So Dark the Night

by Elle Cross

  In the darkness, familiar glyphs glowed from the floor. Red and burning. A Killing Circle. And I was in the middle of it.

  Karina

  "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. ORCS and Goblins and Faeries, oh my do I have a special treat for you! From the distant realms of the Fold, by way of the Shadow Realm, I have a special guest. The Lady Brightling. A Death Hand from the Nightmare Court of Thana, Queen of Nightmares and Death. In. The. Flesh." He walked around the circle as if he would warm up the crowd.

  It was galling really. Something I should have picked up on, but I was too distracted thinking of well a host of other things that I didn't know that there was immediate danger as I was trying to seduce Durin to his own death.

  I needed to get a better grip on this.

  "As you know the Killing Circles are very, very specific. Nothing living can pass these barriers once the duel is locked in place." Something was entering the shadows on the other end of the circle. It wasn't a lot of space, but it was enough for me to know that I didn't want to be part of this match.

  First of all whoever was on the other side was more creature than human-like. I could feel that humid gusts of its breathing, each exhale was like a big bellows crank. Its lungs must be like huge sails to feel so large.

  Something slithered along the floor. The darkness that blotted the thing from my view remained intact. It must have been huge, since the thing was already in the circle with me. When the last of the slithering stopped, that was when the glyphs of the Killing Circle's border changed from a glowing red to a white. Whatever was inside of the Circle, the Circle was satisfied.

  We were locked inside these borders until one of us died. It didn't have to be that way, but I read the glyphs, and had seen enough Killing Circles to know the difference between Death or Blood as the requirements.

  That gave me some measure of relief though. I'd rather that no one else would be able to come inside the circle. Of course ideally, I would have preferred not to be inside of a circle at all, but at least I knew it wouldn't be a melee. Sometimes that happened, in the height of my fighting. People would just lay on as if it was normal to do that sort of thing until there wasn't even any room to maneuver and fight and the fighters were just laying around and hitting each other with their own swords. That was beyond stupid.

  At least my men wouldn't be able to interfere either. I would hate for them to get hurt. I would also hate for them to be sad because I died.

  They had already survived one of my deaths. I wouldn’t put them through another one. Not if I could help it.

  The floor shook, and it should have bothered me a lot, especially since I stood on marble. That was supposed to mean that the floor would always be level and straight and not have a something that was so large that it caused the tiles to vibrate.

  I enjoyed the tiles, and it seemed like a weird time to fixate on them. However, I couldn't help but notice how lovely they were, with their black and white checkered pattern. It reminded me of a chess board, and we were random players on it.

  I smiled, perhaps more wickedly than I felt. Because who was the most powerful player on the board but a queen.

  And not a king, Goblin or otherwise, nor his knight had any hope of standing if I had anything to say about it.

  I swung my eyes toward Durin, and whatever he saw in my gaze made him step back. Good. He was actually nervous. I fed off of it, inhaling his scent through my teeth, my lips, my gums, getting it all in there.

  I wanted to see what was in the darkness, lurking in shadows. And then I realized that I no longer had to wait.

  They wanted to build the suspense? Draw out the drama? Then they would have to do it on their time, not mine.

  I stuck out my left hand, my hand of power where the sigil for my mark bloomed a glowing silvery lilac now that I called upon it, the veins of power crisscrossing up my arm, and scorching the tattoo lines on my body. “Parere mihi obumbratio. Ventilabo,” I called for the shadows to obey me. To disperse.

  And just like that, the shadows went away, rippling like a boiling black tar revealing the monstrous height of a seething drakken. A drakkenmage, its lord and master, balanced atop its head.

  Well, was this how they were going to play it?

  Did the Goblins not realize that the drakken, part dragon, part something else, belonged to the Fold and most were loyal to my mother?

  I didn't move. You never wanted to make the first move in a duel. It unnerved the opponent. Made them wonder what I was up to.

  I never had to wait long.

  The drakkenmage had on swishy, flowy pants, and his top was barely covered save for the leather straps that crossed his chest. It made him look like a huge target. I was able to see the scars all over his body, where he had used his own blood to call up blood magic.

  Probably took a lot of blood to control this drakken.

  The drakkenmage was tired of waiting for me to make my move, and since I was planning on standing here for all eternity until he did something, he finally shouted an order to the drakken.

  That was when I took out my sword from its sheath. It rang clear and true, the note held in air. It sparked with a bluish electricity that was a remnant of Enver's power. As the drakken lowered its head to spew the fire I knew it was called to project, I kept the sword in front of me. The flame spread out and billowed around me. I felt the heat, but it didn't burn me.

  I let it absorb into the sword and when the drakken was done seething for a moment, I slashed the sword in the air and created my own fiery drakken to match it in size. I only knew one word of war in dragon tongue, and I threw all of the power that I had into it. "Incaendo!"

  My fiery incantation concentrated its power and focused on the drakken. Funny thing about drakkenmages—they were able to control and enslave a drakken, but without its power, they were pretty much unprotected, and left to use blood magic or spellcasting.

  I was familiar with that. The only difference was that I realized how I was able to be so powerful: I wasn't a null, or only a null.

  I was able to use the power that I absorbed. It didn't get wasted or destroyed like I thought. Just changed...into something more.

  The drakken pair wanted out. They couldn't handle the heat that I gave them. They clawed along the borders of the Killing Circle. I felt bad for the drakken—I actually liked them, and if it weren't for their masters, I would have loved for them to be around.

 

  What the hell? Who the fuck was sharing my thread?

 

  I projected the image of the drakken against my mind.

 

 

  The hissing in my mind sounded like the drakken had bitten into something gross and distasteful. Like he would spit something out. I didn't blame him.

  So that Durin was more than he’d claimed. Not just an errand boy for the man in white but a Goblin King in his own right.

 

 

 

  I let my power flow, letting instinct guide me. It was something to do with shadows; it was In-between and it was like trying to pull apart soul and body. It wasn't quite working.

  And I was too busy trying to dodge the spells that the drakkenmage was making his drakken do. The power that I had borrowed dwindled, and then my concentration was making it harder to keep up the shields. Especially because I didn't want to hurt him.

 

  It was the collective voice of my men.

  I rained down some scorching heat at the drakkenmage, the last of the drakken’s powers that I had absorbed.


 

  I could feel them inspecting me. I liked that they were able to do that, though I made sure that no one could accuse me of stealing their powers. I ducked and weaved around the flame. I dipped the sword into the flame, and redirected it back to the drakkenmage.

 

  I got a scorching nip at my shoulder. At that, the thread became completely silent.

  As I curled under an up-cropping of tile that happened to get torn up during another onslaught, a head popped up. It was that servant.

  "Hello, your majesty. I'm here to remind you—"

  "Yes, I should ask you for help. So help! Be my shield!"

  "An honor to serve."

  And with that he became a white orb, opaque. I realized that I had seen that before, but couldn't remember. More ghosts came to me. I pointed to the drakken. "Release him."

  And they rushed the drakkenmage and I felt the border of their bond. Where the drakkenmage ended and the drakken began. I slipped and worked between them, which helped with the ghosts now distracting the drakken.

  Only I was able to see them clearly. I wondered about that. Like did the people just think that crazy things just floated around like no big deal? That whatever they wanted just appeared before them?

  They were stupid if that was the case.

  I managed to slip between souls, another type of In-between, and between the soul and their skin, I was able to push my power, direct the ghosts to slip between the space, and begin to swell and pull them apart.

  The drakkenmage began to yell and claw at his heart. I thought about that, and as he was distracted, I threw my dagger at him.

  It planted itself in his chest, inches away from his heart. It still hurt, but it wasn't a mortal wound. I was okay with that, because the ghosts were frantically trying to tell me that they needed them to separate the two first before I could kill the drakkenmage.

 

  Damn. I needed to keep dodging the fireballs that were raging big time.

  The crowd around us were dying at the fight that I gave them. It looked like my odds were dire, so if I won, that would cost the House a hefty amount. Good.

 

  Finally.

  I pushed all the power that I had, which absorbed the shadows in the Killing Circle, including the ghosts that were here, and I grabbed my other dagger and threw it, this time it hit home, dead center in the drakkenmage’s heart. He dissipated into a million pieces of light.

  And then the drakken collapsed.

  It roared in pain. I ran to it, my hand over its heart.

  The Killing Circle dissipated. It didn't count the drakken as the contender, only the drakkenmage. He had a drakken to control, I had a gaggle of ghosts, all of whom were ecstatic that not only were they still with me, but also had not burned off into the Fade. Some were even a little more energized.

  My men rushed me, and I waved them off. "I need to do something."

  "What do you need?”

  "I need to save him." I felt it in my bones. I needed him for the future. The Oracles only knew why.

  They kept a semi-circle at my back so I wouldn't be interrupted. The gathering crowd wasn't paying much attention, as there was a general hush. The feel of the room let me realize that I basically bankrupted the house, and made a few people extremely rich. Prince Ranek being one of those people.

  I didn't care. My attention was all on the drakken.

 

 

  That meant he was dying, but I didn't want to tell him that. He had black iridescent scales that shone purple and blue. He could have matched Enver and me.

  At that thought Enver sidled against my back. It was an unspoken, ‘Take what you need’ request.

  I drew power from him, and I skimmed the drakken’s body. And then fire built up within me, and I drew on all of the power from my Inner Circle. An inner intuition had me holding up my other hand, and then I released.

  A blooming fire scorched from my right hand and the spirals of flame both went out over the drakken’s body while also spiraling back against my arm, flowing up it. While I engulfed him in healing flame, the spirals that scorched up my arm became red hot and then finally, blanched out to a crystallized diamond-looking sparkle.

  The drakken stirred, and then leaped from his back to his legs. His back bowed. The more flame I gave him the more he absorbed. All the black flaked off of him, and then the scales underneath matched the iridescent quality of my tattoo that was branding itself on to my skin.

  I felt another tug and I knew that my work was complete. The drakken shook off the last of my flame and he had been transformed into a color that I didn't know was really a color. He wasn't quite black-scaled, nor white-scaled. He was like a rippling cloak of invisibility, like mercurial shifts of light.

 

  His voice was hoarse, as if he had been shouting for ages. Who knew, maybe he had been.

  I heard a whisper, then. Faint, but important. A name in dragon tongue. Jindyss. The Strong.

  I offered to him.

  But instead of resting, he rose up to full height, scaring the rest of the crowd that had gathered around still watching the rest of this drama unfold as if they were watching a show.

  I knew enough not to be afraid. The rest of my men were nervous, but they trusted me.

  Jindyss roared toward the ceiling, and with his nose, willed the oculum to open. With it, and the fullness of the moon as witness, he bellowed and rained down fire again. Instinctively, I raised my hand, and whatever he spewed at me flowed harmlessly into my palm. He slowly lowered himself to my level, and then shrank down so that he was in front of me, no bigger than a horse, and bowed himself to me.

  I realized through my haze of tears that my men were on one knee too and the rest of the room followed suit.

  An eerie voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, from inside of me, whispered in a strange language. It was the language of the ancients, and I'd only heard it spoken by the Oracles when someone was being crowned with power.

  From my hand and coupled with the moon's light, a wreath of fire descended and swirled over my head before the heat spread down over my body.

  "Arise into your power, Karina, Queen of Shadows and Flame."

  Karina

  THE CROWN DISSAPATED AND I was left with a sense of awe. I got kisses from the men, and then Jindyss, tired and needing to heal, shrank down some more until he was the size of a bird and I invited him to share skin with me.

  It was a great honor, one that he asked that he would be able to repay in service. I told him that he didn't need to worry about that at all. That being part of the Inner Circle wasn't about paying back debts or trying to be even. It was just service, plain and simple, and what he could do to serve.

  Enver swelled with pride, I could almost feel his heart grow ten times larger. I gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

  The rest of the party dissipated for a moment, regrouping on the Goblin King, Durin, and insisting on that wine tasting.

  "So, does the house lose that much money often? I feel like I ought to be offended that you bet against me."

  Durin had a really stiff smile. "You never cease to surprise me, Lady Brightling. I suppose that you're here for your prize?"

  "A prize for an impromptu duel that I had no part in starting? Why yes, I would love a prize."

  Wrong answer, as he pushed a button, and flipped us around and separated me from my men.

  Hells, from what I could see, he separated me from the planet. I was staring into the starry sky, and I was in the middle of a high rise with plenty of windows all around me.

  It looked like Man
hattan's skyline, but a little different. The buildings changed and shifted every now and again.

  "Where the hell have you taken me?"

  "Isn't it obvious, Lady Brightling? I've taken you to your origins. Welcome to the Mount of Prophecy, or what would have been the Mount of Prophecy. The stronghold hasn't been as strong as it should have been, I'm afraid. But here you are, you and your Brightling ways. I knew you'd come, and I would be the one to deliver you!"

  That was never a good thing to make a Goblin King happy. And where was I supposed to be delivered?

  "Why, right here of course."

  We were in an Ever Now, and I realized that the shifting skylines were a possibility. They were endless universes that would and could have happened. They were the various strings of fate and potentialities that were able to happen if only they were given enough fuel to come into existence.

  We were in some strange knot in the stream of time.

  And then something else entered the room.

  He was tall and where one was dark he was light and white. White hair that shone silver in the moonlight. White outfit, down to the white leather coat. He was the guy that I saw from the very beginning. From my dreamwalk.

  Ok, don't panic. He didn't know who I was, did he?

  And that white. I knew many things being here in this kind of Ever Now. I knew that he liked wearing his coat, this outfit because he was able to splatter the blood of his enemies upon his cloak and have it tell a story. Where I had sigils and tattoos as my marks of power, his was written in blood.

  "Well, well, Lady Brightling. How goes it in your court?"

  I shrugged. "As good as any court, I suppose."

  "Except that your court is better than most, isn't it? So much power. So much. Everything."

  He was trying to goad me into saying something, but I refused. With his showmanship, body, and gestures, I knew that he was angling for something. Like acknowledgment.

  Silly. As much power as he could wield, he was weakened by his need to be acknowledged just for being here and present.