Page 27 of Antiletum (The Nocturne #1)

He probably did it after your wedding, I rationalize in a panic. There wouldn’t have been time for him to design this before.

Certainly not this meticulously .

The flowers could be a coincidence. Always intended to be used. Probably for Rainah. Val’s gifts could have been required to create something so beautiful for the future heads of the faction. Not even growers can cultivate a garden quite like we can, batting death away.

My own explanations don’t settle me, deep inside intrinsically knowing that things are amiss. That this drawing, the garden, they’re tied to whatever secrets of Val’s Rainah wanted me to be wary of.

How completely arrogant of him. Leaving the drawing out where I could easily find it. As if he wanted me to. As if he wanted me to know that perhaps he was aware of what lay ahead for us, long before I did.

You don’t even know me.

I know enough .

The encounter, the subtle connotations batter against my skull.

It’s not out of the realm of possibilities that Val’s father could have been in talks with Parliament, a marriage sanctioned between us before the demise of Rainah and her betrothed, of Val’s father and brother.

Par for the course with everything in my life, I was just the last to learn.

If that’s the case, why hasn’t Val told me? Some might say it’s destiny. In a way, I suppose he did. But I was too naive to listen.

Angrily, I yank open his bedside drawer.

A glass jar rolls around, five or six clear caplets clinking inside.

Pulling it out, I have to know what kind of medication Val would keep so close.

I yank off the cork stopper with my teeth, biting far more harshly than necessary, then spit it across the room.

The little pills spill out in my hand; I inspect them closer. Sniffing. Barely an inhale blasts my senses with the unpleasant aroma of loamy earth and something bitter. Astringent. Nearly antiseptic.

Antiletum .

Of course, I knew Val kept personal, illegal stores. But I was unaware of antiletum pills. Only the salve to be applied to affected areas of necrosis after overly intense practicing.

I wonder…

Would taking one of these pills before using too much magic, or (better yet) practicing without your bonded pair, prevent your price from ever presenting?

Opportunity seizes me like a lightning strike.

Storm drumming louder outside, I crash throughout the room more frantically, flinging items aside.

There has to be a handheld mirror around here somewhere.

It doesn’t take long to locate exactly what I need; my heart races like the wings of a hummingbird, surely about to give out.

Without a thought, I pop one of the antiletum pills in my mouth—swallow it whole. It slides down my throat easily, only leaving the faintest unpleasant taste. Clamped in my other hand is the mirror, ebony wood handle crushed in my fist.

Deos , please let this work.

I’ve never been fully successful in conversing with the dead through a mirror.

Only when I raise a body. Last time, I only summoned Rainah just enough to conjure a faint image, silently waving to me with an opaque hand.

All my other attempts have failed completely, not a soul answering my call. I don’t know what to expect now.

But I feel the surge of my magic, wild and uncontrolled in my excited state. It condenses in my hand holding the mirror, traveling into the handle with such force that the reflective glass shivers in its frame.

“ Rainah .” A distorted death rattle is my voice, necromancy calling her spirit forth.

A bite of pain gnaws at my cheek, spreading quickly .

Fuck! I misread the use of the antiletum pills.

At the same moment, an Ellden clock on the wall creaks backwards.

As does the gargantuan Ellden clock tower in the center of the city, visible from this room.

There’s no time to ruminate about the disruption, about what I’ll have to do to stop the necrosis spreading rapidly across my face with this burst of raw, unchecked power.

My sister’s image fizzles to life across the mirror, not quite corporeal, but real nonetheless.

“Rainah!” I cry in my normal voice, tears pooling in my eyes. Longing, fierce and cruel, locks around my throat.

“Delaney.” She’s nothing but an echo. A wisp of wind fighting to make sound. Distant and never to be touched again.

“You have to tell me. Right now.” I don’t have it in me to elaborate my request, the flesh of my cheek rotting away faster. It’s hard to talk. Air cuts at the wound, slicing it with agonizing swipes.

Rainah is silent for a moment, studying me with worry. Then, without a word, her opaque hand reaches for her side of the mirror—places it against the surface. As if she could fight through the glass veil separating life and death to come across the other side.

If her body wasn’t rotten in the ground, I would have made her do just that.

But instead of coming through, there’s a distorted ripple, and a new image appears on the mirror.

Valledyn. In a room I’m unfamiliar with.

I gasp. Nearly drop the mirror.

His face is determined, manic, almost regretful. But not quite.

From beyond, Rainah’s clairvoyance is once again reaching for me. Showing me one of her memories rather than trying to verbally explain .

“It didn’t have to be like this, Rainah.” The shadowy echo of Val’s voice is difficult to parse. Not exactly cold, but more disconnected. “You could have told me the truth. And it wouldn’t have to be like this.”

“Wait!” Rainah’s terror is nothing more than a squeak.

He doesn’t oblige. With teeth gritted, the black of his eyes seeming to spread, Val lunges. Faster than I can realistically comprehend. There’s something in his hands. Long and thin, wrapped around his fingers and stretching tight.

Rainah’s vantage point changes—jostled around quickly. So much so that for a moment, I think I am dropping the mirror. But it’s still steady in my hand. She barely releases a panicked yelp before her voice is cut off on a strangled gurgle, Val no longer in view.

Strangled.

Because Val is strangling her from behind. That was a ligature he was holding. Horror eats its way through me. Owning me. Locking all my joints in place until I can’t move. Mouth hung wide open on a silent scream, my voice refuses to build and emit.

Over Rainah’s thrashing still emitting from the mirror, I just barely hear my husband, an echoing call from the past. He speaks over the sounds of him murdering my fighting sister, the edges of her vision turning black.

“It didn’t have to be this way.” More dread hammers into me at the sound of his voice.

His voice.

His voice is what breaks my paralyzation.

The mirror slips from my fingers, cramped with how tightly I grasped it, and it shatters on the floor.

Because it wasn’t Val speaking through Rainah’s memory that broke me from my spell.

That low, commanding rumble comes from right behind me. Clear and present. Uttering my name.

“Delaney.” So soft. Unhurried. Unconcerned .

Swiveling to the source, my husband walks from his bathing chamber, hair soaking wet, wearing a tight black shirt and loose black pants. Comfortable. Imposing. Monumental.

What a fool I am. His boots in the alcove weren’t a spare pair. He was here the whole time.

With a hand covering my cheek, the hole of my price has now eaten fully through flesh, exposing my teeth in a way that only the desiccation of death should do. Val takes in the spill of antiletum pills across his discarded sketch pad atop the bed. The gaping wound in my cheek.

“You’re supposed to crush it. Between your teeth.” Val’s nonchalance throws me. He shows me his teeth, bites down. Miming what I should have done with the caplet.

“Wh-what?” I stutter, sweat collecting rapidly at my hairline, beneath my arms. I’m so overtaken by fear, betrayal, and sheer disbelief the word rational isn’t even an existing part of my vocabulary. I should be running. Screaming. Fighting. Something.

My husband takes a slow step towards me.

Another. Reaches past me to the pills and picks one up.

“The antiletum caplets. For preventative measures, it works best if you crush it before swallowing. Otherwise, the effectiveness is”—his words cut off with a small, understanding smile, the flesh of my cheek filling back in—“delayed.” He throws the pill on the bed, his thumb gently tracing the freshly healed wound on my face with a tenderness that wants to tear me apart further. “Are you in pain?”

It’s disturbing—that Val appears genuinely endeared and worried, no trace of the cold brutality that he stared my sister down with right before he killed her.

Not bothered in the slightest over what I just discovered.

As kind as always when he looks at me, not even wearing any of the frustration he did not long ago, the last time I tried to contact Rainah.

Is it better or worse than if he was giving himself away through his expressions? Showing me the murderer within the man? I can’t rightly say.

I’m reeling. Freezing cold and about to be sick with a fresh wave of grief, utterly overwhelmed. The Ellden clocks make another screeching backwards trek before halting abruptly, the needles righting back to the thirteenth hour.

Val watches the clock undisturbed, walking over to a tray of food I hadn’t even noticed.

Plucks up a tiny, pink iced cake. Pops it into his mouth.

Repeats the process—twice. All the while watching me patiently.

All the while the vein in his neck thrums with the pace of my own heart.

All the while obsessively rubbing that mystery item in his fucking pocket like it’s grounding him to life.

“Why… why are you telling me this?” I finally ask. Unable to bring myself to voice anything else. I haven’t had a moment to accept what just came to light.

A foot shuffles backwards, just barely.