Eternal Night

by Kerrion, Jade;

  “I…” Jaden turned away and pressed his forearm against the cave wall. The hand that he raked through his hair trembled. “I can’t.”

  “You can’t, or you won’t?”

  His eyes met hers. “I’m not Rohkeus.”

  She chuckled, the sound low, devoid of amusement. If only he knew how much he looked like Rohkeus just then—his narrowed eyes intent and his mouth set in a straight line. He wore an expression she recognized as cool authority and steadfast determination.

  Let it go. He’s not ready to accept who or what he is.

  But she could not. Not when he spurned her in the process of rejecting himself. “You said you see me when you close your eyes.”

  “I don’t know what you did to me.”

  “I did nothing. The icrathari only taste memories. We do not create them.”

  “Your touch bewitches, beguiles.” He turned away from her. “And you’ve told me that I have the soul of a dead icrathari. I don’t trust what I remember or feel.”

  I do not trust you. He did not say it aloud, but he might as well have.

  Ashra’s breath whispered out of her in a sigh. She glanced out of the cave mouth at the yellow orb sinking beneath the horizon. It was easier to change the topic than dull the pang in her heart. “We should get going. It may take a few hours to locate the city and carrying both of you will slow me down.”

  “And if the demons attack?”

  “The daevas?”

  “Daevas.” He repeated the word, as if testing it. “What are they?”

  “Descendants of the four icrathari who chose not to enter Aeternae Noctis.”

  “Not demons, then.”

  Ashra laughed, the sound thin. “No more than I am. Although, in your eyes, I am a demon.”

  He looked away. Guilt, perhaps even shame, flickered over his features.

  Her breath caught. Could he ever see something more than a demon when he looked at her?

  An odd sensation fluttered in her chest. It took her a moment to recognize it as hope.

  When he spoke though, he asked only of the daevas. “Will you be able to outfly them?”

  You’re evasive, just like Rohkeus. She shook her head. “Not carrying both of you.”

  He was silent for a long moment. Finally, he said, “Take Khiarra. I’ll wait.”

  Ashra frowned. “Depending on where the city is and how close it is to dawn, I may not be able to come back for you until tomorrow evening.”

  “I can make it. Khiarra can’t.” Jaden scooped up the sleeping child, pressed a kiss to her fevered forehead, and then transferred her into Ashra’s arms.

  Ashra nodded briskly. The gesture concealed the difficulty of swallowing past the lump in her throat. It had been too long since she had been touched with easy affection, the kind offered only by family, freely given without question or motive. The child she carried, however, wallowed in it.

  Their hands brushed as the sleeping child rolled from Jaden’s arms into Ashra’s. He stared at her, the expression in his eyes troubled.

  He feared for his sister’s life.

  As he should.

  His doubt pricked her. Her chin tipped up in defiance. She took a few steps back and turned away. Don’t look back. She stepped out of the cave and into a still-warm dusk. Her wings beat down, carrying her into the air. For a moment, she hovered in the air, waiting for the homing beacon implanted in her brain to activate, and then turned toward the subtle throb pulsing through her head. Aeternae Noctis was not far. By her estimates, no more than fifteen miles. Siri must have redirected the city along a similar path as the prior day with the hopes of finding her.

  She soared through the cloudless night sky, flying high until she caught sight of a squadron of five vampires, led by Yuri, a mile from Aeternae Noctis. The vampires looked up as she spiraled down to them.

  “Are you all right, Ashra?” Yuri asked.

  She nodded, landing soundlessly on the ground beside the vampires. With care, she transferred the child into a waiting vampire’s arms. “Take her back to the city.”

  “What should we do with her?”

  “Put her in my suite with a guard on her at all times.” She would have to decide what to do with Khiarra.

  “Aren’t you coming back to the city with us?”

  “Jaden is still out there.”

  Yuri’s eyes narrowed. “The human? Dana’s son?”

  “I’m going back for him.”

  Yuri scowled. “The others will take the child back to the city. I will accompany you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I can move a great deal faster on my own.”

  “And Tera will stake me if I let you go unescorted. She and Siri nearly came to blows yesterday. They blamed each other for not keeping track of you. If not for Elsker playing peacemaker, they might have wrecked the chamber.”

  All the icrathari were accounted for, but one of them had left the city the prior day to seek out the daevas. But for what? Cooperation or control; there were no other possible reasons—and both were treasonous. Ashra clenched her teeth. She would have to get to the bottom of it.

  Irritation ruffled her wings. To conceal the impatient gesture, she stretched her wings out to their full length and took to the air once more. The light caress of the night wind teased a smile from her. She rarely left Aeternae Noctis and had forgotten the sheer joy of unfettered flight, unconstrained by the boundaries of the glass dome. Her smile widened, relaxing into a rare grin. She flew lazy loops around Yuri as the vampire ran toward the cliff where Ashra had left Jaden.

  The silence of the night was shattered by the sound of battle coming from the cave. From her vantage point, high in the air, Ashra caught a glimpse of Jaden struggling against a pack of daevas as they dragged him into the open.

  Ashra’s golden eyes widened. She drew in a breath, but checked her instinct to dive into battle. As far as she knew, the daevas had always attempted to capture, not kill, vampires. What later happened to those vampires though, she never knew. If the same rules of combat applied to Jaden, he would be captured and taken to their hideout, the hideout that the icrathari had never been able to locate despite their many attempts over the years.

  Rohkeus’s final words rang through her mind. Whatever it costs, defend the city. It was too perfect an opportunity to turn down—regardless of what it might cost Jaden. Swallowing hard against the unexpected pang in her heart, she soared straight up. Yuri was well trained; at Ashra’s cue, the vampire took cover, crouching low to avoid detection.

  Ashra hovered far above the battle, her large wings keeping her aloft on wind currents. She averted her gaze when Jaden slumped to the ground, beaten unconscious by immortal creatures of superior strength. He had put up a remarkable fight, nevertheless, injuring three of the five daevas. They lifted him up, carrying him toward the south.

  He’s still alive.

  She circled down to the waiting vampire.

  Yuri stalked up to her. “You’re not planning to follow them.”

  “We’ve tried to find the location of their camp for years. Here’s our chance.”

  “Tera wouldn’t want you to put yourself at risk.”

  “Aeternae Noctis is at risk. We can’t afford another attack like the last one. Unless we find a way to stop the daevas, they’ll continue to harass us. One day, we’ll run out of luck or vampires, and I’d rather not wait until that happens.”

  “Ashra, we’re only two.”

  “Aren’t you the best warrior among the vampires?”

  “Yes, of course, but—”

  “We’re not here to start a fight with an entire settlement of daevas.”

  Her brow furrowed. “So, we’re not going to save the human?”

  Ashra met Yuri’s gaze. “I haven’t decided.” It was not a lie.

  Yuri sighed and shook her head. “Damn it.”

  Ashra seized Yuri around the waist and soared into the air.

  The daevas clearly fancied themselves the lords of t
he night; they never looked back to check if they were followed. The trail led to a dry riverbed in a valley where several crude structures of stacked stones clustered in a wide circle. Ashra’s heart sank. There were too few buildings in the settlement for it to be a daeva city of any significance. Was it an outpost? What had she sacrificed Jaden for?

  She landed behind a hillock. Once, it had been a concrete building, a carryover from the age of men. Now, it had all but crumbled into dust, worn into nothingness by the unchecked winds that raced through the canyon. On silent feet, Ashra and Yuri inched closer and took cover behind stone heaps overlooking the riverbed. The daevas carried Jaden into one of the small stone structures. A flurry of bat wings crowded around the entrance, and then a pair at a time, vanished into the shadows within the building.

  The night settled into quiet stillness.

  Yuri glanced at Ashra. “It must be awfully crowded in there.”

  “You’d think so.”

  “And dinner would likely be a noisier affair.”

  Ashra gritted her teeth. “Yes, it would.” She pushed up from her crouch. Her wings beat down, carrying her aloft before lowering her into the riverbed. She crept forward, sparing a resentful glare at the moon as it bathed her in a pale silver glow.

  Braced for a battle, she looked into the stone building. Rough-hewn walls, a pebbled floor, and a dead silence greeted her.

  Yuri came up beside her. “What the hell?”

  The vampire’s words echoed Ashra’s thoughts. Ashra strode into the building, and paced the length and breadth of it. “We know they cannot have disappeared into thin air. There is nowhere to go up or to the side, so the only place is down.”

  Together, they knelt to search the floor. Yuri found a latch and tugged on it. A portion of the floor pulled up, but the stones remained attached to the wooden trapdoor. With a frown, Ashra plucked a pebble off the trapdoor and stared at the underside of the tiny stone. She sniffed and licked it. “Blood. Daeva blood.” She tossed the pebble aside and chuckled, the sound without humor. “If we ever run out of duct tape to hold the city together, we’ll harvest daeva blood for glue.”

  Beneath the trapdoor, darkness yawned up at them. Even with her enhanced vision, she could not estimate the distance of the drop. Ashra glanced over her shoulder at the safety of the night. The smart thing would have been to return to Aeternae Noctis, gather the vampires and the other icrathari, and come back to storm the daevas’ hideout.

  But Rohkeus—Jaden might not survive that long.

  She glanced at Yuri. “Go back to the city. Tell Siri to bring Aeternae Noctis around. I’m going in for Jaden, and when I come back out, I don’t want to have to chase down the city with a horde of angry daevas on my tailwind.”

  Yuri shook her head. “Ashra, I don’t think—”

  “Do it.”

  Yuri scowled. With a toss of her head that sent her red braid swinging, she spun and sprinted in the direction of the city.

  By Ashra’s estimates, she had less than three hours before the city came back around. At that point, Tera and her small army of vampires would certainly want a piece of the action.

  She would have to time Jaden’s rescue well.

  With her wings folded against her back, Ashra leapt into the darkness.

  Chapter 9

  Dark haze rolled over Jaden’s consciousness like fog over a meadow, but motion jostled spikes of pain through his body and pushed the darkness back. He skimmed on the far edge of awareness; a guttural conversation teased him with words that hovered on the brink of comprehension.

  Fragments of memory taunted him—flashes of grotesque faces, bared fangs, and gleaming yellow eyes. Demons. No, daevas—related to the icrathari, although the only apparent similarities were their heights and bat wings.

  He opened his eyes. Pitch black shifted into shades of gray, and then resolved into shapes. Dimly, he could make out the ground and the spindly legs of the daevas who carried him across their shoulders.

  Where were they taking him?

  He twisted, but their grips tightened around him.

  A low voice snarled.

  A warning; he did not need a translator to interpret the sound.

  The familiar weight on his back assured him that his swords were still in their sheaths. He considered his options and ground his teeth. Five against one. The odds weren’t good, not when he had lost the first time around.

  He was certain that the only reason he wasn’t dead was Ashra’s blood. The jolting travel through a series of caves should have been agonizing, but as the interminable minutes passed, his body ached less. The ribs that the daevas had cracked no longer caused his breath to hitch with each motion. The sting of rough hands against his open wounds slowly faded even though the hands were no less rough.

  He could not necessarily win a fight against the daevas, though Ashra’s blood was assurance that he would survive it.

  But survive it to what end?

  The daevas paused. Stone grated against stone.

  Shoulders heaved in unison. Jaden tumbled off and hit the ground. His head spun, and he closed his eyes against the sudden vertigo. By the time he opened his eyes again, the stone door was back in place. Jaden bit back a groan and dragged himself upright. Grains of sand shifted beneath his fingers.

  A low chuckle emerged from the darkness, its timbre resonant—a vampire.

  Jaden twisted in the direction of the sound. His head throbbed in protest as he tried to focus through the layers of darkness.

  An emaciated figure hunkered over him.

  His heart pounding, he retreated until his back hit a wall.

  The vampire made no move toward him. “What is a human doing outside Aeternae Noctis?”

  “Where am I?” Even to his own ears, his words sounded rushed, panicked.

  “Sperare, home to the daevas.”

  Jaden bit back a curse. “How do I get out of here?”

  “You can’t. It’s a maze of tunnels. I was unconscious when I was brought in here. I’ve escaped from this cell several times, but I’ve never found my way out of the caves.”

  In the darkness, he could scarcely make out the vampire’s features. He met the piercing black gaze. “You’re also from Aeternae Noctis?”

  “Many years ago. Do the icrathari still rule?”

  “Yes.”

  “What year is it?”

  Jaden frowned, but he answered. “3125, as humans measure time in the city.”

  The vampire sighed. “Time flies, even when you’re not doing anything.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Four hundred and ninety-eight years.”

  “What?”

  The vampire chuckled. “I am—how should I put it—tenacious of life. I haven’t always been alone. Many vampires have come through these doors. Some even survived for several years, but eventually, the concept of an eternity of imprisonment was too much to bear, and they faded away.”

  As the vampire talked, Jaden explored the cell with his hands and feet. The ground was dry and sandy, the rounded walls of the cell hewn out of rock. The “door” was a stone slab that appeared as likely to open if he pushed on it from the inside. As cells went, it was a pitiful excuse, but as the vampire had indicated, the true prison was the cave outside, not the cell.

  Still, that was no reason not to look. Jaden braced his shoulder against the stone slab and pushed.

  The stone shifted.

  “Careful,” the vampire said. “The daevas don’t like their cattle running away. When they catch you, they’ll beat you within an inch of your life.”

  “Cattle?”

  The vampire laughed. “Why do you think the daevas take prisoners? Like the icrathari, daevas are true immortals. A mature daeva does not need sustenance, but its young do.”

  “The young daeva have fed on you for nearly five hundred years? But you’re a vampire—”

  “An elder vampire.”

  “What?”

  “T
he firstborn of an icrathari. My creator was an icrathari called Rohkeus.”

  Jaden’s eyes widened. “Rohkeus?”

  The vampire was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice trembled with an emotion Jaden could not decipher. “You’ve heard his name before.”

  “Yes.”

  “But how? Rohkeus died a thousand years ago. He never entered the city. How could a human know of him?”

  Jaden shook his head. The vampire would never believe it. “What happened when he created you?”

  The vampire relaxed, squatting several feet from Jaden. A ragged pair of pants, held up by a rope belt, shifted on his thin frame. “I touched eternity.” His voice was low, reverent. “Nothing can describe the rush of power when icrathari blood floods a dying human body. Humans consider it death—worse than death—but nothing could be further from the truth. Icrathari blood makes the world come alive. You hear sounds you have never heard before, distinguish unique scents in a medley of aromas, see things that were once too minute to notice.” The vampire’s shoulders moved with a shrug. “The assault on the senses drives many of the firstborn insane. It’s a rare person who can embrace the transformation with grace, without fear of becoming a monster.”

  “And you were not afraid?”

  “No. If there is fear—any hint of fear—the transformation fails. The result is an unthinking monster with the physical power of an elder vampire, but without the wits to control his power or himself.”

  “An immortali,” Jaden said, recalling the conversation he had overheard between Ashra and the vampire Lucas.

  “Yes.” The elder vampire rose, the movement graceful, like a predator shifting into motion. “You know a great deal about the icrathari and vampires. When did Ashra change her policy on keeping humans in the dark?”

  The vampire lunged.

  Instinct and reflexes honed by Ashra’s blood threw Jaden into a forward roll. The vampire leaped over Jaden’s head, but instead of smashing into the wall the way a human might have, the vampire landed with silent grace, his hands and feet pressed against the rock wall in defiance of gravity.

  Jaden’s jaw dropped. His eyes flared wide. Elder vampire, indeed.