Page 9

DAXEEL

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The rush of bathwater falls from his rising body and splashes into the filled tub. The filmy surface of soap residue is disturbed.

Standing, Daxeel tilts his head forward, trails of water streaming down his face, and watches the rainwater cascading into a pool of murk.

That’s what he sees.

The filth of the Sacrament.

It washes from his body.

Never his soul.

And there is too much filth to see.

Tris did her duty to clean him as best as she could with a pot of warm water at his bedside and a cloth and a bar of soap. She took care to scrub his nails and comb his hair while the black powder had him.

It wasn’t enough.

Dirt and sweat and blood, it isn’t to be wiped away, but rather to be scrubbed with a brush, in a full tub, emptied, then a second and a third to make sure every speck is gone.

The hour of washing has exhausted him, fresh out of the black powder sleep. And for a beat, he just stands there—until the doorknob rattles.

His gaze lifts to the brass handle, turning, until it opens with a shudder, and Tris bustles in.

She holds the case of medicines to her chest.

Her cheeks are as flushed as the crimson of her hair, hair that has spilled out of an updo she had when she came to change out the bathwater earlier.

The flushed cheeks aren’t for him, his naked body, or that he watches her skuttle across the marble tiled floor to the mahogany bench, then sets out the case. Tris is so used to him now that those cheeks that once burned for his body, ignored by him, stop burning altogether.

Now, it tells of her workload this phase. The rush of training a new slave for Hemlock to take over in her coming absence. And the recent fumble she has fit into her schedule.

Tris gently sets out the phials, the lotions, the bandages, the moss.

Still, Daxeel simply watches her.

He can smell it on her.

Smell Dare all over her.

Tris is a slave, but one granted more freedom than most. Her willingness to slip into Dare’s bed upstairs is of her own accord.

Within reason, Tris can do what she likes.

She can wander into Dare’s bed, Samick’s cold arms, Rune’s warmth, whoever will have her. She can take her breaks out in the streets of Kithe, wander and taste and feel and smell.

Tris is a rare sort of slave, not one who was taken, but rather one who found them.

It happens more often in the light realm. But there are those who, in the human world, venture near bridges to the Midlands, to Dorcha, to elsewhere, in search of awe.

Awe-seekers.

Worshippers.

The humans who search for the fae, view them as gods, as angels, as demons—all within their limited concept of the worlds.

Simple things.

He turns his cheek to her and steps out of the tub.

Water splashes over the marble floor.

“How long?” His tone is dull, gravelled by too much rest and the grated sensation left behind by the Cursed Shadows.

He almost cringes at the memory, thick and dense darkness ripping out of him, his flesh, his bone, his muscle—his mouth .

He steels himself against the uneasiness.

Tris pads over to him, a thick and fluffy towel folded in her hugged arms. “Since the end of the passage?”

His nod is a simple swift tuck of the chin.

Tris’s steps are soft, a circle around him as she wraps the towel to his waist. “It has been four phases, shy an hour or two.”

So he has slept for four phases.

That is lengthy, even for the black powder.

His mouth tilts.

The first time he remembers waking, he suffered the anguished doting of his mother and Morticia. Melantha had parked herself on the edge of the bed for the entire time, barking orders and complaints to the healer. It reminded Daxeel too much of Aleana’s sickness, of her phases in bed.

The second time, he called for Eamon—and muttered for him to take the pouch of coin from his nightstand. For Nari. For a healer, for a full belly, for…

His jaw tightens.

For what, exactly?

Did he have any true motivation? Perhaps he considered, in the back of his mind, that the gesture would lure Nari to his bedside.

It didn’t. Even if he slept through it, he would smell her in his bedchamber, somewhere, a mere ribbon of her familiar scent.

Did he offer it to soothe his own guilt, that burrowing sensation deep in his chest, the one that spills like a bucket kicked over, a constant spread of cold tar just sludging through him?

No, it was neither of those.

There was no tangible thought in his mind when, dazed, he looked to the drawer of the nightstand, then watched Eamon fish out the velvet pouch—for her. It came to him naturally, an instinct that is gone but is so learned, so ingrained in him, that he didn’t question it.

Daxeel’s nostrils flare around a deep inhale, a drawing of breath that expands his chest. He shoves the thoughts to the back of his mind, where they must stay.

Nari is not a thought to dwell on, not anymore.

Their connection…

He made sure to sever it.

And it is severed.

Loosening a soft sigh, Daxeel dresses in plain trousers and a sweater before he leaves Tris behind in the washroom, and he heads downstairs.

The dining hall is empty, and it would be silent if it wasn’t for the crackling of the hearth.

But the table is full.

Tureens and lidded bowls line the centre of the table, untouched, the heat and moisture sealed.

No one has come to dinner yet. And Daxeel has no desire to drop into one of those seats and fill his plate.

He stalks the length of the table, snagging a crisp apple on his way to the balcony.

His feet are bare, cold, on the limestone balcony.

The winds lash the town.

He bites down on the apple, hardly tasting the sourness on his tongue, as he looks out at the town.

The longer he stares out into the darkness, beyond the threshold of litalf sight, the more obscured his own vision becomes. A faint distortion of textured black that comes in wisps and grooves folded together, weaved and threaded.

His eyes strain to make out the distortion.

Threads of chestnut brown interrupting the flow of the thick, blended darkness. Some strands wisp as though caught in the wind, others weave with the dark, but it doesn’t belong.

The frown leaves his face.

Understanding falls over him, a slow drape, and his shoulders set against the intrusion. That’s what it is. An intrusion.

She is an intrusion.

It is her that he sees the longer and deeper he looks into the new darkness. The flow of her chestnut hair; and, as he draws in a deep, filling breath, the scent of her, of plums and poison.

A scoff juts him.

He tosses the apple over the balcony.

This is his punishment, the consequence to his sacrifice.

Mother took his sacrifice, his bond, the severed tether of connection between his and Nari’s souls, and Mother paints it all over the deep darkness; taunts him.

A bitter twist to his mouth is his answer.

One wouldn’t dare risk more than that in the face of Mother and her punishments.

There is no doubt about it in his mind.

This is consequence.

But how long will it last?

Will he be haunted by the chestnut brown of Nari’s hair gliding through the thick blackness as he burns his way through the human realm? Will the winds of that realm carry her scent of ripe, rich fruit and bitter almonds?

Daxeel braces his hands on the barrier of the balcony; his eyes darken on the blackness.

Moments pass before the faint creak of the door snares behind him.

He blinks, and with that one blink, he banishes her from his mind, Mother and her consequence.

Rune is identifiable by the solid thuds of his steps, bootsteps that advance on the balcony.

Daxeel waits, hands firm on the barrier, his gaze downcast as he absentmindedly searches the gardens for a flicker of red, the apple he discarded.

Rune announces himself with a sigh before he comes up to Daxeel’s side. He folds his forearms and braces them on the balcony fence. “Dare will leave for Aiteal soon. Samick is joining him.”

“When?”

“In three phases.”

Daxeel’s mind is bogged down by the residue of the powder. So it takes him a moment of silence to calculate the phases and the weeks.

Tris said it has been four phases since the Sacrament ended. Another three weeks will pass before each of them must leave the Midlands for Dorcha to meet their units.

But before duty calls, the Sabbat will dance through the lands, Dorcha, Licht, the Midlands, and the celebration of the dead comes with it.

“Samick means to tend to his dwelling,” Rune says. “And you know how Dare is with his mother.”

Daxeel nods, faint.

“What more has Samick to do to the dwelling, I don’t know,” Rune goes on. “He’s been tending to it for years with no end in sight. Pipe problems, so he says,” Rune adds with a roll of the eyes. Last year it was the windows. The year before, the roof.”

Daxeel hums a faint sound.

A silence flickers between them.

Daxeel feels the sensation on his cheek, the force of a stare. Without a glance at him, he enunciates the word with a hint of warning; “ What ?”

Rune’s gaze rediscovers the light of Kithe, dimmer now, so much dimmer now. “If I had information on Nari, would you want it?”

Daxeel is quiet for a beat. “What sort of information?”

“Nothing nefarious. Merely updates. She is still in Kithe, did you know that?”

Yes.

No one has told him, not since a flickering moment of awareness with Eamon, though the words exchanged are obscure in memory.

He doesn’t know how he is certain Nari is here, in this town… he just is.

“She is boarding with Forranach.”

A flash of surprise alights Daxeel’s eyes. He swerves his furrowed, baffled gaze to Rune.

Rune gives a tight expression in return, an unspoken ‘ I know. ’

How did that happen?

The only question thrumming in his quiet, dazed mind. The exhaustion of the black powder is gone, but the malaise remains. Something of a muted presence draped over his mind.

Rune explains, “I talked to Niamh. She’s been tending to Nari. She sent her to Forranach. Took pity on her.”

Daxeel murmurs, “Perhaps your friendship with Nari was a motivation in Niamh’s pity.”

Rune considers him for a moment before he grunts a curt sound. “She grew on us. Not Samick, of course, but Dare and I? Yes.”

Friendship was not a threat Daxeel ever considered when he lured Nari into his home of traps.

Rune, a cutthroat dark male with ambitions that reach all the way to the rank of a general, one whose heart was severed with the loss of his evate; and Dare, the hybrid without a heart at all, but the illusion of one with his charm and fleeting fixations.

Daxeel didn’t have the mind to consider either of those two warming to Nari over time. But they did. Dare with his eagerness to stop Dax from fulfilling the will of Dorcha at great personal cost, Dare in his ear phase after phase, ‘ do you really want to do this ?’ over and over; Rune in Nari’s ear, whispering words of encouragement, and feeling the loss of Aleana with her, simply sitting beside Nari, holding her hand—and the sight of that almost threw Daxeel off balance when he left the room of death.

“How are you?”

The bluntness of Rune’s question is a spear to Daxeel’s gut. His jaw tenses, hands firm on the barrier.

No one has asked that. For good reason. Daxeel doesn’t relish the idea of folk, even brother, prodding around in his feelings .

But he gives an answer, “I don’t yet know. The fatigue of the powder is… distorting.”

After a beat, Rune says, soft. “I mourned mine. When I felt the loss—” his hand turns to press his fingertips to his chest “—and I never felt whole again… I mourned her often. There is no shame in that.”

Daxeel’s mouth thins.

He looks out to the darkness, but his mind wanders further to a place of doubt.

Is mourning what he feels?

He didn’t lie about the distortion. What he left out is the distance, the numbness.

There is a feeling within him. More than the hollow spot where she once lived, but the malaise, the fatigue, it reaches between him and his sense of being and forces them apart.

The distance is too great to make out the emotions stirring like an echo in him.

All his thoughts are shut down with a sudden crash.

Rune and Daxeel both snap their heads to the side, simultaneous instincts. Their flaring gazes pierce through the glass paned doors to the dining hall, and beyond to the doors that open to the hallway.

The crash shudders Hemlock House.

The violent slam of the door.

And quick to follow are thundering bootsteps crashing up the rug-lined stairs.

Rune and Daxeel wait in the silence, watching the doorway that spills open into the hall—and a few heartbeats later, Samick storms by… frost creeping along his cheekbone.

He doesn’t spare either of them a look before he’s gone, and the bounding thuds of his boots climb the rest of the stairs to his bedchamber.

The second slam of a door is enough to groan the house in protest.

Neither of the males on the balcony move. Neither of them follows their old friend. Because neither of them is mad enough to go near Samick when the frost touches him.

They simply share a muted look. Rune’s raised brow and Daxeel’s twisted mouth speak enough.

For his mood to be in such a state that the frost physically touches his flesh, there had to have been an altercation of some sort—between him and Kalice, or him and his once-parents… or the whole lot of them.

“ Daxeel —”

His muscles bolt to his bones.

A thick swallow bobs his throat as, slowly, he turns his back on the glass paned doors. He faces the darkness where her voice whispered from.

The landscape is unchanged.

Darkness threaded with chestnut hues, a pummelling spiral of black rising from the ruins of Comlar—and no sign of her.

Her scent lifts through the air, snares and licks all around him. But she is not here.

Steeled against the shudder nipping through him, he eyes the soft glittering lights of Kithe.

“—overheard them discussing the bloodline,” Rune’s voice sharpens from a distant murmur. “Be prepared for that conversation coming your way now that you’re awake.”

Whatever muted moment stole Daxeel fades away.

His mind is slow, too sluggish, and he blinks on the view of the Midlands before he turns to look at Rune.

His yellow eyes remain fixed on the glass paned doors. He looks to the pair now sitting at the end of the dining table, and at the sight of them, Daxeel wonders how long he was lost in thought, stolen by the faint sound of her voice…

Now, Melantha and Morticia are huddled together at the table, deep in a quiet conversation.

Daxeel turns a frown on Rune. “What?”

“The bloodline,” Rune says, as though it’s obvious. “Without Aleana and Caius, there is only you and Eamon to continue the line.”

Again, he blinks.

Rune considers him for a beat. “Should we call for the healer?”

He shakes his head, but he says nothing.

Rune just observes him, his mouth pinched, a frown furrowing above his cat eyes.

Then, without a word, Daxeel pushes from the barrier and abandons the balcony.

Morticia and Melantha both flick their gazes up at him as he stalks down the length of the table. He leaves the food untouched, does not spare his mother or Morticia a glance before he’s out in the hallway, and turning for the descending staircase.

“Dare!” is all he says, a shout that thrums through the house, the soles of his feet padding on the steps, all the way down to the foyer.

He plants himself on the velvet cushioned stool and snags out a pair of spare boots from under it.

Dare appears from the landing above before Daxeel has tied the laces.

Golden eyes flare in the dimness. “Finishing up old business, are we?”

“And relieving stress,” Daxeel murmurs before he pushes up from the stool and moves for the door.

Dare follows in silence, a smirk snaking onto his lips.