Dawn to Dark

by Halston James

  There was a commotion down the corridor and her spirits lifted, hope blossoming in her chest. But screams echoed in the small space and fear gripped her heart. Silence followed as they neared the area, and she fought harder to stay away from there. The men jerked her forward and she flew the remaining distance, hitting the floor and rolling into the grand entryway. Her shoulder hit something solid and warm, stopping her from rolling further into the room. She lifted her head and her eyes met with her lovers from that morning. They were piled in the middle of the room, naked, and killed so recently that their bodies were still warm.

  She wailed as she touched them all slowly. Every human that she allowed to please her and been pleasured in return had been purged from the castle. Her heart broke. She’d never felt pain as thoroughly before that moment. Physical pain hurt at the time, but it passed fairly quickly. But seeing the lovers she’d let inside of her body and heart be slain for doing just that cut her to the core. Her very soul ached at the loss.

  “Today, the people you’ve tortured for centuries stand up to you. We’re taking back the land and nothing will stop us.”

  The voice was the same from the lookout above the castle, and she knew he was the head of the betrayal. “Son of Lesham, how do you plan to keep me from recharging my energy? Hm?” She closed her eyes and tried to tap into the auras of the fallen before they left forever, but it was as if there was a brick wall surrounding her. Flustered, she let tendrils of her essence spread out to seek another source. They all met the same fate, hitting a barrier. She opened her eyes and searched for the man responsible for the siege.

  She didn’t have to look far, for he lowered his head to hers an instant later. “Like I said, we found something to help us.” He sneered and lifted a hand, holding something out.

  “Hedera helix.” She let out on a gasp. “But how?”

  He grinned, then motioned to the men around the room. They all held up their hands, revealing the ivy wrapping around their wrists. The plant itself wasn’t harmful to her, but the sticky substance the plant used to cling to surfaces and grow wildly anywhere was toxic to her kind. It slowly leeched her powers, so she’d banned it from the realm long ago. Generations had passed, and the plant was never mentioned again.

  “Let’s get you to your new home, since we’ve no way to know if you’ll truly die by our hands.”

  The two men that’d dragged her through the castle lifted her from the floor and took her out through the front doors to the main courtyard. A horse-drawn buggy was waiting for her beyond the steps, the wood covered by the poisonous plant to transport her without problems. She was tossed into the back and the leader climbed in front, grabbing the reins and signaling the rest to stay behind.

  “Don’t bother talking on the trip. I won’t answer.”

  And he didn’t. She used everything in her arsenal to command a response from him, but he only steered the carriage in silence. After a while, her exhaustion took over and she fell asleep.

  Hands grabbed her by the hair and pulled her from the cart. She refused to give them the satisfaction of showing her pain, even as they drug her from the cart across rocks to the base of a tall, single tower. The man climbed a tall ladder to the only window and slipped inside. A rope was thrown down and another man who’d appeared out of nowhere tied it around her waist. A hard tug of the rope had her face planting into the rocks again, tiny pieces embedding into her skin. She ground her teeth and pulled herself to her feet, keeping her eyes fixed in front of her.

  “Unless you want to dangle from your waist, I’d walk up the tower instead of being pulled,” the man said with a wide smirk painted across his lips.

  She gripped the rope with both hands as the man above pulled until the tower was arm’s length from her. The surface was covered in ivy, making her skin crawl. Another jerk of the rope had her hitting the plants and her arms itched immediately. She pulled away and brought her foot up to the wall. The man yanked, and her other foot lifted off the ground. She placed it in front of the other and began walking up the tower. The rope dug into her sides tighter and tighter until she had difficulty breathing. The demon below used a slipknot to tie the rope around her waist, so she was slowly being squeezed in half by her own weight. She tried to loosen it with one hand, but the man above wrenched harder when she slowed down. The ivy made her feet swell, and the blinding pain from the rope around her waist caused darkness to creep in her vision. After that, breathing ceased completely.

  She went limp and blacked out from lack of oxygen. She came to with a sharp pain stinging her cheek. The man standing over her slapped her other cheek, the stinging now on both sides. Her eyes flew around the room and came back to him. “Is this my prison?”

  “Only because we weren’t sure what would kill you and keep you dead. It seems no one has ever killed one of your kind, if there are others like you. But either way, you’ll rot here for the rest of your miserable life, haunted by every life you’ve ever stolen,” he ground out, pain flashing in his eyes.

  She rolled her eyes at him and tried to sit up, but her legs wouldn’t move. Hatred consumed her, and a red haze filled her vision, but she fought to stay calm. She needed to appear weak and wounded to appeal to his softer side. If he indeed had one at all. “You broke my back,” she whispered, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes.

  He threw the rolled rope out of the opening and looked down at her with his eyebrows pulled together. His eyes narrowed, and he bent down, leaning over her so their faces were even. “You deserve so much worse, Queen.”

  Her tongue darted out and licked at his bottom lip. He jerked back like she’d burned him, his eyes wild and bright. They stared at one another for a breath, then he climbed back over her and pressed his lips to hers. Their kiss was hard and feral, filled with passion and hate and fear. She tapped into his aura, but only pulled a small amount out. She needed him alive. The tiny tendril of power traveled down her spine and knitted the fracture and pinched nerves. Pins and needles pricked at her feet and legs until all feeling was restored. A voice lifted into the room and they both startled apart. The other man was still outside, and he couldn’t know what had happened.

  She locked his gaze to her own and placed both hands on his face. “You will return to me with humans I can consume. I need my energy, my love. What is your name?”

  “Yanel, my Queen. My name is Yanel and I am your servant,” he said, enraptured by her glamour.

  “And you’ll bring me young, beautiful humans, right?”

  He nodded, and she pressed a kiss to his lips, searing him to the soul.

  “Go and continue this rouse, Yanel my love. No one can know of this,” she whispered against his lips.

  “Yes, my Queen.”

  She watched him stand and climb out of the opening onto the ladder until he finally disappeared from sight. She sat on the floor and waited for the ladder to move from the ledge, knowing they’d take it for assurance that she couldn’t leave. The sound of splintering wood grated against her ear drums, but she didn’t have time to process that. The stone beneath her hands scratched her skin like sandpaper as she used it to help her stand up. Cold seeped into her swollen feet from the floor and it soothed the irritated appendages. Her back, though no longer broken, ached with residual pain. She’d be sore for a while. On that thought, she rubbed the heel of her palm over her heart. The pile of bodies in her castle shook her far more than she cared to admit. It’d been many years since she confessed to caring about the humans around her, but they were the few she didn’t see as disposable. She allowed them to be intimate with her body and they reveled in it. They died for her. Unshed tears burned her eyes, so she blinked them away. Then she looked around the small room with disgust.

  The rounded, stone walls were bare and dull, matching the floor. There was absolutely nothing in the room with her. No bed. No chairs. No blankets or sheets. Nothing but a small bucket for filth. She let down her hair and detangled the braid, then wrapped the strands around hers
elf to keep warm.

  3

  Yanel broke the ladder apart with Malik, splintering the wood into tiny bits. They loaded the pieces into the cart, along with the rope, and headed back to the village. Cheers erupted as they rounded the last bend to the valley leading to the castle grounds. Villagers applauded as they rode by on the cart, shouting their joy and relief. Yanel couldn’t help but get swept up in the moment with them. The lands were finally free of the queen and everyone under her thumb was released to do as they pleased.

  Being the first family in command, he and his mother were to be moved into the castle, along with any family they wished to occupy the grounds. He told his mother he’d rather live in their home and tend the fields as he did previously, but she begged him to keep up the appearance of leadership. She said the villagers needed someone to lead them into the new way of life, but he didn’t feel that person should be him. Especially now that he needed to care for the queen so far from him.

  They made it to the castle entrance and stopped the cart, Malik jumped down to hug his wife while Yanel handed the reins off to the stable hand nearby. Everyone stared at him, waiting for him to speak. He saw uncertainty, anxiousness, and fear on their faces. Even his older cousin, Malik, looked on in silence.

  Yanel took a deep breath and ascended the steps, stopped at the top, and turned to the crowd gathered below. “The witch is locked away. She cannot harm anyone in this village again!”

  An uproar cascaded through the people as his message reached all the way to the back. When they quieted down, a woman stepped forward. “Will you be our new leader?”

  His stomach dropped. At his silence, the people began to murmur amongst themselves. He held up his hand and they stopped, waiting for him to answer the question. “It is my right as leader of the uprising to take the throne,” he started, and the crowd cheered. He held up his hand again so he could finish. “But my abilities and skills are better suited in the fields or as leading new trades between other villages. Malik, my trusted cousin and oldest male in the family, should be your leader. He is capable and willing to help guide us into the new future. You shouldn’t have an unsure king. We deserve a strong king that will protect us until his dying breath. A king that will put our needs above his own. Someone to be proud of on the throne, and that is Malik.”

  They all looked to Malik at the bottom of the steps, but his eyes were on Yanel. He motioned for his cousin to come up the steps and stand by his side. A man yelled encouragement and Malik’s feet trekked up the steps to stand by Yanel. They both looked out to the crowd, then Yanel grabbed Malik’s bulky arm and lifted it above his head. The people cheered and clapped, and Malik tilted his head toward Yanel. “Have you lost your mind? I hope you know what you’re doing giving up the crown like that, because I’m never giving it back.”

  Yanel grinned and responded, “I would expect nothing less. As long as mother is taken care of, I have no desire to hold that weight on my head. Congratulations, cousin.”

  Malik’s hand clapped his shoulder in comradery. “Your mother will be treated like a queen.” They laughed, then threw the biggest party the village had seen in centuries.

  Sometime later in the night, Yanel tossed and turned in the bed he’d drunkenly plopped into. He couldn’t get the queen’s dark, seductive eyes out of his mind. She filled his every thought as he laid there with his forearm over his eyes. The room he occupied was on the outer walls of the castle, so an enormous window took up most of the wall. He heard tapping on the glass, but he knew he was far from the ground and nobody would be able to climb the castle walls and reach him, so he ignored it. Nonetheless, the tapping persisted until he thought he’d go mad.

  “What could possibly be making that awful noise,” he questioned out loud as he stumbled from the silk sheets. Moonlight peeked through the curtains, lighting up the room enough that he didn’t trip on the way to the window. He gripped a corner of the curtain and yanked, ripping the fabric from above the glass. The light from the moon was almost too bright, and Yanel had to shield his gaze from the shock of it. The tapping ceased, so he squinted against the light and searched for the source. A big, black raven sat on the brick ledge on the other side of the glass and stared at him. Intelligence filled those eyes, and Yanel shivered. Something told him to open the window, so he did. The bird flew in and hopped across the floor before turning to look at him once again.

  Yanel held his hands palm out to the creature. “Easy, bird. Easy,” he cooed. The bird croaked and moved toward his open hands. He didn’t know if the thing would bite him or not, but he held still. It hopped to him and turned its head side-to-side, taking turns looking at him with each eye. It finally stopped and bowed its head, almost touching his right hand. Yanel took a chance and brought his hand down onto the bird’s head and stroked down its neck.

  All of a sudden, a mental image of his queen appeared in his mind. Startled, he jerked his hand back and fell on his ass. The bird tilted its head and turned side-to-side. “Wha-wh-what was that? How did you do that?”

  It croaked again, but didn’t move from its position. Yanel swallowed and looked around. No one was in the room with him. “I’m drunk and picturing her. That has to be the only explanation.”

  The bird stepped closer and he flinched. It stopped and eyed him before moving another step toward him. He let it and as soon as it touched him, more images of his queen filled his mind. She appeared weak and cold, huddled in a dark room. He recognized the tower he’d placed her in that day and the lack of furnishings. His heart clenched. He needed to go to her, to bring clothing and blankets and food and whatever else she needed.

  The bird cawed at him, but it sounded like it had said something. His eyebrows drew together. “What?”

  “Hu-man,” it croaked. “Hu-man.”

  He remembered his promise to bring her people to feed off and a rock settled in the pit of his stomach. The thought of bringing her someone from the village repulsed him. No, he’d have to go find other poor souls to feed her in their place. “I’ll find someone soon. My search begins tomorrow,” he assured the winged creature. It croaked at him then flew out of the open window, disappearing into the night sky. Yanel rubbed his hands over his face and crawled over to the bed. He needed sleep to start fresh in the morning.

  The sun’s rays filtered through the window into the room. The door to the room opened and a woman’s head poked in. Seeing Yanel still asleep, she walked in and grabbed the discarded clothes on the floor.

  Yanel heard a noise and jumped from the bed. His legs twisted in the sheets and his arms flailed about to catch himself as he toppled over, but there wasn’t anything to grab onto. He groaned and pushed off the floor, freeing himself from the sheets as he stood. He thought the raven had returned in the night, but it was a woman in his room cleaning up after him.

  “Thank you, Miss, but I can take care of my mess,” he said, gesturing to the clothes and ripped curtains littering the floor.

  “Don’t be silly, Sir Yanel. It is my honor to serve you,” she replied, then curtsied.

  He shook his head at her and reached for her arm. “That’s not necessary. And please, call me Yanel.”

  She bowed from the room and Yanel noticed fresh clothes folded on the end of the bed. He got dressed and washed his face in the bowl of water placed outside of his room. He had no idea if that was what it was meant for or not, but he felt refreshed and ready for the day.

  He wandered around the hallways until he found the dining hall. His cousin was at the head of the table, picking at fruits as he read over scrolls.

  “Well, you definitely dove head first into this. I made the right choice,” Yanel joked as he grabbed a roll from a platter on the table. The warm crust practically melted in his mouth and he couldn’t help the moan that escaped. “Is this what royal bread tastes like?”

  Malik chuckled from behind some papers. “Try the meat tray.”

  He did and could’ve died a happy man right there on the spot. The m
eat held so many flavors, he couldn’t name them all.

  “Why are you up so early?”

  Yanel swigged water from one of the many cups placed at the table. “I wanted to get with you about the trading plans. I think I should go ahead and start traveling to the surrounding villages to see what they need. They should all know we’ve rid ourselves of the witch as well. Good news travels fast.”

  Malik put the papers to the side to look at Yanel. “Right now? Don’t you want to go over a map and strategically plan the route?”

  Yanel waved off his concern. “I’ve been studying that map since I was a boy. I always dreamed of exploring. I’ll be fine. Give me two carts and three companions you can spare, and I’ll be on my way.”

  Malik pushed back his chair and walked to stand beside Yanel. “Are you sure you want to leave right now? There are a lot of things to do here.”

  Yanel shook Malik’s shoulders and said, “That’s what you’re here for, King!”

  Two hours later, Yanel had two carts headed toward the closest village. The road there didn’t have much excitement. A few fallen trees they had to clear, and a goat ended up in someone’s cart during the night. They arrived the next day at a small gathering of houses in the middle of a clearing. Their main produce were fruits from trees and bushes. They had no real crops or vegetables and the head of the village was more than happy to set a trade. They were treated as guests and the people celebrated the newly found freedom of their brother village with a feast.

  Music and food and dancing echoed through the night, but Yanel couldn’t participate. His heart ached with the need to see his Queen. She called to him. He could feel it in his blood. Just then, a young man stumbled by him. The man was alone, no one around or paying any attention to him. It was as if he didn’t exist.

  Yanel stood and led the man away from the fires to a small area between houses. “Are you okay? Should I get someone to help you home?”