In the Darkness (22 page)

“Because you live in the palace now?”

“Yes. And…”

“You can tell me, Evin. It’s okay.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, and a look crossed his face. A forlorn sadness that he must not want her to see, because he hid it almost immediately. All expression vanished from his face. Unexpected sympathy welled up in her, a foolish desire to fix everything for him.

“I had a friend,” he said in a controlled voice. “He was good. And he died. Someone at the market looked like him.”

“Do you want to tell me about him?”

He shook his head and used fingertips to wipe at his eyes.

“You were hunting the demon that killed your friend when Cydrich—”

“
Used
me. Almost
killed
me.”

“Yes,” she answered softly. No doubt that his distress was genuine. It hadn’t been an attack at the market, after all. He just needed to grieve.
It’s a wonder he held together this long.

But no, it wasn’t a wonder. He was strong. How many men would have been driven insane by what Cydrich had done, compelling Evin to make the long march without rest as his body failed, dying of thirst?
Anyone would have gone mad. I would have.

And what came after? He was an invalid here in the palace for weeks. Brought back to health only because Denua wanted him. Because she had the sorcelry to keep him. Because he was too pretty a treasure to pass up.

Let him mourn his friend. At least that part of his mind is his own.

Evin had finished wiping at his eyes. He watched her now with a measuring look, and she took the uncomfortable notion that he could hear her thoughts.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been rude. Would you like some wine, Captain?” He held his goblet out to her.

“No! No. I need to go. I’ve done what I needed to do here.”

He nodded, his gaze locked on her own.

“Except I think I can help you feel better about today. Her Majesty’s sorcelers are required to examine the things we bring into the palace. They will return all the devices you purchased, as long as none are tainted with blood sorcelry. They would have been borrowed from you for examination no matter what. Do you see?”

“Oh. Yes. I guess so. But the old woman—”

“She is fine. She’s not in the dungeon. We know where she is, and she
will
go to the dungeon if any of the items you bought are tainted, but honestly, I don’t expect it.”

“It’s just, she was perfectly nice, like anybody here in the castle. She didn’t deserve the way they treated her.”

“Well, the queen might be willing to pay her something to make up for the trouble. I could ask. Would you like that?”

“Yes. Please.” He seemed honestly relieved by the promise of making amends to an old merchant who meant less than nothing to anyone. Certainly anyone Simone Uliette knew.
Sweet farm boy.

Denua’s sweet farm boy.

Chapter Twenty-one

Gareth collapsed into his cot after another long night of training.

Devinyeau told him why he had been trained with weapons. The bow was for enemies who used ranged weapons against him from high up. The sword would be used as Father taught him, to deflect blows and cut the arms off attackers before they got too close. But Gareth had a special weapon. The claw of his free hand. In some ways it would be his best, because he couldn’t drop it and he could kill with it no matter how close a foe came. No matter how many leaped on him, he could tear them all up.

Cydrich told him that if anyone managed to chop off his hand or arm, he should pick it up and stick it back on, so it could heal and he wouldn’t have to wait for it to regrow.

But nobody told him who he would fight or why.

He curled up in the bed, exhausted but trying to stay awake to see at least a little of the daylight through his cell’s window. Months ago when he lived with his parents, he might have thought having the window a great kindness, especially because it didn’t have bars. He could climb out of it at any time.

He could if he were free.

When sunlight warmed his cheek, he sighed and rolled onto his back.

Evin stood watching from the corner of the room.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Gareth said.

“I’ll only stay a little while.” Evin moved to the side of the cot and put his hands on Gareth’s body. Gareth discovered he had forgotten his nightshirt. He lay naked under Evin’s hands, and they warmed him so.

Evin stroked Gareth’s stomach, letting his hands curl over each of the bunched muscles. He put a finger, white as bone against a field of grass, into the cup of Gareth’s navel and stroked around it. Stretching it as if preparing it for fucking. His touch tickled Gareth down to his spine.

Gareth put a hand on Evin’s soft back cheek, petting it, kneading it gently. “I didn’t have my bath today. I was too tired.”

“You always are. All the training. You know I don’t mind.” Evin moved his hands apart. He took Gareth’s cock and stroked gently, making the sheath of skin cover and reveal the tip. It throbbed in its hardness. So many months had passed since he’d been touched with small, hot hands. Evin stroked fingers around his nipples too and pinched them, sending bolts of the good tickle flashing through him between the places Evin stroked.

He wanted to close his eyes and experience touch alone, but then he wouldn’t be able to watch Evin. The copper in his hair really was ablaze in the day, just like Gareth used to imagine. It looked dangerous to touch.

No matter what Evin said,
he
was the beautiful one. With his soft, sure smile. Kind eyes. Perfect white skin and fuzziness.

He knew what he did to Gareth, the fires he kindled with his touches, with his kisses, with every part of his body. Fires that burned without hurting, that made Gareth want to burn with him forever and ever. And he looked down at Gareth, and whatever he saw in Gareth made him smile.

It would be worth enduring anything to keep him safe.

Evin’s breeches dropped away, and Gareth pressed in to get his finger to the place Evin liked. As he touched the warm hole, he found it already slick with spit. Plenty.

“I prepared for you. See?” Evin asked. “I want you inside. I want us to join, like we’re supposed to.”

“Like we can’t no more,” Gareth said. He spat in his hand and took over for Evin stroking his cock.

Evin said, “It’s not your fault. You said you’d believe me.”

“No, not my fault. My parents were going to give me to him anyway. I got to be happy for a little while. You knew me and let me love you.”

Evin straddled Gareth’s body and engulfed him, quick as a mouth or stroking hand.

They moaned together.

Evin’s hot, quivering tightness embraced him completely. “You’re good at everything we try,” Evin said. And in a moment, he started to move.

Gareth did have to close his eyes then, because like rubbing sticks together, the slick places of their flesh stroked together inside Evin and caught flame. Licks and tongues of it raced up and down Gareth’s cock, burning in the good way, making him want to burn more.

That was what he needed to tell Evin.

Evin surged above him, holding to Gareth’s chest—not forgetting to knead Gareth’s nipples—clenching and rising and falling, bringing Gareth close. The fire took over, and Gareth couldn’t remain still. He moved his hips; he couldn’t stop it. He rose to meet as Evin fell, slamming into him. “I love it. I love it,” Evin said.

He fucked faster and harder. His own breath came in gasps, and still Evin begged for more. He could feel the tip of his cock hitting that perfect place inside Evin, and he balanced on the edge.

“Oh, Gareth, I love it!”

They broke together, and floods came to calm the fires. Gareth’s seed pulsed into Evin again and again, and it seemed Evin matched every drop.

Gareth drifted down slowly.

Evin still knelt, impaled on him. Still smiling at whatever he saw in Gareth. Still smiling, but the words he spoke were simple truth.

“All of this is finished,” Evin said.

“I know,” Gareth said. “I have to do the job soon.”

“Yes.”

“Remember, I asked if I’m cursed for something I haven’t done yet?”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I’m sorry, Evin. I don’t know what it is, but I think I have to do it now. I can’t stop it. I can’t, or he’ll hurt you and keep hurting you till you die.”

“You’re going to protect me.” Evin swirled his hand in the seed on Gareth’s chest.

“I’m supposed to kill people, I think. Lots of real people, not like me. I don’t want to.”

Evin nodded. “You try to find a way to take the blame for everything.”

Gareth looked out to the sunlit day. He wouldn’t be able to say it if he saw Evin’s face. “When you go back, will you tell them? Will you warn them? Tell them about the fire. Tell everyone about the fire. If they can burn me first, I won’t have to kill nobody, and you’ll be safe forever.”

Silence.

“Evin? I told you I loved you once. On accident, but it’s true. Before, when it was you and me… You never said—”

Gareth looked back from the window and found he was alone in the cell.

Chapter Twenty-two

Gareth sat inside Cydrich’s traveling wagon as it rattled and jounced on a rough road through the woods. They had left the good road a while ago. The wagon was a little house on a cart. Gareth could look out the window to see the trees passing by. He had seen signs along the way too. If only he could read, he might know where they were.

Gareth was in the larger of the wagon’s two rooms, in the back. He shared the space with a coffin-sized wooden box locked with bands and seals, a chest of Gareth’s soldier equipment, bags of horse feed, and bags of powder in many colors, which Cydrich said would make paint. Cydrich was in the wagon’s other little room, the one with a bed and a chair, making what he called his final preparations. He had put a pendant on the horse, one that somehow made it pull them wherever he intended to go. He had to, because the horse was so frightened of Gareth that it would only have tried to run away.

They left the tree line and trundled into a field. Dawn would come soon. The sky had begun its change from nighttime blue to daytime white. But with snow everywhere, they wouldn’t be hidden even in what remained of the darkness.

The cart stopped moving.

Cydrich came out of his room. He was dressed in a black robe with a hood. He grinned at Gareth, picked his way through the cart, took a feed bag, and left through the wide back door.

Gareth followed. He halted for a moment when he saw the great wall on the other side of the field, which stood at least four times his height and curved away into the distance in either direction. Behind it, snowy rooftops and, much farther behind, impossibly large buildings. Not like Cydrich’s home, which was a single tower, but great buildings that sprouted towers. Rhyd had once said the world contained hamlets and villages and towns and cities and kingdoms. Gareth wondered which this place was.

Cydrich had put the feed bag on the horse’s bridle and ordered it to eat. The pendant hanging on its neck forced it to do so. It stood unnaturally still and ate, though its eyes rolled without ceasing.

It could smell Gareth even when he was inside the wagon, he presumed. It had marched for leagues in terror of him. The thought made him sick. He put a hand on the horse’s rump to soothe it, to demonstrate that he didn’t want to eat it or hurt it at all.

“Leave it,” Cydrich said. “It will never calm down as long as you’re here.”

“I’m sorry,” Gareth told the horse.

Cydrich came over. “This is Parige, Gareth. Have you heard of it? The capital city where the queen lives.”

A city, then. Still in Elyrria.

“Today you do your job. Bring the large box. Take it to the field and stand it on end.”

Gareth did as he was told. Cydrich unlocked the box’s seals and bands, handing each to Gareth as he removed them. “Put these into the wagon. Strap on your weapons and gear and return.”

The armor Gareth donned was leather with great metal plates attached to it. It was carefully designed to fit him, made so that he could put it on by himself. Unlike the knights of old, he had no squire. Gareth’s gloves had leather palms and a metal back but no fingers: He would be able to wear them properly whether his hands ended in fingers or claws. He sheathed a sword in a scabbard hanging from his belt, slipped a quiver and a bow over his back, and covered himself with a full-face helmet. Then he returned to Cydrich.

Cydrich had finished unfolding the wooden box, revealing that it contained a man-sized mirror within a heavy frame. Its surface was clean now, showing no trace of the blood that once coated it. Gareth’s gut wrenched at the memory of how Cydrich had tortured him to ensorcel it.

“Come closer, boy; no need to be afraid. There, now, stand close so you can see yourself.”

In the depths of the glass, reflections were strange and imperfect. Behind him, the slowly brightening sky was clear and the snow covering the field was pristine, almost luminous; but in the reflection, a green-black smoke roiled, leaving only a couple of feet of visibility. As Gareth moved closer, he saw his reflection emerge, wavering and indistinct, from the smoke. It quickly grew more solid, and after a few seconds the smoke swirled away into the background. Gareth looked at a perfect image of himself, a green-skinned soldier with eyes like full yellow moons showing through his helmet’s eye slits.

“Put your hand up to the glass. Touch it.”

He reached out to the mirror. He expected to find a cold, flat, unyielding surface. Instead his fingertips touched flesh. With a slight ripple, the glass disappeared and the mirror became a doorway to that other dark and hazy world.

“Good. Help him. Reach in and pull him out.”

Gareth was confused, but he took his image by the hand and led him out of the mirror. The sorceler motioned for them to step toward him and stand side by side. Cydrich would want their full attention, but Gareth couldn’t help turning his head just enough to share amazed glances with his twin.

Cydrich looked both of them over, cackling to himself. He lifted the image’s arms, pulled off its helmet, touched its face. “Tell me,” he said to the image, “do you know who I am? Where we are?”