Then Nicce, finally Nicce, the end of it all. And she would beg him to take her, ripping off her clothes, and then stab him in the chest with a dagger and twist it, saying, “Begging for your life is hardly worthy of your reputation, I wouldn’t think.”
Every day went like this, and he didn’t know when the days ended and the nights began, and he could never sleep as much as he liked, never.
So, when Nicce appeared outside of his cell, he didn’t think she was real.
She looked the same as ever, only she was wet. Maybe her hair was longer.
His hair was longer. He had a long beard. But at some point, everything stopped growing. He didn’t have a beard to his waist, for instance. He didn’t have hair to his knees. And he thought he might have been in this cell for another century.
He didn’t know why the hair grew and then stopped. It followed its own peculiar internal rules.
At any rate, her hair wasn’t so much longer that she seemed like she could be different than the Nicce he imagined. It had been a long time since he’d seen another person, anyway, a real person. He was confused.
She lit up, sunlight blazing out of her eyes.
He cowered from that, and there was a chink of confusion there, because the light was so bright, and he didn’t know how he was conjuring that light.
He must be going quite, quite mad now, to create these kinds of hallucinations.
He laughed.
“Shh,” she said. “We saw another creature on our way here. We hid until it went past, but we can’t be sure if it’s coming now.”
We?
He squinted at her, and he ambled to his feet. That was when he noticed that Nicce wasn’t alone, that a woman with long, white hair stood behind her.
Nicce put out her light, and she nodded. “Yes, that’s right, come here. I was afraid you couldn’t hear me. I’ve been whispering your name over and over. You were… are you all right?”
Tears were leaking out of his eyes. He lurched into the bars and now, he thought about her hair being longer, the state of her clothing, which looked torn and threadbare. “Nicce?”
Her lower lip was trembling. Her eyes were shining too. “I wasn’t sure if it was you at first. You look…” She touched her chin.
He mimicked her gesture, hand in his beard.
Ciaska was behind him. “Who do you belong to, Eithan?” she breathed.
He wanted to turn and look at Ciaska, but he kept his gaze on Nicce. His lips parted. He reached up and swiped the heel of his hand over his tears. “I’m sorry.”
The old woman was doing something to the lock on his cell.
The door opened.
He furrowed his brow. He shook his head.
“Come on,” said Nicce. “We need to go.”
“You’re really here,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“You came for me.” It was a sob.
“Of course I did.” Her voice cracked. “Eithan?”
He took a step toward the open door of the cell, and he was horrified. This was happening. This was a rescue, an escape, and he was in no shape for it. How could he possibly…?
Don’t think of that. Move, he told himself, some sane part of himself surfacing.
He moved.
He made it out of the cell, and then he looked back, and he expected he’d see Ciaska there, her mist coming through the air to wrap around him and suffocate him.
But the cell was empty.
Nicce’s arms were around him.
He turned back to her, and he looked down at her face. His hand came up to trace the lines of her cheekbone and her chin. She was so warm. He had forgotten how warm she was. He let out a strangled sound. He was devastated.
“No time for that,” said the old woman.
“This is Jala,” said Nicce. “She knows the way out.”
“Oh,” said Eithan.
Nicce’s arms weren’t around him anymore, but they were holding hands. She was tugging on him, and he let himself be led.
They moved, walking through the corridor between the cells, and Eithan tried not to see Ciaska in all the cells, tried not to hear Zeffir’s voice as he told him he forgave him. I don’t blame you, sir. You have to make sure she doesn’t hurt Philo anymore, came the echo from the hallways of Eithan’s past.
Nicce was talking, and he was only half-listening.
She was telling him some story about the gods and about some theory she had, something about drugging a god into a deep sleep until the god simply self-destructed from the lack of letting their power out into crystals.
He guessed it made sense, her theory, but he’d thought that he could cut Ciaska in half, and he’d been wrong about that.
But he couldn’t be any help to her, not with anything ever again. He was… “How long?” he finally said. “Did they let you out? Did you come back for me?”
“What?” She turned to him, looking vaguely frustrated.
He might have interrupted her while she was talking more about ways to put gods into a deep sleep. “Nothing,” he said, his voice only a whisper now.
“You mean how long in here?” She gestured. “I don’t know. I have no idea.”
“So, you didn’t serve out your sentence?” he said.
“No, I used my crystals to get out. I should have told you that.”
“You can make crystals.” He blinked at her.
“Well, it wasn’t easy,” she said. “But yes, I can. Anyway, did you ever see Ciaska pass out from drinking too much wine?”
“No,” he said.
“I didn’t think so,” she said, sighing. “That would have been too easy.”
“Nicce,” he said. “You should know that I’m not capable…” He swallowed. “If you need help with… I see things now. Things—people—that aren’t there. I hear… I feel— I’m not—”
“Shh,” she said, pressing close, her lips against his temple, so much tenderness in her voice that he thought it might shatter him. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m talking about this right now. Let’s focus on getting out of here.”
Tears filled his eyes again, and his throat hurt. He remembered that once, he would have been ashamed of himself for being this way. He remembered his pride, his self-respect, how he’d clung to it, even when Ciaska had tried to strip it all away from him. He wouldn’t even know how to go about finding it again.
Nicce wrapped both of her arms around his arm, clinging to him. “I’m so glad to see you. I love you. Why wasn’t that the first thing I said to you? What’s wrong with me?”
“It’s all right,” he murmured. He didn’t say that he loved her. Say it, he thought at himself. His mouth was dry.
They followed Jala through the corridors, hiding once, ducking back when they saw creatures crossing through the passageway to another stretch of cells. There were forks in the tunnels too often, but Jala seemed to know which one to take, always moving decisively.
Finally, they came back to the place where they’d been brought in.
There it was.
The door out.
Guarded by five men and three of those strange headless creatures that seemed to be made of dirt. Once, Eithan would have thought this would be no problem for himself and Nicce, but that was so long ago. If they had weapons…
But even with weapons, he hadn’t used his body to fight in so long that he wasn’t sure if he could. He felt weak and terrified.
And as he was thinking these hopeless thoughts, one of the guards saw them and yelled out and it was all madness, utter madness, everything happening at once.
The guards were moving and they had drawn their swords and the creatures were reaching out with their arms—they had too many arms—and the air seemed sluggish and thick, holding Eithan in place.
Everything seemed to be streaming past him, swinging steel and the cries of the guards and the fists of the creatures, and he was stuck in place, legs mired in the too-thick air.
&
nbsp; Nicce wasn’t next to him, wasn’t touching him. She was lit up, magic pouring out of her mouth and nostrils and Jala was bleeding and shouting in a strange language.
And it all swirled around him, and he didn’t know where to look and didn’t know how to breathe, and Ciaska was weaving in between it all, and she was laughing, and Eithan was sobbing again, and—
A body thudded on the floor, one of the guards, smeared with blood on his forehead.
Jala had done it, somehow. She had some sort of magic.
The old woman pressed her palm into the forehead of one of the other men, and he fell too.
But then another guard thrust a sword into the old woman’s midsection, and she grunted and went down on her knees.
The guard pulled out the sword and Jala fell to one side, eyes lifeless, body motionless.
Eithan was moving. He didn’t mean to move, and he hadn’t thought he could move, but he was moving. He took strange, unwieldy steps—too fast—why was he moving so fast?
Who do you belong to, Eithan?
He stood dumbly over Jala’s body, cocking his head and looking down at her.
I don’t blame you, sir.
He went down on one knee, still staring at Jala.
Maybe that’s what I want. A wedding night.
He swallowed and then he snatched up a sword from one of the fallen guards.
And everything changed.
The blade felt right in his hands. The sword was like coming home. Everything went quiet and he could see again. It wasn’t as if the world was rushing past too quickly, and there was nothing out on the edges—no voices, no memories, no hallucinations.
He felt, for the first time in a very long time, sane.
And then he fought.
He stabbed and parried and cut and thrust.
Men screamed and blood arced and flesh thumped against the ground.
And then there were only bodies and clumps of dirt.
Nicce was over Jala, her hands on the old woman’s face, trying to revive her, trying to pour her sunlight blood into the woman’s mouth.
He waited, watching, but they were running out of time before more guards came. “I think it’s too late, Nicce.”
She looked up at him, her face twisting. “No.”
“I’m sorry. If I’d been quicker—”
“It’s not your fault.” She closed Jala’s eyes and then she stood up, nostrils flaring. She had one of the guard’s swords in her hands too. “We have to run.”
“Yes,” he said.
And so, they ran.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Nicce was completely lost, but Eithan seemed to get his bearings somewhat quickly. He said that he remembered fighting in this part of the realm, sometime when he was a young man before Ciaska had changed him. He found the river, and they drank from it.
They followed the river for the rest of the day, and they kept going into the night.
Eithan asked if she was tired, if she needed to rest, and she said she’d rather put as much distance between themselves and the dungeon as they could. Things were starting to look more familiar to her too. She recognized certain rock outcroppings from long hunting trips back when she had been with the Guild. But the trees were all the wrong height, and things were different. How many years had they been locked up in that place?
She told Eithan they could be back at the Guild by morning if they pushed through. She knew the way. “But maybe we should rest,” she said to him, putting a gentle hand on his arm. “Maybe if you’re not feeling…”
“I’m better now,” he said in a curt voice. He reached down and touched his sword as if that would reassure him.
She wasn’t sure what had happened, but she had seen a change in him. He didn’t seem to have been focused before, and then he’d joined the fight with the guards, fighting brilliantly, fighting like Sir Eithan Draig, the leader of the Knights of Midian, and since then, he’d been sharper.
“Do we want to go to the Guild?” he said. “The last time we saw Jennix, she said she never wanted to see us again, didn’t she?”
Nicce furrowed her brow, trying to remember. It was all so long ago, another life. “Well, if there’s trouble, we won’t stay,” she said. “But if they would welcome us, we could take shelter there. And the gods never discovered us there. They wouldn’t look, I don’t think.”
“You don’t think Sullo wouldn’t look for you there?” said Eithan. “He knows that’s where you were born.”
“I suppose,” said Nicce, chewing on her bottom lip.
They continued walking for some time.
Eithan spoke again, after a long silence. “We might as well go there, anyway. We don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“No home,” Nicce whispered.
“What’s that?” he said.
“Nothing,” she said. She wrapped her arms around his arm, like she had when they were walking through the dungeon. She pressed her cheek against his shoulder.
He let out an audible breath. “I love you,” he said.
“I—”
“I didn’t say it in the dungeon,” he went on. “I don’t know why I didn’t. I meant to. I…”
“It’s all right,” she said, tightening her grip on him.
They walked that way for a bit, but it slowed her to cling to him, so eventually, she let go of him, and they continued through the darkness.
The river wound through the night, a silver ribbon that reflected back the moonlight. It was summer. The air was warm. The night was full of the sounds of insects and croaking frogs. There were lightning bugs adorning the dark leaves of the trees that hung over the river bank.
The river led, and they followed, as the night went on, and the sounds of the insects faded and the moon grew weary in its orbit above.
When they reached the Guild keep, the sky was growing lighter in the east, a dull gray that nevertheless promised morning. The Guild keep was a hulking shadow against the coming dawn. It was too dark to make out many details, but when they came to the gates to the wall, they had been torn down.
They could see directly into the courtyard, which was all overgrown, tall grass coming up through the cracks of the stone. They stepped inside, and everything was as silent as a tomb.
Her breath caught in her throat. How long? She knew it must have been at least five years, but probably more, maybe double that, even. Maybe even more. She really had no notion of how much time had passed.
“Did I age?” she asked Eithan.
He was gaping at the disarray of the courtyard. “What are you talking about?”
“Do I look the same? Did I age?”
“Not a day,” he said, shaking his head. “No one’s lived here in years.”
“I know,” she said, and there was fear threading its way through her voice, fear that was roiling in her gut.
“Well,” said Eithan. “That solves the Jennix problem.”
Nicce forced herself to laugh. It was a hollow sound that echoed against the stone walls of the keep. She didn’t voice any of her fears aloud, that they had been gone for so long that Jennix was dead and the Guild was dismantled and the entire country had been plunged into chaos.
No one kept back the nightmares anymore, did they?
When she and Eithan had killed Ciaska, why hadn’t they ever talked about the sun-taken nightmares? Why hadn’t anyone considered that problem? Even with all the gods dead, there were still the nightmares. And maybe those awful dirt-creatures from the dungeon were just creatures from the other realm, the realm that had created the gods. Maybe Aitho kept them in line. Maybe without him—
“We can stay here,” said Eithan. He was striding across the courtyard.
She hurried after him, trying to quiet her thoughts.
They went inside, and the place seemed musty and abandoned but not destroyed. There were mattresses on the beds and blankets in the wardrobes and everything was in order, if a little dusty.
She found some towels and soap i
n the wardrobe as well, and she told Eithan they could heat water in the kitchens for a bath. There was a bathing room just off the kitchen, so that no one had to haul the water too far after it had been warmed.
A stream wound its way behind the Guild. It was an offshoot of the nearby river. They filled buckets in the stream and started a fire in the kitchens, filling a large cauldron that hung over the fireplace.
When the water was warm, they carried it to the bathing room and filled a tub.
Wordlessly, they both removed their clothing, both casting surreptitious glances at the other, but neither making any moves to touch the other’s skin. Eithan’s body looked the same. He was exactly the same except for the beard and the longer hair and the haunted look in his eyes.
She examined her body as she undressed. It seemed the same too, but she didn’t feel the same.
When she looked back up at Eithan, she noticed his body was reacting to this, to their nakedness, and it made something inside her leap, something that was almost painful because it had been so long since she’d even really thought about touching another person this way.
He seemed embarrassed. He muttered apologies as he climbed into the tub.
She joined him, and she was smiling. “Good to know I’m still the only thing in a hundred years to arouse you.”
He ran a wet hand through his hair and gave her an embarrassed smile. “I told you it wasn’t like that.”
She kissed him.
He held her face with both of his hands and eased his tongue against hers—deliberate, slow, thorough.
She sighed against his mouth. It was like the first time. They’d taken a bath together afterward.
He broke the kiss and looked into her eyes. “This feels like a dream.”
“I know,” she whispered.
“Or like I’m making it up. I did… think about you.”
Her smile widened. “I’ve been thinking about you and touching myself since the first time you put your teeth in me, Sir Eithan,” she teased.
He laughed, a deep, loose sound that echoed through the bath, and he slid back in the bath, resting his head on the lip and looking up at the ceiling. The sound of his laughter made the room seem lighter. Maybe it was the rising sun. She liked to think it was the unraveling of the tight horridness of their time in the dungeon, like a series of painful knots. She liked the think the light was indicative of their fledging ability to hope again, to be alive again.
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