Black as Night

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

At the landing leading to the family wing, Sir Durum abandoned me for his other duties, leaving me to trail behind Neeve and Kian. Exhaustion weighted my steps, though I did my best to keep pace with my stepsister and the prince. As we traversed the dim corridors, Kian brought his considerable charm to bear, and I saw Neeve smile at him—a rare expression indeed.

Jealousy flared in my chest, sharp and bright, but I ruthlessly tamped it down. No matter what feelings I might have for Kian, he must be my friend, and nothing more.

When we reached the heavy carved door of my suite, he stepped away from Neeve and turned to me, concern in his eyes.

“Will you be all right by yourself?” he asked.

“Why wouldn’t she be?” Neeve’s voice held a hint of impatience. “She’s not a child any longer.”

“Yes, but…” Kian trailed off, studying my face.

With a shock, I realized it would be the first time in months I’d go to bed without anyone close by. Not my mother, not Sir Durum, and especially not Kian, who’d helped care for me so gently during my long recovery. If not for him, I doubted I’d be standing there. Not on my own two feet, at any rate.

“I’ll be fine,” I said, mustering up a smile for his sake. “I can ring for Sorche if I need anything.”

Assuming she was still my maid. Yet surely not that much had changed at the castle, though I’d been away over five months.

“Take care then, Rose.” He lifted his hand as if to smooth my hair, then, with a glance at Neeve, checked the motion. “Good night.”

I nodded and wearily pushed my door open. “Good night, you two.”

No matter how witty and warm Kian could be, Neeve’s icy demeanor wasn’t so easily melted, I reminded myself. She was in no danger of rashly losing her heart to anyone. Unlike myself. Though whether it was Thorne or Kian I preferred, I could not say with any certainty.

I might as well try to decide whether I loved the moon better, or the sun. Both were equally out of reach, sailing across the sky far overhead and unconcerned with the yearnings of a mortal girl.

“I’ll help you get ready,” Neeve said, unexpectedly stepping forward. “Sleep well, Kian.”

She left him standing there, blinking, and I couldn’t help waggling my fingers at him as the door shut in his face.

A cheery fire burned in the small hearth of my sitting room, pushing away the chill of impending winter. I turned, glad to see my books and a few trinkets arrayed on the shelves: a dark river-polished stone the exact color of Thorne’s eyes, a downy owl’s feather I’d found in a thicket, a bronze music box I’d brought with me from Parnese the first time I came to Raine.

“Why is he so exhausting?” Neeve asked, as she went to take one of the chairs before the fire. “I don’t know how you could have stood his company, day after day.”

“It wasn’t so bad,” I said, sinking into the other chair and trying not to blush. Hopefully, she’d attribute the color in my cheeks to the sudden warmth of the flames.

“Oh, yes, you were sick for most of that time.” She regarded me levelly, and once again I was struck by the pallor of her face, the redness of her lips. “How are you feeling now?”

“Tired,” I admitted. “It took me longer to recover than anyone wanted.”

“But the doctor you went to Parnese to see—they cured you. Didn’t they?”

“I’m here now, aren’t I?”

In truth, I didn’t remember anything about that visit, or what the doctor had done. I’d been delirious for weeks, unable to walk, or even think. The early portion of our time in Parnese was a fever-smeared blur in my mind.

Neeve studied me, a faint line between her brows. “You don’t look cured.”

“It was a hard journey.”

She tilted her head, mild sympathy in her eyes. Had our positions been reversed, I would’ve been burning with interest, questions sparking from my tongue.

Yet the fact that she didn’t press me for information made it easier to tell her some of what had transpired: our sudden, desperate flight from our lodgings, dodging the red priests at the harbor, the smuggler who’d finally agreed to help us out of the city.

Of the stranger events that had befallen us, I did not speak.

Had the red-haired leader of the priests of the Twin Gods truly summoned a massive fireball and flung it at us as we escaped? And had I really been able to wrest control of that deadly blaze and plunge it beneath the waves? It seemed a fever dream.

And it was impossible. Both Thorne and Mistress Ainya, the herbwife, had confirmed that I had not a shred of magical ability.

Not as Neeve did, inherited from the Dark Elf mother she’d never known. The power of the elves was something I could not understand. Nor acquire, no matter how much I might yearn to. Though in turn, she could not wield the sorcerous fire that a rare number of humans controlled.

I leaned back in my chair, knowing I would tell my stepsister about the encounter with the priests…eventually. Surprisingly, we kept few secrets from one another. Though the names I carried in my heart were none of her business.

“How was your summer?” I asked, hoping to steer the conversation to Thorne.

“Uninteresting.”

I let out a short, annoyed breath. It seemed I’d have to remind Neeve how to conduct a proper conversation once again. She’d clearly lost the ability during my absence.

“Don’t huff at me,” she said. “Or have you forgotten that when you left, the creatures of the Darkwood were stirring?”

“I didn’t forget.” How could I, when I still bore the scars from the wicked-clawed drake that had attacked us? “Does that mean you didn’t spend all your afternoons in the forest?”

She frowned slightly. “No. Thorne was much occupied in strengthening the magical barrier protecting the Darkwood. We scarcely had a moment for my lessons—though I did learn about the wards surrounding the forest.”

“Well, I suppose that’s good.”

I tried to suppress the flare of joy her words ignited. If I had to be deprived of Thorne all summer, it eased my pain to know that Neeve had not seen much of him either.

She gave me a sour look, as if sensing my thoughts.

“What else did you do?” I asked hurriedly, trying to divert her.

Although Neeve suspected how I felt about Thorne, the subject was not one I wanted to discuss. The one time we’d spoken openly of it, we quarreled. Badly. That grudge had lasted far too long.

My stepsister lifted one shoulder in a half shrug and didn’t answer.

“I suppose you went out riding,” I said, filling in the details she hadn’t bothered to furnish. “And weapons training?”

Two things I wasn’t particularly fond of, though my horsemanship had improved over the years. Not to her level, of course. The only ability I possessed that surpassed Neeve’s was my musical talent, and she’d abandoned that field of competition fairly quickly. Drat her prickly Dark Elf pride.

“I worked on my sword training, of course,” she said. “And herbalism with Mistress Ainya. And the normal schooling, though Miss Groves didn’t cover a great deal of material. She didn’t want you to fall too far behind.”

“Kind of her,” I said dryly.

We sat in companionable silence a moment, my thoughts blunted with exhaustion as the warmth of the fire pressed into my skin.

“I reread the book,” Neeve said at last.

I glanced at her. There was no need to ask which book. She could only mean Elfhame: A Studie of the Dark Elves and Their Wayes, which I’d discovered hidden in the library last year. Knowledge of its existence was one of our deepest shared secrets.

“Did you learn anything new?” I asked.

Though I’d read the book before giving it to Neeve, I hadn’t fully grasped it. The account of the Dark Elves’ homeland had been written in an archaic form of our language, the history rich with strange details and stranger customs.

“Yes.” Yearning tinged her voice, a mist of sorrow and resentment sheening her eyes.

She could never set foot there, in the enchanted land that was her birthright.

Had it been kind of me to give her the book, or cruel? Not for the first time, I wondered if laying that tome in her open hands had been a mistake.

The next morning, my maid Sorche—who was only a few years older than myself—appeared at my bedside with a cup of tea and a hesitant smile. Dim light filtered through the thick velvet drapes covering the windows, giving the impression that the world was underwater. With a soft groan, I pulled the pillow over my head.

“Good day, Miss Rose,” Sorche said in her gentle voice. “Will you be rising now? I understand Miss Groves is expecting to see you in the classroom today.”

Slowly, I uncovered my face, blinking against the residue of sleep that hazed my brain.

“I suppose,” I said. “Would you open the curtains?” If I wasn’t allowed to sleep any longer, I’d best get on with the business of waking up.

Sorche set the tea on my bedside table and went to the windows. A moment later, the soft gray light of October in Raine filtered into the room. With a sigh, I sat up and began drinking my tea.

“Will you need help in dressing?” the maid asked.

I wanted to tell her no, that I was perfectly fine—but the effort it took for me to hold my cup steady was proof enough that the journey had taxed my already low stores of energy.

“Perhaps, just for today,” I admitted.

Sorche bobbed a quick acknowledgment and went to my wardrobe. She folded open the doors, and it was strange to see the rows of gowns hanging there. Due to the hastiness of our departure from Raine, my choice of attire in Parnese had been limited to two gowns and the nightdress I’d been wearing when they bore me out of the castle.

Not that it had mattered, once we were in hiding. There had been nothing to dress for.

“This one?” Sorche asked, pulling out a slate-colored gown.

I nodded. Not the most flattering color—I preferred the brighter golds and reds—but it would do well enough. Especially since I wouldn’t be meeting Thorne anytime soon, and Kian had seen me at my worst. Far too often.

“Heavens,” Sorche said as she helped me into the dress, “how thin you are. I’m not sure I can fasten the back tightly enough.”

“Do your best.”

I regarded myself in the wardrobe’s mirrored door. My maid was right: the gown hung off my frame as though it had been made for a bigger girl, the fabric lying in slack folds where once it had hugged my figure. My cheeks were hollow, shadows smudged beneath my eyes. Even my hair had lost some of its exuberant spring, the color faded to dim copper.

Neeve’s assessment the night before had been right: I looked dreadful.

But I was recovering, little by little.

“Maybe a sash, to help hold it up?” Sorche asked, glancing down to where the skirts dragged on the floor.

I gave her a crooked smile. “Worth a try.”

She looped a green scarf about my waist, hitching the gown up so I wouldn’t trip. The fabric bloused around my middle, but it would serve.

“We’re not setting any fashions,” I said wryly. “But at least I won’t break my neck going down the stairs. Thank you.”

“I’m glad you’re back, miss,” Sorche said, gathering up my empty teacup as she prepared to depart.

“Me too.” At least the castle provided shelter and companionship, and whatever vestiges of family I had.

Do I belong anywhere?

I thrust the question back into the gaping abyss it had emerged from. The ache running through me was from the lingering effects of my illness, I told myself. Surely it, too, would heal.

Or at least scab over.

My suite seemed very quiet after Sorche left, and I was glad that at least I had the run of the castle. I’d spent far too many recent weeks trapped in one small apartment in Parnese—even if I scarcely had the strength to walk from room to room. Here, I had the roam of the hallways, the classroom, the library, and perhaps even Master Fawkes’ study. I wondered if the master bard had returned to Castle Raine yet for the season. Even if he had, though, I wasn’t at all sure I’d have the energy to immediately resume my studies upon the harp.