Dark Harmony by Laura Thalassa

Chapter 25

The world forms from chaos, blurs of color sharpening until they become things.

The first thing I notice is the tickle of wheat against my open palm. Then it’s the vivid blue sky bearing down on me.

Then it’s the Thief.

He walks through the fields dressed in black, looking like a reaper come to collect my soul. Like the last dream, seeing him this way is disarming. If you take the monster living under your bed and put it in broad daylight, what then?

He comes up to me, uncomfortably close. This is where I cringe away from him, where I revolt.

“You went to bed with one man, and woke with another. How very confusing,” he says.

I’m not awake. It’s on the tip of my tongue, but then I hesitate.

I get the uncanny feeling that this is what I’m supposed to say. That the Thief has our entire interaction choreographed, and it’s all a part of our little game.

Only, I no longer want to play.

I’m done revolting, done being scared, done acting according to some pre-ordained script.

Rather than responding, I squint at our surroundings.

From horizon to horizon it’s endless golden fields rippling under a painfully blue sky. The sifting sounds of wind sing through the wheat.

“How do you choose where we meet?” I ask.

His hair stirs as he answers, “Whatever pleases me in the moment, that’s what I choose.”

As my eyes take in that sharp blue sky, clouds begin to roll on the horizon. They move unnaturally swift, gathering on each other.

The Thief of Souls can build dreamscapes and wear the faces of the dead. Two staggering powers.

The clouds darken like bruises until they’ve shadowed the land. The sky splits open above us, and the heavens unleash. Lightning flashes and thunder booms.

Rain pelts down on me, and the wind lashes against my body, whipping my hair about. I feel like I’m at the center of some terrible vortex, and the magnitude of it all is dizzyingly beautiful.

“Does it frighten you?” the Thief asks. He watches me carefully, the wind and rain tearing at him.

No.

I turn to him, my wet hair slapping at my skin. “Do you want it to?”

An enigmatic smile crosses his face and his eyes flash alongside the lightning.

Just as swiftly as the storm moves in, it retreats. The rain stops, the sky clears, and the sun peeks out again.

“I think you have better things to fear from me.” He begins to circle me. “Things worse than death.”

I remember Karnon’s prison, the women shackled in iron, raped by the Thief, slowly losing themselves to his dark magic. I think of the soldier I interviewed.

It’s dark here. Very dark.

I want to rest. Why can’t I rest?

He comes back to my front. “I will never leave you alone, enchantress. Never. Banish the hope if you have it. You cannot ever escape my clutches. Not even in death.”

I search his dark eyes. “What have I done?”

Is it being a siren? Is it as simple and as shallow as pretty skin molded over pretty bones? Or is it something more specific to me? Something that went wrong long ago?

There’s a part of me, a long dormant part of me, that’s awakening. It should’ve been pulled free back in high school, when my powers blossomed, or when Karnon altered me, or even when Des fed me the lilac wine, but it wasn’t.

It didn’t happen then, but I can feel it now, some long buried strength upwelling from deep within me.

The Thief tilts his head. “What have you done?” he echoes. “You have enlivened me. You make me feel the blood rushing through my veins.” He steps in close. “You have aroused me. Dirty human, beautiful woman, unlikely enchantress. You have caught my attention, and I will enjoy you for a time.”

I’m not going to escape him.

This is the one simple truth I’d been denying for so long, and now I face it.

I’m really not going to escape him. One day soon, I will have to face the Thief, not in a dream, but in waking life. A reckoning is coming for us, and by the end of it, one of us will be the victor, and one, the vanquished.

“I will break you again and again until there is nothing left to break,” the Thief says softly, running his knuckles over my cheek.

Break me?

I’ve been thinking about this wrong all my life. I’m not porcelain to be shattered, I’m something else entirely.

Break me?

I level my pitiless gaze on him. “You can try.”

The next morning, when I wake, I’m alone in Des’s bed.

For a moment, I simply lay there, gathering my pillow up and breathing in the Bargainer’s scent.

Eventually, I sit up, running my hands through my hair. On the bedside table, a cup of coffee sits. The note beside it says, Till darkness dies.

A little smile slips out. I take the mug, and sip, letting my mind drift.

Inevitably, my thoughts move to last night’s dream. For the first time since I started having them, I’m not frightened by the nightmare. The Thief of Souls and I are pitted against one another, not as hunter and hunted, but as adversaries. And that detail changes everything.

Since Karnon’s death, I’ve been in the business of running—so much so that I haven’t truly done any chasing.

Setting my coffee aside, I slip out of bed and rifle through Des’s things until I find a notebook and a pen. Clambering back into bed, I uncap the pen and press it to the page.

The Thief of Souls – controls dreams (small death), wears the bodies of the dead, wields dark magic, places fairies into a stupefied state, fathers children who drink blood and prophesize …

Most of the attributes have something to do with death, and those that don’t seem to be attributes of Night fairies. Not that this knowledge brings me any closer to answers.

Stupid mystery.

I could just glamour the Thief and force the confessions out of him.

Holy shit.

I could do that. Why have I not thought of this sooner?

I’m elated for two-point-five seconds before I remember that I freaking already tried this hat trick after I drank the lilac wine, when he came to me in a dream. It didn’t do a damn thing but excite the freak.

So much for that idea. Unless dreams have their own sort of logic to them. Maybe he’s only impervious to my glamour in dreams …

I rub my forehead. I mean, who the fuck knows at this point? I’m running in circles here and all I’m managing to do is to confuse myself.

Setting my notes aside, I push myself out of Des’s bed. I steal an Iron Maiden shirt from his drawer, ignoring the folded set of women’s clothing clearly meant for me, grab my mug, then pad down the hall.

I find the King of the Night in his living room, blessedly shirtless as he paces back and forth. He stares down at an unrolled piece of parchment, his brow furrowed and his lower lip pinched between his fingers.

His eyes move from his work to me. A grin spreads across his face when he catches sight of my T-shirt. “That is a very good look on you, Callie.”

I hold up the mug. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“Anytime, love.”

“What are you reading?” I ask, coming over to him.

His gaze drops to the paper and his frown returns. “Reports on the state of the Otherworld.”

For a moment, the information is a shock. I’d almost managed to forget that even on earth Des has a host of responsibilities he still must attend to.

See, this is proof I’d make a shitty queen.

“What are they saying?” I ask.

“Malaki tracked Galleghar to the Fauna Kingdom, but lost him there. And, as far as the kingdoms themselves go, Flora and Fauna are suffering massive casualties.

“The wholesale slaughter in those kingdoms continues. The Thief’s soldiers are moving to all the big cities and killing any fae they come across. The sleeping soldiers are sustaining heavy losses themselves—Flora and Fauna fae aren’t just going down without a fight—but the carnage continues.”

This entire time, fairies have been dying. While I was taking body shots off of Des, those soldiers were cutting through innocents.

My stomach rolls at the thought.

You’ve let yourself be idle, my siren whispers. This is what happens.

“Why would the Thief do that?” Conquering is a bloodsport, but these kingdoms have already fallen. There’s no reason the deaths should continue.

“Why would he, indeed?” Des looks up from the paper, meeting my eyes. “You have a box of memorabilia from some of the worst humans. What would they do if they came into power?”

They’d kill and maim and run their kingdoms lawlessly, and no one would be safe but for them.

“This isn’t a human we’re dealing with,” I object.

Humans have their own drives, fae another.

“Evil doesn’t work that differently between worlds,” Des says. “Although fae do have a knack for creativity and flare.”

Des sets the parchment aside. “Oh, by the way, I thought you should know, Typhus Henbane is dead.”

It takes me a minute to place the name.

The King of the Banished Lands, the one who we’d come to for news of Galleghar.

The man with a city’s worth of stolen magic is now dead, and I’m at least partially responsible for it.

Yesterday, that piece of information would’ve sat like a stone in my stomach. Today … today I’m in an odd mood.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Exactly what you feared might happen. His people rose up against him and slaughtered him. They took back their magic.”

The magic he’d forced them to barter away …

Bartered magic.

My eyes snap to Des.

“What?”

I run back to his bedroom, only to find the Bargainer is already there waiting for me. He stands, arms folded, watching me with curious eyes. Sidestepping him, I grab the paper I left on the bed and stare at my notes.

“Can I have my timeline?” I beckon to Des with my hand.

Wordlessly, the Bargainer produces the timeline I’d created days ago, dropping it in my hand.

I set the two papers side by side on the mattress. Over my shoulder, the Bargainer stares down at them.

It was right in front of me the entire time.

“Galleghar and the Thief share powers.”