A Strange Hymn by Laura Thalassa
Chapter 12
Des hasn’t talked much about Arestys by the time we leave Barbos for the smallest of the Night Kingdom’s floating islands, so I don’t have any expectations.
I fly next to Des, heedless of his mood. The night air ruffles my hair like a lover, the warm air current carrying me and Des across his realm.
Flying is still just as thrilling as the first time I took to the sky, and I briefly wonder how I’ll ever return to earth. Before Des taught me to fly, all I wanted was for my animalistic features to disappear. Now I don’t know whether I’ll ever be willing to give them up to be normal. Sure, the wings make things like getting through narrow doors and sleeping on my back nearly impossible, but they’ve also introduced me to a whole other side of myself, one that’s wilder and freer than Callypso Lillis, the lonely PI.
It’s a fairly long flight to Arestys, and when I finally do see the island, I’m surprised by how dark it is. Most of the places we’ve visited so far have been brightly lit. Only Memnos, the Land of Nightmares, was anywhere near this dark, and that sends a wave of trepidation through me.
I catch a brief glimpse of the underside of the island, where hundreds, if not thousands, of caves dot the rocky surface. A few minutes later, Arestys is beneath us, and I get my first good look at the Night Kingdom’s smallest and poorest island.
I see a series of homely cottages clustered along a shallow stream, the water sparkling under the starlight. Strange plants grow in and around the edges of the riverbed, but outside of that, the place is a desert.
Des is quiet as the two of us land in the shimmery sand that covers much of what I can see. The island is small, probably only ten miles across or so. Some of the other floating islands seemed massive, but this place … this place feels like an afterthought, forgotten by most of the Otherworld.
Maybe that’s why I like it. There’s something about how lonely and overlooked it is that appeals to me. And out here, so far away from any city light, it feels like it’s just me and Des and an endless ocean of stars.
“This is where I grew up,” he says, so softly I almost miss it.
My attention snaps from the barren landscape to him.
“You did?”
It seems impossible that someone as beautifully complex as Des came from this strained, desolate place.
His eyes have a faraway look to them, like he’s lost in a memory. “My mother worked as the town scribe.” He points to a cluster of buildings in the distance. “She used to come home smelling of parchment, her fingers stained with ink.”
I barely breathe, afraid that anything I say will halt this story in its tracks.
“We were so poor that we didn’t live in a proper house.” Des looks both pained and happy as he recalls it. “We lived in the caves of Arestys.”
“Can I see where you lived?” I ask.
All expression wipes clean from Des’s face.
“It no longer exists.” His eyes meet mine. “But I can show you the caves.”
I duck my head as I move through the caverns beneath Arestys’ surface. The rock here has formed into a maze of honeycomb-like structures. There’s a sad beauty to this place, like a rainbow in an oil slick.
The tunnels are cold and drafty, claustrophobic and wet.
Des lived here.
My mate, the King of the Night, spent days—years—in these caves. It seems an unusually cruel existence in a place as magical as the Otherworld.
“So your mother raised you here?” I ask.
His mother, the scribe. The same woman Des claimed would’ve liked me. The same woman who must’ve once been part of the royal harem.
Des nods, his jaw hard as we wind our way through the tunnels.
I glance around at the gloomy caverns. There’s a dark sort of magic here, deep within the rock. It’s made of desperation and wishes, of unfulfilled desires and dreams that are kept locked away.
How is it that a son born into a royal harem ends up here? And how is it that a boy who grew up here becomes king?
“What about your father?” I press, side-stepping a puddle.
“Funny you should ask that …” The way he says this makes me think it’s not funny at all.
He lets his words fade into nothingness, and I don’t press him for more.
Ahead of us, the tunnel opens up into a crater the size of a football field. Up until now we’ve been belowground, but here the stars twinkle overhead, shining down into the bowl-shaped depression.
Des steps ahead of me, his huge boots kicking up dust as he heads across it.
Near the center of the crater, he kneels.
It’s all I can do not to stare at him. His white hair, his broad, muscular back, his tattoos, and those wings that he stubbornly refuses to hide all look so very appealing—so very appealing and so very tragic.
He’s my own personal brand of salvation, yet right now I get the impression he’s the one who needs saving.
I come up behind him, placing my hand on his shoulder.
“This is where my mother died,” he says quietly.
I feel my stomach drop at his confession.
There are no words.
Des’s eyes move to mine. It’s rare for him to wear his thoughts on his face, but right now he doesn’t bother keeping me out, and I get an acute glimpse of all that pain bottled up inside him. “I watched her die.”
My throat closes up.
I can’t begin to imagine. It’s one thing to witness your monster of a stepfather bleed out on your kitchen floor, another to watch someone you love die.
I circle around to the front of Des, and his arms come around my waist. He lifts the hem of my shirt to press a kiss against the soft skin of my stomach, his thumbs rubbing back and forth over my skin.
I run my hands through his hair, loosening the locks from the leather band holding them back.
This tragedy might’ve happened years and years ago, but right now it looks like it’s all playing out in my mate’s memory as though the events were fresh.
“What happened?” I ask softly.
I almost don’t ask at all. God knows there are so many memories that I hate sharing.
He looks up at me, his white hair loose. “My father happened.”
