Children of the Blood (36 page)

Helen’s breathing seemed to stop, and Sara braced herself for what followed. The pain of even this lost hope hit her like a sword, but she stood in its path, paying its price.

It was Darin who eventually sent Helen on her way; Sara did not have the strength left to do even that. But she felt the curiosity and, yes, the pity in his eyes as he left her alone with the failure.

And when he left, the tears came. And the anger. And the fear.

 

“Darin, where is the lady?”

Darin looked up slowly from the food that he’d not touched. “Maybe she’ll be down soon.” His voice said it wasn’t likely.

The lord’s frown, subtle and slight, was still unpleasant to behold.

“What passed today?”

Darin’s frown held no menace, but it was no less unpleasant to Lord Darclan.

“She tried to ward,” he answered quietly. “One of the children fell.”

Lord Darclan raised an eyebrow. “And this is enough to keep her from dining?”

“She failed. ” Darin’s cheeks burned with shame for her.

Silence, then, always silence.

“I see, ” the lord said at last. He rose, and motioned for Darin to remain.

 

He found her in her rooms, sitting in the largest chair with her legs curled forlornly beneath her. Her head was propped up on one elbow, and a blood-stained hand sat loosely in her lap. It was dark; only one of the lamps had been lit, and its flame
burned low. He would have to see that it was replaced, but not now.

He looked closely at her. Her eyes were closed. She seemed almost translucent, as if the dying light could pass through her without leaving even a trace of shadow.

“Sara,” he said softly, as he walked toward her.

She looked up, her green eyes ringed by the shadow of circles. Wearily, she nodded to acknowledge his presence. Her eyes fell again.

“Lady?”

She didn’t answer, not with words. But for the few seconds that they stayed open, her eyes lingered upon the blood that had failed her.

He put his arms around her gently and lifted her.

“This is no place for sleep,” he said. He tried to smile. She would have liked that expression, but it failed him.

Her breath punctuated his thoughts as he held her.

He looked at the hand that lay open.

She was Lernan’s; she was always Lernan’s—no matter what the cost and strength of the binding he placed upon her had been, he could not change that fact.

And now, now he wasn’t certain that he really wanted to. For her sake, at this moment, perhaps. But still ...

What have you done to me
,
Sara? How did you accomplish this? Why have the years not erased your mark? All else mortal
passes.

Ah. It is dark
,
and too soon.

He laid her down upon the bed, pulling the covers over her still form.

“I must leave, Sara. I shall return in the morning.

But her hand, wounded, fluttered at his robes. She was exhausted, and this was as much of a request as she could make.

He caught her hand and held it, cradling her tightly.

A moment,
he thought, stroking her hair
. A moment for you, lady.

And he held her for as long as his nature allowed it in the face of the darkening sky. In the day it would have been easy, the feel of her breath against his cheek an unalloyed pleasure. But it was night now, and she lay so helpless. His arms did not tire under her weight, and he moved only when she stirred slightly.

“Sara, I must go.”

Her eyes never opened, although her arms tightened briefly around him. If she had asked, with words, he could have answered.

But he stayed; when he could stand it no longer, he still remained. And the brown stains on her hand seemed to redden before his eyes, to become a damp, limpid thing that struggled to leave her body. It strained, as if the flesh contained it, and he watched, mesmerized, as it tried to come to him.

To him.

With a silent cry, he threw her aside and bolted out of the room, his steps loud and lingering as they splintered the silence of the castle. The halls stretched out before him, comforting and infuriating in their emptiness.

It was cold, and the cold was steady and patient, for its waiting was almost over.

The details of the hall were lost to him; they melted into the background of a purely physical and unimportant world. Only the feel of the desk beneath his fingertips told him that he had made it to his study. He wheeled around, his nocturnal sight revealing the indistinct outline of a door slightly ajar in the dark room.

“Gervin!” His voice was a half snarl.

A form radiating heat appeared between the door and the wall. The features were indistinct, blurred by the taint of the living. Almost as an afterthought, the hardwood of the desk beneath his fingers buckled. The form took a quick step backward, stopped, and surged forward again. Stefanos could feel the small splinters of wood drive their way into his nesh—but the pain of it was distant, almost hollow.

“Go—get—Darin. Tell him—ward—study—door—from—outside. ”

“Lord?”

“Now!”
His lips curled around the wood with a resistance that was more real than the wood that continued to burrow into him. More real, more painful. The walls of his mind, so precise and so logical, could barely contain the urge that drove him.

I am First!
His fingers curled more tightly into the desk.

“Heart’s blood.” Two small, hushed syllables and the heat was gone. Gone before Stefanos’ sudden leap forward could prevent it from escaping. The door, dead and cold, slammed shut, and he staggered backward into the center of the room. Little spears struck him from behind, and he whirled, his fingers
becoming curved like claws. Moonlight streamed into the study. It hurt him. He knew that it had been long since the light had hurt him. With a blind lurch, he jumped out of the path of the uncurtained window and rolled into the darkness.

His hunger jerked him up and shoved him forward. It had been long since the light had hurt, but longer still since he had truly felt warm—since the blood of the living had filled him, permeated him, with its necessary heat.

 

Darin rolled over and sat up sharply. There was a loud pounding on his door, and an indistinct shouting filtered into the room. Shaking the sleep out of his eyes, he grabbed the wool blanket from his bed, and tying it loosely around his shoulders, got up and opened the door a crack.

In the dim light of the hall, he could see Gervin’s frantic face. “Gervin? ”

“Darin, you must come, and quickly!” The older man was breathing heavily, his shoulders rising and falling with the effort of running from one end of the castle to the other.

Darin nodded swiftly and turned to retrieve his clothing. Gervin’s shaking hand caught his shoulder before he could leave the door.

“You’ve no time to change! Come with me now, or many lives will be lost!”

“It’ll only take a few—”

“Darin.” Gervin lowered his voice, making up for the lack of volume with a terrifying intensity of tone. “The lord will walk if you cannot prevent it.”

“Walk? Gervin, what are you talking—Bright Heart!” Any idea of clothing vanished as the weight of Gervin’s words hit home. A whisper of memory chilled him.
Nightwalker. Lifeblood.
Brushing Gervin’s hands aside, Darin ran into the room, picked up Bethany, and returned. With one hand he gripped the ends of the blanket around his shoulders. His face was white with fear and loathing.

“It isn’t what you think,” Gervin said over his shoulder; already he had started to run up the halls. “The lord sent me to you himself—told me to tell you to ward the study from the outside.”

Darin didn’t feel the cold stone of the floor against his bare feet. That sensation was lost as a sudden warmth flared to life in his right hand; the staff of Culverne was glowing more brightly than it had ever done.

He thought he was never going to reach the study; the halls suddenly seemed treacherously long. He had no time to worry about what he would have to face—all of his effort was funneled into reaching Lord Darclan. His breath grew ragged as he turned the bend of the hall that led to the study.

Darin stopped in the hall as an arm suddenly shot through the closed door of the outer room to the Lord’s study. It moved so quickly that it had vanished before Darin fully understood what it had done; but he could see that a large, jagged hole remained in the wood. He felt the blanket slip from his shoulders as he brought his left hand down to the staff. The door shivered again, as if alive; the hole grew larger. Darin began to walk toward it, only now noticing that Gervin was not at his side. The crash of breaking wood obscured the sound his feet made as they lightly touched the floor. He raised the staff as if to bar the passage of whatever came through.

Too late
, he thought numbly.

Because he was prepared, he stood his ground as the shadow crawled out. It was dark with a blackness that Darin had seen only twice in his life.

But this was not the lord that Darin knew. Bethany flared brightly, and a shaft of light struck out. The creature snarled and backed away. Red flared indistinctly, and Darin realized that the eyes of the walker were upon him.

Light flared again, in a bright ring around Darin’s feet.

He has not fed in a while
.
Be wary
. Everything in Bethany’s words told Darin that her voice still felt the darkness keenly.

He didn’t need the warning; his hands gripped the staff as if it were an extension of his body. It burned steadily.

The shadow moved forward slowly.

Again the stair flared brightly, but this time the nightwalker stopped outside of its reach, cringing into a slight retreat.

“Lord Darclan.”

The creature became absolutely still. Darin took his right hand from the staff and raised it, palm up, hesitantly.

“Do you know me?”

Silence.

“Do you know Lady Sara?”

Something flickered in the wild eyes that met his; a brief, almost human pain. It looked out of place in the redness of the Dark Heart, but it was gone so quickly that Darin wondered if he’d imagined it.

And then the shadow spoke.

Darin could not recognize the voice; it was sibilant and low, as if the vocal chords had not been made for human speech.

“Initiate.” Long, that word, as if spoken by a dying man.

“Stay.” Tendrils of shadow moved in a short circle. “Light. Here.”

Darin responded with Bethany’s power, and the light that had surrounded him moved outward until it lay around the Lord like a wall.

He heard the answering cry of pain and hesitated.

Closing his eyes, Darin nodded.

Gervin walked around the bend in the hall, his chest rising and falling visibly. He stopped to lean against the wall, just beneath the ring of a large torch. The flickering shadows underlined the fatigue and relief in his face.

“In time,” he murmured.

Darin nodded, but he kept both hands on the staff.

‟Gervin. ”

The eyes of the slavemaster penetrated the shadow. He shivered and started to turn away. “Tell him.” The voice, strangled and gutteral, was still the command of his master. “Lord,” Gervin whispered. He bowed, although the bow was out of place in this strange tableau.

“Darin, the lord is a nightwalker; you know of it. You know he is different from the others, perhaps better than I. But the one thing I do know is this: He hasn’t fed in all the time I’ve served him.

“I’ve watched for signs of it; if he were trying to be subtle there would be disappearances. If he weren’t, there would be husks of bodies. I haven’t seen either.

“Do you understand? He hasn’t fed for over forty years.”

Longer. It was Bethany’s voice.
Much longer. Ah, Lady ...

“Light,
” the lord said, and cringed anew. His face was only shadow now, but that shadow twisted and writhed around two red points. Hunger drove him; pain kept him at bay—but between
these two forces there was room for shame. Stefanos, First of the Sundered, had never asked for help in his long history.

“How long?” Darin whispered, hoping that the Lord would understand. “How long?”

“Dawn ...” One tendril reached out and stopped a hair’s breadth from the barrier that Culverne had called. “For Sara...”

Darin closed his eyes. He felt the uncertainly in Bethany without having to ask.

“Darin, can you hold him?”

“I don’t know,” Darin whispered.

Gervin had no reply, but Darin felt him draw closer. There was no comfort in words, and no encouragement, but Gervin was prepared to offer what he could. Sometimes, silences were best.

He held the staff high until his arms ached with its slight weight. It inched toward the ground, drawn there by gravity and exhaustion, but the circle it had drawn shone no less brilliantly.

Time seemed to slow; the torches in the hall began to flicker—a signal of the end of their life. Darkness fell, but the light of Culverne burned on, casting its white and green along Darin’s bowed head.

It was cold here.

It grew colder still when the circle began to dim.

Darin’s heart froze for an instant as the shadows around the Lord began to take more solid form.