Lord of the Abyss rhos-4

by Nalini Singh

  I’m sorry, she whispered deep inside. I’m sorry my blood is responsible for the spilling of your own.

  Chapter 3

  Bath finished, she got out and rubbed herself down with a rough little towel while Jissa disappeared—to return with a black tunic that hit Liliana midthigh, black leggings and soft black boots. “I think these were meant for footmen,” she said, holding out the garments, “when there were men of foot. There have never been any in the years I have lived here. Never, ever.”

  “Thank you, they look very comfortable.” The leggings fit well enough but the tunic was baggy, so she was grateful for the thin rope Jissa found for her to use as a belt. “Do you have a comb I could— Thank you.” Brushing it through the knotted mat of her hair, she pulled the whole mass severely off her face and tied it using a smaller piece of rope. She didn’t look in the mirror. She had no wish to see the face “that would frighten even a ghoul into returning to its den.”

  “Can you truly cook?” Jissa asked as they made their way back to the kitchen.

  “Yes. I spent many hours in the kitchens of the castle where I grew up.” In spite of his cadaverous frame, the Blood Sorcerer liked to eat, and so he didn’t brutalize the cook. As a result, the man had been the only one of the castle’s servants unafraid to offer a little kindness to the child who clung to the shadows so as not to attract her father’s attention.

  “What raw ingredients do you have?” she asked Jissa, shaking off the memories. That child was long gone, her innocence shattered into innumerable shards. The woman she’d become would let nothing stop her—not even the monster who was the lord of this place.

  “Oh, many things.” Moving to the bench where she’d been working, the brownie waved a hand and the mostly empty surface was suddenly overflowing with plump red and orange peppers, carrots, cabbages, ripe fruits of every description, a basket full of dark green leaves that would taste nutty when cooked, and more.

  Liliana picked up a pepper with a wondering hand. “Where does this come from?”

  “The village,” Jissa said in a matter-of-fact tone that was already familiar.

  “There is a village in this realm?” She’d always assumed the Abyss was a baleful place devoid of all life—but that didn’t explain the servants she’d seen.

  “Of course.” Jissa gave her a look that suggested Liliana was being very dim. “We are the doorway to the Abyss. The doorway only.”

  “Yes, I see.” The Black Castle was still part of the living world. “Is the village close?”

  A shake of her head that sent Jissa’s braid swinging. “You must pass through the gates of the Black Castle, and then you must walk through the forest to the settlement. Dark, whispery forest. Whisper, whisper. But not bad.” An intent look, as if she wanted to make certain Liliana understood.

  She continued at Liliana’s nod. “I walk quick and fast with Bard when we need supplies, and buy from the merchants using the lord’s gold. This and that and this, too.” A sudden dipping of her head that hid her expression, but her words were pragmatic enough. “Bard carries everything back for me. Always he carries.”

  “He has gold?” The furnishings Liliana had seen were functional, but aside from a few grim tapestries, there was nothing of beauty, nothing to speak of wealth. All was black and hard and cold.

  “It is the Law of the Abyss, first law, always law.” Jissa began to stack the vegetables to the side to clear part of the bench. “Do you not know?” She answered her own question without waiting for a response. “Evil gold and evil treasure comes to the Black Castle with the condemned.” A baring of those sharp, pointed teeth. “Only if an innocent, an innocent, you see, would be harmed by the taking, only then it does not.”

  Liliana thought of her father’s coffers, knew this law was yet another reason he sought to live forever, though they, too, were part of a race that lived centuries. He had taken her into his vault after bleeding poor Bitty to nothingness. Gold in innumerable piles, jewels twinkling from necklaces still stained with their last wearer’s lifeblood, rings on skeletal fingers, it had been a glimmering nightmare.

  “This,” her father had said, his arms spread wide, “this is what you could have if you aren’t weak.” Picking up a necklace of tear-shaped diamonds splattered with flecks of brown, he’d placed it around her neck. “Feel it, feel the blood.”

  She had felt it. And it had made her choke on her own vomit. Her father had backhanded her so hard for her “weakness” she’d ended up resting on a mountain of gold coins. When he’d wrenched off the necklace, he’d made her bleed. She carried the scar on her neck to this day—it was a constant reminder of the vow she’d made as a defenseless child. Never would she be like him, no matter what he did to her.

  And he had done things he didn’t do even to his enemies.

  “Dungeon you’ll go to if you don’t cook.”

  Snapping back to the present, Liliana nodded and chose an assortment of fruit vibrant with color and fragrance. “Will you chop these, Jissa?”

  The brownie picked up a knife as Liliana hunted out the flour, butter and milk, and began to roll out a pastry on one corner of the massive bench. “The village,” she said as they worked, “do you live there?” It would make sense if Jissa did—the Black Castle was a gloomy place full of watchful ghosts and shimmering darkness.

  “I cannot.” Jissa’s sadness lingered in the air, settled on Liliana’s skin, permeated her very bones. “I tried when I first came, and I…died, was all dead, after two days. The lord brought me back here and I lived again.”

  Liliana’s heart caught, for she understood now. No matter her memories, Jissa hadn’t survived the massacre in her village. The Blood Sorcerer had a spell he called Slumber. Such an innocuous name for such an evil thing. He used it on those magical creatures who were pure of blood and yet rare. Rather than murdering them when he might already be swollen with power, he broke their necks but whispered a spell at the moment of death that kept them breathing and slumbering.

  Liliana had been locked in a room with her father’s victims once, but it hadn’t horrified her as he’d intended. She’d been grateful, her magic telling her the beings no longer possessed their souls. They had escaped. But not Jissa. Whatever her father had done to her, it had trapped her in this borderland between life and death. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why?” Confusion. “You aren’t the Blood Sorcerer. No, you’re not.”

  Knives in Liliana’s chest, the lies of omission choking her up.

  Jissa spoke again. “There are meats in the cold box. I can—”

  “No. No meat on the table.” Her own blood would be the only blood she would ever spill. Her father had delighted in forcing her to watch as he took his time torturing and mutilating creature after magical creature. It was when she was six that he’d begun to whisper spells that forced her to do the same vile acts even as she screamed and screamed and screamed.

  Four more years it had taken until she’d grown strong enough to block his spells with her own. That was when he’d started to hurt the servants who dared to speak with her, to offer her any small kindness—all except the cook. So she had learned to remain silent.

  “Oh.” Jissa’s brow furrowed, her sharp little teeth biting into her lower lip. “Meat, he always eats the meat,” she whispered. “Even I, bad cook I, can’t make it taste that terrible.”

  “Never fear, Jissa,” Liliana said, kneading the dough with determined hands, her mind on eyes of winter-green, so very beautiful, so very deadly. “He’ll never notice the lack.”

  The dinner bell rang loud and sonorous. Seated alone at the head of a massive table of polished wood so dark it was near black, the Guardian of the Abyss raised his cup and took a sip of red wine. “Where is my meal, Bard?” he asked, though he wasn’t looking forward to the food that didn’t deserve the name.

  If Jissa weren’t already dead, he was sure he would have executed her long ago for attempting to starve him. Of course today it was his new pri
soner who would face his wrath. He wondered if she would look him in the eye when he sentenced her to another night in the dungeon.

  “I will see, my lord.” The big man turned to open the door…to reveal the prisoner, Liliana, and Jissa standing there with huge trays in their arms.

  “Thank you,” Liliana said with a smile that was much too wide. “We couldn’t open the door.” And then she was walking into the great hall with that halting stride of hers, her face brutally exposed given that she’d pulled her hair back.

  Again, he found himself fascinated by his strange prisoner.

  Placing her tray on the table and waiting for Jissa to do the same, she whipped off the covers from the dishes and moved to serve him. “This,” she said, placing a small round tart on his plate, “is not my best work, but you didn’t give me much time, my lord. Jissa tells me the dinner bell rings early today.”

  He picked up the tidbit, wondering if all her food came in so small a portion. And if her words were meant to warn him that she’d lied about her ability to cook. If she had, he would have to send her back to the dungeon. Lines furrowed his forehead. He was intrigued enough by her that he wanted her around, but he couldn’t spare her—he was the Guardian of the Abyss. Mercy was a weakness he’d never had. Though perhaps he would ask Bard to give her a blanket.

  “Well, my lord? Will you not eat it or are you afraid I will poison you?” A question as tart as the miniscule bite he held in hand.

  He considered punishing her for her impertinence, decided she was likely feebleminded and didn’t know any better. “The Guardian of the Abyss cannot die.”

  She tucked a stiff strand of hair behind her ear. “But only while you are within this castle.”

  Amused by her, he decided to answer. “No. While I am in this realm.”

  “I see.” Something whispered in the depths of her eyes, and he wondered if she was a very clever spy, come to assassinate him.

  But who would dare raise a blade against the Lord of the Black Castle? And why would they send this creature so weak and small and strange? Ridiculous. With that, he ate the tart.

  An explosion of flavors—sweet and fresh and spicy and— “What else have you made?” Swallowing the tiny tidbit, he waited with impatience as she served him two more of the same.

  Then came the soup so clear and with round little green things in it that she told him were pieces of “spring onion.” He blinked, having the sudden, nagging feeling that he hated onion. But that was an inexplicable thought—he ate what Jissa made, but then Jissa’s food had no taste. “This is meant to feed me?”

  “Try it, my lord.”

  He didn’t bother with the spoon. Picking up the bowl, he drank.

  And drank.

  And drank.

  There was a large square of something made of many layers in front of him when he finished the soup and set the bowl to the side. This time, he didn’t question, simply picked up the fork and took a bite.

  Cheese and a thin pastry and peppers and cabbage, tomatoes and other things, spices he couldn’t name but that burst to life on his tongue with flickering heat. He cleared his plate with swift relish. “What is next?”

  She spooned rice, soft and fluffy, onto his plate, before covering it with some kind of a stew, except that it was full of chunks of different vegetables that turned it into a storm of color. “Where is the meat?”

  Putting down the bowl, his peculiar little prisoner folded her arms. “I won’t cook it. If you wish for meat, you may ask Jissa to do so.”

  He was the Lord of the Black Castle and of the Abyss. He wasn’t used to being defied. But he was also not used to eating food that made him eager to see the next course. So he tried this vegetable stew over rice. It was a thick, flavorsome concoction that lay warm and satisfying in his belly. Finishing the food, he pushed away the plate. “You will cook for me.”

  A slight nod—as if she had a choice in the matter. “I didn’t have time to prepare a proper dessert, my lord, but I hope this will do.”

  She put slices of fruit in front of him, plump and fresh, alongside a small pot of something sweet and rich, with a scent that made his nostrils flare. “What is this?”

  A faint smile. “Try it, my lord.”

  He hadn’t been the recipient of any kind of a smile for so long that something creaked and crashed open inside of him as he looked into her face. “No, you will tell me,” he said in a harsh tone, suddenly no longer amused.

  She didn’t flinch. “Honey with a bit of vanilla and some spices. It is sometimes called nectar.”

  More, please!

  Shaking his head, he rid himself of that odd childlike voice. He didn’t know such a child, and the smallest of the realms never came through the doorway to the Abyss. They didn’t have time to grow into the evil that would mean banishment to this place of torment and repentance.

  More, Mama!

  “Take it away,” he said, shoving back his chair with such force it clattered to the floor. “And do not bring me such a thing again.”

  His prisoner said nothing as she—with Jissa’s help—began to gather up the remains of the meal. Stalking to the other end of the great hall, he used the power of this place to raise himself to the wall above the throne and picked out a giant sickle, black as his armor. The edge gleamed white-hot the instant it touched his hand.

  He glimpsed Liliana watching him as he came back down to earth and turned to walk out into the cold dark of the soul hunt.

  Liliana’s eyes lingered on the doorway through which the dark lord had disappeared, the echo of his chair hitting the floor still ringing in her ears. Something in him remembered the delicacy favored by the children of Elden, something in him knew.

  “Liliana.” Jissa’s hand on her arm. “Go, go, we must go. Not nice to see souls being dragged into the Abyss. Always, they try to escape. Beg and bargain and plead.”

  “Where is the doorway?”

  “Feet, below our feet. Down, down in the castle.”

  Liliana looked at the black marble of the floor and wondered what she would find if she were to crack it open. Likely nothing but rock. For it was said only the most blackened of souls and the Guardian of the Abyss himself could view that terrible wasteland full of screams and horror. And it was this place that the youngest Elden royal faced night after night. It was this place that had shaped him.

  “We’ll eat now.” Jissa’s bright voice broke into her murky thoughts. “You and me and Bard, we’ll eat your delicious food.”

  “The other servants?” Liliana asked when they reached the kitchens after cleaning up the table in the great hall.

  “Returned to the village they have.” Round, shining eyes filled with unquenchable sorrow. “Gone home.”

  Liliana’s hatred for her father grew impossibly deeper. “Sit,” she said, “eat. I’ll be back after I deliver this—” picking up a tart “—to another friend.”

  When Bard began to rise, Liliana said, “Where will I go, Master Jailor? And what would I dare steal?” With that, she pushed through the door and made her way down to the dungeons. The door to her cell was closed, but not locked.

  Walking inside, she placed the tart near the food container. “Little friend,” she whispered, “this is for you.”

  Silence. Then a slight sound, a small body quivering in hope.

  Rising, Liliana backed out and closed the door. She was about to return to the warmth of the kitchen when she found herself curious about the other cells. She’d heard nothing but silence the previous night, but she’d been weak and exhausted at the time.

  Picking the torch up off the wall, its flames flickering eerie shadows over the crumbling stone, she walked deeper into the cold. The first cell beyond her own was empty, as was the next. But the third, the third was very much occupied.

  “Sissssster,” came the sibilant whisper as she stood with the flame held close to the small barred square in the door, “help meeeee.”

  Chapter 4

  Squint
ing, she tried to see within. But there was only blackness. An impossible blackness, so dense as to repel the light from the torch. Liliana hesitated. She wasn’t stupid. The Black Castle held the gateway through which only the most vicious of the dead and the Guardian himself could pass—her sojourn here aside, its dungeons were unlikely to be populated by beings who meant her no harm.

  Holding the torch in front of her like a shield, she backed away.

  A slithering, as if some large creature was nearing the door. “Sisssster, it issssss a misssstake. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Then,” she said, continuing to keep her distance, “you would not have been drawn to the Abyss.” It was said the Abyss was the one constant throughout the realms, its magic elemental, immutable—if your soul was rotted and foul, you’d be unable to escape it once your mortal flesh released its grip on life.

  “Are you ssssssssssoooo certain?”

  “Yes,” she said, suddenly conscious that she was almost at the cell door once again.

  She couldn’t remember moving.

  And she couldn’t shift her eyes from the square “window” of the cage.

  “Come clossssser, sissssster.”

  Swallowing, she squeezed her fingers into the palm of her free hand in an attempt to cut half-moons into her flesh, release her blood. But it was taking too long and she knew that once she was close enough, the sinister creature beyond would reach out—

  “Stop.”

  The single, cold word was said in a deep voice that whispered with its own darkness.

  An enraged hiss from beyond the door, before the Lord of the Black Castle raised a gauntleted hand and a mirror of black glass grew to cover the bars of the window. Only then did he turn to look at her, and his eyes, his eyes…

  She stumbled back in spite of herself at the blackness within, all traces of green erased. Watching her with lethal focus, he stepped closer, until he could grip her jaw, hold her in place with those fingers tipped with claws of cold steel. “Are you so eager to spend another night in the dungeon?” As gentle as the first question he’d asked her in this realm.