Dark Harmony by Laura Thalassa
Chapter 3
All at once the screams cut off, and the silence that follows is somehow even more ominous.
What in all the worlds … ?
Des and I are still staring at each other. One second passes, then two, three, four. It’s so terribly quiet.
Perhaps I imagined it all.
But then a wave of shrieks start up, trickling in like the beginnings of a storm. First it’s a single alarmed shout, then another, and then it’s several. They sound so very far away.
The Bargainer closes his eyes for several seconds, as though the sound pains him deep. “What are the chances I could persuade you to hide somewhere safe?” he asks, opening his eyes, his voice silken.
Hide somewhere safe? What exactly does he think is going to happen?
I kick my sheets off, swinging my legs out of bed.
“Zero,” I say.
His throat works. “I can’t lose you, cherub.” For a moment, the crafty Bargainer’s pain is transparent. “Not again.”
I can still see his face as I slipped into that final darkness.
You are not leaving me, Callie.
It’s still so fresh.
Des shutters his expression, the softness dissipating from it as though it never was.
Black battle leathers materialize next to me. I stare at them, my mind racing to catch up with the situation.
“You remember your training?” Des’s voice doesn’t sound quite right. It’s not mocking or teasing. He sounds far too serious.
There’s only one reason he’d think to ask me that.
We’re going to have to kick some ass.
I nod.
“Good.” He stands, his brows furrowed as he takes me in. “If I can’t hide you, I will simply have to unleash you.”
Unleash me—said like I’m an unstoppable force. Me thinks he might believe in me a tad too much.
More screams filter in from the depths of the island, near where the sleeping women have been left to rest. In my mind’s eye I can still see those soldiers in their glass coffins, each one buried with a weapon.
I’ve been waiting awhile for this day to come.
I suck in a breath, realizing now what Des already has.
All those women were laying at the core of the island, waiting like bombs to detonate.
And tonight, the Thief of Souls just lit the fuse.
Des’s magic brushes against my skin, and the skimpy nightgown I wear melts off my body, the fabric pooling around my hips and leaving me bare-breasted.
Before I can so much as cover myself, the drawer of the nearby armoire opens, and out floats an entire outfit. It drifts through the air, then settles on me, the fabric parting like butter as it touches my skin, molding to my body before stitching itself back together. More of Des’s magic.
Then come the battle leathers. Then my boots. Each one slipped on with a little help from Des’s magic. He watches me the entire time, his eyes fierce with resolve.
I will destroy the world before I lose you again, they seem to say.
I’m sliding out of bed when the final piece of my outfit floats over to me. The belt that holds my holstered daggers wraps itself around my waist, the labradorite hilts of my blades gleaming.
Dressed and armed within seconds.
The Bargainer isn’t fucking around.
It’s only once I’m ready to kick ass and take names that his own gear rushes through the air at breakneck speed, fastening onto his body faster than I can follow. His leathers, a sword, a pair of throwing knives, a dagger strapped to his ankle and another that circles his bicep.
Dressed as he is, I’m pretty sure he could make women spontaneously orgasm with just a look.
God, now is not the time for my filthy thoughts.
The screams are getting louder.
“In case you missed it,” Des says, “those soldiers who slept beneath my castle are now awake, and they mean to overthrow my rule.”
I don’t ask him how he knows this. My heart pounds a little faster as Des essentially confirms what I feared: the female soldiers Karnon imprisoned and abused are now our enemies.
“These women aren’t civilians,” the Night King continues. “They’ve defended this kingdom for decades—centuries even. They will not hesitate to hurt you, and they will not show you or anyone else mercy. When you come across one, go for a kill shot, and do not waste your remorse on them; I assure you they won’t waste theirs on you.”
My wings are itching to reveal themselves as adrenaline spikes my blood.
The Bargainer turns from me, his eyes closing. He bows his head, as if in prayer, but I can feel the thrum of his restless energy as it builds within him. It sings across our bond and vibrates along my skin.
The shadows billow about the room. I barely have time to register what’s about to happen when Des’s magic explodes out of him.
Darkness sweeps across the room, blanketing the world around us in an instant, shaking the very foundations of the castle. It overwhelms my senses until I’m no one and nothing more than a pin prick of thought in the vast expanse of darkness. And then I’m not even that.
I’ve been here once before. The last time Des’s magic blasted out of him, Karnon—the Fauna King—and hundreds of other fae died.
I steel myself for that same outcome.
But when the darkness slams back into Des, the screams haven’t quieted.
The Bargainer staggers back, his face incredulous.
“I can’t … kill them.”
The sleeping soldiers, he means.
I don’t know what’s more shocking—that Des was ready to single-handedly end the attack, despite the soldiers being Night Kingdom fae, or that it didn’t work. I’ve seen the power he wields. If he wanted to, he could destroy entire cities with his will alone.
What could possibly be strong enough to withstand that sort of magical attack?
My eyes move to the weaponry strapped to his body. Better yet—how are we supposed to defeat what Des’s power alone couldn’t?
The screams are filling the night, stealing my breath from me.
“They’re moving fast,” he says, “and they’re headed our way.”
And we’re to meet them in combat.
I take a deep breath. The last time I fought an enemy was only days ago, and that hadn’t ended too well.
Here’s to hoping I do a little better tonight.
I shake out my hands as I begin to move, heading for the door. Des’s form flickers, disappearing for a moment only to materialize directly in front of me.
His intense eyes lock on mine. “You know I trust you, respect you, and above all else, love you. But gods give me grace, Callie, I will have a reckoning with you if you go rogue on me.”
Ye of little faith. I only did that once, and that was the time the “foe” Des and I faced was Temperance “Temper” Darling, my best friend and sorceress.
“I’m not going to go rogue on you, Des.”
“Just so we’re clear.” Reluctantly, he steps out of the way, and then the two of us are exiting his rooms.
The floor shivers as we stride down it. There’s a rumbling in the distance, like a storm coming to call, and the air carries the faintest hint of something cloying and foul.
“What is that smell?” I ask Des as I follow him through the castle. Our immediate surroundings are far too quiet.
“Dark magic,” he says over his shoulder.
I raise my eyebrows. “I can smell magic?”
That’s … not normal.
“Fae magic,” Des specifies. “And, yeah, apparently you can.”
Alriiiight. I guess I can roll with that.
Footfalls pound up the hall. Des’s wings flare protectively, but the individuals that turn the corner are some of Des’s royal aides.
“Where’s Malaki?” Des demands, clearly interested in talking strategy with his general.
The aides look at each other, perplexed. “Haven’t seen him,” one of them says.
“Check the sorceress’s rooms,” I say. Temper undoubtedly has Des’s general chained to her bed.
I’m not the only one with a taste for fairies.
The Bargainer runs a hand through his white hair. “How many soldiers are stationed here on Somnia?” he asks one of the aides.
“Eight hundred and fifty. There are a few hundred more on the other islands. The rest are stationed at the Borderlands or on peacetime leave.”
Des rubs his mouth. I know what he’s thinking: we’re outnumbered. There are easily over a thousand sleeping women beneath this castle. If they’re out for blood … they’re going to overtake us.
“Call in as many reinforcements as you can,” Des orders. “Send all Night soldiers to the palace. The previously sleeping women are going to try to take the castle. We can’t let that happen.”
I glance out the nearby row of arched windows. Bursts of light are flashing across Somnia like the bulbs of a camera. With them come screams. So many screams.
The aides incline their heads, and then they’re off, storming back through the castle to carry out the Night King’s orders.
I note that none of his men tried to linger and guard him—nor did they try to sequester him away to wait out the battle. In that regard, fairies are different from humans. Or maybe the battle-tested Des, with his war cuffs and his darkness, is just different from other leaders.
The Bargainer begins to stride down the hall again. “Get those daggers ready, cherub,” he says over his shoulder. “We’re going to face the women head on.”
I reach for my weapons with shaky hands. It’s one thing to spar with Des, another to prepare for true battle.
My skin shimmers as the siren bleeds into me. With the change comes a vicious sort of confidence I was missing a second ago. I pull out my blades, the etched phases of the moon glinting along the length of the metal. The daggers are a familiar weight in my palms.
Deeper in the castle there’s a rumble, followed by an explosion. Then more screams.
Besides Des’s aides, we see no one. That, more than anything, has my claws sharpening and my wings manifesting. We’re hunting predators.
The shrieks get louder as we move down the palace hallways, heading ever closer to the main entrance.
And then we turn down a corridor that’s not abandoned.
Several fairies are fleeing our way, their eyes wild and their clothes bloody.
One of them has the wherewithal to stop when he sees the king. “Your Majesty,” he pants, “please don’t go that way … They’re slaughtering everyone in their path.”
The Bargainer’s gaze slides from the man to the hall.
“Get yourself to safety,” is all Des says, and then he’s striding forward once more.
The man spares me a hasty glance, and then he takes off like a jackrabbit.
Des and I head down another hall, towards a staircase. More fairies flee past us, and the screams are getting louder. Closer.
I tighten my grip on my daggers, my tense wings hiking up behind me, my skin glittering under the sparking wall sconces.
As we descend the staircase, the scene below us slowly unveils itself. My blood chills at the sight. There are bloody bodies scattered across the floor, their eyes glassy. Across the landing, a female soldier closes in on a palace aide, her battle axe raised above her head. She’s going to cleave the man in two—just as it appears she has these other unfortunate souls.
In front of me, Des disappears. He materializes between the two fairies just as the soldier brings the axe down.
I swallow my scream as he catches the weapon by its handle. The aide ducks out from behind Des and runs off.
The Night King clucks his tongue, looking completely at ease as the soldier yanks the axe against his grip.
“Didn’t anyone tell you that it’s poor taste to kill a man indoors?” The soldier growls in frustration as she tries to dislodge the axe from Des’s hold. When that doesn’t work, she swings at him with her free arm, her fist closed. Des shimmers out of existence just long enough for the blow to pass through him and the soldier to stumble off-balance.
He reappears, kicking the soldier square in the chest, the blow throwing her off her feet. She hits the ground hard, and I can hear the audible whoosh as her breath is knocked from her lungs. Her axe slips out of her grip, skidding several feet behind her.
“It’s all that blood,” Des continues, prowling towards her. “Easy enough to get it out of the floor with a little magic, but spirits love to cling to the last of their lifeblood. No one wants a ghost haunting their house.”
The soldier bares her teeth at the Night King, scuttling back to grab her axe. She snatches it up just as Des closes in on her. Casually, the Bargainer steps on her wrist, the bone breaking with a sickening snap. The soldier screams, the sound more an animalistic cry of frustration than actual pain. That’s the spookiest part of it all; she’s so hell bent on carnage that her pain takes a backseat to it.
Another fairy—a nobleman by the looks of his attire—sprints onto the landing from another flight of stairs, a soldier at his back. She pauses, lifting her bow and nocking in an arrow.
I don’t fucking think so.
I cock my arm back and throw one of my daggers. It flips hilt over point. With a wet thump, it lodges itself into the soldier’s throat.
Holy shit, I wasn’t expecting my aim to be that good.
And oh God, I just mortally wounded someone. The thought sits like a stone in the pit of my stomach.
The woman stumbles backwards, her hand going to her bloody throat. With every beat of her heart, more and more crimson liquid spills from the wound. It reminds me of my stepfather, of the penchant I have for nicking that particular artery.
I expect to hear the soldier let out a pained cry, or to see fear in her eyes—any indication that there’s a person residing in that body—but when her gaze finds mine, there’s nothing behind those eyes except cold, calm detachment.
Grabbing the hilt of my embedded dagger, the soldier rips it out of her throat.
Goddamn. That is way too hardcore for me.
Before my eyes, her wound begins to close.
Are you fucking serious? I mean, I know that only seconds ago I was horrified at her death, but now, the broad just needs to go.
She begins stalking forward, my weapon in her hand. I tighten my fist around my remaining dagger, adrenaline pounding between my ears.
Halfway to me, she hesitates, and her hand goes back to her neck wound. As I follow her movements, I realize that beneath all the blood, the wound is still open. I don’t know why, but it stopped healing.
She doesn’t get any more time than that. Before she or I can do anything, Des manifests in front of her, sword in hand. In one clean motion, he skewers her.
Her eyes widen as he removes his bloody blade from her stomach, and a moment later, her knees give out. The soldier’s glassy eyes stare up at the ceiling, and her mouth opens and closes until the last of her life drains out.
The Bargainer kneels down and takes my blade from her hand. A moment later he vanishes, only to wink into existence right in front of me.
He hands me my blade. “You did good, cherub,” he says, his eyes shining as he takes me in.
I wet my mouth, my eyes moving to the soldier. Being good at killing is no compliment. My siren preens at it anyway.
Des grabs my jaw and gives me a quick kiss, and my siren—she sings at the taste of my mate on my tongue and the scent of blood in the air.
Once the Bargainer releases my jaw, his gaze lingers on my face a moment longer. Reluctantly, he turns away, stalking through the palace once more, heading for the sounds of screaming.
Taking a deep breath, I follow after him.
We pass several more fallen fairies as we make our way through the castle, their deaths gruesome, violent. My warring natures can’t decide what to make of it. Part of me feels nauseous and horrified, and part of me is filled with vindictive bloodlust.
Make them suffer. Make them pay, my siren whispers.
The next sleeping soldier we come across lingers in a dim hallway, crouched over a body. I squint at her form; almost all the sconces are snuffed out in this corridor, like the light can’t bear to witness this horror.
The soldier’s head snaps up, her eyes glinting like a cat’s. Her face is splattered with blood, and the knife she wields is doused in blood, the crimson liquid coating the blade, the hilt, and most of her hand.
There’s no way the fairy beneath her is alive.
The Bargainer is on the soldier in a second, sword in hand. In one clean, swift stroke, he lops off her head.
The thing hits the ground with a sickening thud, the soldier’s body joining it a moment later. A pool of dark blood spills from both.
I stare at the head. Its eyes are still blinking. Oh my sweet Lord—why are its eyes still blinking? And holy hell—its mouth is opening and closing like a fish gasping for breath.
I can feel my siren, pressing upon me, growing ever more excited at the sight and smell of blood.
I want it all, she whispers. Their pain, their power, their very lives. Mine to savor, mine to take.
A part of me wants to wrap my siren’s viciousness around me like armor, but a larger part of me is just as disturbed by her as I am at all the carnage. I don’t want any part of me to thrive on these violent deaths.
So I do what I’ve always done—I keep her leashed as best I can.
Forcing myself to move, I head over to the civilian sprawled across the ground and kneel at her side. Her eyes are closed, her face is slack, and her neck is a mess of bloody tissue—and then there’s all the blood outside her body. No human could survive that much blood loss. But then, this isn’t a human.
I see her chest rise and fall and hear her take a laborious breath, the sound broken and ragged.
Des kneels down next to me, and he places two fingers against the woman’s forehead. I can taste a hint of his magic in the air as it settles around the injured woman.
Her eyes flutter, and she shudders out a breath.
“What did you do?” I ask.
The Bargainer stands. “I took away her pain. The rest her magic will have to fix on its own. I am no healer.”
I remember the last soldier I fought, the way her wound began to close only to stop healing. If the soldier’s magic couldn’t heal that wound, can this woman’s magic heal hers?
Unlikely.
The thought filters in from a new part of me, the part that drank the lilac wine, the part that’s now a little fae. I can sense the fairy’s magic slipping outside her body. It lingers in her spilled blood, and it’s evanescing into the air. That magic seeps into the walls and the ceiling, and then it’s no longer this woman’s magic, it’s the castle’s.
What had Des said?
Spirits love to cling to the last of their lifeblood. This woman’s magic is slipping away from her—will her soul slip out with it?
Will I be able to sense that too?
I don’t stick around long enough to find out.
We leave her there, once again making our way to the main entrance of the palace. The closer we get, the more bodies begin to stack up. Here the sounds of fighting are almost deafening. I can tell by the noise alone that a battle rages in the great entryway of the palace.
Rather than heading there, Des takes us to a staircase that leads farther down.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“The dungeons.”
“The dungeons?” I echo. “Why?”
We come to a thick door made of hammered bronze. I can feel a ward humming off the thing.
He turns to me. “Wait here, love.”
“Des—”
But he’s gone.
