XVII

When Laila barged her way through into Darius’s chambers it was without so much as a knock, and she found the occasso mid-repose with his riding boots propped up on his desk.

“Laila,” he acknowledged with a smile. He was in full hunting attire and his fitted buckskin leathers shamelessly exhibited the powerful musculature of his thighs. The garments were spotless, however, as he hadn’t yet left.

She closed the door behind her. “What would you say if I told you I’d discovered Sergius Severis had been exchanging memory boxes with Sadik Yilan?”

Darius’s face migrated through a series of emotions before settling on acceptance. “Well, first of all, I would have to acquiesce to your methods and wish you a job well done. Second, I would have to say: Fucking oblivion.” A roguish look settled on his features. “I didn’t think you’d have it in you—using mind-altering enchantments to get what you want.”

She squirmed under the pride he showed her, that there was a part of her soul that matched his. “I just didn’t want you to torment him any longer. If using a glamour spares him the ordeal, then…”

“Of course.” Darius fidgeted with his signet ring and lowered his legs from his desk. “Yes… I suppose there are ways of extracting information without roughing someone up a bit.”

Laila made her way towards his desk and perched herself atop it. “Well?”

“Sadik Yilan has been a thorn in my side for the better part of a decade now. Seems he’s found himself an alternate supplier of what he wants in my stead.”

“And what does he want?”

“Power.” Darius spread his arms out. “Particularly chaos magic, as it can be imbued in objects for the ease of use in mundane mortals. Though, as you can imagine, I doubt that will work out for him long-term…”

Laila’s brow furrowed. “What is it?”

Darius closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I am going to tell you something I perhaps should have a long time ago.”

“Darius, what?” Laila took his hand in both her own. “What is it?”

“It’s Dominus,” he revealed after a swallow. “He’s alive.”

Laila drew a breath. “But you—” Her body recoiled with fierceness before she managed to ask. “How… How long have you known?”

“Since before you came here.”

Laila nodded in understanding. “And have you told anyone else?”

“No.” He stroked his thumb over her backhand. “I wanted to tell you this because I didn’t want to keep this from you anymore. Because I think you deserve to know.”

“So what happens now?”

Darius drooped his head. “I have to admit I don’t know. I’m trying to craft a chimera to capture him, but after…”

After having killed Dominus the once, he didn’t know if he had it in him to put him down again. But the threat he posed to his rule was prominent, and he couldn’t afford to take risks.

“We’ll approach that when the time comes.” Laila nudged her way into his lap, resting her arm on his shoulder. “Do you know where he is?”

“Thalistan.”

“Well, that’s the largest country on the continent.” Laila breathed a wry laugh. Then she remembered something. “Wait, Lyra, she…” Her sudden mission in Thalistan and her caginess therein grew clear. She’d always been an abysmal liar—avoidance was her key.

Darius searched her face for insight. “What?”

“My mother must know.” As always, she was hurt but not remotely taken aback by Amira’s deception. “She sent Lyra to Thalistan of all places. The coincidence would be too great.”

“Then we’ll have to find him first,” Darius told her at once. “The trouble is… if Dominus somehow happens to cross paths with Sadik Yilan… Our blood has been purported to have special properties due to our direct descendancy from Calante. If Sadik gets ahold of him, he could do a lot of damage.”

“How soon can you get your chimera prepared?”

“It’ll take some time, but I’ll get it done.” He reached to tuck her hair behind her ear. “We’ll get through this. I promise.”

Laila closed her eyes as he traced his finger down her cheek, gripping his wrist to hold it there. It was inadvisable to let herself become accustomed to his touch again, but she couldn’t keep herself from kissing his knuckles, one by one.

Darius let his hand linger before he took it away. “I think we’ve both earned ourselves a stiff drink.”

Laila managed a soft chuckle and shook her head. “I’m not sure that’s wise.”

“Oh, come now, I don’t see the harm in a little night indulgence.” He grinned roguishly at her and gestured to a silver tray with a decanter filled with warm gold wine. “Graviji wine.” He lifted the crystal topper and poured two glasses. “Traditionally it is meant to be served in times of sweetness and the presence of victory, so I think it appropriate.”

He handed her a glass and clinked it against his with a smile.

She inhaled the perfumed bouquet and let it lightly fog her senses before she took a sip. The beverage soothed her palate with its saccharine composition. It was certainly no nectar wine, but she liked it all the same. “It’s very sweet.”

“Yes, it is made from a particular form of grape affected by a fungus known as noble rot, which enhances its flavour.”

She sniffed in amusement. “Is there anything you Mortesians consume that isn’t rotten in some form?”

“When you come to live in a land like ours, you either risk starvation or you start to become inventive with your culinary skills,” Darius retorted before taking his own modest sip and closing his eyes to relish it. “And rot has its uses. It is how I managed to resolve some of our more finicky crop yields.”

“Oh?” This caused her to straighten in interest.

“Without my father’s egregious caps on funding, I was able to expand my intellectual investigations to agriculture. I started looking into ways to utilise poisons to eliminate pests and rodents. To transfer waste and excrement into compost to improve soil health. I even started looking into blood meals due to the relative power a faction called the Vidua Nocte attained through similar sorcery to keep their lands evergreen—”

“I think I heard about this,” Laila said. “Dominus took me to their lands once.”

“Ah, did he now?” His lips quirked as though he wasn’t sure whether to be amused or not. “In any case… what I discovered was a pale imitation of what the sorceresses were able to generate, but I do believe with some progress I can bolster yields by quite a large margin.”

“Ah… is that why you refused my mother’s ætherglass initiative?”

“Not exactly. Food production has been a tug-of-war between landmasters and the Vidua Nocte for generations.” Darius took a long sip from his glass. “Where the Vidua Nocte comes in is that they’ve exploited that to control the flow of crops, hiking up prices during famine. If your ætherglass plan is effective, then they’ll likely be antagonised by it. Sabotage is sure to follow.”

“Can we not reason with them?” Laila asked.

“They would sooner let this country fall to ruin than to give up any shred of power or influence over it.”

“Can they really not be stopped?”

“It’s complicated. They have the magic on their side. Blood magic amplifies, but it cannot do it alone. You’ve seen what occassi can do. Imagine one of us draining the power of an entire burial ground. To fight her is to go up against ten warriors at once. I saw the way the Vidua Nocte strong-armed my father during his reign, and it always ended with him on the losing end. I feared the same fate. However, that was before I had the chimeras. Now”—he smiled at her—“I think we could negotiate.”

“You’ve accomplished a lot over the years.” Laila traced the rim of her glass. “You’ve flourished.”

“I have you to thank for that.” His eyes lifted to her face in an unyielding smoulder. He was drinking in every inch of her lithe form, savouring her presence with the same thoroughness as he did the sip of wine.

Immediately, Laila could feel a heat seeping up her spine, spreading along her chest and rising up to her cheeks. She didn’t know how he managed to do it. Make her flushed and breathless like she was an innocent starlet again. “Well, I think I did very little in the grand scheme.”

“You undersell yourself immeasurably,” Darius said, his voice low and softened in a way that felt unspeakably intimate. “I wouldn’t be seated where I am today, accomplishing all I have, if it weren’t you. Even now, twenty years later, you are still opening my eyes to new perspectives. Still challenging me.”

She couldn’t keep the swell of pride from blooming across her lips in a smile. “If I’m the only one to do that in all this time, then it seems you shall be in woeful need once I am in Soleterea again.”

“I’ll drink to that.” He smirked into his glass as he took an even longer sip, his eyes never once leaving her.

Laila moistened her lips before joining him, and regretted it immediately for how the wine made her head swarm. The air between them had gone charged, crackling. She could feel it in the way the tension danced along her skin, making her throat tickle. “Perhaps you’ll find someone else to do that for you. In time.”

“Oh, that I doubt.”

She flinched in bewilderment. “Surely you—”

“Laila.” It was just that. Just her name. But the gravity with which he spoke it was enough to make her stammer into silence. “I already know there won’t be someone else, because whoever it is will not be you.”

Laila sucked in a breath, lips parting to speak.

He lifted a hand to halt her. “Please, don’t take this as a heartfelt declaration of my affections. Though certainly I’ve done that enough times by now. And don’t take this as a ploy to stir you into confessing the same. I just need you to know there will be no ‘someone else’ after you, Laila. For me, you’re where it ends. This is true for me regardless of whether you reciprocate.”

Laila’s throat thickened. No matter how many times he expressed it, she would never be able to brace herself for how relentless his devotion was, without any rhyme or reason as to why. Her gaze dropped to the sculpted shape of his mouth, and without thinking she leaned in to press her lips against his. For a moment she rested there to feel him against her, to refamiliarise herself with the impression of his mouth as though it might be the last time she would ever experience it.

She drew back to find Darius chasing the trajectory of her lips before he brought her in to kiss her more forcefully. She renounced her better judgement, embracing the intensity with which he coaxed open her mouth and followed it with the skilful glide of his tongue. The kiss was a strenuous one, full of heavy breaths and drawn out sighs, both of them eager and ravenous to claw at each other however they could.

Laila was the one to pull back, take a sober breath, and rest her forehead against his. “We shouldn’t do this here.”

“I know,” he said, preparing himself from the worst when she did not immediately leap from his lap. He’d been anticipating this. The gentle letdown. He stroked her hair one last time, just to get the chance to do so.

Laila looked down at him, eyes clouded with desire. “I want you again,” she said, surprising them both. “I haven’t thought of anything else.”

The words made him throb with longing, and for a moment he debated whether he was in a dream. “You have me.”

Laila smiled sadly, cupping his cheek in her palm. “For how long?”

“However long you want me.” Darius kissed the tip of her nose. “I know you’ll be going back to Soleterea. But, in the meantime, there’s no reason why we simply can’t enjoy each other’s company while we have it.”

She shook her head, rueful. “You won’t content yourself with that. I know you, Darius. You’ll always want more.”

“I will,” he replied, “but now that I’ve experienced what it is to have you in my arms again, we can’t go back to how it was before. I’m going to come to you. I won’t be able to stop myself.”

Laila’s pulse quickened. “And what if I don’t let you in?”

“Oh, you’ll let me in.”

She couldn’t deny that, no matter how much she may want to. “So what happens now?”

“I’m going to keep giving you very persuasive reasons why I think you should stay here and be with me… and perhaps one day you’ll decide that’s what you want too.”

The research institution of Darkwater Towers rested on a broken chip of land off the coast of Mortos. Forebodingly named the Isle of Death, it gained infamy as a breeding ground for deep-sea monstrosities. Such creatures had sent many a wayward vessel to a watery grave and left ravaged skeletons strewn across the shore.

It was partially this air of danger and superstition that caused the ruling monarch of the time to seek out the land for construction. There, he created an impenetrable fortress that would later host the conclaves of his secret organisation. This order would concern themselves less with matters of brutal warfare and instead focus more on the cerebral and supernatural. All the mad, experimental acts of chaotic magic that were usually left to the realm of the feminine.

Darius travelled by hippogriff across the treacherous terrain, knowing it would be better to fly than to hazard his survival on the sea. He watched the lapping white waves, pale as milk, thrashing against rugged shoreline and rattling a few decaying remains as they descended onto the footpath leading to the gates of the tower. It was guarded by two imposing stone watchers that were quick to come to life and attack any suspected intruders.

Darius approached the enchanted barrier that had been cursed to only recognise a visitor by a spoken phrase, lest the stone guardians be roused from slumber.

“From knowledge comes deliverance,” he recited, and the doors retracted with a shuddering rumble. He rode through to the stone pavilion and dismounted, handing off the reins to a stableboy who arrived to receive him. Then he ascended the steps into the foyer, where the hall was flanked by a procession of bronze busts depicting past patrons of the establishment. A gold plaque detailed the names, dates, and notable quotations of all individuals. He stopped to admire his own likeness as Faustus, head scholar of the institute, descended the steps to greet him.

“Ah, Your Majesty,” the occasso greeted, cloaked in the deep plum velvet representative of the order. Around his shoulders jingled a livery collar fitted with the medallions of all the topics he had mastered. “You’ve been expected.”

“Haven’t been missing me too long, I hope?” Darius asked with a slight quirk of his lips.

“Somehow I manage to distract myself. There is still much to learn within these walls and many books to read.”

“Well, at least I may soothe myself in knowing there is a productive outcome of me keeping you up at night,” Darius retorted, his laugh a low tiger rumble.

Faustus had been a colleague and then travelling companion during the many expeditions Darius took touring the country uncovering ancient relics and cataloguing creatures of myth and legend.

Darius hadn’t thought about him intimately in centuries, but he still derived pleasure from their toothless flirtation. “I received word that the chimera is ready.”

“She is indeed. Come, I shall guide you to the fruits of your labour.” Faustus ushered him towards the stairway that led up to the laboratories. He snatched the handle of a gas lamp along the way.

They ascended the humid gullet of the tower to the experimental chambers, where several alchemists and artificers swept the floors with their long velvet robes. They drifted in and out of rooms with scrolls and tomes in hand, murmuring academic chatter.

Each floor was dedicated to a specific branch of research—from the weaponization of black magic to the synthesis of toxic plants to pharmaceuticals. Most restricted of all was Darius’s chimera creation, which he’d first put to use under his father and further expanded during his rule.

In the past, he had combined many creatures in the hopes he might create at least one that survived the process. Yet they had only degraded into amorphous masses of flesh with leech-like mouths, fused together with many limbs and teeth and tentacles.

Upon seeing each of these abominations, Darius had demanded the bodies disintegrated, and then he started over. He could still remember the agonised cries of horror as the flesh corroded, begging for escape, made even more harrowing by the fact that the pleas were multiplied by its many mouths.

The cries had stained his mind for years as he devoured his way through book after book, desperate to understand what it was he had missed, where he had gone wrong. That was when Dr Emica Hariken had stumbled into his lap, filled with chaos magic. It seemed that somehow her soul had become bonded to chaos magic, and it’d caused her to become torn between two opposing forces—a chimerical abomination of aether and chaos. If Darius were to guess, it was a combination of long-term exposure and dabbling with some powers that had been better left alone.

The results had taken some time to hone, with unexpected developments here and there, but he was more than happy with the outcome he had been given.

He entered a room emitting a black smog with writhing, curling tendrils. Held inside was none other than Emica herself, suspended within the swathe of black threads weaving in and out of her.

“Hello, Emica,” Darius said.

She wouldn’t respond, but she could still hear him. She’d lost whatever attachment she had to the material world years after her mutated form had collapsed under the strain of transformation. At first Darius had feared her dead and, in his desperation, injected her heart with a toxin to speed it back to life. The sudden dose of pain and adrenaline had caused a dark substance to spurt from her vulva, squealing a newborn cry. That was when he opened her up to find her uterus had crystallised with clusters of tiny black pearls, like caviar.

After that, he realised her potential had only magnified.

“I’m going to need you to make something new for me today.” Darius made a gesture for one of the qarnun assistants to turn on the contraption Emica’s body was wired to.

Once signalled, the device injected Emica with needles in her ovaries to induce painful uterine contractions, and she unleashed an echoic wail of pain.

From her cry came the ejection of a black ooze down her thighs. The materialisation of a shadow. Though this shadow was something richer and more animated than the vacant monotone of shape rendered by most bodies. It was a figment of primordial blackness, a deviously intelligent force that acted of its own will.

Darius regarded the monstrosity with paternal pride as it solidified into being—a reptilian huntress with the large leathery wings of a bat.

“Oh, well done, Emica,” Darius whispered in awe. He reached out to the squawking creature and ran a hand along its scales, so cold they seared. “How soon before we deploy to Thalistan?” He asked Faustus.

“She should be ready within the next few days, sire.”

“Good.” He had no doubt she would be more than a match for Dominus’s strength and speed, along with being impervious to his magic. “I know from a source that he is slumming it somewhere in Thalistan. Give her something to seek any sources of my blood in the near vicinity. I am certain that he will not remain in hiding for long.”

The thought of his brother’s apprehension did not bring him the relief he thought it would, but rather a sort of numbing. After killing Dominus he had been ready to face true solitude, to rid himself of his last familial shackle. Now, he was uncertain of what he wanted. To think, when he was young he would’ve done anything to fracture the prized family portrait that was the trueborn family of Mortos. The united triad of father, mother, and beloved son with him cast off to the side, one corner too many, an odd fit to this perfect equilateral.

He’d gotten his wish in the end, but the act had left him hollow.

Darius swallowed, feeling strangely cold, but he soon dispensed with it as he looked towards Faustus. “Well, I say this calls for a celebratory drink. I do hope you’ve been keeping up with that distillery in the basement. I must say I’ve tasted no whisky finer than whatever wizardry you’ve added during the process.”

Laila drummed her fingers on her vanity before deciding to lift her mirror. She’d been avoiding this confrontation for too long and thought it best to get it over with.

“Lyra de Lis.”

She waited for an answer with her heart in her throat. Even now she wasn’t sure how to approach this, what she could say. She was given little chance to dither on it before the sprite answered.

“Laila!” Lyra beamed brightly at her. “You were in my thoughts. It’s been a while, and I’d thought of reaching out.”

Laila plastered a smile on her lips. “Thalistan keeping you busy, I suppose?”

“Ugh, you have no idea.” Lyra rolled her eyes. “I’ll have to tell you all about it when we meet at your bal masqué.”

Laila had almost forgotten about the event, and that she’d extended her an invitation. “I can’t wait to see you.” Her chest flared with nerves for what she would say next. “I realised I never asked properly what my mother has you doing all the way out there.”

“Oh, well. I wouldn’t want to bore you with that.” Lyra snorted, her face had turned a conspicuous shade of cranberry red. “It’s just some blunder with the Iron Clan your mother desired to have overseen personally by a Lightshield. Nothing of note.”

“I see.” Laila ignored the pang in her chest. “You would tell me if it was more than that, wouldn’t you? If she had you doing something dangerous. I mean, we’ve never had secrets, you and I. We’ve always been honest.”

Lyra grew cautious, her expression guarded.

“Because I’d be hurt, Lyra, if I discovered you’d seen it fit to collude with my mother in keeping something important from me. A second time.”

Here was where realisation dawned, causing Lyra to drop the act.

“You know, don’t you?” she said quietly, shifting her jaw to one side. “How did you find out?”

“Darius told me.” Laila exhaled, pressing her fist to her lips. “It seems odd that he, of all people, would be the only one who cares to be honest with me as of late.”

“Well, it’s easy enough for him to play the gallant knight when he’s hoping to lead you into bed with him again.” The venom in her tone was palpable, causing Laila to flinch. Lyra was quick to pick up on it. “Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Getting into bed with him again,” Lyra clarified with impatience, “since we’re being honest and not keeping secrets and all. I figured I’d at least ask that.”

Laila clenched her fist. “Don’t change the subject.”

“You are, aren’t you?” Lyra’s eyes lit in understanding. “Now it all makes sense.”

“This is not about Darius!” Laila shivered in fury. “This is about you and my mother lying to me and treating me like a child.”

“This is everything to do with Darius. Can’t you see what he’s doing? He’s trying to turn us against each other, to make it so you trust only him.”

“I wouldn’t have had to trust him if you’d simply been honest with me in the first place!” Laila’s voice had risen against her efforts. She inhaled sharply to smother her temper.

“I hadn’t meant to lie to you, Laila. I was trying to protect you. Just like we—I always have.” Lyra sighed as she glanced away. “I see now that it was no use.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We’re never going to be done with this, are we? This occassi problem. We won’t be done with it because you refuse to be done with it. To be done with them. Seems ultimately I’d sent my uncle off to die for nothing.”

Laila gasped, tears clouding her vision. She set her quivering jaw firm. “I am done with this discussion.” She ceased the transmission and sent the mirror hurtling towards the wall. Then she clutched her face in her hands as her body rippled with sobs.

Darius found Laila in the underground spa.

She was trembling beneath the ice-cold rainfall pouring from its numerous nozzles, her head bent and arms huddled around her. Her golden hair had grown dim from the water and formed a shroud about her face.

He approached her unclothed, wrapping his arms around her and pushing her hair to one side to kiss the nape of her neck. She whimpered meekly in response.

He let his lips drift up to the top of her head as she interlaced her fingers with his. “What happened?”

“I’ve discovered,” she began, her voice a mere wisp, “that I cannot trust anyone.”

It was a feeling he understood all too well, though it pained him to see that sort of pessimism in her. He realised he had wanted her to retain her light, her youthful ebullience. He had not considered that time might slowly rob her of her glow ember by ember and leave her extinguished, dark and smouldering like her mother.

“You can trust me,” he vowed, turning her to face him with her cheek in his hand. “Do you trust me?”

She gazed up into his crystal blue eyes and found them calm, steady. An undisturbed sea. It made her feel tranquil. She cupped her hand over his. “I do.”

He leaned down to kiss her, his hand gliding gently down her spine.

Laila shut her eyes, muting a moan into his mouth, and let herself enjoy it. She was tired of trying to abstain, trying to be virtuous. She wanted to stand here in the dark with him and let him embrace her. It felt safe, the darkness, the way it coddled her with distant hands. It was silent. It did not judge. It did not make demands of her as so many others did.

She slung her arm around Darius’s neck to draw her body closer to his, deepening the kiss. Then she dropped her lips to his neck, littering it with kisses and nips in all the places she knew he liked—underneath his jaw, the pulsing vein in his neck, the pressure point on his collarbone.

“Laila.” He spoke her name in a cross between a whisper and a prayer.

“Why are you… always so kind to me?” She looked up at him with wide, sparkling eyes.

“Because at a time when I needed kindness you never failed to give it. Even in moments when I might not have deserved it. It’s the least I could do to return the favour.”

Laila’s eyes brimmed with tears until they spilled down her cheeks.

“Hey…” Darius cupped her face to wipe them away. “It’s all right. Don’t cry.”

“You shouldn’t.” She shook her head. “You shouldn’t be kind to me. All I ever do is disappoint you, and hurt you, and…”

“You don’t.”

“I do!” she protested. “It’s all I ever do to anyone, and that’s why…”

“You stop that. Right now.” He took her arms firmly in his own hands. “I don’t want to hear you talk about yourself like that because it’s not true. And if this is because of your mother, well, she is a deeply unpleasant person who projects her faults upon you because she cannot see past her own. It’s nothing to do with you.”

Laila sniffled softly.

“As for myself? Who am I to pass judgement? Even if you were the most selfish, rotten, petulant creature in the world it wouldn’t leave a dent in how I feel because…”

“What?” Her breathing slowed.

“Because I embrace all of you. As you are. There’s not a thing about you I would seek to change.”

Laila’s chest swelled. Something heavy and deeply rooted was taking sprout within her sternum and rapidly gaining growth. She couldn’t stop it. Oh, how could she even want to prevent such a wondrous feeling as she was having now with his words in her ear? “Darius, I…”

“What?”

“I don’t want to be alone tonight,” she whispered, stroking her fingers through his hair. “Take me to bed with you. I want you to hold me.”

His kiss was all the answer she needed. It was long and laborious, full of desperate moans, and he poured everything of himself into it. His longing, his loneliness, his need and adoration of her, hoping if he expressed it enough physically he could transmit it through touch.

Her hands were just as eager, and they roved over his chest before her arms encircled his neck. She pressed herself between his legs to bring their bodies closer, hooking her leg over his hip for more leverage.

Darius made a stifled noise. Against the icy downpour drenching their bodies, her warmth was an irresistible enticement. He lifted her into his arms, securing her legs around him, pausing to let out a weak, shuddery, overwhelmed breath.

“It’s all right.” She cradled his face and shushed him gently, tightening her legs around his waist before she kissed him again. It coaxed a muted sound from him, thick with emotion, and he carried her to the stone wall to press her against it.