Erich paced the short breadth of the cave, pausing before each turn to glance at Tera. The icrathari slumped on the ground, unconscious and unmoving. The deep gashes in her neck and stomach had not closed, the dual impact overwhelming her body’s ability to heal.
Unless she had an infusion of blood, she would not heal.
Unless she healed, she would die.
In the distance, Canya’s voice, her words indistinct and muffled by the curving tunnels, rang with authority. Thousands of daevas had gathered in the vast caverns, each one called to witness the execution of the daevas’ most feared enemy—the icrathari warlord, Tera.
Even though, in all cases, we attacked first.
Erich closed his eyes. His hands clenched into fists.
It’s supposed to end here. Let it end.
In his mind’s eye, Tera raised her face to the curve of the dome, to the beautiful vista he had once believed lay outside Aeternae Noctis. Beyond the dome, stars spread across the night sky. The heavens were unchanged, untouched by humanity. Did Tera ever dream of soaring across those skies?
Where would her spirit soar when she died?
No spirits, no souls. We are creatures damned to eternal darkness. Send her into the black.
His gaze rested on her body. Her silver braid was streaked gold from the blood that had gushed from her neck wound. Her face was set in calm, peaceful lines.
Tera was critically injured. Dying.
The planned execution merely formalized an unstoppable process.
My angel of light. Will she soar through heaven forever?
Pain knotted in his chest, the agony so sharp he thought he had been pierced. My muse…
Erich knelt, cradling her in his left arm. He placed his right hand over the horrific wound in her stomach.
My friends, my family… He drew his fangs across his lip and tasted blood. I’m sorry. Forgive me.
Erich brushed his lips against Tera’s. His blood spilled into her mouth. I am nothing without my muse.
Moments passed; life teetered on their shared breath. Hope, already thin, narrowed into a trickle. The small cut in his mouth slowly healed, but she began to suckle.
Erich stiffened, but held her to him. The steady suction against his cut lip kept the wound from closing; life flowed from him to her. Beneath his right hand, her flesh twitched over a healing wound.
The blood loss twisted his vision into a lopsided spiral. Tera’s face wavered out of focus, but her breath steadied against his cheek.
He could lie there forever. Just him and her. Holding each other. Muse and artist—
The sound of beating wings tore him from his dreamlike reverie. Erich broke the kiss and scrambled to his feet. He was standing on the other side of the small cave when four daevas appeared by the entrance.
Their noses wrinkled as they sniffed the air. Eyes narrowed, they stared at his unblemished wrists. Finally, one of the daevas shrugged. Together, they half-carried, half-dragged the unconscious Tera from the cave.
Stop, he wanted to call out. Let me carry her.
But he could not. Any display of concern would damn the both of them.
A muscle twitched in his cheek. Canya was no fool. She would know what he had done. He had damned himself. The only question that remained, the only question that mattered, was whether he had managed to save Tera.
Chapter 6
Motion jostled agony through Tera, but it slowly subsided beneath her rising consciousness. Wings rustled all around her. Daevas. Where were they taking her?
The razor-sharp shards of pain around her neck and stomach faded into a low throb—not fully healed, but no longer critical. But how? She tasted blood in her mouth. Erich?
No, it couldn’t be. He hated her.
The narrow tunnel opened into a vast cavern, the ceiling soaring so high and floor plunging so low that both were lost to darkness. Daevas perched on ledges along the wall, peering down onto the wide outcrop where Canya waited.
The four daevas carrying Tera dropped her at Canya’s feet before flying away to take their place among other spectators. The chittering noises rose like a wave. Most the daevas had never seen an icrathari, and as a rule, Tera thought cynically, if they did, it was often the last thing they saw.
Canya’s voice cut above the chatter. “Look at her. She is Tera, the icrathari warlord. She commands the vampire army of Aeternae Noctis. Her claws have cut down your fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and dealt death among those who want only to live in peace.”
Tera’s eyes narrowed. The fungi in the caves had to be spewing hallucinogenic spores. How much more deluded could Canya be? For a thousand years, Aeternae Noctis had been content to circle the Earth. The battles took place only when the daevas emerged from their underground havens to assault the city.
A flicker of motion caught her eye. Tera turned her head slowly so as not to draw Canya’s attention.
Erich stood on the outcrop. Their eyes met. Deliberately, he turned his head to look at a spot on the cavern wall, several hundred feet above them. She followed his gaze and saw nothing but darkness, yet he kept staring at it as if expecting something to happen.
“Look at her,” Canya continued. “We were once like her, but we chose the path of courage instead. The icrathari fled like cowards from the scorching heat of the sun even though there were many more lives to save—lives that the Great Mother had charged us to protect.” The large daeva flung her arms into the air. “We paid the price—sacrificing outward beauty for the sake of our great mission. We still pay the price every day while the icrathari huddle, isolated, in their great domed city. But no longer! Tera is the first to fall. Others will follow, and we will take Aeternae Noctis!”
The roar of the daevas drowned out Canya’s speech, rolling around the caves in endless echoes, the sound amplifying until it was almost unbearable.
Yet, each voice, alone, was quiet. Even Canya depended on the cave’s acoustics to amplify her words. A millennium of living underground had altered the physical attributes of daevas. They possessed sharper hearing and weaker voices—Tera’s eyes narrowed—strengths to exploit as weaknesses.
She shifted her weight slowly, bringing her arms and legs beneath the concealing spread of her wings. Alarm frittered jolts along her spine, but her heart rate steadied and her breathing slowed—the preternatural calm before battle. Almost there…
Canya held up her hands for silence. “The Earth died when the icrathari turned their backs on it. It is fitting that the first step toward a restored Earth begins with an icrathari’s death.”
Now! Tera launched into the air. The sweep of her wings flung Canya backward. Tera soared upward in wide circles, drew a deep breath, and screamed.
Her battle cry rolled like thunder, the impact smashing against the cavern walls until they trembled. Tera swept over the cowering daevas. Large and small, they shook from the auditory assault. The tunnel of caves took up the vibrations of her scream, and wobbled like loose teeth. Rock fissured, sand raining from the jagged cracks. Alarmed daevas flapped off their perches as ledges crumbled. The earth rumbled, convulsing upon itself.
Instinct, or faith, directed her to that dark spot on the cavern wall at which Erich had stared so steadily. It was a small opening, scarcely large enough for her. Cracks had formed all around it. Small rocks and pebbles broke off and dropped into darkness.
Behind her, the air stirred into a flurry as daevas raced after her. Out of time. Out of choices. Tera darted into the opening. Her wings wrapped around her, she spun and screamed. The tunnel directed her voice like a megaphone; her battle cry hurled forward like a spear. The daevas recoiled in midair, their wings flapping hard to keep them aloft.
The vibration trembled through the small tunnel in which she had taken refuge. Rocks chiseled off the roof; dust conceding to small pebbles, and then large stones. Cracks zigzagged into the tunnel. The earth groaned; the sound rumbled beneath Tera’s feet as the roof of the tunnel collapsed, plunging her into darkness.
Stones and rocks fell like rain. His breath heaving, Erich pressed against the cavern wall, which shook, convulsing with the tremors that heralded an earthquake. The daevas fled, the black flurry of their wings sweeping to the surface. Their chittering cries rose with alarm as they swerved to avoid the cascade of stones.
The crowding made escape impossible. Large stones struck the daevas, slamming into their backs, tearing through their leathery wings. They screeched, plunging to their deaths.
The caverns shook. The outcrop cracked and tilted. Erich tumbled forward. He grabbed on to a rock, but it, too, broke away under his grasp. His feet slipped over the edge. Erich hung onto the side of the ledge. Infinite nothingness yawned below him.
Slivers of light—bright yellow light—appeared above.
Erich’s eyes narrowed. No…it can’t be. Yes, it—
The earth cracked, rocks falling like a waterfall. The ceiling peeled away. Sunlight poured into the caverns. Daevas screamed, wheeling like birds, trapped between death in the light and death in darkness.
The sun drenched an underground world that had not seen light since the creation of the Earth. Heat roiled through the cool air, scalding it. Erich’s hands sizzled, his skin flaking as it burned.
Daevas plunged into darkness, wings aflame. Canya, older and stronger than the other daevas, braved the sunlight, circling overhead and screaming commands that could scarcely be heard over the panic and terror.
Teeth gritted, Erich dragged himself up the steep incline toward the questionable safety of the cavern walls. His skin peeled off; raw flesh smoked in beams of sunlight. He could not have hurt more if he were wrapped in sheets of flame.
Almost there.
He stared at the next handhold, scarcely more than a pockmark in the ground. He could not reach it, not without releasing his precarious grip on the sharply angled ledge.
Erich dragged heated air into his lungs, let go, and sprang forward. His maimed fingers seized the handhold, but in that instant, talons dug into his shoulders and yanked him into the air.
Canya’s yellow eyes fixed on him. “What have you done? Look!” She shook him so hard that his teeth rattled.
Precious seconds passed before his dazed vision focused on the flight of daevas wheeling madly through the cavernous space. Some daevas, their wings on fire, fluttered blindly into others. In the panic-driven tangle of wings, fire spread.
Cries of terror rose from the depths of the cavern. Protected from the merciless beams of sunlight, it was nevertheless, uncharted territory, deeper than the daevas dared venture—a hostile world filled with poisonous air and pools of lava and acid.
Die quickly or die slowly. Those were the only choices. The earthquake had sealed most of the tunnels leading into the cavern, cutting off escape routes.
“She did this!” Canya’s voice wrenched with anguish as daevas perished around her. “You did this! Tera came down here looking for you!”
She…did?
Canya flung him down. Erich’s shoulder smashed onto the already tilted outcrop. The ledge uttered a low groan, but the sound was swallowed by a sharp crack. The outcrop broke away from the cavern wall, stone fissuring slowly but inevitably.
Erich scrabbled up the nearly vertical incline, leaping from handhold to handhold, trusting momentum instead of gravity. The ledge tore away from the wall. Stones crumbling beneath his grasp, he leaped forward, hurling himself over empty space, and smashed into the cave wall. The impact rocketed flashes of white light through his skull and punched the air out of his lungs, but he grappled for a grip in the notched wall.
The ledge on which he had been standing plunged into darkness, cracking into cascades of rocks as it smashed through flights of daevas.
An icy fist clenched around his heart. My friends. My family.
I betrayed them for…my muse.
He glanced up, braving the shafts of sunlight to look at the tunnel to which he had directed Tera’s gaze. The small entrance, like many others, had been sealed by a rockslide. No way to tell if she was alive or dead.
I betrayed them for…nothing.
What have I done?
The ache wrenched at his chest as Erich dragged himself along the cave walls, away from the piercing light, back into shadows. The blinding heat subsided enough to make him aware of how much agony he was in. Any exposed skin that had not sloughed off had darkened to a crisp. Any flesh that had not burned had shriveled.
Breaths puffed in and out of his scalded lungs, pumping pain through his entire body, as he pulled himself into an alcove. Erich curled into a fetal position and prayed for the sun to pass over him or for death to take him. He did not care which.
Hours passed before Erich slowly raised his head. Patches of new skin had appeared on his hands and arms. His face felt tender instead of raw. The burning pain had subsided into a lingering ache that would last for days as his body repaired the internal damages of almost burning alive.
He was lucky not to be dead.
Many daevas had not been as fortunate.
Erich gazed out upon the vast cavern, now empty and glistening in moonlight. The daevas had scattered into the labyrinth of tunnels deeper in the earth, most of them uncharted. It would take the daevas days, perhaps weeks, to regroup.
It bought him time to flee.
His gaze searched the once-familiar terrain. A few tunnels loomed like dark crevices against the caress of the moon. The rockslides could have sealed the tunnels farther in, but it was a chance he would have to take. The inevitable onset of daybreak did not give him much time.
Pressed against the rock wall like a spider, he made his way over to a tunnel that was almost too small for him. He crouched and wriggled past the low-hanging rocks, tearing his clothes and scraping his skin. The slow crawl through the tunnel stretched for miles. The earth closed in around him, burying him. Terror rose around his mind, binding him to his fears, his panic, his certainty that he was abandoned, that he was going to die—
No. He bit his tongue. The spike of pain and gush of blood strengthened his tenuous grip on reality. He was already counted among the dead; Tera had seen to it. He had been abandoned; she had seen to it too.
All that was left was to survive—crawling forward a few inches at a time, grateful for the little space he saw ahead of him, trying not to think too hard about what might happen if he reached a dead end. Erich bit back the ironic chuckle. He was probably the only vampire terrified of dark, enclosed spaces.
His slow path stretched into forever. Needing neither sleep nor food, he crawled on without stopping to rest. His thoughts blurred with fatigue. He pushed forward, propelled as much by momentum as a body on autopilot.
The tunnel widened imperceptibly, at first, before gradually expanding into a cavern large enough for him to stand. His muscles protesting each movement, Erich clambered to his feet and looked around. His skin stretched as he wriggled his fingers and toes. Nothing cracked. Nothing tore.
Yet.
His amused chuckle faded into thoughtful contemplation as he mentally mapped the twists and turns of the narrow tunnel from the cavern where he had started out. If his estimates were correct, he could make his way to Haven. The refuge was hundreds of miles away, but it was the only place still open to him.
Erich rolled his shoulders and started forward at a brisk walk, before accelerating into a run. He sprinted through familiar caverns, finding his way unerringly through twisting tunnels.
A sudden whisper of air brushed against his face, almost like the herald of beating wings.
He jerked to a stop, but could not pick up on any unusual sounds or motions. Perhaps a daeva had gotten lost in the interconnecting tunnels—not hard considering their generally poor sense of direction. For hundreds of years, he had explored and mapped the tunnels on behalf of the daevas, and served as their tracker and guide. When the turn of the seasons baked Haven in the endless light of summer, his exclusive knowledge of underground paths kept the
refuge safe.
As long as he was careful, none of the daevas would track him to Haven. As long as he kept up his rapid pace, none would catch up with him. In two-dimensional spaces, he was every bit as capable as they were.
Yet the intermittent sound of beating wings chased him through the tunnels, although it was neither frequent nor consistent enough for him to locate it. Once, only once, he caught a whiff of night-blooming flowers. He paused, turning slowly in a circle, but the smell had vanished.
Erich sighed, too tired to scowl or frown. If he were not already insane, he would have concluded that his exhausted mind was giving out. Why else would he have conjured the memory of Tera’s subtle fragrance?
Betrayer. Murderer.
My perfect muse.
Stop it. Stop thinking of her. Clenching his misshapen fingers in his hair, Erich dropped to his knees. He dug his nails into his scalp. Pain anchored him, reminded him that he still hurt. He was—on some obscure level—still alive.
And insane. Quite insane.
When she was strong, he wanted to kill her.
When she hurt, he ached to protect her.
When she stood tall, her wings flared like a banner of war, staring at him with that aloof, enigmatic expression on her face, he wanted to gouge out her eyes and he wanted to immortalize her in his art.
If his compulsion to kill her and to keep her alive wasn’t proof of insanity, he wasn’t sure what else was.
Erich’s breath whispered out of him in a sigh. Insanity wasn’t the problem. Eternal insanity was the real issue. There was no end in sight for her, or for him, until one or both of them died. Which one died would probably come down to how insane he was feeling in that moment.
In the end, it’s all mere chance and stupid luck. Mere chance that he had sat out at the village fountain night after night, hoping for a glimpse of her. Stupid luck that she had soared down to speak to him.
If he tried hard enough, he would have only himself to blame.
No, that would never do. His chuckle sounded bitter, even to his own ears. She had condemned him to hell for no reason other than the fact that he worshipped her. What goddess does that?
Eternal Day Page 6
