The Dead and the Dusk (The Nightmare Court Book 2)

by Val Saintcrowe

  “Well, that’s easy enough,” Eithan muttered. “We can bring her here.”

  Oh. Obviously. Why hadn’t she thought of that?

  “Give me the crystal blade,” said Eithan.

  She pulled it out. She’d tucked it into her belt with her other weapons.

  He looked around and then slid it into the sleeve of his tunic. “I can’t do this. I’ve got to go and check on the others.”

  “Eithan, they’re buying us time. We’ve gone through this—”

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “They’re like… my brothers. More than my brothers. I have to go.” He pressed close to her, kissing her lips quickly.

  “You want me to stay here?”

  He looked into her eyes. “I’ll think about it on my way down to find her. I’ll come up with a plan. You stay here and try to figure out something with the crystals.”

  “Like what?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But if I bring her here, then we’ll…” He touched his sleeve. “We’ll try something.”

  “That is the worst plan ever,” she said.

  He laughed a little, looking chagrined. “I’ll get her away from them and lure her up here.”

  She eyed him. “I’m not sure how to feel about the fact that you’re frantic about their safety and yet involving me in your attack plan and putting me at risk.”

  “You’re the one who keeps bringing up your sunlight blood,” he said, heading for the door. “Besides, I think you should take it as a compliment.” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Isn’t this what you wanted? To kill a goddess? Aren’t you destined for greatness?”

  She couldn’t help but smile.

  “I love you,” he said, and he was gone.

  Leaving her with the stupid crystals.

  “I love you, too,” she murmured into his wake.

  She sighed.

  How to use the power of the crystals, how to concentrate it?

  Were they all going to die? Was that going to have been her last kiss with Eithan, because she wanted a better last kiss. And what about the fact that he hadn’t even heard her say that she loved him back? And they’d only made love once, and that didn’t seem fair.

  Oddly, she found herself thinking of prisms.

  She didn’t know why she sometimes got images in her head when she was building toward an apex. She thought it must be because her conscious mind faded into the pleasure, and things became dreamlike, conjuring images, not words. But she thought of how, when Eithan’s mouth had been on her, she’d felt like a prism…

  She turned back to the crystals.

  Hmm.

  She rolled up her sleeves and began to push them, lining them up into one long row.

  * * *

  Eithan burst into the throne room, and the first thing he saw was the other knights, all held in the air by Ciaska’s mist. They were all struggling there, looking angry.

  But Ciaska turned and saw him and she was so startled that she dropped all three of them. “Eithan. You’re not in the dungeons.”

  Eithan shook his head. He staggered across the room to her throne room and fell to his knees in front of her. He put his head in her lap.

  She was stunned, but pleased. She giggled. “What is this?”

  He spoke into the dark silk of her dress, his face buried against her thigh. “She’s gone.”

  “What?” said Ciaska. “Eithan, your voice is muddled. Look at me.”

  He raised his head, trying to summon tears, but he couldn’t, so he just made himself appear devastated. “The creatures killed her. They ripped her apart. They…” He shuddered, as if he was so horrified that he couldn’t finish the sentence, but truly, he simply hadn’t thought it through well enough to improvise properly.

  “Nicce?” said Ciaska.

  “Yes,” he said. “I…” He peered up at her. “It’s strange, Exalted One, but when it happened, in my grief, I only wanted to tell one person. There was no one else I wanted to be near.”

  Ciaska blinked at him. “What are you saying? And how did you get out of the dungeon?”

  “There are ways in and out,” he said. “The foundation is in disrepair, Exalted One. We’ll have to see to that.”

  “All right, never mind the dungeon,” said Ciaska. “Go back to what you were saying before.”

  “I…” He sucked in a breath. “There must be more of a bond between us than I had realized. I need you.” He buried his face in her lap again.

  She snatched up his face, her fingers cold under his chin. “What are you playing at?” she breathed.

  “Please, Exalted One. It’s been so long, and now I know that you are all I want.”

  She pushed him off her and onto the floor. “You expect me to believe that? That in the wake of Nicce dying, you had tender feelings toward me? I caused her death.” She shrugged. “If she’s really dead, that is.”

  Eithan gazed up at her, debating whether to drop the ruse or to double down and make her believe.

  Ciaska looked out at the other knights. “Wait a moment. You left last night and came back. You went to check on him, didn’t you? On Lian, because he’s not dead either.”

  Eithan got to his feet. He closed the distance between himself and the goddess and cupped her face with one hand. “Ciaska, shut up,” he said.

  And then he kissed her.

  There had been kisses before, of course, but he’d usually been unresponsive unless she made threats. This time, he kissed her thoroughly, his tongue in her cold mouth, and it didn’t feel like anything. It didn’t disgust him. It didn’t frighten him. It was necessary, and he just did it. He pulled away, she gazed up at him with a stunned look on her face.

  He swallowed.

  She touched her lips. Her voice was unsteady. “You don’t get to say my name.”

  “No?” he said. “Then I guess you’ll have to teach me my manners.”

  “I see what you’re doing,” she said. “You’re trying to distract me, so that they can get away, along with Lian.”

  “You and I can make ten Lians,” he said. “Isn’t that what you said when you threatened to kill him yourself? What do you care?”

  She looked out at the other knights.

  Eithan wanted to look at them, but he kept his gaze on hers. “You’re worried that I’ll become less fascinating if you have me. I’m willing to bet that won’t be the case. How long has it been since you had a man you didn’t coerce into your bed? Since Sullo?”

  “You’re no Sullo,” she said.

  Eithan shrugged. “How can you know if you don’t try me?”

  “You’d do this for Lian,” she said. “You’d…” She licked her lips. “What about Nicce? I suppose she’s with Lian, isn’t she? This is about her. You’re trying to seduce me to save her.”

  “If I wanted to save her, then why did I bring her to you in the first place?” said Eithan. “She’s dead, and I’m out of my mind. So, come with me now. If we’re making another Lian, I want to do it in the room where you kept his crystal.” He held out his hand to her.

  She shook her head. “This is a trick. This is a game.”

  “Maybe it’s a game you’ll like.”

  “You’re not even denying it.” She hugged herself. “You’re cruel to me, Eithan.”

  He shrugged. “You’re cruel to me, too. We’re even.” He pushed his hand closer to her.

  She looked from the knights to Eithan, almost agonized. “Absalom?” she whispered. “Is Lian really alive? You won’t lie to me.”

  Eithan didn’t look at Absalom.

  The other knight didn’t answer.

  “Ciaska,” said Eithan in a low voice.

  She threw out her hands, and her mist furled out behind her. But she moved toward Eithan and she put her hand in his. “All right, Eithan. Let’s play.”

  His lips curved into a knowing smile.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Nicce strained to pick up the last crystal. She had run ou
t of space to line them up and so had started to pile them up. There was a stack of crystals four high at the back of the room, and then rest of the crystals were end-to-end long ways, stretching out of the hidden compartment and into the room, all the way to the door.

  Grunting, she shoved the last crystal to the top of the stack. Now it was five high.

  She pressed her body into the stack experimentally, putting her hands against the crystals. This might work. She wished she could test it, but she didn’t want to let any power out prematurely. That might mean they didn’t have enough.

  She sorted through the spells she’d learned from Rhodes for the crystals, deciding on the one that she’d used on the bars, the one that let out as much power as possible as quickly as possible. She debated for a moment about whether she should use the one that indicated direction for the light and then decided against it.

  She backed away, murmuring those words.

  “I’m ready,” she said to herself.

  But what she wasn’t ready for was the sight of Eithan and Ciaska coming into the room, Eithan plastering the goddess against the wall and covering her body with his own. His mouth was on Ciaska’s.

  They were kissing.

  Nicce froze at the sight of that. She was horrified.

  Eithan was nudging his thigh between Ciaska’s legs and Nicce felt as though something had slammed into her and left her dazed and bruised.

  Eithan slid the crystal blade out of his sleeve, and he stabbed Ciaska with it. He held onto her, mouth on hers, and he pushed the blade up under Ciaska’s ribs, straight up into her body. The blade came out behind her shoulder blade.

  Ciaska gasped and gurgled.

  “Shh,” said Eithan, tugging the weapon out and stabbing her again. “Isn’t this what you wanted? Me shoving something long and hard into your body?”

  Ciaska looked so stunned, so betrayed.

  “That’s right,” he crooned. “Take it nice and deep.” He pulled it out and stabbed her again before her mist came up and plucked him off of her, throwing him against the far wall.

  He hit hard, but he was laughing as he slid to the floor, even as it left a streak of black blood in his wake.

  Nicce pressed her body into the crystals. But all the words to the spells had gone completely out of her head.

  Ciaska touched the stab wounds on her body. “Eithan, how could you?” She looked out at the room. “Why did you…?” Then she saw Nicce.

  Nicce’s mouth was dry.

  He was only doing it to distract her and trick her. You know he’d never willingly touch her like that, Nicce scolded herself.

  “You’re not dead, and you’re not with Lian either,” said Ciaska.

  Nicce took a deep breath.

  Ciaska lit up her body, healing the wounds that Eithan had inflicted on her.

  Sun and bones, Nicce had missed a window when the goddess was weak.

  Ciaska gritted her teeth and thrust out her hands. The mist roiled out, hurtling over the floor and wrapping tendrils around Nicce’s ankles. The mist tugged and Nicce went down. She was yanked across the floor toward the goddess. She cried out.

  Eithan groaned and then his eyes fluttered closed and he slumped over. He had lost consciousness. How hard had he hit that wall?

  Nicce felt panic rise up in her. She needed to give Eithan her blood. She needed to heal him. She lit up her light, letting it pour out all over Ciaska.

  But Ciaska wrapped the mist around Nicce, and it was like a smothering blanket, cutting everything off. She couldn’t see or breathe. She flailed out against it, and it tightened, binding her arms against her body, her feet tight together.

  A sharp pain, suddenly, in Nicce’s stomach.

  “How do you like it?” said Ciaska. She was stabbing Nicce with the crystal blade.

  Nicce healed the wound.

  Ciaska stabbed her again.

  And thus began a long sequence of pain that went on and on. Nicce lost track of how many times she was stabbed, how many places. The blade went in everywhere. Her stomach. Her legs. Her neck. Once, right into her eyeball, and the only reason she didn’t lose the eye was that the tightly wrapped mist shroud kept it inside Nicce’s eye socket.

  It was agony, and Nicce began to feel tired. Her light sputtered.

  This was the goddess’s plan, then, to exhaust Nicce until she had no more light. One of these times, Nicce wasn’t going to be able to heal her wound. One of these times, she was going to bleed out.

  Nicce couldn’t let that happen. She redoubled her efforts to get out of the mist, but she couldn’t. She started to wriggle around on the floor, trying to move in the direction of the crystals. If she could touch them, even through the mist, maybe—

  “Hold still,” Ciaska said, bringing the blade down into Nicce’s body again.

  Abruptly, the mist receded.

  Nicce was pinned to the floor, the crystal blade just under her rib cage.

  Ciaska was thrusting out her mist at the doorway, where the rest of the knights of Midian were slashing at the mist with their swords.

  “Nicce!” yelled Absalom. “If you’ve got something to do, do it now. We can’t hold her off forever.”

  Nicce looked at the blade in her belly. Funny, after all the stabbing and healing, she would have guessed she’d be numb to pain right now, but it didn’t seem to be the case.

  Gritting her teeth, she used a hand to pull the blade out.

  Blood bubbled out, red blood, and Nicce didn’t bother trying to turn on her light. Instead, she crawled for the crystals.

  Ciaska shrieked, and a sharp tongue of mist pierced Nicce’s leg.

  Nicce screamed. She cut the mist with the crystal blade and it retreated, shriveling at the edges into dissipating smoke.

  She reached out to touch the crystals, the stack of them that was five high. Her blood smeared against the glassy surface.

  And she couldn’t find the words of the spell now either.

  She cried out in panic and frustration. And then she put her other hand on the crystals, and there were no spells, only her focused intention, just like Rhodes had always said. Magic was a physical energy that was locked in objects and it could be let out if one knew how to tune in to the power.

  She did it, the crystal her hands were touching lighting up, and then that power rushed into the next crystal and the next, each crystal taking the power and magnifying it.

  Nicce aimed the beam of power and it went directly into Ciaska’s midsection.

  The goddess was picked up and slammed into the wall, several feet off the ground, pinned there as she struggled.

  “What are you doing?” said Ciaska, and her voice had a funny hitch to it.

  Nicce grunted, pushing everything she had into it.

  “It hurts,” said Ciaska. “Absalom?”

  The knights stepped into the room. They were bloodied and bruised. Septimus was limping, but he was grinning a nasty smile. “Tell us all about how much it hurts, Exalted One. Be detailed.”

  “Please,” said Ciaska, reaching out to the knights. “Please, I care about you. We’ve been together a long time. Maybe I’ve hurt you, but I’ll do better. Please.”

  Absalom folded his arms over his chest.

  Jonas bared his teeth.

  And Nicce pushed into the crystals, pushed and pushed and pushed.

  “It hurts,” Ciaska sobbed, convulsing against the wall. She was piteous.

  Septimus fished the crystal blade up from where it had fallen on the floor when Nicce had pulled it out of her body. “Maybe I can help with that,” he said, and stabbed her in the face with the blade.

  Ciaska’s sobs stopped.

  And then she… exploded.

  Silvery light burst out of her all at once, and bits of gore and bone spattered against the ceiling and the walls and all over Eithan and Nicce and the other knights, even all the way back into the hidden room where the crystals had been kept. It was everywhere. The room was covered in black blood and slimy p
ieces of organs.

  Nicce pulled away from the crystal. The light cut off.

  She looked down at her bloody stomach and she turned on her light. She healed herself, even though the light was weak. She ran to Septimus and took the blade from him. Then she went to Eithan and sliced her hand open. She squeezed droplets of light into his mouth.

  They fell onto his lips, which looked paler than usual.

  “Come on,” Nicce muttered, her voice a rasp. “Come on.”

  Eithan’s tongue darted out of his mouth to lick at the light. His eyes opened, and he latched onto her hand, sinking his teeth in.

  She gasped at the sensation, in relief. It was almost a sob.

  And the ground beneath them suddenly shifted.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Nicce, Eithan, and the other knights ran through the halls, dodging bits of falling rock. The palace was falling apart. Every few seconds, there was another loud noise and more of the place seemed to crack. They ran down the steps and they were greeted by tentacles and teeth. Creatures from outside had somehow gotten in through the cracks.

  They drew their swords and slashed and stabbed.

  They dodged the crumbling walls.

  It was chaos.

  On the lower levels, the members of the court were screaming and running every which way.

  The guards were fighting the nightmares. Some of the brides were hiding behind guards, cowering. Others had picked up pieces of rock and were fighting back, bashing at the monsters.

  “The court members need my blood,” Nicce told Eithan. “We need to get them through the portal.”

  “Right,” said Eithan. “Well, let’s spread the word.”

  So, they fought and they dodged and they ran, and they told everyone they saw to go to the portal.

  They fought on.

  At one point, Nicce got a bite on her leg from one of the creatures. It was bad. A huge hole was weeping in her thigh. It had taken part of her bone. Shards of it were poking out of the wound, crunched in half.

  She just gaped at it, making no noise for several long moments.