A Girl in Black and White (Alyria Book 2)

by Danielle Lori

  My breath caught at the feather-light brush of his touch against my ribs, sending a chaos of tingles sizzling throughout my body. And when he slid his rough hand from my cheek to my nape, pushing my curtain of hair out of my face, I shivered. Goose bumps ran down my arms. The tightness in my stomach, the emptiness between my legs, though I’d never known anything different, had me turning toward him, resting my palm on the floor between his legs so that I could get closer.

  On all fours, leaning in toward him, I could only imagine that with this dress, I looked like I’d been paid to service him the way that woman in the hall had that man. Instead of the idea making me feel shameful, it made me tingle in anticipation, made me feel powerful, important.

  I was mere inches from his lips, but his gaze was elsewhere—following the curve of my spine, my backside; the heat of his gaze running down the low cut of my bodice. He met my eyes, turmoil, frustration, staring back at me. “I still have a question.”

  I waited.

  His fingers threaded through the hair at my nape. The action pulled me closer; so close to his lips, our breaths intermixed.

  His words were rough, dark. “Did you let Maxim in your bed?”

  I hesitated, lowering my eyes.

  Was I ready to admit that in that endeavor, I was the same girl he knew before? The same ridiculous girl?

  I wasn’t a romantic. I wasn’t someone who believed in soul mates or love at first sight. But I couldn’t deny that even though he’d always had questionable—more than questionable—motives, for some reason, I loved the roughness of his hands and the sound of his voice. That, strangely enough, I felt more alive than I ever had where he was concerned.

  There was a lot about him that made me feel lost and uncertain. But what I knew with conviction, was that I wasn’t ready to put myself out there like that. If I said no, it would sound like I’d been waiting for him. And if I said yes, that would be a lie. I knew my response would push us one way or another.

  I just hadn’t expected how far it would go.

  “Pass,” came out in between two shallow breaths against his lips.

  My gaze had been lowered, and therefore I could never pinpoint exactly when it started. But when the silence pressed on my lungs, filling my chest up with regret and not air, I glanced up.

  Two black-as-night eyes looked back at me, the irises losing their round form and spreading like liquid throughout.

  My heart leaped into my throat, and I tried to jump back, but his hold stayed steady in my hair. His jaw ticked, but he closed his eyes, his breaths heavy. I once again tried to pull away, but his grip tightened even further.

  “Don’t,” he said, his voice hoarse, the unmistakable ‘sort of fangs’ visible when he barred his teeth.

  My heart beat in horror. But I couldn’t do what he said; the flight instinct was too strong. Just as it was in any nightmares I had when I was a child. If I hadn’t been full of uncertainty, terror, I would have tried to embrace the darkness inside me. But somehow it lay dormant like it wasn’t going to go up against this version of Weston.

  “Don’t move,” he growled, his chest moving with agitated breaths. “If you keep fighting me, I won’t be able to stop myself.”

  I went stalk still at that, while he waged an inner turmoil with himself. When a few moments passed, and his breaths calmed slightly, he slowly loosened his grip on my hair.

  “Walk,” he said roughly.

  I got to my feet the slowest I’d ever done, my breaths heavy, a tremor rolling through me as I did what he said.

  “Open the door.”

  I did, cringing at the creak that filled the air, and waiting in silence, horror gripping my heart. I glanced at him for the last instruction. His eyes were completely black, there was no color left at all, and he was undoubtedly something I would’ve seen in my nightmares.

  His expression wasn’t in turmoil anymore; in fact, it was cold, watching me under his eyelashes, just like I was a worthless commoner and him a king.

  My heart froze.

  He’d lost the battle.

  He appeared merely bored, resting his head on the shelf while looking straight ahead of him. “Might as well do what you do best, Princess.”

  I hesitated, my hand on the doorknob.

  He flicked a gaze to me: lazy, dark, unsympathetic, inhumane.

  “Run.”

  I didn’t run. At least in the literal sense. I wouldn’t stay near that if someone offered me the Crown. I fast-traveled as soon as the door clicked shut behind me, the cold, stone walls of the palace dungeon appearing in front of my eyes.

  Trepidation ran through me with a cold shudder, my heartbeats all colliding. What have I done? Had I pushed him over the edge only to keep my pride intact? The guilt tasted acidic in my mouth.

  Shadowed cells surrounded me, some criminal or another depreciating in different stages of death and madness, depending upon how long they’d been here. With the overpowering smell of urine and the idea that Weston could appear behind my back at any moment, I strode to the front of the room where a guard sat sharpening his long blade to pass the time.

  “Ei,” he barked, sitting up from his slouching position and resting his limestone on his sword, “how’d you get in here?”

  I didn’t stop my strides, not giving him even a glance. “I’m a witch, pretty sure I hate all men, and have the urge to curse them all. Don’t make that idea a reality.”

  He didn’t get up from his seat.

  I stood in front of a wooden door just down a darkened hall of the main cells, and with my hands still shaking from the moment upstairs, I pushed it open. It creaked like it had never been ajar before.

  Shutting the door behind me, I leaned against it for a moment, my gaze running over the man sitting at the table, before sliding down it until my butt hit the floor. I let out a tortured breath. “I think I made a mistake.”

  “I’d say. A quick death would put you out of your misery,” he returned, indifferently.

  “I didn’t make that bad of a mistake,” I countered.

  It wasn’t even like he knew what happened, not sitting down here in his jail cell. But death seemed to be his favorite advice of choice, half of the time not even glancing up from his work to suggest I commit a quick suicide. My grandmother would cross herself at just the mention of the word and, being a product of her grooming, I found it hard to resist myself.

  I banged my head against the wooden door gently, wishing I could go back and tell my pride to shove it and just admit to Weston the truth about never being with Maxim. But why did I have to? It wasn’t my fault the Titan had issues.

  Red candles dripped down the sides of the wooden table and onto the stone floor. Piles of books were scattered across the room; pages were torn out, strewn around in disarray.

  “What time is it?” he asked, tinkering with springs and metal pieces sitting on the tabletop in front of him.

  I blinked my tumultuous thoughts away. “I don’t know. Eleven, maybe.”

  “Can’t hear the bells,” he mumbled. “Can’t hear them.”

  I was assuming he was speaking of the chapel bells, and yea, I guessed it would be difficult to hear them down here. I’d just gotten used to sleeping through them ringing throughout the night.

  “You better not have your trouble follow you down here. I think they have the palace children cook my food when I misbehave.”

  I grimaced at that idea. “This is the only place I thought to go where he wouldn’t find me. The magic wards,” I said as if he’d forgotten. Though, I doubted he ever did—he was locked down here for good.

  “It’s not so bad. It’s been a while since I’ve had a frightened woman in here since what happened with the last one.”

  I paused, deciding I didn’t want to venture a question in that direction. Looking up, I saw his dark, inquisitive gaze on me. His hair was so black that sometimes it gleamed blue in the light; it was longer than it was supposed to be, probably because I didn’t think anyone w
anted to bring shears in here to try and cut it. His face was sharp but somehow still soft, and I always imagined he would be an artist’s dream model. They could paint away the dark circles under his eyes, and a portrait could always hide a lack of sanity.

  His gaze could be wizened as if looking into a scholar’s eyes; it could be licentious, as if he were only a young man whose priority was women; or sometimes it could just dance with madness. I was looking at the latter.

  My curiosity grew about this mad prince. I knew that he wasn’t an ordinary human at all, or there wouldn’t have been magical wards on the room. But I never could figure out how. For all I knew the King and Queen were magic-less humans, but this was a strange land, and I wouldn’t think I had it figured out. “How old are you?” I asked.

  His lips turned up in the corners as he worked delicately with the pieces on the table. “What is the unit of measurement?”

  “Uh . . .” I paused, then supplied, “Years?”

  “Years.” He laughed softly to himself as if I’d just told him a jest.

  Well then . . .

  It wasn’t often that I tried to ask him personal questions because I would get answers like this. Sometimes he made me truly think, but other times he merely made my head hurt.

  It had been five months ago that I’d gotten the true initiation to the Sisterhood. It was then I’d learned Farah was stingy with her things—well, psychotic about her belongings. I borrowed one of her books. I was going to give it back, I swear—I just forgot to. Well, somehow when the magistrate got a tip on where the Princess’s stolen necklace was, he’d come to search the Royal Affair only to find it sitting neatly on my desk.

  Being taken to the palace dungeons until I could be judged at a later date was only an annoyance and had actually worked in my favor.

  I’d been thrown into a cell that couldn’t keep me in and found myself being pulled to the wooden door at the end of the hall. I’d pushed it open and was standing in the doorway when a saccharine yet refined voice rushed over me. “Ah, finally they send me a woman.”

  I’d blinked, standing still while he turned from his spot at the table to look me over. He grimaced. “Ugh, not another blonde. They’re too squeamish.”

  Don’t ask me why I entered that room and why I shut that door behind me. At that point, my dreams of icy water and darkness had left me sleepless, and this man-boy with the dark shadows under his eyes seemed to be the only one to understand. I was angry with this new order I’d been shoved into and desperate to find a solution to being Fated. I had, at that point, nothing to lose.

  The first time I’d embrace my Shadowed side, I sweated it out down here. He didn’t ask questions; he only worked on that clock on his table. And somehow, I believed he understood the dark; he might have known it better than most.

  The noise of him tinkering with metal filled the room. I’d rarely see him do much else than work on that clock. His obsession with time drove his madness into a full-fledged profession. For all the knowledge he shared with me—usually completely irreverent to my question—the man couldn’t finish that clock. He’d been compulsively working on it for five months, and the strange part was, that it looked far enough along that I might be able to figure it out if I ever got the chance. Not that I did. He guarded that thing with his life.

  “They won’t give me a fork anymore.”

  I blinked, being pulled back to the present. “What?”

  “Forks pierce food, not eyeballs,” he said as if he was repeating what someone had told him. I wondered if Maxim had ever come down here, or if he just allowed the palace servants to deal with him. Probably the latter.

  “Forks are multi-purpose,” I supplied.

  He dropped a metal piece with a clink, his eyes gleaming when he glanced at me. “That’s exactly what I told them.”

  When I came down here, I was mad as well. At least I played the part—it seemed to work well for both of us.

  “Talon,” I said, but then frowned when he shot me a glare. I wasn’t supposed to use his name for whatever reason. I’d tricked him into telling me a while ago, and I thought he was reminded every time I said it. “I think I’ve gotten myself into a bit of a tangle . . .”

  “Better just leave as that Titan prince tells you.”

  I blinked. “How do you know he wants me to leave the city?”

  “The mice,” he said simply.

  Ah, yes . . . the mice. Of course.

  I wondered if the mice were code for palace servants who knew everything about everyone. If I had to clean chamber pots all day, of course, I would eavesdrop to pass the time.

  “I cannot leave yet. I have to stay for a few more days at the least.”

  “You’re a fool.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Nice play on words. Aren’t you at least curious about why I’m going to look into the well?”

  “I do not care about your trivial issues. Do you think I have all the time in the world to listen to your woes?”

  “Um . . .” I glanced around the small quarters he lived in all alone, before replying wryly, “I suppose you are probably much busier than I had imagined.”

  He let out a breath like even that was an understatement.

  Some nerves ran through me at the monster I’d created who roamed freely upstairs. I smacked my head against the door. Bloody hell . . . And then some confusion settled over me as I realized that dark feeling wasn’t there anymore. It didn’t move, make a sound—it was gone. I blinked, uncertainty pressing on my chest.

  “Say, do you have any books on the Shadows of Dawn?” I asked him.

  “Third book in that pile.” He nodded to a heap of books sitting on the floor by his table. I scooted over, digging through the mountain. There was no system to it, and I wasn’t sure where he pulled the number three from; but eventually I found an ancient, leather-bound book that looked like it would fall apart if even opened.

  Records of the Shadows of Dawn and its Inhabitants.

  I let out a hesitant breath, eyeing the book for a moment. It was time to learn the truth about who I was, that much was true. So, while Talon tinkered throughout, I opened the book and read until the last of the red candle wax melted, filling the room with blackness.

  The Mad Prince’s voice filled the dark. “What time is it?”

  I sighed. “Time for me to face the music.”

  I made it out of the palace alive. In fact, I hadn’t seen Weston at all, and the ball seemed to be continuing without a hitch.

  At the end of the night, I now knew a little of how I was alive, and that it wasn’t as strange of an event as everyone believed. Well, not for my people anyway. We were born as humans, rebirthed as a Shadow when we came of the age of ten, in a haunting ceremony of blood and death. I just seemed to be a late bloomer because, well, no one killed me.

  The information I found on Shadow magic, was that the people bonded their blood with the land as some kind of offering—it fueled their black and white world, keeping one of the largest territories known to Alyria from fading to color.

  They’d always been compelled to do this because, in the Shadows of Dawn, it wasn’t the people who ruled—but the land. The dark feeling inside of me, was an actual entity, the darkest part of Alyria, that I was now tied to till death.

  I didn’t have a sudden answer for why the darkness seemed to be gone—nothing in the book had touched on it. But I could only call it a blessing. Because the idea that it was a being that haunted me, had shivers rolling down my spine. I wouldn’t do it ever again—I promised myself right then.

  I had some answers for who I was, but I’d barely scratched the surface of that book. And I almost didn’t want to. I’d rather forget that my people murdered their children—even if they did come back—as a tradition and that we were in constant battle with being possessed. I was only glad that it didn’t take me under last night when I’d blacked out for a short amount of time.

  As I turned the corner, putting the Royal Affair in view, I sa
w that the girls were trickling in the front door, far in their cups, it seemed, with their giggling and uneven steps. I quickly squeezed into the group, relief filling my chest at the coincidence as Agnes stood in the foyer, watching us return. I’d already pushed her far enough that I thought she was close to turning me into those ‘Superior Sisters.’ Who knew what they would do, but from the rumors the girls had heard, it wasn’t a pleasant experience.

  All the girls went silent, sobering up in an instant. Or trying to. Magdalena almost fell over in her jump to attention.

  Agnes waited until we were all in the door—and steady—with an exasperated look before going on a spiel about the last gathering for future pledges tomorrow.

  “If you want to petition for High Sistership, tomorrow is the last day to do it. If you’ve no desire to be a High Sister, then after tomorrow you and your mother will have a week’s time to contemplate over your pledging before we need a final decision for approval. Sarai is the only one pardoned this year on account of age. The rest of you need to be thinking about your future.”

  I sighed all the way up to my room, and when I got there, I fell onto my bed, letting my arms hang off the sides.

  Before I realized she was there, I heard Farah’s voice, “I’ve decided what I want in return for you destroying my cards.”

  I rolled my head her way, seeing her lean against the doorframe.

  “I want you to persuade my mother to give up on her idea of pledging me to that grotesque, annoying Lord Baltimore.”

  I grimaced. “Why would she choose him for you?”

  “She’s a witch,” she said, then hiccupped.

  I laughed. “You had to get far in your cups to ask me for this favor, didn’t you?”

  “It’s not a favor. You owe me.” Hiccup.

  I smiled and mulled it around. “I don’t know. It goes against Sisterhood rules.”

  “You go against the rules every night by sneaking out the window, Girl in Black.”

  Ugh. She was the last person I would want to know about that. And now that she did, I didn’t really have a choice.