Chapter Twenty-one

Lorelle

Lorelle fell back into the Nox’s embrace and the cloak engulfed them both. It felt like the first time she’d stepped into the noktum. Cold flowed around her and through her like black tentacles of darkness, and those tentacles eased the burn inside her. It felt like the hellish sun had been covered over in cool shade. She gasped with relief. She’d forgotten what it was like to exist without that torturous pain.

Immediately after, she felt a squeezing sensation, like she was being forced through a tube. She tried to draw a breath but couldn’t, and for a moment it felt like she was going to suffocate.

Then it eased, like her body was reconstructing itself in its normal proportions. The cool, covering darkness receded and she was suddenly standing on a meadow inside the noktum. She would have been blind except that her golden hair blazed in the dark, illuminating the charcoal grass with its purple outlines and the edge of a forest before them.

Her soul-burn flared back to life and she clenched her teeth to stifle a whimper. Lotura, she’d become so acclimated to the flames inside her that just a moment’s respite showed her how horrible they really were.

She pushed a hand to her chest and looked over to find the Nox standing next to her, watching her. Lorelle and Rhenn had explored the noktum extensively, had created little stone trails to guide them safely through. She cast about for a landmark that would tell her where she was.

In the limited halo of her hair’s light, she couldn’t see far enough to catch a glimpse of any of their paths or to see which direction the old nuraghi loomed.

They stood at the edge of a forest, but it looked odd. It wasn’t like the forest near Rhenn’s camp. There were no pine trees or even aspens. Thick, gnarled oaks twisted their limbs toward the sky, full of charcoal leaves bordered in vanilla white.

Even under the magical light of her hair, which revealed objects in the noktum similarly to the way sunlight would, there was little color anywhere. The leaves had their yellowish borders. Hints of purple streaked the charcoal grass and the trunks of the trees. Strange, dark blue ferns grew between the trunks. It was as though the foliage had somehow adapted to a land that never saw daylight.

The Nox watched her, and she self-consciously removed her hand from her chest.

“That is our first order of business,” he said softly. “I can only imagine the pain you must be experiencing.”

“We’re in the noktum?”

“Of course.”

“You said you were taking me to a Plunnos.”

“Which is in the noktum.”

She swallowed that piece of information. Of course. She should have expected that anywhere they would go would be inside the noktum. She should have thought of that.

“We get the Plunnos first,” she said tightly, wanting to push her hand into her chest again, but resisting.

“Lorelle,” he said softly. “You are dying. The first thing you need is to cease dying. Don’t you think?”

“You can… really fix this?” she asked.

“I haven’t lied to you.”

“Is it close to the Plunnos?”

He smiled sadly. “The Plunnos is close enough. It can wait. Now please, extinguish your hair and follow me.”

“Which part of the noktum is this?” she asked. “I don’t recognize it.”

“Lorelle, please put out your hair.”

She swallowed, and her hair only glowed brighter. “I can’t.”

He raised both eyebrows. “You can’t?”

“I’m not… calm right now. I need some time to calm down—”

He cocked his head and compassion flickered in his eyes. “I didn’t realize… My apologies.” He strode toward her and held his hands out, palms up. “May I?”

“May you what?”

“Perform the ak’tira upon you.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It is a technique by which I can help you extinguish your hair. We do it with our children before they learn control on their own. It will require that I touch you. May I?”

“I’m fine with my hair glowing.”

That annoyed him. “Are you fine being eaten by a naguil?”

She had never heard of naguils, but the noktum was filled with monsters. “What’s a naguil?”

He sighed. “Lorelle, I’m trying to help you—”

“You promised me a Plunnos, but here we are in a part of the noktum I do not recognize, and now you’re threatening me with the attack of a creature I’ve never heard of.”

“I would like to have this conversation,” he said. “There are questions you have and there are many answers I can give. It is why I sought you out. But in my culture, stealth is paramount. We do not announce ourselves as we stride along like Lightlanders do. If we do not keep ourselves hidden, predators take an interest. Surely you know enough about the noktum to know this.”

“I know.”

“Right now, you are a shining beacon. We are both in danger.” He held out his hands, palms up, and said, “Will you allow me to help you with your hair?”

She swallowed. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to touch you on the back of your head and…” He seemed at a loss for the word. “Calm you. That is the best I can describe it.”

He approached her and stopped so close she flinched. She didn’t let people touch her. No one except Rhenn.

When she was a child, Lorelle had loved contact of all kinds. Snuggling with her parents, sitting in Mother’s lap, holding Father’s hand on walks, hugging friends. But once the Change had come upon her, touch was the first thing to go. It too easily unlocked her emotions. She couldn’t always control how she felt about things, but by Lotura she could keep from touching people. It had helped so much in the beginning.

“Are you ready?” Zaith asked.

“Fine,” she said and her hair glowed brighter.

The Nox slid his slender fingers into her hair and cupped the back of her head. She stiffened, working against the painstaking control she’d forced upon herself years ago. But the touch was soft, gentle. Almost immediately, the burning of her soul eased like it had when they had teleported through the cloak.

It actually felt… good. Her hair glowed brighter. After she’d half-bonded with Khyven, she’d longed to wrap herself around him every time he was near. Now this touch, so unexpectedly intimate, sent a forbidden thrill through her.

His other hand slid over her belly just beneath her breastbone.

“Hey—”

A zing of lightning forked through her insides and a light crack sounded inside her head. Profound relief flooded through her like a dam had broken, letting water run throughout her insides. Her muscles suddenly relaxed. Her legs went limp, but the Nox held her upright.

Her hair’s light winked out, plunging her into absolute darkness.

Her strength returned and she jerked upright, able to stand once more on her own. For a horrible moment, she thought she’d wet herself.

“Let go of me!” she demanded, and he released her.

Hastily, she fumbled with her pouches and found the one with her Amulet of Noksonon. Heart pounding, she looped the amulet over her head and traced the edge of it with her finger. Slowly, the darkness receded and she could see again in the gray tones the amulet provided. The terrain was no longer illuminated with the buttery light, showing the little color nuances around the leaves and the grass, but she was able to see everything and much farther than before. She saw the strange forest, the dark sky, the horizon, and a giant castle looming behind everything.

A shiver went up Lorelle’s spine.

That wasn’t the castle she knew. This one was taller, sharper, like the towers and the crenellations were designed to stab the sky. The entire structure was whole and unbroken, not a ruin like the one near Rhenn’s camp.

“What are you doing?” the Nox asked. He squinted, noticing where her hand clutched the medallion. “Are you wearing a Lord’s amulet?”

“What did you do to me?” she demanded, breathing hard. She checked herself, the back of her neck, the spot high on her belly where his hands had been.

“Where did you get a Lord’s amulet?” he asked.

“What did you do to me?” she reiterated.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Answer me,” she demanded. “Or I’m leaving.”

A flicker of a smile indicated he found that amusing, but he answered her question. “I told you, it’s the ak’tira, a trick that every Nox parent learns to keep their children alive. A Nox’s hair—or a Luminent’s—won’t send the denizens of the noktum into a killing rage like natural light, but it does attract attention.”

“I mean how did you do it?” She reached up and touched her hair.

“Here, every Nox is a master of her inherent abilities, Lorelle. We do not take pride in our limitations like Luminents do.”

“There was a noise in my head. A… crack.”

“I had hoped to have this conversation within the protection of the city—”

“Answer my question!”

He frowned. “Do you even know why Luminents glow, Lorelle?” he snapped back. “Do you even know why?”

“It’s—The Luminents have always had it.” Her parents had talked little about Luminent customs, but her mother had once said that the light in her hair, the lightness of their bodies, arose from the special relationship that Luminents shared with nature. “It’s… the life force of the earth, because of the—”

“Nonsense.” He shook his head. “That is nonsense. It is the doctrine the Luminents preach, but it isn’t the truth; a lullaby sung to the ignorant. Luminents are not a spiritual strain of creatures who benefit from a harmonious connection to nature or whatever your parents told you. You, and all Luminents, are tools from a bygone age, nothing more.”

“Tools?”

“You were engineered by the Lords. You and the Shadowvar, the Brightlings, the Delvers, the Taur-Els. My people as well. We were created and imbued with magic for a purpose. Our ancestors were hammered and shaped until we became something useful to the Lords.”

A chill went through her. “When you say ‘lords,’ you’re talking about the Giants.”

“A crude name Humans use. In our culture, that descriptor is an affront. But yes. In Nox culture we honor the Lords,” Zaith said.

“Lotura gave us life.” She shook her head. “Luminents weren’t created by Giants. That’s not true.”

“It is true. It’s simply not romantic, so the Luminent High Council spun gossamer fictions instead. Fictions about being Lotura’s Chosen. They also wove lies into your culture. For example—” he gestured at her chest where the burn seared her “—they told you what they wanted to tell you about your soul-bond. They created an aberration to confine you, trap you, to shackle you to their doctrines.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Am I a slave to my soul-bond?” he asked. “No. It doesn’t torture us because we know its true purpose, what the Lords intended. You have been taught that the soul-bond exists to bind you to another Luminent, to forge true love’s connection.” He shook his head. “That’s a lie. The soul-bond doesn’t have anything to do with love. The agony you feel isn’t because you failed to find love, it’s because you resist the call of the Dark.”

That stunned her. She’d seen the effects of a successful soul-bond herself. Her parents had shared it, forged true love between them. She’d seen the soaring joy it had given them. She’d seen the soul-bond among many others, too, when she was young and lived in Lumyn.

“You’re lying,” she said.

“No. I’m challenging the lies you’ve already swallowed. I know it hurts but look at me.” He held his hands out. “I am your age, yet I have chosen no mate. I have loved, but I am not bound. I have touched others, kissed others, and I remain unshackled. I may love as many as I wish and then move on. Can you?”

“That’s… like Humans.”

He made a sour face. “If you insist on being crude and comparing our elegant race to that chaotic mass of sweating, stinking, hairy creatures, fine. Yes, like Humans. And to answer your unspoken question, yes, if I decided bestiality was in my best interest, I could take a Human mate—like this Khyven of yours—and I wouldn’t have to rip my soul to pieces to do it.”

“How?” she asked in a ragged voice.

“Well, I was taking you there,” he said. “But it seems you’d rather wait to see if a naguil flies by, or we run across an infestation of Zek Roaches.”

“Taking me where?”

“To the Cairn. To break your addiction. To clear your thoughts. To fulfill the needs of that ragged soul of yours.”

“What I need… is the Plunnos.”

He sighed. “You cannot acquire, let alone use, a Plunnos if you are in this teeth-gnashing, breathless state. It’s dangerous, where the Plunnos is. You cannot hope to succeed in taking it by tramping in there with your hair flaring and your soul burning. You’ll die. Worse, you’ll get me killed with you.”

“I—This is—”

“Please Lorelle. Will you listen?”

She held up a hand, trying to marshal her thoughts over the excruciating pain and the challenges he was throwing at her. But if he wasn’t lying, if all this was true, he was being exceedingly polite.

“I’m sorry,” she finally managed to say.

“You are ignorant,” he said. “It is not a crime in itself. We make allowances for the newly initiated. Still, it would behoove you to stop resisting me so much.”

“I barely know you.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“You never even told me your name!”

He raised an eyebrow. “The burden was upon you to ask, but you never did.”

“You never properly introduced yourself.”

“Oh, what foolish Human custom is this? You think I should have given you my name upon our meeting?”

“Of course, you should have.”

The Nox drew a breath and let it out as though fighting for patience. “In my culture,” he said calmly, “we prize stealth. If someone succeeds in sneaking up on someone else, as I clearly did with you back in Usara, the burden of introductions falls upon the surprised. When we first met, the burden was upon you to ask my name. You did not. I let your slight go by because I was there to help you understand. But even by Human standards, should you not have asked my name by now?”

Heat crept into her cheeks as she blushed. “I… I suppose. I’m sorry. Would you please… Will you do me the honor of telling me your name?”

He smiled. “Of course. I am Zaith D’Orphine, First Glimmerblade of the Arvak Nox.” He inclined his head. “And I invite you to come with me.” He extended his hand.

“To this Cairn?”

“Yes.”

She nodded and started toward him, but she didn’t take his hand. The thrill of his hand in her hair and along her belly still vibrated through her. She’d liked it far too much.

“If I may ask,” he said, lowering his hand as they fell in stride together. “To which Lord does your amulet belong?”

“Which Lord?”

“Yes.”

“It doesn’t… We found them in the noktum. On… Well, on corpses.”

He raised an eyebrow as though she’d said something ridiculous. “You don’t know whose amulet you wear?”

“I just thought it was an Amulet of Noksonon.”

“It is an Amulet of Noksonon. But whose amulet? It’s important. The Lords didn’t just go to war with Humans thousands of years ago. There were rivalries and bitter enemies amongst the Lords themselves. If you enter a noktum wearing another Lord’s amulet, some creatures will know the difference, and they’ll kill you for it.”

“This amulet has always protected me from the monsters.”

“I’m certain it did in your noktum. Is that where you think we are?”

Lorelle glanced again at the foreign castle towering behind the forest. There were hundreds of noktums all over Usara. This was not one of those. He’d taken her not just away from the city, but far away.

“We’re not in the noktum near the city,” she murmured. She suddenly realized how foolish this all was, how vulnerable she’d made herself. “Which—Where are we?”

“In the heart of the Great Noktum.”

The Great Noktum!

The Great Noktum engulfed the center of the continent of Noksonon. Not only wasn’t it in Usara, it was beyond the lands of Humans and Luminents both; south of Triada, south of the Rhaeg Mountains, south of Laria itself.

With one step into his cloak, she had traveled thousands of miles to the south.

She suddenly felt like the little girl who’d fled Vamreth that fateful night he’d killed her parents. Lost, uncertain, at the mercy of everything around her.

“Steady,” Zaith said. He reached out as though to touch her, but she flinched away from him.

Her thoughts turned to Rhenn, stolen by Nhevaz, scared and alone, far from friends. She’d just done the same thing to herself. There was no way out of this noktum except by Zaith’s hand. The thought paralyzed her.

No. She couldn’t let fear have her. Her life didn’t matter. She was here to save her friend. She would walk through a hundred noktums to get Rhenn back.

She took several deep breaths then looked defiantly at Zaith.

“Ready now?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Good.” He reached out his hand again.

“I don’t need your hand.”

He smirked. “I wasn’t offering it.” He flexed his open hand once. “The amulet, if you please. You can’t go prancing around the Great Noktum wearing another Lord’s amulet.”

“I can’t give you the amulet.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t see without it.”

“You…” He blinked. “You can’t see without it?”

She clenched her teeth when she saw the compassion fill his eyes again.

“What?” she demanded tightly.

“Of course, you can,” he said softly.

“You can see without your hair or a magical item to help you?” she asked.

“Of course I can. Would you like me to show you?”

She swallowed and it felt like the entirety of her pride was sliding down her throat. “Please.”

He glanced around as though checking for threats and let out a breath. “Of course. You will probably need to sit.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Something similar to what I did with your hair,” he said. “I think.”

“You think?”

“The Nox are born knowing how to see, Lorelle. It isn’t something we have to teach our children. But I believe the principle is the same. Now please, sit.”

She sat reluctantly and crossed her legs. He moved silently behind her and crouched.

“May I touch you again?” he asked softly.

She swallowed, then nodded.

His fingertips, light and deft, lifted the Amulet of Noksonon over her head. She stiffened but didn’t resist.

The world went black and Zaith pushed his fingers into her hair just as before, cupping the back of her head. Tingles raced through her.

“Relax, Lorelle,” he said softly. “You stand in your own way.”

“I am… not used to relaxing. Every time I have relaxed in the past, my hair burst into light and my soul tries to latch on to those I love.”

“Well, I don’t want you to contain your power, I want you to release it. In this place, you need it. You’ve always needed it, in fact, and you’ve pushed it down and blocked it up because of what you’ve been taught. You are like a boat on a turbulent river that has been dammed. Your little craft rocks and slams against the dam as the water churns and spins you about. Release the dam, Lorelle. Release it, and let the boat do what it was made to do.”

His other hand slid around her waist to press high on her belly. Her breathing came faster.

“It’s there…” he murmured. “Let it go.”

For as long as Lorelle could remember, she’d envisioned her mind like a room with a giant steel door. Every time she’d been in danger of opening a soul-bond to someone else, in danger of her hair flaring into light, she would shove her emotions behind that door and slam it shut. For the first time, she imagined herself taking hold of that steel handle and turning. She opened it and let everything out.

Another crack sounded inside her head, like someone breaking a twig.

She gasped as all the emotions she’d stuffed away for years—anguish at her parents’ deaths, fear of the noktum, love for Rhenn, for her friends, for Khyven—churned through her like a river in flood.

Spun about on that tumbling surge, she forgot about Zaith, the noktum. She forgot about everything except that spinning and spinning…

She didn’t realize she was slumped over, eyes squeezed shut, sobbing, until Zaith’s voice brought her back.

“Come now, Lorelle,” he coaxed. “Sit up. Sit up.”

She did.

And opened her eyes to a whole new world.