Lord of the Abyss & Desert Warrior (4 page)

“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.”

S
QUINTING, 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.

She tried to shake her head, but his hold was firm, his grip unbreakable. “I am too curious, my lord,” she managed to grit out. “It is my besetting sin.”

For some reason, that made him soften his hold. “What would you see here?”

“I wanted to know if you had any more prisoners.”

Black tendrils spread out from his irises and back again, eerie—and a sign of the sorcery that held him captive. If she didn’t find a way to reverse it, he would soon be utterly encased in impenetrable black.

“Why,” she said when he didn’t reply, “is that creature here and not in the Abyss?”

“Opening the doorway is difficult work,” he said, rubbing his thumb almost absently over her chin, the sharp
point brushing against her lip in a caress that could turn deadly in a fragment of a moment. “It’s less trouble to collect several of the condemned and deliver them together.”

“Aren’t you afraid of what they’ll do to your servants?” It was hard to speak with him touching her, his body so big, so close.

“My servants are intelligent enough to know not to wander the dungeons once night has fallen.”

She colored, wondering why he stared at her so; she knew she was ugly, but did he have to watch her with such focus? As if she was an insect? “I won’t make the same mistake again.”

Releasing her, he said, “But will you be curious again?”

Perhaps it would’ve been better to lie, but Liliana found her mouth parting, the words spilling out. “Yes, this castle is fascinating.” As was its lord. Who would he have been if her father had not seized the throne of Elden? A prince golden and true? Sophisticated and elegant and learned?

She couldn’t imagine him thus, this man with the ice of death in his gaze, his voice, his touch. “Did you complete your hunt?” He hadn’t been gone long…or she’d been caught in the creature’s snare for longer than she’d realized.

“Yes, for now,” he said, his eyes still that eerie midnight shade. “Come. I will show you my castle.”

Startled at the offer, she began to head after him.

“Beware, sissssssster,” came the sibilant whisper from beyond the mirrored glass. “No maid is safe with the Lord of the Black Castle.”

She felt more than saw anger sweep across the face of the lethal male at her side, but she snorted. “Clearly,
you do not have good vision,” she said to whatever lay beyond the locked door. “Or you’d know that I’m not a maid any man would want to ravish.”

Turning to look at the Guardian of the Abyss, she found him staring at her again. Once more, she felt like a bug, an insect. But she straightened her shoulders and said, “Your castle, my lord?”

A long pause that made an icy bead of sweat trickle down her spine before he led her back up the winding stairs and into the dark heart of his domain. Stopping in the hall of black mirrors when she hesitated, he said, “Do you want to see?”

Everywhere she looked, she saw reflections. Him, so tall and sun-golden and piercingly beautiful—and her, so short and badly formed. “What?” she asked, looking away from her own image.

“The Abyss.” He swept out a hand without waiting for a response and the mirrors filled with images of churning horror. At first there was only a wash of black and green flame, an impression of things burning. But then she began to see the faces. Contorted faces drowning in pain. Clawing hands asking for help before they dug out their own eyes in an effort to escape. Limbs floating in the black, twitching as if sensation remained.

And the screams. Silent. Endless. Forever.

Clapping her hands over her ears, she shook her head. “Stop it!”

“Do you feel pity for them?” He touched his finger to the image of a face flayed and torn, its eyes red orbs bulging with terror as a basilisk feasted on its body. “He sold his children to…a sorcerer. The…sorcerer tortured and murdered them because that is how he gains his power. The man knew.”

No matter that she stood in the midst of such violent
anguish, she caught his hesitation. “Blood Sorcerer,” it seemed, was something he couldn’t say. But if he remembered her father, even if only in the most hidden depths of his psyche, then there was a chance he’d remember his family, remember what he had to do before it was too late.

“Please,” she whispered, feeling as if her ears were bleeding from those silent screams that reverberated relentlessly in her head.

“This one,” he said, pointing to another face so burned the flesh was melting, but with eyes of perfect alertness, “trapped those creatures he considered lesser—brownies like Jissa, the wise gazelles of the plains, cave trolls so small and shy—and butchered them for his own amusement. And this one, she poisoned an entire wood so that the creatures tied to the earth would curl up and die and she would have their land.”

Unable to take the pressure of the screams any longer, her gut twisting from the horrors he was painting onto the walls of a mind that already held too much, Liliana ran forward to press her face to his back, her hands fisted against the hard carapace of his armor. “Stop, or I won’t cook for you again.”

A moment’s pause.

The images disappeared.

Peace.

“You will cook for me.” An order—but there was a thread of what she might’ve almost called disappointment in the tone of his voice.

Blinking, she wondered if he had been trying to show her something that was important to him, something he’d thought she would
like
to see. Surely not, for he was the Lord of the Black Castle, and yet…he was alone. A monster who stood as the last defense against the other mon
sters. “They say,” she whispered, “that once there was no Abyss, that the world was innocent and its people, young and old, untainted.”

He shifted away to face her, his eyebrows heavy over eyes become that beautiful winter-green. “You tell night-tales.”

“Perhaps.” In truth, regardless of what she wanted to believe, she’d seen too much not to understand that there would always be those whose souls were malevolent. “I do know many night-tales.”

He cocked his head. “How many?”

“Many,” she said, seeing in his intrigued expression a way to reach the boy who lived within the lethal Guardian, who had to live within. If she was wrong, if that boy was long dead, crushed beneath the weight of years and the soul-chilling armor of her father’s twisted spell, then they were all lost. Her father would rule and Elden would become another Abyss.

H
AVING BEEN
“
PERMITTED
” time enough for a meal, she found herself in the great hall, perhaps half an hour later, able to feel hundreds of eyes on her—as she had the day she’d landed frail and disoriented on the marble floor. But when she raised her head in stiff pride, ready to stare down the audience, she saw only emptiness. “Who is watching?”

The Lord of the Black Castle turned from where he’d put one booted foot on the steps that led to the throne colored the same eponymous shade, as hard and lacking in ornamentation as the man himself. “The residents,” he said, as if that were self-evident.

“The residents?” she pushed, fighting the urge to hug her arms around herself. “From the Abyss?” Legend said that despite the pitiless task that was his nightly duty, the
Guardian was always pure of heart. In this ancient legend she’d placed her faith, but if he allowed the putrid souls destined for the Abyss to linger above…

“Of course not.” A grim stare that raised every tiny hair on her body. “There are other souls who are drawn to the Black Castle.”

“Why?”

“They come and they do not leave.” An answer that told her she was trying his patience with her questions. “The Black Castle welcomes them.”

Liliana felt a glimmer of understanding, wondered if she might have more allies than she believed.

“You will tell the tale now.” It was an order as he took his seat on the throne.

Hairs still standing up in alarm, she nonetheless put her hands on her hips and said, “It would be easier if I didn’t have to shout, my lord!” He sat high and remote, an arrogant emperor.

He gestured her forward. “You may sit at my feet.”

Dropping them from her hips, Liliana fisted her hands by her sides, her entire body rigid. Sit at his feet? Like an animal?
No.
If her father hadn’t broken her after a lifetime, then the Guardian of the Abyss surely would not! But when she would’ve opened her mouth, given voice to her fury, she felt ghostly fingers on her lips,
almost
heard a whisper in her ear.

The shock of it cut through her conditioned response, tempered her rage, made her think.

Looking up into the face of the dark lord who’d commanded her, she saw impatience, saw, too, a quicksilver anticipation. “Is it an honor, my lord?” she asked, realization shimmering a golden rain through her veins. “To sit below your throne?”

“You ask strange questions, Liliana.” It was the first
time he’d said her name, and it felt akin to a spell on its own, wrapping her in tendrils of black that gleamed with bright green highlights. “This throne is only for the Guardian. Any imposter who dares sit here will die a terrible death.”

And so it
was
a great honor for her to be allowed so close.

Keeping that in mind, she swallowed her pride and climbed the steps to the throne—but instead of taking a seat at his feet, for that she couldn’t do, not for anyone, she perched herself several feet away, so she could turn and face him. “Once upon a time,” she began, her blood thunder in her veins—because it could all end now, with a single misstep—“there was a land called Elden.”

Whispers rolling around the room, ghostly murmurs gaining in volume.

“Quiet!” The lord cut the air with a slicing hand.

Silence reigned.

“Continue.”

Curiosity about the ghostly residents danced nimble and quick through her veins, but she kept it in check. First, she must discover if the Abyss had saved the last heir—or if it had consumed him. “This land, this Elden, it was a place of grace and wonder. Its people grew old at so slow a pace that some called them immortal, but they were not true immortals, for they could die, but only after hundreds of years of life, of learning.

“Because of their great love of this last, they were renowned for their knowledge and artistry, their libraries the finest in all the kingdoms.” She carried on when her audience didn’t interrupt, the ghosts as motionless as the green-eyed man on the throne of black. “Elden was also a land overflowing with magical energy, its people’s bodies touched with it.” That energy had given Elden its
strength—and made it a target. “All of Elden’s grace and prosperity flowed from the king and queen. King Aelfric, it is said—”

“No!” The Lord of the Black Castle rose, his hands clenched, his eyes black, the tendrils spiraling out to run across his face. “You will not say that name.”

“It is only a name in a tale,” she said, though the merciless cold of his gaze made her abdomen lurch with the realization that he could end her life with one swipe of that razor-gauntleted hand. “It is not real.” Better to tell a small lie, if it would help her slip under the viscous cobweb of her father’s spell. “Surely, you aren’t a child to be scared of tales.” It was a chance she took, that he wouldn’t kill her for such insolence, but the stakes were too high for her to walk softly.

“You dare challenge me?” Quiet words. Deadly words. “I will—”

“If you send everyone to the dungeon, my lord,” she said, brushing an imaginary speck of dirt off her tunic in an effort to hide the trembling in her hands, “it’s a wonder you have any friends at all.”

His eyes turned green between one blink and the next, the tendrils of armor disappearing from his face. “The Guardian of the Abyss has no friends.”

She understood loneliness. Oh, yes, she understood how it could cut and bite and make you bleed. “I’m not surprised,” she said, rather than offering him her friendship. That would most certainly get her thrown back down into the bowels of the castle—he was a man of power and pride, of arrogance earned through dark labor. “It’s a dicey business,” she said, taking her life into her hands for the second time in as many minutes, “talking with someone who locks up anyone who disagrees with him.”