Chapter Twenty-five

Lorelle

Lorelle’s eyelids fluttered open. Zaith was leaning over her. She lay in his lap while he held the back of her head like he’d done before, fingers intertwined in her hair. Her mind felt thick and cloudy. She remembered putting her hands on the Cairn, falling into darkness and then…

Nothing. She remembered nothing after that.

“What happened to me?” she asked.

“How do you feel?” He pushed tendrils of black hair away from her face.

Black hair!

Lorelle sat bolt upright and pulled away from him. She yanked her hair in front of her eyes. It was midnight black with a purple sheen, just like Zaith’s.

Her arms were midnight black like Zaith’s and Aravelle’s!

“Lotura!” she gasped. She strained to remember what had happened. She felt like she should know. Something momentous. Something… hard. A fight?

She couldn’t remember.

Zaith was calm. “Tell me how you feel.”

“Like someone… twisted my body into the shape of a new one…” She trailed off.

Then it hit her. Her soul-burn was gone. The searing pain was just… gone. Nothing at all.

“The burn…” she whispered.

“Yes,” Zaith said.

She felt giddy. She felt like she could jump straight up into the sky. Lotura, the pain was gone! She had forgotten what it felt like to be free of the tearing, searing agony.

“As I promised, you are free.”

“But I don’t… I don’t remember what happened. Why did my hair… my skin…?”

A flicker of a memory flashed through her, quick and elusive like a glimmer of light. Pain. Anguish. A fight…

But then the memory was gone.

“The Cairn unlocks your potential,” he said. “It strips the Luminent curse laid upon you at birth.”

“It was… I think it was painful,” she murmured. But no, that wasn’t the right word. Why couldn’t she remember?

“Is it painful now?”

“No…” She didn’t feel the burning of the incomplete soul-bond anymore, but there was something different inside her replacing it, a coolness like the air that comes off a lake. She looked around at the strange noktum with its indigos and purples and she suddenly felt like she belonged here. Here felt… safe, not dangerous.

“Will this… Is it going to stay this way?” She held out her hair.

He hesitated, then said, “For now.”

“You mean I’ll change back?”

“It will stay as long as you need it, as long as you are in the noktum and using the Dark to aid you.”

“You mean this—” she indicated herself “—will change back when I step out of the noktum?”

“Unless you choose to make the transformation permanent.”

“What?”

“You joined with the Dark. You bonded those ragged ends of your soul to the great tapestry of the noktum itself. That is what is assuaging your soul-bond. But you stopped just before a complete connection.”

Now it returned to her. She had fought the final merging of the threads. There were only five left. Five that still longed to complete the bond with Khyven. And she’d left them like that. Now that she remembered, now that she concentrated on that small part of her soul, she could feel it, tiny and still burning. But it wasn’t overwhelming. It felt, instead, like a warmth in her chest.

“To make the transform permanent, you will need to complete the bonding of—”

“I’m not going to do that.”

He hesitated, and for the first time he seemed not to know what to say.

“I’m not here to join you. I’m here—”

“To save Rhenn,” Zaith finished softly. “Yes. I understand.”

“Yes,” she said. “The Plunnos. Are we going there now?”

“Tomorrow. Tonight, we rest.”

The moment he said it, Lorelle felt the weight of her exhaustion. She hadn’t slept in days. The only thing keeping her awake had been the pain and now, with the pain gone, she did want to sleep.

She looked overhead. Nothing in the sky indicated what time it was. “Is it still night? I mean, in the other world. In the daylight world. How do you tell one day from the other in this place?”

“The surge is nearly upon us. We will take shelter, sleep, and go after.”

“What’s the surge?”

“It is the apex of what we call the shadow cycle the Great Noktum. There is a surge and an ebb.”

“Of shadows?”

“Yes. And when the surge is upon us, it is possible to be swept away south.”

“Why? How?”

“There is much to learn, Lorelle, and I will tell you all. For now, though, sleep.”

“I am tired,” she finally admitted. “Where do we sleep?”

“I was planning for you to sleep in Aravelle’s guest house. I’m sure you will find it to your liking.”

“Very well.”

He inclined his head up the street. “Peaceful dreams, Lorelle.” He turned and began walking away.

“Where are you going?”

“They will care for you.” He turned back and nodded past her shoulder.

She looked, searched, but couldn’t see anyone. The empty rotunda and the twisted shadows around the pillars seemed to mock her.

There seemed only darkness and the silent street until three Nox emerged, seemingly growing from the shadows. They approached her, wearing impassive expressions, and the first of them inclined her head and gave a quick curtsey.

“I am Lorelle,” Lorelle introduced herself first, remembering her Nox etiquette at the last second. She suddenly felt cut adrift without Zaith. He’d been her sole guide since she’d stepped into the Great Noktum.

“I am Maid Hoxa,” the Nox replied. “Will you follow me?”

“Yes,” Lorelle said.

Maid Hoxa led the way with Lorelle right behind and the two other Nox trailing. Hoxa led her through the streets to a palatial structure. It sprawled on a small rise, taking up the same space as a dozen of the houses she’d seen entering the city, and it was made of the same white-veined purple marble as the rotunda of the Cairn. Her guides led her up a path to a side building. There were several of them, round structures like the rotunda of the Cairn, except with roofs, walls and doors.

“If you please, these are the Maiden Houses. You may stay here, alone. If you would rather have company, I have been authorized to take you in the Sensual Houses—”

“This is fine. Thank you, Maid Hoxa.” Her three guides bowed at the same time and backed away.

Lorelle entered the little house, peering into the oddly shaped shadows within. There was a bed with a soft coverlet, a dresser, a freestanding cloak rack, and a mirror. Everything, including the border of the mirror, was made of a lemon-colored wood.

She turned and locked the door. Suddenly, the thought of sleeping in that comfortable bed seemed like a wonderful idea.

“You and me,” she murmured to the bed. She approached it, pushed at it. It was as soft as any bed in Usara. She fell face first upon it with a sigh and felt her exhaustion pull down on her.

That’s when the assassin attacked.