The Demon of Darkling Reach (The Black Prince Book 1) (36 page)

Away from the press of people, the air was noticeably cooler—and fresher. A room, however large, full of heavily perfumed and unwashed bodies was often a difficult experience. Especially when, due to the exertion of so much dancing and drinking, many of those bodies were also rank with sweat.

She breathed a sigh of relief. “I need some air,” she said.

“Yes,” was all he responded.

He offered her his arm, and she took it. They walked down the hall alone, arm in arm, and for a moment it almost felt like being a real couple. She had to remind herself that she barely knew him; that she’d only met him the previous fortnight. And that she disliked him—didn’t she? Because even in such a short amount of time, they’d developed an easy familiarity with one another. He understood her and she thought, sometimes, that she understood him as well. She couldn’t quite pinpoint when it had begun to feel natural, settling her fingertips into the crook of his elbow and leaning against his arm.

Tristan’s boot heels echoed on the flagstones; birds fluttered in the eaves. The sounds of revelry drifted out from the great hall behind them. Isla was shocked to see, when they reached the door, that the strong afternoon sun had been replaced by twilight. There were no windows in the great hall, save for a few high up that were really more ventilation slits than actual sources of information on the outside world. Those endless rounds of conversation had taken longer than she’d thought.

At the door, she hesitated. The faintest breath of late summer roses drifted in on the air, undercut with the damp smell of decay. She swallowed.

Tristan paused, his form, when not actively engaged, reduced to the still form of a statue. Or a corpse. His cloak settled around him, his cloak that she hadn’t remembered him having a moment ago. “Yes?” he asked.

She swallowed again, and chewed her lip in an unconscious expression of anxiety. They were alone. A sudden gust blew through the door and raised gooseflesh on her exposed forearms and chest. She felt her nipples harden. What else she felt…she didn’t know.

“How?” was all she managed.

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “The seeds of an eastern fruit, the strychnos nux vomica. In small doses, it can be used to stimulate the heart or sometimes to treat a certain stomach complaint. In larger doses….” He made a small, dismissive gesture.

“You killed him so easily.”

“He would have hurt you.”

“Have you so little regard for human life?” she asked, her throat dry, aware that the man so disturbingly close to her was not in fact human. Her heart raced.

“He could have left,” Tristan pointed out, quietly and without apology. “He chose to remain, in full knowledge of the consequences that such a choice would bring. Should I have let him live?”

“I….” Isla shook her head, confused.

She didn’t know. She balled her fists up in a small, hopeless gesture and released them. She didn’t know anything, anymore, except that she was confused and that the man in front of her frightened her in ways she couldn’t define. Everything frightened her, now, where nothing had before. She’d grown up as an independent girl, first, then woman, confident of her place in the world and cowed by nothing. But now….

“Come outside,” Tristan said. “And then we eat.”

She let her betrothed, the Demon of Darkling Reach, lead her out into the night. Like a small child. Or a lamb to slaughter. She looked back, once, at the rearing walls of Enzie Hall, and saw nothing familiar. The faint strains of merriment rang discordant in her ears, music and laughter that sounded brittle and false. She wondered where she was going, and what the night would bring.

“T
here are rumors, you know, about your home.” Isla picked daintily at the plate in front of her, partaking of her second picnic in as many days. Full dark had fallen, and she was seated with Tristan next to the lichen-covered monument where they’d had their first real conversation.

“Oh?” He arched an eyebrow.

“Yes.” She sipped her wine, well diluted again. Almost all water was served with some alcohol mixed in; the alcohol made it safe to drink. People washed their clothes, and themselves, in the same water they used for everything else—including to piss and shit in. And although some manors were more urbane than others, the same standards of sanitation ruled everywhere. The more fastidious sometimes tried to teach the less fastidious, but one couldn’t govern the personal habits of several thousand people simultaneously.

She and Tristan had left the manor, walking through the gardens and out into the same patch of woods where Isla had spent so much time as a child and that Tristan seemed to like as well. They hadn’t talked much; Isla was too fraught with nerves and still gripped by the same sense of unreality that had plagued her off and on for days—and that had gotten so much worse since her encounter with Father Justin. She thought of him lying, moldering on a slab in the dairy and shuddered. As cold and unmoving as Tristan, whose iron grip had the feel of rigor mortis.

She’d been surprised, and a little intimidated when he’d suggested stopping here. Or, rather, informed her that they would. She hadn’t forgotten his calm assertion that the tomb she’d been fascinated with since childhood was protected by a curse. And now she was sitting next to it, wondering once again who was buried there and what, precisely, the nature of this curse might happen to be.

Because while Isla had never believed in curses before, she did now.

But the determinedly prosaic nature of their encounter proved an antidote to even the worse fears. Sitting here, a blanket shielding her from the dew-damp grass as crickets chirped in the gloom, nibbling on a small piece of mushroom puff…it was all too normal to inspire terror.

Tristan’s retainers had served them without remark, and departed. She’d seen no sign of Asher and wondered at that, but supposed even hostages must have bedtimes. So far, she’d seen no sign of the little page being mistreated. Although, if the rumors could be believed, a great deal about Tristan’s life—and home—was hidden.

She glanced up. He was watching her. She blushed. Something about him made her so nervous, something that went beyond the simple fact of his nature. It wasn’t that he was a demon, or that he practiced magic, it was…him.

She let her eyes drop. “Well,” she said, feeling suddenly shy again, “the name, for one.” Caer Addanc meant
Castle Addanc
.
Addanc
was a word from one of the tribal tongues in the North that described a particular kind of evil, fresh water-dwelling sprite. In legend, the addanc lured travelers away from the safety of the road with a glowing ball of flame.

Even the
name
of Isla’s future home evoked a premonition of doom; a massive fortress in the mountains surrounded by mist.

“Caer Addanc is built on a cliff overlooking a lake of the same name.” Darkling Reach was a region sometimes referred to as the
inland coast
, because its craggy climes were spotted with lakes. A handful of them were enormous, regarded as oceans by local inhabitants. Although filled with freshwater, their tides were controlled by the phases of the moon just like true saltwater oceans. Many regarded this phenomenon as evidence of dark magic. “Loch Addanc is beautiful,” he said. “There are thousands of different fish and other creatures, and some of the populated islands are large enough to be considered towns in their own right. Loch Addanc, too, is what separates us from our less friendly neighbors in the North.”

“How far?” she asked.

“Some hundred leagues. Several days’ journey, with a favorable wind. Which,” he added, “we rarely ever get. The weather changes rapidly, strong gales blowing up from a seemingly dead calm. A fact of life that”—he sipped his wine, far less watered than hers—“adds significantly to our prestige as a place of magic.”

“So it’s all folklore and superstition?” she challenged.

“I didn’t say that.” He balanced his cup on the edge of the marble plinth serving as a base for the tomb. “Now tell me about these rumors. Perhaps some of them are even true.” Tristan remained, as always, maddeningly calm. And his cool, unblinking gaze sent chills up her spine. She felt pinned under the weight of it, not glamoured as she’d been before but mesmerized as she might have felt mesmerized by the eyes of a timber viper.

“That”—she hesitated—”that Caer Addanc is huge, and entirely built from black stone that carries special enchantments. That those enchantments are woven down even into the foundations, and prevent trespassers from entering…as well as, ah, certain guests from leaving.

“That fog surrounds the cliff, night and day, the mist rising up from the ground to wreathe the keep and that the mist itself is a miasma of evil.” And lost souls, captured by the necromancer and held prisoner. “That every time, the road in is slightly different and that beautiful young virgins disappear near the borders. The forests are dark, even at high noon, and filled with terrifying creatures known nowhere else. Unnatural creatures…and that some of the virgins….” She trailed off, chewing her lip.

“Yes?”

“Are buried in the walls.” She felt a rush of embarrassment at having mentioned such a thing. Embarrassment…and fear. What if he was angry with her, for her having mentioned such a thing? For having mentioned
all
the things she’d mentioned?

But he merely gestured, a small movement of the hand that was half acceptance and half dismissal. As though nothing she’d said had captured his interest. “The custom was practiced throughout the North, for centuries.” He sounded bored, as though he were discussing a particularly dull harvest festival. “Before the principles of engineering were introduced from the East, it was believed that sacrificing a virgin and burying her corpse within the foundations ensured that the walls would be strong. Sometimes, due to poor placement of the structure, or other rational factors, the walls collapsed regardless.”

“And then?”

“And then the builders assumed that the girl, despite whatever examination she’d undergone, hadn’t been a virgin after all and sacrificed another one.” He popped a cube of cheese into his mouth, unmoved by his own recitation.

“That’s barbaric,” Isla protested.

“No. What’s barbaric is that sometimes, instead of slitting her throat, they buried her alive.”

Isla stared at him in silence. “Is this…still practiced?” she asked.

He didn’t answer her. Which, in and of itself, was answer enough. Another chill ran up her spine, spreading up to her scalp and out to the tips of her fingers as she studied the man she’d agreed to marry. To give herself to. The demon. She wondered how many women—and men, and even children—were buried beneath the walls of Caer Addanc and how many of those deaths had been Tristan’s doing. He’d asked her to tell him about the rumors, and had listened politely enough, but Isla wasn’t fool enough to ignore the fact that he hadn’t denied a single one. And here he was, sitting across from her in the darkness.

“I don’t want to be sacrificed,” she said in a small voice.

“Do you imagine you’ll remain a virgin?” he asked.

“I…we should go back.” She swallowed. “We’ll…miss the speeches.” She had no idea if dinner was even being served, if dinner was over, if they had in fact missed the speeches altogether.

Tristan smiled slightly, a twitch of the lips that was there and gone in an instant. “There are very few privileges to power,” he told her, “as such, I strive to take advantage of them whenever possible.” He finished his wine. “One of them is not having to listen to speeches.”

“Oh.” Isla’s heart raced. This conversation had gone too far, too fast. She didn’t know what to do.

“Come,” he said, standing. “The night is growing too cold to sit.” His expression seemed somehow…knowing, now, without really changing at all. “We’ll walk back over to the orchards, and civilization, and then I’ll see you to your bed.”
And civilization.
He knew what she was thinking. He always did.

She accepted his proffered hand, allowing him to help her upright. His claws grazed her lightly. His every movement was graceful; on him, the malformation seemed like anything but. They were a part of him, and one he obviously knew how to use. He lifted a single finger to her cheek, dimpling her skin but not puncturing it. She swallowed, nervous. He was very close. He leaned in, smelling her perfume, his lips almost grazing the thin skin of her neck. She trembled, waiting.

He stepped back. “Shall we?” he asked.

She nodded, feeling faint.