My brain had snagged on the word beautiful, and I felt my lips curl into a smile. So, I still radiated beauty. It was startling to find that I really cared what she thought.
Beautiful, I wrote on the paper.
“I’m afraid you missed the point.”
It was hard not to fantasize about a version of this elf where she whispered, because hearing so much talking after an eon of silence was jarring. Her voice seemed to echo off the marble kitchen.
Follow me, and I’ll show you.
I led her from the kitchen into a stairwell of paneled mahogany. From there, we crossed into a narrow hall. I could hardly see a thing, but I knew this place like I knew my own body. On the upper floor, I led her into my old bedchamber. I crossed the room, ignoring the oppressive, dusty scent.
Pulling aside the curtains, I showed her the view. The frozen city of Cambridge spread out before us. Snow covered the roofs and red bricks of Harvard’s campus, the icy pavement of Cambridge Street. And directly below us, what remained of the draugr horde milled about.
“We’re in Sanders Theatre?”
I nodded.
“Why haven’t the High Elves or the draugr found it?”
I wrote on my piece of paper, I use magic to conceal it. Like the Well of Wyrd, but better. My key is the only way in.
“So you’ve had this place hidden in the center of Cambridge all the time you’ve been imprisoned?”
I nodded.
She crossed her arms. “You must be quite a powerful sorcerer.”
I nodded again.
She pressed her fingers against the glass, staring out at the ruined city. It was nearly five a.m., and while the sun hadn’t yet reached the horizon, the early rays illuminated her profile. In this light, I could see that her skin was bejeweled with tiny silver tattoos, and her eyes shone like polished steel.
Gods, I hadn’t been alone with a woman in at least a thousand years, and now my mate was in my bedchamber. The lust that had been only a flicker before was now kindling to something more. But if I gave in to my desires, I risked losing control and ruining her.
In any case, the spell was broken as soon as she started singing Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
I cleared my throat, desperate for her to stop, and she shot me a glance, looking embarrassed.
“Sorry,” she said. “Habit. Anyway, I still don’t understand why you’re interested in me.” She looked back out at the view. “Anyone could have said Finnask to get you in here, so it didn’t need to be me. Why me?”
I cocked my head, considering how to answer. This was dangerous territory. She carried my soul within her, and if she found out who I was, there was a chance she’d kill herself—a sacrifice for her people. She could end both our lives. After seeing her cauterize her own finger, I knew she was capable of that much, at least. I do what I have to do to protect my own people.
My mate did not fuck around. And that meant she could never know the truth about me.
I wrote slowly, You are my prisoner.
She blinked at me in the rising sun, the rosy morning light gilding her skin. A dark part of me—the lich—quite liked the idea of having this beauty as my prisoner. I imagined how it must feel to be soft, warm, and alive. I was desperate to draw her to me and breathe in her scent. Jasmine and chocolate.
She crossed her arms, fury etched across her features. “You think you can keep me here? I’m a trained assassin.”
You can’t kill me. I’m already dead.
“Sure. And that’s going to prevent me from escaping?”
I ran my finger under the line that read, You are my prisoner.
She shook her head, expression darkening. “Bull. Shit.” She punctuated her words by poking at my chest. “I need to talk to my brother.”
I shook my head.
“Skalei.” Her dagger appeared in her hand, and already, she was trying to carve through the window. But even with the magic of her blade, it didn’t break. The window was protected by a thousand runes.
Calm down, I tried to say, but the words died in my throat. So instead, I grabbed her by the arms.
Our brief moment of peace had ended, and I found rage in her eyes. I will do what it takes to defend my people, she’d said, and I believed her.
She slammed her blade into my chest. Once again, pain exploded within me, and the curse stirred. I grabbed the blade and threw it across the room. Then, before she could call it to her, I pressed my hand over her mouth.
She fought, biting me, but I held her tight as I carried her downstairs and locked her in the guest room.
Once she was safely inside, I leaned against the wall of the hallway. Ichor dripped down my chest, and I closed my eyes.
From the other side of the wall came her voice: “Oh, Marroc! I saw how much you liked my singing. I thought I’d treat you to your own personal show, as long as I’m kept here. I’ll sing for you day and night, your own personal chorus, until you set me free.”
Then she launched into that infernal song, the sound of it like fingernails dragging against stone. It was that same dreadful tune. A Rickroll.
She was doing this to torture me, and it was working. I clenched my fists.
Clearly, keeping her prisoner was going to be more difficult than I’d imagined. And perhaps if she weren’t my mate, I’d simply suck out her soul and be done with it. But even undead, I couldn’t bring myself to end her life that way. To leave her a walking husk. Plus, I didn’t know what that would do to my own soul.
When I realized once more that I still hadn’t asked her name, I felt a flicker of self-hatred.
I was a bit of a monster, wasn’t I? I had no idea how to behave normally anymore. I wasn’t sure if that was because I was a lich, or because I’d kept company with only rats for the past thousand years. Whatever it was, I’d royally fucked up my introduction to my mate.
Slowly, I straightened. Though my wounds still bled, I didn’t return to my chambers. Instead, I headed down to the basement.
It was time to visit my lair and get this curse lifted.
Chapter 17
Ali
I hated to admit it, but I was in agony. Marroc had not been lying when he told me the liquid he’d injected into the stub of my finger would numb the pain. What I hadn’t counted on was how fast it would wear off. Every time I moved my hand, pure agony shot up my arm like a bolt from Thor’s hammer.
Still. I thought I’d made my point effectively. Nothing like burned flesh to underscore a message.
But the worst thing about my situation was being trapped. “One night,” I began, “Jeremy the Alcoholic Goat escaped the city farm and found his way into Cambridgeport. How fun it was to dance and cavort among all the stumbling people with blue skin! But the noises they made bothered him, and their staring eyes…” My story faded out. I wasn’t as good at Jeremy stories as Barthol was, and it was no fun on my own.
I took in the room around me. It might have been a massive suite, but it was a prison cell nonetheless. Four rooms. A sitting room, a bedroom, a bathroom, and one enormous closet. Nowhere to throw my vergr stone. When I tried the windows, I found them bolted shut with some kind of magic.
Not surprisingly, around the edge of the frames were engraved a multitude of silver runes. I guessed they were designed to keep the draugr from breaking in, but they also did an excellent job of keeping me from breaking out. What I really needed were my anti-magic-hex bolts, but I’d left those in the vault of Silfarson’s Bank.
Despite the large number of rooms, Marroc’s taste was minimalist. Rosewood furniture, a pair of leather lounge chairs, and a massive platform bed. Long, multi-paned windows reached from the floor to the ceiling.
At this point, it was clear that Marroc was a typical lich—one who wanted to keep people as his possessions. At some point, he’d try to drink my soul.
It was a seduction, I thought, with the liches. They lured you in with their porcelain beauty. They drew you closer, made your heart race
because theirs couldn’t. Death was attracted to life. Liches wanted your blood pumping before they drained you of your memories and soul.
If I let Marroc get too close, I’d lose every memory of Barthol hanging out in our shitty cave, painting the walls with phosphorescence, trying to choreograph dances together. I’d forget the time we’d escaped the Shadow Caverns to an abandoned shopping market and found something called Twinkies. So, I’d stay on my guard. Skalei couldn’t kill Marroc, but I’d seen the pain on his features when I’d stabbed him.
I paced in front of the door, the stump of my finger aching. Think, Ali.
I tried to break through the doors. Just like with the windows, Skalei did nothing against them. I tapped the walls, looking for weaknesses, but they were all solid stone.
Sighing, I crossed into the bathroom. As I sat on the porcelain toilet for a quick bathroom break, I looked around the moonlit room. It was magnificent: white marble floors, a giant tub. After peeing, I played around with the faucets, turning them on and off to wash my hands. Was this how the tub worked, too?
I turned to look at it. Held up on brass claws, it was nearly big enough for me to sleep in. Fascinated, I crossed to it and turned it on with my good hand.
Piping-hot water started gushing into the tub. Steam rose invitingly. Prisoner or not, I was not going to pass up the chance for a hot bath. Not after the freezing night I’d endured.
I slipped out of my clothes, wincing as I peeled off my socks. My toes were bright red; the beginnings of frostbite had set in.
It hurt at first, the hot water thawing parts of me I hadn’t known were frozen, but soon, I was melting into the steaming liquid. I let out a long, slow shigh. I was in prison, yes. But I was imprisoned in Asgard, the city of the gods.
The heat of the water made my toes sting, but it was good for them. One inch at a time, my body was returning to normal.
I must have drifted off, because a noise made me start—a soft gasp of air that raised the hair on my neck in primal fear. Even as I raised my head, I knew who it was.
Marroc stood in the doorway, ramrod straight, a thick miasma of smoke billowing around him like a shroud. His eyes fixed on me—not blue this time, but a deep, smoldering amber, like fire blazed within him. He wanted my soul, yes, but that wasn’t all he wanted. I felt his dark magic tremble over my bare skin, warm and powerful, leaving tingling sensations all over me.
“Do you mind?” I shouted.
He ripped his gaze away from me with what looked like considerable effort. Then his body seemed to relax.
But he didn’t move from the doorway. Instead, he slowly held a note up in front of his face. In black ink, he’d written three words:
Come with me.
Chapter 18
Ali
With Marroc waiting outside, I toweled off, then dressed in my black leather pants and long-sleeved T-shirt.
I couldn’t bring myself to put on the icy socks again, so I padded out of the bathroom barefoot. And it seemed Marroc had anticipated my needs, because he’d left out a pair of warm woolen socks for me, along with women’s black boots. Only one size too big. I wondered whose they were.
Hugging myself, I crossed into the hall, where Marroc was waiting with my coat. He leaned against the wall, looking totally casual, like he hadn’t just walked in on me naked.
No longer dressed in tattered rags, he wore a gray cotton shirt, a pair of black pants, and a black jacket with fur trim. In one hand, he held a small notebook. He beckoned to me, then began to walk down the hall.
I followed at a distance, keeping a good fifteen feet between us. We passed through the entrance hall with the blazing fireplace. Then he led me to a stairwell, and we descended into a musty basement. Soon, we were moving deeper, into old stone tunnels.
At last, Marroc stopped in front of a giant pair of doors. Deeply inlaid with runes and curling lettering, they had clearly been constructed with powerful magic. The doors had no handles, but when Marroc placed his hand on one, it slowly creaked open. He disappeared into a dark interior, and I followed him inside.
As I did, I was grateful for the coat and boots; it was cold as winter in here. Pitch black, too. I was just switching over to night vision when a flame bloomed in the darkness. Marroc slowly lit a candelabrum, and the candles illuminated a room much larger than I’d expected.
Of the four walls, three were encased by ancient mahogany bookshelves, while the fourth was entirely occupied by a massive stone hearth. The floor was bedrock, but much of it was covered with thick Persian carpets. The interior was divided roughly in half with an oak table close to the hearth and a leather couch facing the bookshelves. With the candles lit, it was a cozy place.
I walked to the nearest bookshelf, and my breath caught with excitement. The books were very old, all from the time before Ragnarok. Some, like Jane Eyre, I’d heard of, but others were new to me. There was a whole shelf of books written in ancient Norse, and another full of thin envelopes covered in strange pictures.
I started a bit as music suddenly filled the room. When I turned, I found Marroc stepping away from a record player.
I’d heard of such contraptions, but never seen or heard a working one. It was like my little thumb drive, but with a pleasant crackle. From the record player, a man’s voice filled the room. Deep and rich, he sang in a language I didn’t recognize.
Bottles of amber liquid stood on a mahogany desk, runes blazing on the glass. Whiskey, I thought. He uncorked one of the bottles, then poured two glasses of whatever it was.
He crossed to me, handing me one of the glasses. When I drank it, it burned my throat. But Marroc seemed to relish it, closing his eyes as he drank like it was the nectar of the gods.
“Do you have any Rick Roll?” I asked. “The music.”
Marroc opened his eyes, looking for a moment like I’d ruined his enjoyment. Then he quirked an eyebrow, lip twitching in a slight smile. He leaned over and scribbled in his notebook. This is Luciano Pavarotti.
As if that explained everything.
“Okay,” I said. “I was asking for Rick Roll.”
His lips tightened into a line, and he wrote, Pavarotti was a classically trained tenor. And I would like to ask that you please never again sing in my presence.
“Hmm… I guess I’m not inclined to make you comfortable, since I’m your prisoner and you trapped me here. Guess you’re stuck with my musical talent till you set me free.”
When the first song finished, a woman’s voice filled the room. I’d heard plenty of women sing, but the longing in her voice was palpable, like listening to a lovesick nightingale. I’d never heard anything so beautiful.
“Who is she?” I asked.
Maria Callas, wrote Marroc. La Divina—she had the voice of an angel.
“What is she singing about?” I plopped down on the couch, wondering why he’d brought me down here.
In this aria, she’s singing to the moon. She’s asking for peace.
When the song stopped, Marroc turned off the record player. Though I didn’t quite see him move away from the shelf, Marroc sat across from me and wrote on his notepad, I have a few questions.
“As your prisoner, I don’t suppose I can say no, can I?”
First of all, Marroc wrote, we haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Marroc. And you’re? He stopped writing and looked at me.
“I’m Ali,” I said. “Short for Astrid. I’m a Night Elf, obviously. One of the Shadow Lord’s chief assassins, head of thieves, hider of bodies—”
I need your help, wrote Marroc, cutting me off with his writing.
My eyes narrowed; I sensed a trap.
“You’re a lich,” I said. “A powerful dark sorcerer with no soul. How could I possibly help you?”
I don’t have to stay cursed.
“Your soul is trapped in Helheim. Which seems fair, because the High Elves wouldn’t have imprisoned you if you were the law-abiding sort.”
They imprisoned you as well.
“I am definitely not the law-abiding sort,” I said firmly. “I am a thief and an assassin, as I said.”
And that is why I need your help. Before I became this—he stopped writing to gesture to himself—I removed my soul from my body. I hid it in a safe place.
Now that was interesting. “Where? How?”
I cannot tell you. Just trust me that I know exactly where it is.
“So, what do you want from me?”
I cannot rejoin my soul to my body unless I banish the curse I created.
“Why should I help you do that?”
He leaned back in his chair, looking as though he was in complete control of the situation. Because you will get to complete the task the Shadow Lords gave you.
My stomach swooped. He was good at bargaining, truly, but I didn’t give him an answer yet.
He started writing again. What do you think you were sent to steal?
I stiffened. Thing was that I didn’t know what, specifically, the Lords had wanted me to take. “What do you mean?”
Revna cut your finger off. Why?
“The gold ring. She wanted it.”
The pieces started to slide together in my mind. She was the daughter of the king. She could buy a gold ring every day for the rest of her life if she wanted. Was that the item that could lead us to Galin—the sorcerer who’d trapped my people in the caves?
“She said Gorm didn’t trust anyone but her and Sune. He must have sent her to my cell to retrieve the ring. That’s what I was sent to steal, wasn’t it? That’s the key to freeing the Night Elves. It will help lead us to the sorcerer I need to kill. How would you know that?”
He gave an easy shrug. And now it’s at the bottom of the Well of Wyrd. What do you think your Lords will do to you when they find out you have completely failed to get what they wanted?
“They’ll understand it’s not the first time I’ve messed up an assignment.” But that was a lie. The Shadow Lords would send me to hard labor in the Mines of Kolar. And worst of all, the Night Elves would remain imprisoned underground if I didn’t complete my task.
Cursed Prince (Night Elves Trilogy Book 1) Page 7
