The Falling

by J. C. Owens

  His fingers clenched into the soft covers that encased his body, his gaze sweeping the pavilion, searching…

  Shaynith-una sat at his desk, quill scratching over the vellum under his hand, a small furrow on his brow as he concentrated. He did not look up, though he must have heard Brenaith’s abrupt movement. His thick, black hair spilled over one shoulder, unbound for once. He pushed it behind one ear with an impatient huff and resumed his writing.

  Brenaith stared, chest tightening until he could scarcely breathe.

  At last his master looked up, his eyes clear and bright red, that beautiful face calm and cold. He tilted his head slightly, chill gaze cataloging every inch of his bloodservant.

  “You are upset.” The tone held the slightest surprise, the faintest hint of puzzlement.

  Brenaith’s jaw fell, his pain momentarily submerged beneath fury. “You used him against me. I love him! Do you even understand what you have done?”

  Shaynith-una blinked, tilting his head further, watching him with a certain blankness Brenaith had never seen in him before.

  The shadow knight did not understand. That much was clear.

  “You enjoyed the fact that he was the one to take you. It took away your fear, gave you pleasure. Why would this upset you?” There was honest puzzlement in the tone.

  Brenaith blinked, his fingers clenching into fists, almost tearing the rich material beneath his grasp.

  There was no malice in the statement, no sly innuendo as Stratlin would have done, no attempt to manipulate or leave pain. He truly wanted to know the answer.

  This creature, this horror, like a true predator, had no concept of right or wrong, only of result. Unlike Stratlin and the other demons he had encountered, who seemed fully aware of their actions and what they would do to him, as though they fed on his pain.

  Yet this shadow knight, said to be the most feared of all demons, closest to the demon god himself, seemed surprised that his actions had not been well-received.

  “I love him—still. You had no right to pretend to be him, to create actions that never occurred between Tynan and me in reality. You sully his memory.” His voice cracked, tears rising despite his best efforts. How did this creature crack his control so damn easily, without apparently even trying?

  Shaynith-una rose smoothly to his feet and approached the bed.

  Brenaith shrank back, hardly able to see the knight through his blurred vision. He turned his head aside as he felt the bed dip, but long fingers took his chin and turned him back to face those crimson eyes. Desperately, he blinked the tears away, fighting for tenuous control.

  There was no greater comprehension on the knight’s face. If anything, the furrows between his brows were deeper.

  “You humans are so strange. You live in your thoughts too much, overthink everything. What feels good should be good. Why must it be other than it seems?” The question sounded honestly confused.

  Brenaith had no idea how to answer. They were poles apart in almost every way. Human. Demon. He could think of no way to explain it even to himself, much less attempt to make it coherent to any other.

  He could only shake his head, sucking in a shuddering breath.

  “Would it help if I forced you next time?”

  He stared incredulously, but there was only calm inquiry in those strange eyes, no mockery or anger.

  How in the hells was he supposed to answer that?

  A hysterical, choked laugh rose and he shook his head. “No. It would not help to force me.”

  The knight nodded solemnly, one brow rising as he tilted his head once more, viewing Brenaith as though he were a puzzle, as perhaps he was.

  “As you wish.” The subject was obviously done and closed, as the demon rose and returned to his desk. “We will be leaving in less than an hour, so you might want to wash before the servants come.”

  Brenaith winced as he slid from the bed, sitting on the edge for a long moment, gathering his courage to stand. He glanced at his master, but the knight was immersed once more. It seemed his bloodservant was far from his thoughts, and Brenaith could only be grateful, as he shuffled to the washstand and reached for a cloth. It was pleasant despite the cold water, to cleanse himself.

  There was no blood.

  He stared at the cloth as though it had betrayed him. Surely there should be some record of what he had undergone, some mark.

  But there was no blood. There was always blood. There had never been a time that Stratlin had taken him that there had not been unendurable pain and wounds.

  His fingers clenched around the damp cloth as he slowly raised his gaze to his master.

  “Stop overthinking. Fear and pain make the blood sour. That is all.” Shaynith-una’s tone was distracted, his gaze fixed upon his work.

  Brenaith flinched at the reminder that his thoughts were not his own, but it helped shake him out of his tortured musings. He finished his ablutions swiftly, not wanting to incite the demon to touch, although that seemed furthest from his master’s thoughts at the moment. He wanted to keep it that way.

  “Dress warmly. We will reach the fortress by tonight, and it will be cold as we travel up the mountain.”

  Brenaith paused, then silently obeyed, a faint trickle of curiosity, something long buried, seeping to the surface.

  “Fortress?” He cursed himself immediately, expecting a sharp setdown.

  “Dasoam.”

  Brenaith’s eyes widened, and he shrank back against the bed, fingers clenching into the covers. Dasoam—the word a curse often used by humans. The seat of power of the demon god, said to house his spirit, his essence. Most thought it a mere legend, a story to scare children. Those stories pointed to it as the birthplace of the shadow knights, a place of purest evil.

  Dear gods…

  * * *

  The horses’ hooves echoed in the narrow pass, the jingle of harness and the creak of leather loud against the high rock walls. Brenaith shuddered. The energy here was dark, far darker even than Stratlin’s fortress, and it consumed him, trickled through his thoughts and fears, made him curl into himself in a futile search for comfort.

  He kept his eyes trained on his master’s back, afraid to look into the shadows they passed, shadows that increasingly seemed alive, sentient.

  The trail curved, and suddenly there was light and air, the mountain wind cold upon his cheeks. He breathed deeply, thankful to be free of the darkness if only for now.

  Shaynith-una drew his hellhorse to a halt, turning in the saddle to glance back at Brenaith, pointing up and to the north with one black, gloved hand.

  “Dasoam.”

  Brenaith stared up in awe. The fortress was hewn out of the rock itself, as though it had emerged from the mountain fully formed. As perhaps it had, if the stories were true. It loomed over the valley below, malignant in its silent presence. Ice dripped over its face, snow pooled at its shoulders and at its base, camouflaging it from all but the most experienced eye.

  From this view, Brenaith gauged its size and could only marvel. It was far larger than anything of human origin. And it probably extended far back into the mountain itself.

  Its position, its size and grandeur, made it all too easy to accept that the stories were true. Only a god could have created this.

  A demon god.

  He shivered, glad when his master turned away, nudging his hellhorse back into motion. He turned his eyes away from their destination, fighting the chill that seemed to have gone clear to his bones at the mere sight of it.

  * * *

  The massive, three-story gates opened almost soundlessly, eerie in their smooth motion and lack of visible power.

  There were no gatekeepers, no guards, no one and nothing that Brenaith could see physically move the gates.

  He gritted his teeth against the rising fear. Fear availed him nothing, neither protection nor ability to think. He had well learned to control it, but here and now, the fortress before them made his heart pound in an uncomfortable, uneven rhyt
hm, as though his primal side knew full well what lay within.

  He replaced the fear with hatred, warmth that spread in his veins with the heat of painful memory.

  This was where the demon army had come from, the place from which the shadow knights had led the demons to devour the human lands. It was this place that had seen his country and people destroyed, trampled beneath the waves of a race that the humans had not even truly believed in.

  They passed through the portal, and Brenaith shivered, gritting his teeth against the panic that was rising like a tide within his mind. There was no escape, and to act out his terror would bring only punishment

  So far, Shaynith-una had been a better master than Stratlin, and Brenaith wanted to keep it that way. But seeing what lay beneath the surface of the shadow knight made it all too clear what would lay in wait if he were ever foolish enough to arouse his master’s ire.

  Beyond the outer gates, the way was cobbled with huge blocks of black stone, leading sharply upward. They passed around a curve of hewn rock wall, and there before them lay a second, no less imposing set of gates.

  As they approached, Brenaith’s stomach turned, and he choked back bile, fingers clenching upon the reins.

  The walls that housed these gates stretched from side to side, built into the mountain itself.

  Skulls, mostly human, some of other races Brenaith could not name, lined the walls from top to bottom, stretching into the distance. Patches of dried skin clung to the weathered bone, hair tossing in the wind. Some were almost mummified, a vestige of the person’s look remaining.

  It was a horrifying memorial to those who had died under the demonic invasion. Brenaith shuddered and looked down, fixing his eyes upon his trembling hands. He feared to see a face he recognized amid the macabre display.

  The inner gates opened normally, large demons doing the work, red eyes showing an almost worshipful respect as they gazed upon Shaynith-una.

  Brenaith’s party passed into an ornate courtyard, surprisingly beautiful considering it had been designed by demonkind. Here they dismounted, Brenaith doing so with reluctance, the foul atmosphere of the place pressing down upon him. He watched the gates close behind them, a feeling of despair smothering him. If there was any place that Shaynith-una’s demon senses would rise to the fore, surely it would be here.

  He shuddered. Was that to be his life now? Would that part of his master be prevalent here?

  The shadow knight leaned against his hellhorse, murmuring to it and stroking the thick, powerful neck. He handed the reins to a waiting demon, who took them with appropriate caution.

  The knight conversed with his elite guard, laughing once or twice at something they said. It surprised Brenaith that he had humor.

  Shaynith-una gestured to him, and he took a deep, fortifying breath before following his master up the curving stairs that led into the mountain itself. He cast a last, longing glance over his shoulder at the sunlight outside, then stepped into his new prison.

  Once within, he could only gape, shocked at the regal majesty of the massive chamber they stood in. He could not clearly see the carved roof so far above them, but the walls were tiled in brightly colored mosaics of battle scenes that would not have been out of place in a human royal residence.

  The complexity and talent of the artisans was obvious. Brenaith realized he would have to rethink his stand on demon culture. Certainly here, at the heart of their creation, there was more beauty than he would ever have imagined.

  Those they passed showed the same deep and profound respect to Shaynith-una as the gate guards had. Most went to one knee, bowing their head and resting a fist against their heart. Their eyes shone with almost religious zeal as they watched him pass.

  It made Brenaith uncomfortable as he considered the connotations. It was rumored that the knights came from the god himself. Farfetched though it seemed, the reactions of these demons suggested it might be more than mere legend. Who better to know the origins of the shadow knights than the demons that dwell with them?

  He shuddered, hastening his steps to catch up to his master. The looks he received could not have been more different. Lust. Hunger.

  Here, he was prey. He had always been prey, but somehow, here, he felt more vulnerable than in all the time spent at Stratlin’s fortress. Whispers of magic, of divine power seethed here, the very air seemed steeped in a force larger than Brenaith could truly comprehend.

  They passed up several flights of stairs that wound through the rock. Brenaith found his usually strong sense of direction completely disoriented in this place, and he scoffed at himself. As though he could ever escape. There was no point in understanding the layout. There would be no leaving.

  The knowledge, the blank fear of no future, pressed upon him, and he fought back numb misery. He had a feeling that it would be all too simple to succumb to utter despair here, to give up entirely and sink into a somnolent state and simply survive.

  If there was no escape, did it matter? Perhaps descending into the depths of his mind, never to return, would be a blessing.

  He cast off the bleak thoughts with great effort. This place seemed to be affecting him strongly, and he had only just arrived.

  As they passed down a long corridor, Shaynith-una paused abruptly, forcing Brenaith to stop as well.

  In front of them, a woman approached at a slow, stately pace, flanked by two demon guards.

  Brenaith caught his breath as she came closer. Her golden beauty was otherworldly, and when he finally saw her ear tips, he realized why.

  An elf. He sucked in a gasp of wonder. Elves were as much a creature of legend as demons had once been.

  Tall, much taller than Brenaith, her eyes were fixed upon Shaynith-una with an unnerving intensity. She stopped a mere pace away from him and they stared at each other, the silence full of meaning Brenaith could not fathom.

  At last her gaze broke away—to fasten upon Brenaith for several unnerving moments. Her lips thinned as she viewed him, then her attention returned to the shadow knight. She smiled, a small, bitter tilt of the lips, before brushing past him, one hand trailing over his arm on the way past.

  Her guards closed around her once more, and she continued her slow, measured pace until she turned the corner out of sight.

  Brenaith glanced at his master, frowning with confusion. The knight stared after her, expression blank, but something there, in his eyes…

  Whatever lay between these two, it held powerful sway over Shaynith-una. For the first time, there was the smallest hint of emotion…

  CHAPTER SIX

  Shaynith-una’s rooms were massive, rich in appointment, and full of such luxury that even Tynan’s palace, beautiful though it had been, could hold no candle to its opulence.

  Rich tapestries covered the stone walls, lending an atmosphere of warmth with vivid colors and ornate themes. Brenaith could see doorways leading to various rooms, and a vast library lay against the southern wall, shelves upon shelves of books, a treasure trove of knowledge that had him itching to explore the bounty shown. Even the royal library had not held so many volumes as this. The shelving extended three quarters of the way around the vast room, enclosing a seating area of thick, upholstered chairs that nestled in small groups, all close to a vast, floor-to-ceiling fireplace of a marvelous, pale pink stone.

  Flames crackled in the hearth, and Brenaith looked at its cheerful warmth longingly, wishing he could warm his frozen body. The cold from the ride was almost overshadowed by the bitter chill of his fear, the atmosphere of this place pressing down upon him. He cast a look at his master to receive instruction, wondering what would be expected of him now that they would no longer be traveling. Was he still to be part valet, caring for Shaynith-una? Or were there others who would take over here, leaving him only the ignominious place of a walking, breathing blood source and pleasure-slave?

  He took a deep breath, bracing himself for the worst as he watched Shaynith-una strip off his heavy outer cloak, tugging at his thick g
loves, and laying them on one of the heavily padded chairs near the fireplace. It was all so frighteningly domestic, normal.

  He was in the heart of the dreaded fortress, and yet this suite of rooms was so inviting. If this space reflected Shaynith-una’s personality, then he was a complicated and many-faceted being indeed.

  His master glanced over, waving one long-fingered hand casually. “Come. Warm yourself. Explore if you wish. This, after all, will be your home from now on.”

  For the rest of his life, however long that may turn out to be.

  Brenaith shivered, but obeyed blindly, anything to subdue his own thoughts and emotions. He placed his cloak and gloves next to his master’s, watching him out of the corner of his eye, waiting for some order, some sign of what this place would bring him in the way of pain.

  The shadow knight seemed different here, in a fashion that Brenaith could not completely decipher. As he had been keenly watching his new captor over the previous days, attempting to learn enough to avoid making foolish mistakes, he had gained a rough idea of his master’s body language. Now, he could see the broad shoulders relax downward, his face smooth into something that almost approximated pleasure.

  Like any creature, his master seemed to appreciate a sense of home. He wandered in and out of the three rooms before finally coming to stand before Brenaith.

  Brenaith immediately dropped to his knees, head down, hoping his delay in assuming this position would not be cause for punishment, such as it had in Stratlin’s rule.

  The knight merely hummed lightly under his breath, and put a single finger under Brenaith’s chin, the claw pricking his skin and urging him to look up.

  Those intense eyes searched his, nothing but calm curiosity in their depths, no sign that this return would bring out the worst parts of him.

  “Come, sit by the fire with me. I have no doubt that food will be on its way even as we speak. I shall feed you, then I need to feed from you. The day has been long and we will rest.”

  He urged Brenaith to his feet, leading him over to the fire, and pushed him down to his knees by one of the comfortable chairs. The knight sank down into its plushness with an appreciative sigh, one hand in Brenaith’s hair, letting his head fall back, his body relax utterly.