Chapter Thirty-four

Zaith

“Lorelle!” Zaith shouted as the cloak bound him up and forced him through the noktum.

His scream of frustration turned to pain as he was squeezed through the portal of darkness. This time, the thin tube felt like it was lined with razors. Flashes of white-hot light slashed him again and again. It felt like he was being cut to quivering ribbons.

Then he was sobbing, crying for death, his body ringing with the sudden absence of the pain…

He shuddered, his knees pulled against his belly, fists clenched. He was alive. Against all odds, he lived.

He distantly sensed someone was calling to him, and he began to feel sensations aside from the horrible slicing. He lay on a soft bed.

Through tear-drenched eyes, he saw Aravelle leaning over him with a grave expression. A healer and three of her attendants stood behind her.

“Zaith?” Aravelle asked in her whispery voice.

“Where… Where am I?”

“Dear boy,” she said, and he could hear her relief, “you are in my apartments. They found you at the edge of the city and brought you here.”

He had no recollection of that.

“How… How long?” he asked.

“They found you more than an hour ago. I thought we’d lost you. You’ve been screaming and shaking like your mind had gone. Only in the last few minutes did you go quiet.”

He sat up and looked around.

“Move slowly,” the healer said. “We don’t know exactly what was done to you.”

“The cloak. It was used against me, triggered too close to the Lux,” he said. “The light tried to devour me. It… cut me.” He looked down at himself, expecting to see bloody slashes. “Was I…? Was I wounded?”

Aravelle motioned to her retinue. The attendants left without a word, but the healer hesitated. “He will be fine now,” Aravelle assured her. Reluctantly, the healer joined the others and closed the door. “Tell me, Glimmerblade. Did you succeed? Will the Lord be pleased?”

Zaith clenched his teeth and shook his head. “Lorelle is dead.”

“No…”

“Lord Tovos will come now,” he said. “He will kill my family.” Zaith’s head pounded. “He will punish all of Nox Arvak.” The weight of his failure pressed down on him. He tried to think his way clear, but he couldn’t see an answer.

“I think it is time for you tell me of your mission,” she said.

Zaith thought about it. Lord Tovos had told him to remain silent about his purpose, even to Aravelle. But she was right. It could hardly matter now that he had failed. The more the old Darkweaver knew, the better she’d be able to protect their people.

“I was to seduce her,” he said. “To… to turn her.”

“To complete her bond with the Dark,” Aravelle said.

He nodded. “So Lord Tovos could… take control of her. As he can with us.”

“How many threads remained?” Aravelle asked.

“Five. But even with those remaining, still connected to this Human she loves, her connection to the Dark was uncanny. It was as if she was truly meant to be one of us. It rivaled my own connection, perhaps even yours. But it wasn’t enough, apparently. Lord Tovos demanded the bond be completed. I had planned, in the flush of our victory, to finish the job. A celebration here. I was going to… convince her to stay, to take the next step.”

At his stumbling speech, Aravelle raised an eyebrow. “I have never seen you like this, Zaith. Are you certain you were doing the seducing, and not the other way around?”

“She was unlike any maid I have ever known,” he murmured, “I will confess to that. But I knew my mission. I would never compromise the lives of my family. Your life. The lives of everyone in Nox Arvak, perhaps. I stayed true to my purpose, Aravelle. I stayed true. But we woke the dragon.”

Aravelle’s old eyes went wide. “Oh, my child. You went to steal from Jai’ketakos?”

“I was ordered to.”

Aravelle put a hand to her mouth. “Grina have mercy…”

“I have to leave,” Zaith said. “I have to get as far away from here as possible. It is the only way now.” It was a poor plan, but he could think of no other.

“Dear Zaith—”

“You must say you never saw me,” he said. “That I never returned. Let him believe both Lorelle and I died.”

“And where will you go, child?”

“Into the wild.”

“Alone, you will die.”

“I will receive what I deserve.”

“He will chase you, child.”

“Then I will hide.”

“From a Lord of the Dark?”

Zaith levered himself to his feet. Every part of him hurt. “You should never have brought me here—”

“Perhaps there is another path. Perhaps she lived and all is not lost.”

“A dragon, Aravelle. Jai’ketakos.”

“Did you actually see her die? Perhaps—”

“He said one of us would live and the other would die a horrible death. I lived.”

Aravelle raised her head and closed her eyes, like she was sniffing something on the breeze. Zaith recognized she was using her senses in the Dark. Someone approached.

Aravelle turned toward the doorway and Zaith followed her gaze.

Lorelle emerged from the crooked shadows behind the arch.

“Perhaps it is not quite so simple,” she said.