Promise of Dusk (Endings #1)

Chapter 25

All I know is desire and flame. The burning of that night in Tristram was but a taste of what rides me every time Fionn and I spend time wrapped in one another. His hand tangles in my hair, pulling my head back, allowing him access to my neck. Every line of him presses against me, but it isn’t close enough. No matter how hard I press against him through our clothes, it leaves me wanting. Even as I straddle his lap and try desperately for what my body is begging of me.

It wrings a groan from him as his broad hand slides to the crease where my thigh meets groin over my skirt.

“I have to go,” he gasps out. But he rains kisses on my face, and moves once more to my mouth, devouring and tasting, like it is never enough for him either.

“Okay,” I say, pulling myself a little closer.

His groan is more of exasperation now, annoyed at his own desire, annoyed at his past self for making a commitment to leave our room this morning.

The night before was uneventful, both of us too tired to take advantage of our shared private chambers, though I saw the thought flit over his face. I all but fainted into bed, its soft sheets a luxury I don’t think I will ever get used to.

He pulls back and looks at me, his eyes falling like rain over my hair, surely tousled and strange in color, my eyes, surely wanton and glazed. He draws his finger lightly down my nose and lips in tandem with his eyes. That contented honey-glazed look of his turns my bones soft and heavy, makes me caress his tanned skin back. He chuckles, warm and rich at the move.

“You have to go,” I whisper, teasing. Daring him to want his space now. “I could go with you,” I offer one last time.

He sighs, the happiness melting slightly. He softly moves my hair from my face, tucking it behind my ears. “Alyx, you know I want you to come, right?”

Lies. If he wanted me to come, he would let me come.

“I know.” I don’t let my smile budge.

“But you... are so beautiful. But so memorable.” He winces. “So memorable that if anything at all happens, you will stand out. We are stuck here for a few more days. And you know you don’t even have to be doing anything for a Crow to decide to harass you. You’re noticeable. And if one of those parasites sets his sights on you… I’ll have to stop it. You don’t know what they’re like… what they could do to people.”

I’m afraid my soft smile wavers, a ripple in the water. I do know.

He sees it. “I mean—I know you know—sort of. But they hold themselves back in front of humans. There are still pretenses to keep up here. They weren’t holding back when they destroyed my whole world. They weren’t holding back when they killed my Queen. They weren’t holding back when they leeched every bit of life from the ground beneath my feet and rendered hundred-year-old warriors helpless babes. If Elva hadn’t been there, we all would have been dead. The influx of all of that energy they wielded… none of us stood a chance.” Torment fills his eyes—something like bitter fear and hatred. “Which is why, we are going far away from here, for as long as we can. I have searched every corner of this realm for the rest of our people. They are nowhere. They are gone. We all know it. So now, we have each other.” He swallows hard. And his eyes turn possessive as they run over me, hands grasping a little harder. “And they will not lay a finger on you again. So, I need you to stay here. I’m just trying to make sure things go smoothly.”

I don’t argue with him. I know him enough to know he won’t listen to what I have to say when I really don’t need to go out—I just want to.

“Okay,” I say, softly.

And when we pry ourselves apart and Fionn takes one last look at me sitting on the bed, pulling at the water in the glass on the table, making it into wobbly shapes and trying to freeze them, I try to look understanding. I try not to look like a child put in the corner. I keep trying after the door clicks shut and I hear his swift footsteps recede.

I stay there for hours. For as long as it takes for the air to feel stale and stifling. The small window is the only source of light in the small room. I move to sit on the floor, hoping it will be cooler on my skin.

Even as my breathing slows and sweat beads on my forehead, I fight the feelings that pull me down, down, down. I lose any strength to move the water—to move the air. I lose the ability to be anything.

I just sit there where he left me. He will be back, I remind myself.

Even when I can feel the melodrama of my emotions annoy some small self-condemning part of me, I can’t stop them.

I pick at my nails, and the woodgrains on the floor. I try to reason with myself. He has his reasons; he just wants to be able to focus on the task at hand. He cannot do that if he’s always worried about you. He will come back.

Does he really feel that way? Or are his reasons just convenient?

I chew on the skin around my nails, my lungs tightening. I watch the dust float through the air in rays of sunlight.

It all reminds me of so many days spent sitting in nothingness. Being stuck.

God, I couldn’t leave, for so long.

Does it matter? If I just spend a little bit of time outside today. He won’t even notice I left. I can keep my head low. I just need to get out. I just need a distraction.

The salty streams run from my eyes to the bottom of my jaw. I can feel them drip off my chin. I don’t know how long I’ve been crying.

What if he finds me like this?

That thought make me wipe my tears away violently, breathing deeply. I may have always been some weeping creature, rotting on some floor in a past life. But I won’t let anyone see that from me again.

I stand up.

My cloak is on, hood up, before I can think. I quietly open my door and slink into the hallway. Doors line the entire length of it, a window at the end of the hallway the only lighting.

What if he has someone waiting for me to sneak out?

Do you think I don’t know you, Alyx? A ghost of a memory echoes in my lover’s voice.

Wanting to avoid angering Fionn wars with this driving urge to run—to get as far away from this place as possible. They don’t play fair, but in the end, I slip out the back door.

The sunlight outside is blinding. The heat is less stale than the room, the breeze warm and briny.

I secure my hood around my face, cursing its heavy woollen fabric, and merge with the crowd. The others wear hoods of linen and fine, summer fabrics that merely provide shade. My damned hair bleeding white from my scalp prevents me from shedding mine.

The tightness in my chest fades, burning away with the sun and the sea air. Too much stimulus drags me from the recesses of my brain.

I move through the middle-class district, small as it may be, as it bleeds to ruin and gray, the outermost district.

The minstrel’s songs ring in the background as I wander, seeking something unknown even to me. Seeing, but not touching the softest blankets from the eastern continents, the spun glass vases from the glass roads in Ashvynd. They’re illegal, but tolerated for the most part as the wealthy buy them as status symbols.

I’ve heard of the wonders of the capital my entire life. How the company of many wanderers all meld together in this place, a seamless immersion. I see skins of many shades and clothes of many fashions. The spices are warm, sharp, and tingling in my nostrils. They carry stories of meals shared across hearths all around the world, served from a loving mother, a servant to a king, wives to husbands after long working days in sun or snow. Songs in languages unknown to me float throughout the crowd, but the heart of it is familiar. Awe crawls up my throat at the sound of heartbreak known through tone if not by diction.

If this is the only time I ever have here, I’m glad to have gotten to have it .

I’m so lost in my pondering, I don’t feel them. The gleaming obsidian of armor in my down-turned vision sends alarm skittering over every inch of my body.

They are depravity in a sea of culture and communion, tainting it with every breath and leer. As they trample their way through the crowd, treading upon instruments, paints, fabrics that were abandoned in the fray in the name of self-preservation, I wonder if this is what happened to the villages overrun by the Crows. Our culture stolen from us years ago from those that only know greed. Those that know nothing of art, of love and creation—that know only greed and taking. And all that is left is this little district on the outskirts of Raith. These people who still create and hold onto culture because they have no choice. For what do we have if not those things?

I keep my eyes to the ground as I jerk out of their way. They force their way through the crowd, parting the sea of people without a single touch. Though they look hungry for it—for an adversary. They will find none in me, for now.

I slip down an alleyway, slinking into back-streets sullied by waste and drug-addled denizens of the king’s road that seek a moment’s solace. The streets this way are lined with slums and seedy taverns, unfit for the wealth that walks the road that leads to the king’s seat.

A blood-red door sits on the corner, its color stark in the otherwise drab street. My steps slow as I look up at its many stories, the windows faded and obscuring its contents, though I see the glow of candlelight through them.

“Something tells me you’re lost, girl,” a husky feminine voice says from the dark alleyway beside the building.

A black-heeled boot emerges first, and a blood-red silk robe follows, draped over a lithe body. The woman that emerges is long and graceful, every movement fluid and sensual. Her arm crosses over her chest, smoking a roll of some smelly herb from a long, golden holder with the other. Her face is sharp and angular—perfect. Her skin as fair as moonlight and her hair darker than night, cut to her chin in a blunt line. She has narrow, sharp eyes, similar to those of Deri and Aine, that peer at me curiously. A mountain cat surveying a fawn.

I suck in a breath, lifting my chin only slightly. “I’m right where I want to be.”

She looks at me a bit closer. “I think you are exactly where you shouldn’t be. In more ways than one. Were you planning to enter my employ? I could use a tall girl. You could step on a few throats for me, there’s a market for that.”

I keep my face free of the confusion that swarms me. Free of the embarrassment that comes when it dawns on me—a pleasure house—that’s what the red door contains. And this must be the Madame. I’ve heard of such women. Owning their own business, even a distasteful one, is a marked accomplishment in such a place as Suri.

I pretend to look at my nails, bitten to the quick and bloody. I hope she can’t see them. “I’m not seeking such employment, thank you. And I won’t be stepping on any throats, no matter how many people want to pay you for it.”

“Something tells me you’ll be stepping on throats, healer. You just need to find ones that deserve it,” she purrs.

Every bit of me turns to ice at the word healer. I abandon my survey of my fingers and look up at this terrifyingly beautiful stranger where she grins at me. Her white teeth are slightly too sharp. Without thought, I reach for her in my mind. I meet a wall of sound.

Sharp, screeching sound.

I drop to my knees and cover my ears at the ungodly screech rings in my ears, echoing down every pathway in my mind. The pitch is maddening and relentless.

She clucks disapprovingly. “That was very rude.” She moves to stand over me, the scent of burning lavender wafting from her. “You are but a babe. How did you get here, healer? And why are you in the king’s city? The very city where your name and likeness are plastered over every news-board.”

The ringing. The screaming. I can feel myself drop further to the ground, curling around myself, trying to do anything to muffle the sound that comes from nowhere.

“Why don’t you step into my office. We can have some girl-talk.”

The ringing stops, the agony replaced by the sounds of my gasping breaths. The bustling street noises sound like whispers in comparison. I look up at her where she waits expectantly, all dark feline amusement.

I clamber to my feet and wonder how quickly my lifeless body would hit the stone if I ran.

She must see the thought as it flits across my face. “None of that. Come along now.” She tilts her head this way and that, seeing down to the marrow of my bones. “I promise, you won’t make it far. If you come with me, we may trade secrets. I find them to be far more useful than money. I won’t tell anyone, not even your beautiful companion. What’s his name? Fionn? I remember seeing him around, years ago. How finely his immortality suits him. Unchanging, so glaringly recognizable because of it.”

I know my eyes are blown wide. How does this stranger know these things? And what is she? Her build and mental power says Danaan. But there is something else that lurks under her skin and I’m reminded of when Elva spoke of others that walk through rifts and glide between worlds.

She turns and begins walking back to the shadows of the alley, each step loud on the stone streets.

As she knows I will, I follow. I look each way, seeking a rescuer. A pair of Crows wander into the road a few cross-streets down, seeking out prey. I cannot help but think I stand a greater chance getting away from them than getting away from her.

But years of conditioning keep me from engaging with them.

As the shadow of the pleasure-house swallows me, I pray to whatever apathetic god that I see sunlight again.

She stands in front of the brick wall and, after a moment, the sound of stone grating against stone grits against my ears. A glance reveals a segment of brick shifting back to reveal a hidden alcove with steps leading underneath the building.

As I follow her through, flame bursts to life. Sconces running along the stone tunnel illuminate the way, which is seemingly endless. I follow her down a short stretch of it and through a wooden door, into what must be her office.

The walls are swathed in green velvet drapes decorated with silver beads. Red wood furniture fills the space. Tchotchkes clutter every surface. Heavy golden statues depict all manner of beings, from nude goddesses to three-headed serpents stare at me. A diadem of heavy silver and ruby hangs from a curvy feminine statue’s hand. A heavy bookshelf is on the opposite side of the room, containing tomes older than the ground beneath my feet. It’s a hoard of treasure.

“Why am I here?” I gather the courage to ask, standing awkwardly in the center of the room, blatantly out of place.

She ignores me, sinking down into a plush chair at a desk, and pours herself a crystal tumbler of amber liquid. Lighting another rolled smoke, she takes a long drag. I smell something more warmly spiced this time. “Can I not just be curious about you? So rare to see, your kind.”

“My kind?”

“Fae, I suppose. You don’t look odd enough to be any other mind-reaching kind. I’ve never seen humans mind-reach, have you?” She looks at me expectantly. “Even though you clearly need practice.”

“I’m human,” I say.

She narrows her eyes at me, assessing. “Is that so? What an interesting new development for your kind, then.” She sounds placating though as she runs her eyes over my body.

“What are you?”

She chuckles. “What do you think I am, healer?” She looks to be playing her favorite game, leaning back in her chair, taking another pull, then another sip from her drink.

“Well you say, ‘your kind’ a lot for a Fae,” I surmise. “So you’re something other. Not of this world.”

She smirks. “That leaves an indefinite number of other species, if I’m counting right.”

“You’re Fomorian.” I feel the walls closing in on me even as I guess it.

She laughs deeply at that. The sound is loud and jarring, out-of-place from her lips. “That’s too rich, actually. The way you’re so clueless is almost… charming. No, healer, I’m not one of those. How about this: I’ll tell you one secret for another, and it has to be one I don’t already know, and your answer has to be the truth. I’ll know if it is not.” She smiles coyly.

“Why do you keep calling me that?” I ask, agitated. I was never a healer, not truly. A healer’s apprentice at best.

“I’ll ask questions first, I think.” She twirls the tumbler in her clawed hands, painted blood-red to match the door of her business. “Who are you?”

“I thought you already knew that.” It takes everything in me to keep my voice strong. She still awaits my answer, as if I had said nothing. What a loaded question. How does one summarize the entirety of their being? I can think of no other way than to begin listing the things I know with unequivocal certainty. “My name is Alyxara vch Seren, daughter of Garrick Erisson. I used to be a healer’s apprentice. I’m a human with powers that came from somewhere... I don’t know. I can mind-reach, I can wield…” I trail off as she looks at me in boredom.

“How droll. You really know nothing.” She sighs and leans back again. She waves her hand dismissively. “You may go.”

I blink stupidly. “What? I did what you said! You owe me a secret.”

Her lip curls as she gets to her feet and hisses, “You speak lies.”

I shake my head in denial. “I spoke truth. What do you want to hear?”

She comes to stand directly in front of me. Her eyes narrow and go distant for only a moment, before she hisses, “I thought to speak to someone who might have something interesting to say. You think that you’re just a special human? Like you don’t follow the rules of nature? I’ll tell you this for free. You aren’t special. Rare, yes. But not something that lives outside of the natural order of the goddess that created you. Rack your brain, healer. And take care in this city—better yet, run from it as fast as you can, or you’ll learn things you would rather stay blind to.” She lifts her chin elegantly, gesturing to the door, waiting for me to leave. “Go. I have an appointment shortly.”

Mind spinning at the interaction, I turn on my heel to leave.

“Feel free to return when you have a real answer to my question, Alyxara.”