In the Darkness

by Charles Edward

  As ridiculous as it all was, Evin was a fast learner, and within a few days, the queen allowed him to be seen strolling the castle grounds with her and they could talk. She took his arm and asked him to call her Denua.

  * * *

  The guard captain, Uliette, had more lessons for him in palace security, but she allowed a brief distraction one morning when Evin said, “I’d like to learn more about the city. I’ve never been outside of my village before, and I don’t know anything of Parige.”

  She grinned. “I understand. A farm boy like you must have many questions about the capital.”

  Evin nodded.

  “I don’t know when the queen will feel that you’re ready to venture out in public, but if you wish, I can show you some maps.”

  Still can’t leave the castle. Evin controlled his frown and said, “Thank you.”

  On the way to a library to find maps, Uliette resumed the security briefing. “The most important thing to remember is that the private quarters are maintained as a sanctuary for you and Queen Denua. Don’t let anyone else in the private areas, not even servants from other parts of the castle. If you find anyone unusual, report them to the queen or to me immediately. Later you’ll learn who my trusted lieutenants are, and you can report to them as well.”

  “What about you?”

  She shook her head, lips thin. “I’ll be in as needed, but I will never ask you to help me gain entry. If I ever do, something is wrong and you must not comply. You’ve learned the hard way about compulsion charms.”

  Evin’s cheeks heated, and he scowled. No need to mention that lesson. He occasionally woke in a cold sweat after nightmares about Cydrich’s pendant dominating him. He would never forget.

  “So, never accept any kind of gift, especially if someone asks you to carry it into the private quarters. There are servants for the private areas—your valets and such—but the ones from the public and private sections of the castle do not mix.”

  “I understand.”

  “Good. There are also passages for servants and security behind disguised doors. You must never enter them unless Denua or one of my people escorts you there for safety.”

  They arrived at a set of wide, wooden doors carved to depict a religious scene: Denua receiving the fruit of knowledge from Sophia. Uliette pulled open the wide door and motioned for Evin to enter.

  The room took his breath away. Though a king’s library had been stored in the red study where his beloved healer had revealed she was the queen, this vast room contained many times as much. Scrolls, codices, and other items rested on rows of shelves and on desks of burnished and gleaming wood.

  Uliette smiled at his bemusement and shouldered past him to a shelf of scrolls. She pulled one out and spread it for him on a desk.

  “Parige,” she said.

  The map was of an oblong city divided by a river. Two isles stood in the river, with bridges connecting them to the north and south shores. One isle contained the outline of a great wall with parapets.

  Evin pointed at it. “I remember this. I walked across a wide bridge. Is this the palace?”

  “Yes. Very good. What else do you remember?”

  He shook his head. “Not much. It was all kind of a blur. I was focused on getting to the castle because I knew that’s where I had to be.”

  “The compulsion.”

  “What’s this large place?” He pointed to a spot on the north bank.

  “That’s a prison. And here to the south is an area dominated by the church and its schools and universities.”

  “And this?” Evin pointed to another castlelike structure.

  “That,” said Uliette, “is the College of Handmaidens.”

  Evin’s breath caught in his chest from surprise. Aware that Uliette was observing him, he tried to contain the shock. “Handmaidens. I didn’t know they had a college. What’s it for?”

  Uliette studied him for a bit before answering. He held his face as best he could in a mien of mild curiosity. She said, “The handmaidens must train themselves to physical perfection before volunteering to preserve the kingdom by sacrificing themselves to extend Denua’s life.”

  Volunteering. Is that what they called it? Did he dare ask further about the handmaidens? Maybe later. Ask someone else. Mustn’t appear too curious.

  “And this?” Evin asked, pointing randomly at another large structure shown on the map.

  But he wasn’t interested in Uliette’s reply. A slow, secret fire kindled in him, a desire to learn.

  If they had to train for years, maybe Teffaine hadn’t finished. His sister might still be alive.

  * * *

  The first time Evin went with Denua to her bed was actually intimidating. He hadn’t seen what was behind a woman’s robes since his mother and sister when he was very small, and he wasn’t sure he’d know what to do without a cock to work on.

  Denua was very good. She knew how to use her mouth, and unlike the friends he grew up with, she seemed to understand that she could do things to help him want to please her more. Maybe she had to please him too, because she wanted him to stay hard. Maybe it would be difficult for a woman to simply use a man for pleasure.

  The only awkward moment was when she drove him to that place where he had to fuck her, he was going mad to fuck her, and he did something stupid.

  Evin gathered his spit and drooled a nice, thick gob onto his middle and index fingers. Then he licked it around to make them all slick.

  “Darling, what are you doing?” Denua asked.

  He drew his hand away from his face. The etiquette classes hadn’t included instruction on whether it was okay to say I want to fuck you now to his queen.

  “I’m…I’m ready,” he said. “I want to make you ready, you see?”

  She laughed and reached for him. With one hand on his ass and another kneading his cock, turning his mind back to the want, she guided him into her. She had been ready all along. How could he know her body did that by itself?

  But the fucking was good, both times that morning. He was a little sorry she couldn’t ever do him back, but he resolved to talk to guardsmen and servants as he could, to find out discreetly what they got up to, and hopefully learn that it would be okay to at least ask her to put her fingers inside him.

  After they finished, Denua rang for a servant so she could order a lunch to be served. As they waited for the servant’s knock, Evin experimented with her body a little more and made her squirm. They laughed together and played. But then when time passed and the servant didn’t come, Denua left the bed naked except for the jewelry she always wore and slipped on a gown. Evin grabbed a robe for himself—it would take too long to dress in his silly finery—and followed as she left the room.

  As they walked together, they passed an intersection of hallways. In the adjoining hall, they saw a man wearing the bright robes and red sash of a blood sorceler. Evin had been in the castle long enough to meet a few of Denua’s pet sorcelers. But this one’s back was turned. Evin couldn’t tell who he was.

  The sorceler pulled at the corner of a tapestry. A light cord wrapped around his arm, from which hung the skull of a small animal. Perhaps a cat. The skull leaped and fell back repeatedly, tugging on its length of cord, but the man was absorbed in his examinations and did not seem to notice.

  Having seen so much sorcelry in the past weeks, Evin thought nothing special of it until Denua pushed him behind her. She reached into a loose sleeve of her gown and pulled free a bit of jewelry, which snapped open and unfolded. In an instant, it became a sword with a curved, ornately inscribed blade. She never broke her stride toward the robed man.

  “What’s happening?” Evin asked.

  The man started at the sound of Evin’s voice. He turned toward them with a look of dismay, and as he turned, he reached into a bag at his waist, drew out a dagger, and flipped it toward them. It flew unerringly to Denua’s eye. A flash like lightning blinded Evin.

  “Denua!”

  The reply was
a strangled, guttural sound, followed by splattering and then the smack of a body falling to the unforgiving stone.

  “Denua!”

  “Hush, Evin.”

  He blinked, trying to clear his sight. When he could see again, Denua stood over the man’s dying body.

  She had cut him in two.

  The sorceler’s dagger lay at one side of the hall, its blade melted and useless. A scarlet pool spread rapidly across the floor. The skull on the rope danced in the blood like a child in a mud puddle, sending tiny splashes up to fall on Denua and the tapestries.

  It had happened so fast. Denua and the sorceler fought to the death without exchanging a single word.

  Why?

  That man wasn’t supposed to be here.

  Denua still held the sword up. “Stay behind me. I’ll look for other intruders and learn what happened to the guards.”

  The knife had hit her in the eye. Evin was sure that was what he’d seen. If she hadn’t pushed him back, he’d be dead. She was protected somehow, that much was obvious. If he’d gone by himself to learn why her servant hadn’t come, the sorceler would have killed him instantly, silently, with no effort at all.

  At first Denua and Evin left a trail of red footprints on the white floors as they searched.

  Evin didn’t want Denua to put herself in any more danger. She had the protection and the ensorceled sword, but still he felt foolish obeying her order to stand behind.

  They went back the way they had come, to Denua’s bedchamber. Along the way, they occasionally passed the cord of an alarm bell.

  “Shall I ring for the guard?” Evin asked.

  “No. I want to retrieve the intruder’s devices before anyone else comes.”

  That sounded wrong. It sounded unsafe. Why not order someone else to do it?

  When they arrived at the bedchamber and discovered it empty, Denua gathered up a few items, including a cleansing wand, and they continued their search in other rooms.

  As they approached the servants’ quarters, Evin’s ears did a strange thing. It was as if he had plunged under the surface of the river. There was a sound of great pressure, followed by no sound at all. He opened his mouth to ask Denua if she felt it too, but nothing came out. She turned to him, pointed at her ear, and nodded. She continued to the servant’s quarters, where they found an ornately inscribed metal disk attached so that it covered the door crack.

  Denua twisted it, and the disk fell away. The pressure in Evin’s ears changed in a painful rush, and sound returned. A heavy, rhythmic thumping sounded from the other side of the door but faltered almost immediately. Denua opened the door and went in. Servants, a man and two women, stood around a table.

  “Are you well?” Denua asked.

  The elder of the women said, “Yes, Your Majesty. Something stopped our ears, and we couldn’t get out of the room! Did you hear us pounding?” She pointed at the table.

  Ah. They were lifting and dropping it.

  “No, but you did well to try. Remain here. I will sound an alarm myself, shortly.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  Denua closed the door and moved on with Evin in tow.

  No guards stood at the post in the entrance hall.

  Evin decided it was probably safe to ask about the sorceler. “Was he one of yours, Denua? Did he turn against you?”

  “It is a risk of working with such people. Occasionally one thinks he has invented an assassination device that will work.”

  Evin wondered how often. And how often those devices did work—on people who happened to stand too close to Denua at the wrong moment.

  But the thing the sorceler had on his arm, pulling urgently like a child wanting attention… Was it to warn him of Denua’s approach? Had she arrived early as he set up a trap, or was he there for some other purpose altogether?

  After finding no other intruders, they returned to the dead man. Near the body, the smells of blood and tripe were noxious. Evin’s stomach rebelled, and to his shame, he vomited.

  Denua ignored it. “Do not approach the body or any of his belongings.”

  He didn’t want her to get near them, either. He tried to calm himself with the thought that, if the intruding sorceler had any device that would defeat her protection, he probably would have used it first.

  She sprinkled a powder over the corpse. Flesh and bone dissolved into a red jelly, and when it was done, she used a cleansing wand to eliminate it. That part of the floor was pristine again. All that remained were the sorceler’s now clean robes, the bag, and the leaping, tumbling skull tapping and chipping itself against the stone floor.

  Denua handed the cleansing wand to Evin. “Clean yourself.”

  She didn’t mention the mess he’d made or the blood-spattered tapestries, but he planned to cleanse everything.

  Denua took the sorceler’s items for examination, including the melted dagger. “There may be enough spark to determine the ensorcelment. I would know why he thought it could penetrate my shield.”

  An ensorceled sword and shield. No wonder she never takes the jewelry off.

  Denua grasped the leaping skull tightly and pried open its mouth. A strand of hair, black and long enough to be one of hers, wound around its teeth. She removed it, and the skull ceased its struggles.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Evin fumbled with his collar as he waited for the ensorceled carriage that would take him and his entourage to Parige’s most opulent shopping district. His valet had outfitted him with a brocaded doublet with a stiff, high collar. Over this he wore a dark blue cloak, which was getting uncomfortably hot in the late autumn day. The costume may befit his new position as the queen’s suitor, but to Evin it was a mild form of torture.

  Evin stood with his guards at the base of the castle’s marble steps, before a wide pad of bone white cobblestones made bright by the morning sun. Evin imagined they would be blinding later in the day. The four guards stood stiffly, making no remark as Evin continued to fidget with his clothing.

  A winged shadow crossed over the group, chasing across the ground until it reached the cobblestone pad. The carriage had arrived. Evin looked up at it in awe.

  Wings made of wood and fabric beat the air with decreasing force as it settled to the cobblestone pad. The coach was painted in brilliant white with light traces of gold filigree around the edges and windows of the coach box and along the wooden spars of the wings’ suspension.

  As the wings halted and tucked themselves away in their niches at the top of the coach box, Evin felt blood drain from his face. He did not like the idea of traveling in the sorceled coach, especially at the height necessary to cross the castle wall. However, he was determined not to be a frightened child. He would hide his discomfort as much as possible. Despite the roiling of his stomach, he promised himself he would not vomit. But he also decided to sit very close to an open window during flight.

  A footman climbed down from his perch and swung open the coach-box door. Evin stepped in, settled on the padded, red velvet seat, and placed his hands in his lap, willing them to be still. His guards took their posts, standing on little platforms attached to the lower four corners of the coach. After they secured themselves to the coach box with small belts, the footman checked them. Then he leaned inside to verify that Evin was settled safely.

  “By your leave, your honor.” And when Evin looked at him blankly, he explained. “Shall we depart now?”

  “Ah. Yes.” A bead of sweat trickled down Evin’s forehead.

  The footman nodded agreement, bowing slightly as he stepped back. He closed and secured the door, then climbed back up to sit with the driver on his perch.

  The carriage’s wings extended smoothly out from the coach. The tips rose up at once and quickly beat back down. With an unsteady surge that made Evin’s stomach drop, the carriage leaped into the air. A few more beats and the vehicle was already too high for Evin’s comfort.

  * * *

  The carriage alighted in a wide space near the
gated entrance to the market district. Evin exited as soon as the footman opened the door. He was wobbly with relief. It took a few deep breaths to get himself under control while his escort formed up. When he was ready, he nodded at his guards and everyone started toward the gate.

  Evin was relieved in another way too. He had been Denua’s guest for many weeks. Not only had he become accustomed to the comforts and customs of the castle—well, except for when he had to imitate nonsensical manners—but he had also begun to worry that Denua would object to small freedoms, such as allowing him to shop on his own. As far as he knew, she never left the castle. But when Evin had told Denua he wanted his parents to know he was safe, she surprised him by offering to let him shop for small gifts to send along with his tidings. He jumped at the chance.

  Somehow he had to let Mama and Papa know he was all right, but secretly. The villagers, especially Tyber’s father, would believe he was a murderer. Evin couldn’t risk that they might contact the queen.

  A lump formed in his throat. What would his parents believe? Would they think he was a murderer, or the slave of a murderous demon? And when they found out he was alive, taken as a lover by the same queen who had decreed their daughter’s death? He wondered which news would be worse.

  The worst news of all, which he would keep forever from his parents, was that he was not exactly a prisoner. He would let them believe he was trapped here just as they were in Laforet. Indeed it was the truth, but there was a deeper truth.

  Being here was exactly what he wanted.

  What a stupid idea, that he could walk in from the backwoods and become the queen’s suitor. Impossible. But they were drawn irresistibly to one another. He didn’t want to leave, and he was sure that she wouldn’t let him go. She wanted him. She was fascinated with him, just like Tyber and the others back home had been.

  But why? Why was everyone interested in him? What made him special? And he had never been interested in women before. Why Denua? Everything was wrong and confusing.