Chapter Fifty-four

Lorelle

Lorelle crouched on the lip of the Reader’s Library, her belly so low it almost touched the stone, her knees on either side of her head. The night was quiet and cool, an autumn stillness like it was holding its breath before the plunge into winter. The noktum cloak unfurled around her as if on an invisible wind, shielding her from any eyes watching below.

She dropped to the second story window, the cloak following her like a sea creature and settling protectively around her once again. She’d visited this exact place before, walked right into a Reader trap. She hadn’t seen whatever magical alarm they’d set for her. She’d been blind in so many ways back then.

She set Slayter’s disk on the sill, completed the missing line in the dried clay with a sharp fingernail. The soft orange glow spilled across the sill and up the frame of the window. A dark orange mass crouched at the upper right-hand corner.

“It’s right there.” Vohn’s voice flowed to her from the Dark that resided inside the noktum cloak.

“I see it,” she thought back to him. After a few days of practice, she’d mastered the knack of communicating with Vohn. In his new, amorphous state, he couldn’t leave the noktum, but the cloak was always connected to the noktum.

She set the second clay coin Slayter had given her on the sill next to the first, completed the missing line, then put it on the exact spot where the dark orange node had appeared.

The new coin glowed orange. There was a little flash, and the node of the alarm spell dimmed like a dying coal and then went out.

She tested the latch. It was unlocked just like the last time. She opened it and slipped inside. With her back against the curved ceiling, she side-stepped lightly along the decorative six-inch ledge and silently closed the window.

Books and scrolls and bound sheaves of paper lined every wall below her. The seven aisles of large bookcases stretched across the length of the room.

As before, the place was empty.

She dropped to the top of the nearest bookshelf and silently padded along it.

“The next row over, end of the aisle,” Vohn’s voice came to her from deep within the noktum cloak.

Vohn liked to talk to her, and she wasn’t about to discourage that.

The upside to Vohn’s transformation was that it suspended the physical body in the state it was in when the transformation happened, which meant he’d been able to suspend his own death.

The downside was that becoming one with the Dark put the Shadowvar at risk of losing his identity.

So, the more he talked, the more Lorelle liked it.

She leapt lightly from one stack to the next, never breaking stride. She reached the end, dropped to the floor, and blended with the shadows before the shelves.

The last time she’d come here, it had been to steal a Plunnos, and she’d come alone.

This time, Lorelle wasn’t making that mistake. She wasn’t going to try to control the situation all by herself. She didn’t need to control every single thing. She had a family to watch her back. Whatever they did, they’d do it together.

Rhenn was still missing, yes, but it could wait for now. Lorelle wasn’t about to leave Vohn swirling in the darkness of the noktum, possibly vanishing into nothing, when she could do something about it.

“There it is,” Vohn said, somehow spotting the needed volume before she did.

Lorelle quietly slid the thick volume from the shelf. A History of Nokte Shaddark, Volume 4: The Banshees, by Ohgonte Vanshor.

She pulled a third coin from her pouch, completed the symbol, and laid it against the volume. Both the coin and the volume glowed orange, then the glow slowly faded.

She tucked the book under her arm and left the Reader Library just as swiftly and silently as she’d come, escaping into the night.

Not a single Reader tried to stop her, and according to Slayter, not a single Reader would know the volume was missing, at least by any magical means. They’d have to discover its absence by old-fashioned happenstance the next time someone went looking for that particular book.

She and Vohn returned to the palace, descended the two flights to the basement level where Slayter had his laboratory, and slipped through the door.

Slayter sat on a tall stool, his stump propped on a stool next to him. It had been a blistered mess when they’d returned from the Great Noktum. His prosthetic, while a marvel of ingenuity, left something to be desired regarding comfort. Lorelle had salved the blistered stump and wrapped it, and Slayter had spent the last two days under orders to keep it elevated. She was pleased to see he was following instructions.

The mage worked over a small stone cauldron with a liquid the color of an orange—predictably—swirling inside.

“You have it?” He looked up. She tapped the volume lightly with her fingers.

“I felt you using the spells,” he said, letting out a tired breath. “I fear I’ll have to take a nap soon.”

Activating one of Slayter’s spells still pulled energy from him—three times as much, actually—but Slayter had insisted on the necessity of it.

She set the book on the table. She had combined her healing knowledge with Slayter’s magic craft something into that could save Vohn. As Vohn explained it, when he rematerialized from the noktum, his body would be exactly as he had left it. He will not have aged a second, and his critical wound would still be critical.

Lorelle and Slayter would have to work fast when he reappeared, which meant the more they could do now, the better that inevitable moment would be. Slayter was creating a spell that could arrest time around Vohn the moment he returned. The mage had asked for the book because it was the only volume that discussed this Shadowvar transformation. Slayter hoped it would help him understand things about the transformation that even Vohn might not know. Even one tiny bit of knowledge might be the difference between life and death when they reconstituted Vohn’s body.

Slayter swore he would not risk bringing Vohn back from the Dark until he was certain Vohn wouldn’t die because of it.

For the first time, Lorelle suspected Slayter was actually being meticulous and not as scatterbrained as he usually seemed.

Slayter was an odd individual, and the more she learned about him, the more she wondered just how many levels he was operating on at any given time.

“How long until we try to get him back?” she asked.

Slayter blinked tired eyes and looked up at Lorelle with a weary smile. “A day. Maybe three. I am moving as quickly as I can.”

“I know you are.”

“I understand your urgency, Lorelle,” he said. “I do. But I don’t want to make a mistake.” Slayter was clearly unwilling to take any chances when it came to Vohn’s life. It was sweet.

“I know.”

“We’ll get him back,” Slayter said. “Then we’ll pour everything into the search for Rhenn. Now we have the Plunnos. We simply have to understand how to use it. We’re almost there.”

“Yes,” Lorelle murmured.

He went back to pondering the swirling cauldron, picked up a tiny vial of red powder, tapped a dash into the pot.

“So you have time.” He selected another vial and considered it. “They’re throwing a ball tonight,” he said, seemingly at random.

She didn’t say anything, but she smiled.

“Lord Harpinjur turned out to be a marvel, didn’t he?” Slayter said. “We should have put him in charge from the start. He’s running the kingdom far better than we did.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

In the short time Lorelle, Khyven, Slayter, and Vohn were gone, Lord Harpinjur had performed nothing short of a miracle. He’d not only created a plausible story as to why Queen Rhenn had made no appearances in the last two weeks, but he’d filled the kingdom with distractions to pull their attention away from the absent monarch.

“The ball is for the nobles,” Slayter said, studying the vial. “And, really, anyone in the palace who likes to dance.”

“You’re so subtle,” she finally said.

“Well, some people require more subtlety than others.”

She laughed, came around the table, leaned down, and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you,” she murmured.

He pressed his cheek into her lips, then turned and winked at her. “We’ll get Vohn back. Then we’ll all go look for Rhenn. Together. I promise.”

“Good. Because I’m not letting any of you out of my sight again.”

“Like a Kyolar holding its prey between her claws?”

“Soft claws.”

He went back to his labors.

She left, and for some reason she called to mind Zaith’s lesson about her as a boat, slammed and jammed up against a dam of control. Sometimes the best she could do was let the boat flow with the stream.

If there was a way to restore Vohn, Slayter would find it.

So, she let the “river” take her down the hall. Sometimes she would have to paddle as fast as her arms would allow. But sometimes, she could let her friends play the parts they could far better than her.

Fighting that, she had learned, brought disaster.

She climbed the stairs lightly. Vohn had gone silent, seeming to sense her mood, and he respected the privacy of her thoughts.

She went to her room and changed her clothes, then hung the noktum cloak on the rack by the door.

“You’ll be all right?” she asked Vohn.

“I am fine,” he whispered through the Dark. “Go, Lorelle. It is long overdue.”

She reached Khyven’s room, raised her hand to knock, and hesitated. Her sharp Luminent ears heard him moving around inside, heard a drawer open, then close, and his soft footsteps. He moved so lightly for a Human, especially such a large Human.

Heat crept into her cheeks as she blushed, but she shook her head and knocked.

A surprised silence fell inside the room. Those light footsteps became even lighter as he approached the door; ever the Ringer, alert for danger.

When he opened the door, however, he looked relaxed. An opponent would never see anything except what Khyven wanted them to see. It was another bit of Ringer armor he always wore: the facade of relaxation, a mental tactic to make his opponents fear him, to make them believe that everything was always well within his capability to handle.

His eyes widened as he saw her.

“You look amazing.” He stared at the floor-length gown she wore. “Lorelle…” he started, like he was about to say something more, but couldn’t come up with it.

He’d obviously not thought he’d find her in his doorway, and his gaze roved over her face like he would memorize her eyes, her cheekbones, her ears.

Her blush deepened. Before her transformation, her pale cheeks would have glowed bright red like coals in a fire. But now she wondered if her midnight hue would even show the blush at all.

“I’m sorry,” he said, realizing he was staring.

In another time, she would have shrugged, entered the room, and ignored the attention. To control the situation, to ensure her own emotions didn’t get out of hand, locking them behind the big steel door in her mind.

But she wasn’t at risk of soul-bonding anymore. The deed was done. It might not have been the bonding her parents—or the whole of the Luminent culture—would have wanted for her, but it was hers, and hers alone. And it suited her. She would flow with the river she was on. Lorelle was now part of the Dark of the noktum, and she was part of this man, this Ringer she loved.

“No,” she said softly, forcing herself to hold his gaze. “I like it. I like you looking at me.”

That surprised him. A touch of color came to his cheeks now, and she felt herself coming back on balance. The heat in her cheeks didn’t fade, but her awkwardness did.

“May I come in?” she asked.

“Yes, please,” he said, standing aside.

She crossed to the window, finally breaking her gaze with him, and looked out over the city. The Night Ring in the distance drew the eye like a slice of the noktum itself. The sun set, orange light spreading along the horizon behind the forbidding structure. She shifted and looked down at the palace below her, the courtyard with its green lawns, the fountains and sculptures. Dozens of nobles in their finery strolled toward the golden light emanating from the front of the palace.

“Lord Harpinjur has ordered a meeting for the nobles,” she said. “A celebration, he’s calling it.”

“I know,” Khyven said. “I told him he was insane to bring them all here where they could band together and upend the palace, but he told me—” Khyven switched to an impersonation of Harpinjur’s gruff voice “‘—Keep your friends close but your enemies closer, Khyven.’”

“There is a ball,” she said softly.

“Part of the plan, I suppose,” Khyven said, like they were in a council meeting. Like she had come here to discuss politics. “Something about giving a positive…” He trailed off as he realized what she actually meant. He swallowed and looked her up and down again. The ball gown. She could see it finally coming together in his head.

She faced him. “Rhenn is still out there. I think about it always. I have thought about it every moment since she was taken. I want so badly to follow her, to bring her back, but…” She swallowed. “Our journey to the center of the noktum showed me that if I don’t appreciate what is right in front of me, I could lose it, too.” She shook her head. “And I won’t. I refuse.”

Concern furrowed Khyven’s brow.

“I cannot bear to lose you, Khyven. I know that now. I can’t, any more than I can bear to lose Rhenn. And so…”

She smiled at him, tilted her hips, and opened her palms as though presenting her dress, and herself, to him.

“Take me dancing?” she asked softly.

“Yes,” he blurted. He looked down at his clothes, the everyday clothes he wore about the palace. “Except I… have to change.”

She crossed to him, stopped, and kissed him, long and lingering.

“I’ll wait by the banister.”

She loitered by the tall, grandfather clock at the top of the stairs. Khyven emerged from his room moments later in the royal finery Rhenn had had made for him while he was unconscious. Ever the optimist, Rhenn had the clothes tailored to him to celebrate the moment he awoke.

He approached her and extended his elbow. “You realize, I have no idea how to dance,” he said.

“They didn’t have balls in the Night Ring?”

“Not this kind.”

She chuckled. “I’ll carry you.” She winked.

They descended the steps together.

That night, they danced. She taught him the steps, and Khyven picked them up quickly, as he did with everything else. They moved together like they were born to it, anticipating each other like the single soul they now were. She felt the few threads connecting them glowing, a joyous soul-bond, if a small one. Almost everyone stared at Lorelle’s strange new appearance, and whispers flew behind cupped hands. But she didn’t care. Not tonight. Tonight, she only cared about Khyven.

After the musicians played their last song, she and Khyven danced up the stairs. They danced down the hallway, and they danced to the door of Lorelle’s room.

Her heart beat fast. It was such a wonderful feeling. Everything in the world seemed possible again, and she couldn’t seem to catch her breath.

“Would you like to come in?” she asked.

“Is this where you pirouette me and I fall into your arms?”

“If you want to crush me, I suppose,” she said.

He tugged her closer and she went, turning her face up to him as his arms wrapped around her. He didn’t say anything. Again, his gaze seemed to drink her in, as though looking at her filled him with joy.

“Yes,” she breathed, barely audible.

“Yes?”

“I want you to crush me… a little.”

He kissed her, and their souls intertwined, spreading a golden light through both of them. Her single lock of golden hair shone brightly amidst the black.

Effortlessly, he lifted her into his arms and carried her into the room.

Silently, unnoticed by either of them, the noktum cloak floated up from the rack, slithered through the open door, and hung itself on the doorknob.

The door swung shut.