruler. She is not my servant. She is not my ruler.

  I want her.

  I need her.

  I love her.

  Chapter I: Grim

  There was once a time, not so long ago, when the sky was blue by day, and gray by night. There was a time when the world was ruled by a tireless cycle of color exchange. Bloőd, Azure and Amethyst – these were the colors from which the inhabitants of the Eternity Vessel drew their power, but the greatest of these was Amethyst.

  Long sought after by the three great nations of the world, Amethyst, daughter of Bloőd and Azure, tempted mortal and mythic alike, luring them with promises of superior enchants.

  No more.

  Whilst the three nations warred, there was a fourth force brewing in the shadows, unbeknownst to the mortals of the world. The sphinxes, led by a being known as Ark and aided by an unwilling boy-become-man, craved an end to that cycle which had so long ruled the land. For their end, Amethyst was the means needed. And so, under my instruction, Awyer, unwilling boy-become-man, delivered the stolen color to them, and with it, Ark, betrayer of the world, fueled the hair of the hellbeast and cracked the Vessel. The three colors, which had so long exerted dominion over the world, were lost and replaced by two new powers – powers that we who remain in this sleep-stricken land must now draw from.

  ~

  “Hoop! Keep him straight, Mael! If you ain’t careful, he’ll get on fallin’ into the canyon!”

  It could once be said that I had not been carried like a damsel in this lifetime nor in any other.

  The same cannot be said of now.

  It could also once be said that my prior ward, he who holds my compromised heart, had not been carried like a damsel, either.

  How things have changed.

  “Shup, Pedjram. I can do it fine. Ower’s safe and secure. He’s not goin’ nowhere.”

  “Like heck! Every time we round a bend, your bonebags go a-shakin’! Be sure Mistress’ll have your nut if anythin’ happens to him!”

  A sound escapes my teeth, just as it has more than ten times daily in the two weeks since leaving the Golden Lands. A sound, soft and low and filled with my frustrations, that sound is a sigh.

  “Tell the zombie he need not address me as Mistress,” I instruct the only one in our party who may hear it. “I have renounced that title. Forevermore, I shall be known only as Grim.”

  Techton, my confidant, allows his lip to move upward in a motion bemused. “You’re one to talk. That kid’s no more zombie than you are faerie,” he says.

  Again, a sigh. The Azurian-turned-witch speaks truth. Pedj is no longer a zombie. If anything, he is . . .

  When only half alive, the Bloődite exerted enough life for our entire party. And now that he is fully alive? His boisterous tendencies have amplified greatly. Too greatly for my liking, if I am honest.

  Not that there would be any point in complaining so. With Void now fueling his addictive veins, Techton is the only one who can see and hear my griping. Lo, my pactor now sleeps. Upon a bed of marching skeletons, the deliverer that is Awyer rests.

  “MAEL! He’s gonna fall smack in! I told you, keep them bonebags steady!”

  Aye, this time I share in Pedj’s unease. The canyons of Jiik Anar are rugged, each rocky pass connected by only a thin sliver of auburn land, serpentine in shape, bending here and there and wherever it may please. Each step of mythic footprint upon the dusty ground sends upward a flurry of red dirt fine as powder.

  But because I do not fully exist, my footsteps do not kick up powder. My feet skim lightly the ground, as freely, I fly in a hover. The dust does not settle upon my silver skin; it moves through me, the way everything moves through me. Everything but my resting pactor.

  Ah. Thinking of him aches me. My chest tightens and my teeth brush against one another, and lastly, from my mouth, emits another of those dastardly sighs.

  Dread.

  Dread. Dread. Dread.

  “Awful huff-and-puffy today, aren’t we, Mistress?” Techton chuckles a chuckle that is darker than the ones he chuckled when a mortal. These days, his raspy laugh most always holds a hint of cynicism.

  “Grim is fine, Techton.”

  “Sure then, Grim.”

  I speak to him nothing more, and settle my gaze upon my sleeping pactor. Bathed in gold from the sky, his body jostles upon his bed of clanking skeletons. Once, he spoke of the blueness of the heavens, thinking the color unnatural in comparison to the false lavender of Eldrade. What, I wonder, would he think of this new sky? A sky that gleams gold by day and pitchest black by night. A sky influenced by the same sleepness that now covers the non-mythic cities of the world.

  I close my eyes and concentrate on the magicks in the air. A heavy, golden haze of dreaming settles over the world, escaped by no mortal. Anyone without capacity for Gold cannot hope to survive through this era. Mankind cannot hope to survive through this era. They are as babes abruptly taken from a mother’s breast without luxury of wean; and in each camp we pass, nomadic or grandiose, it is the same:

  The mortal world rests.

  Only the mythics walk.

  Not that we have encounte
red any other mythics to speak of.

  Rock imp. Merbabe. Witch. Necromancer. Sphinx. Gloer. Naefaerie. Aged lochie. Silverfox. I scan my memory – that of my old soul – for the faded races, those who are to inherit the land if Ark has his way.

  “AAARGH!”

  From the front of the company, a shout sounds.

  Paltry.

  It is nothing more than the shout of a boisterous boy getting what he deserves.

  “See, Pedjram?” Mael raises a brow at her cousin. “If anyone needs to watch it, it’s you’s who it is.”

  Indeed, the former zombie’s foothold was nearly lost to one of the chasms of Jiik Anar.

  Teeth grinding uneasily, he gapes over the canyon to inspect his would-be fate – but is not long for the gesture. At the realization of what could have been, he quickly scampers away from the harrowing edge . . . and straight into one of Mael’s marching skeletons.

  It would have been better had he plummeted to his death, for upon outside contact, Mael’s control over the skeleton is interrupted, and it begins to sink, reverting into a pile of bones.

  I foresee what will happen if I do not act. The imminent passes treacherously through my mind in a moment no longer than a blink. With a portion of his weight no longer held, Awyer teeters dangerously from the hands of the remaining skeletons and over the edge of the canyon’s gaping mouth.

  I cry out – “NO!” – but though I make haste to flit to where he is, I am beaten by a blast of dark-colored magic.

  “I’ve got him, Grim.”

  A thin string of inky blackness trails from Techton’s palm and winds around Awyer’s ankle, pulling him evenly back onto the skeletal army.

  Techton’s witchy tendencies grow by the day.

  “H-how did you have time to incant?” I ask breathlessly. “I did not even hear you– ”

  “Easy now,” says Techton. “It was only a minor spell. Honestly, I didn’t need much more than a thought to cast it.”

  A minor spell?! There was nothing minor about that! And is it just my imagination, or does Techton appear haughty over his claim?

  “Oh yeah?” says Pedj, equally haughty. “A thought, you say. And who’s that thanks to, eh? If I hadn’t told you MY secret, you wouldn’t have the power shoot a puff, let alone a–”

  “You’re right. Just like it’s also ‘thanks to you’ the lady’s enchantment went down in the first place, right?” Techton retorts.

  With that, Pedj is made quiet. Grimacing guiltily, he rubs the backside of his pointy hair and looks on as Mael busies herself with re-raising the fallen bones. Now without Bloőd to guide her, she draws from the new power: Gold, in the same way that Techton draws from Void. A blackness no man or god has ever seen, and a place no mortal should ever touch, that is the sort of force that now drives Techton’s enchants.

  Although, Pedj does have a point: Whatever secret he gave to the witches of Ensecré, he also spoke to Techton, allowing the new witch the fuel needed to perform.

  As I ponder on what that secret might be, I notice that there, in the corner of the Azurian’s right eye, a wrinkle has begun to form. It is my turn to show guilt. Because of my suggestion, he has turned out this way. All because I needed a confidant.

  “I am sorry, Techton, that I do not exist enough to be heard on my own.”

  Alas, he does not hear me. He, too, is watching Mael work her spell. A hungry glimmer crosses his face whenever she exerts such necromancy, for hers is a golden power tainted with the Void he so ravenously craves. An addict-turned-witch is dangerous company to keep indeed.

  But keep him we must. It is a credit to his power that we are even on this path.

  “You sure we’re goin’ the right way, Techie?” Pedj questions as he shifts focus from Mael’s handiwork to the undesirable terrain we have found ourselves in. The land is dry, the path narrow; and the overhead sun reds the exposed flesh of those who exist.

  Techton runs his fingers through the air. “That’s what they tell me.”

  They.

  Pedj does not question what manner of being ‘they’ are. Deep down, he knows as well as I that tracking down Count Bexwin is most important, even if by Techton’s dark means. All the same, he goes on to ask, “And WHY’re we goin’ after this croop, again?”

  Techton defers to me.

  Sigh.

  “To seek an answer to the sleepness,” I say via my confidant.

  Pedj’s voice moves into mumble, “Yeah, but we don’t zactly KNOW findin’ him’ll help us. Senses to say he’ll be asleep like the rest of them. Twig it?”

  Aye, before leaving the Golden Lands, I foolishly believed there a chance the sleepness would spread slowly enough for us to encounter Bexwin awake, but if our trek has been any indication, this curse’s reach is fast and wide. Too fast. Too wide.

  “Tell the Bloődite: ‘If he has fallen, there may be things on his person that will lead us to the answer. And if he truly knew of what was to come, mayhap he found a way to remedy the situation for himself, as . . .’”

  But I cannot bring myself to finish with ‘as Techton has’.

  The witch fills in the blank himself. “As I have,” he sneers.

  “Yes.” I swallow. “It is a small comfort that we did not encounter Count Bexwin’s sleeping frame on the outskirts of the Golden Lands, at least. It stands to reason that he may have found a way to go on.”

  “Oh, right,” says Pedj, taking in what I have spoken. Once more, he is reassured enough to go forth.

  Upon inspecting the again-formed skeleton, Mael dusts her hands on the thighs of her skirt. “There,” she says, “the kitty’s all better.”

  The skeletons resume their march, following after their master. This time, Pedj falls safely behind, near to Techton and me. He remains unsettled over his mishap with the skeletons.

  “You, too, could command them, you know,” I say through Techton. “You are no longer half zombie.”

  Pedj taps his nose. “Yeeeah, think I’s gonna have to pass on that. Still not too keen on upsettin’ the dead.”

  A necromancer who does not wish to disturb the dead? And to think I once considered Awyer, my cunningless sphinx, the ultimate paradox.

  “Phoo. How much farther’s this crankin’ ravine go, anyhoop?” Pedj asks at the next turn. Though his many questions grow tiresome, his disdain is warranted. The next stretch looks to be even narrower than the last, and with no discernable break in the horizon, the canyon’s expanse is daunting.

  Techton again moves his fingers through the air. “A ways,” he says.

  “Tch.”

  The irritable ex-zombie may not delight in my confidant’s answer, but it is the truth. Indeed, it is quite a long, long ways before we end our cross of Jiik Anar.

  . . .

  When we finally reach the end, the ground changes from dusty auburn rock to gritty brown soil, through which a few measly sprigs have sought to spring. Pedj falls upon them with relief.

  “Ground! Sweet, sweet ground!” he cries.

  I do not understand. “Were we not formerly traveling upon ‘ground’? Why should he be so infatuated with ‘ground’ now?”

  With a chuckle, Techton communicates my inquiry. For now, his mood has reverted to pleasant, though I have been with him in his witchy state long enough to know that the change will not be long lived.

  “Well, doy!” says Pedj. “This ground, I love. That ground? Not so hot.”

  “Ah.”

  Likewise, to the ground go Mael’s skeletal minions, and with them, the true necromancer, at last, lets herself collapse. The journey through Jiik Anar was no small feat for her small body to make.

  “We’ll rest here, Lady.” Techton’s concern over the girl shines through his hunger for her.

  But such instances are becoming less and less frequent.

  “Thanks, Techt.” Mael gives her pursuer a weak smile.

  Falling prey to his newfound tendencies, Techton indulges himself with a greedy sniff of her neck, for
which he immediately looks sheepish. “Whoops. I-I’ll get right on it.” He moves to unpack his oversized rucksack.

  I, however, am no longer concerned with them. My pactor now lies upon a bed of fallen bones. I go to him, kneeling beside the place where he sleeps, brushing his dark hair from his forehead, admiring the way his lashes rest upon his cheeks. My Awyer, holder of my young heart. Why do I ache for him now, even more, that he is gone? He holds my heart, lays claim to my heart, and at the same time, it is exiled from him. That is why I ache: My heart seeks to torment me for separating it from him.

  I am my own worst punisher.

  “You must wake soon,” I whisper to him, “because when you do, I will tell you my greatest secret.”

  I will tell him that I have fallen in love with him. I will tell it to him over and over again until the end of our days.

  Not that my days will end in the way his will. Not that I will grow old in the way he will. Not that I will ever follow a normal flow of time. It is something I lament over. Something that will never, ever change.

  But then . . .

  As I draw a finger along my sphinx’s jaw, I notice something I did not before see. My fingernails – they have changed?

  They are longer! But I did not will them to grow! I am sure I did not. Then . . . they have simply grown of their own volition? But how? How, when my appearance may not change unless prompted? How, when I do not fully exist!?

  Never before have I aged.

  Never have I truly existed.

  Then again, never before has the balance of nature been tipped so severely.

  As I marvel over my own grown fingernails, Techton seeks to move Awyer from his bed of bones. “We’d better get him into the tent,” he says.