Lord of Eternal Night by Ben Alderson

14

There was a missing book. Someone had removed it from the shelving recently for the outline was still clear from the layering of dust around it. I also knew that this was the first book Marius had written for he had explained they were organised in order from first to most recent. The space between the missing tome and the next was large.

It was not the only thing I noticed as I studied the shelving in Marius’s absence. The older the books he wrote, the longer they were. Bindings of pages so thick that two hands were required to hold them open.

But the further I went along the never-ending shelves, the more it was clear that the recent books were shorter. Dramatically so. Small novella’s that were no more than a handful of pages long.

What had resulted in Marius writing so little in the more recent years? Was it his lack of want, or the distance he put between himself and the other Claims?

He likely planned my story now. Plotting what my life could have been like if I survived whatever hell waited for me on the final day.

But I knew he would never finish the story.

As I studied the empty shelving, I felt the sudden urge to vomit. Knowing what I had to do no longer warmed me from the inside. It conjured the freezing chill of dread to sit, waiting, in my soul. It was clear to me now that Marius was not the beast at all. I was.

“Here you are…”

I jumped at the sudden appearance of Marius. Forcing a smile, I turned to see him standing with a dusty bottle of undisclosed liquid in one hand and two crystal glasses in the other.

“Did I scare you again?” He bit down on his lower lip, likely remembering my previous warning and how that ended up.

“Sorry.” I ran a hand through my brown curls, the other resting on my hip. “I was lost to my own thoughts.”

The glasses clinked as Marius rested them upon his oaken desk. “No bother. I thought you might like this wine for its vintage. Has been in the undercroft long before my own father was born within these walls.”

It was hard to imagine it as Marius spoke of his family. “He must have been a King to be born in such a place.”

“He was a man who was no more than lucky to be raised in such a place. From memory his mother was a servant to the ruling house that dwelled here. He simply grew up in the shadow of the great family that lived in this place.”

“So how is it you came to claim it as your own?”

Marius slowly popped the cork from the dark-green glass bottle. He lifted it to his nose and took a deep inhale before pouring the red wine in the two waiting glasses. “I inherited it when my father passed. During his childhood he grew close with the daughter of the Lord who owned this castle. They fell in love, married and had me. Their sole heir.”

“Which makes you a Lord.”

“Made me a Lord,” Marius interjected. “Now drink with me. All this talk of the past is making me feel like I am sinking internally.”

He handed over a glass which I took without question. Our fingers grazed for a moment as I did so.

As I lifted the rim to my lips, Marius spoke up. “Are we not going to toast?”

“Toast?” I questioned, breath fogging the crystallised glass. “To what?”

Marius lifted his glass before him, urging me to copy him. “To discovering new friends. May the exploration only continue.”

My mouth dried as our glasses clinked into each-other. Quickly I took a sip, the wine washing away my emotions as it spilled down my throat. “Marius, may I ask you something?”

His pale brows arched above his inquisitive stare. “I fear I do not have a choice.”

“There is a missing book.” I turned to the bookcase in question. “I was certain that something was in its place yesterday. But now it is gone.”

“I felt the need to take it for my own reading pleasure. There are plenty of others for you to borrow if you require.”

Marius did not lie about removing it. But I believed there was more of a reason for it.

“It was about the first Claim, wasn’t it?”

Stories of the mangled body that had been left on the boundaries of the castle sprung to mind. The one and only time that a Claim had ever been returned. The first of Marius’s victims. I knew little of the person for it seemed that the time that had past diluted the knowledge Mother had known of the victim.

“He was not a Claim.” Marius’s voice grew sharp. “Not in the same manner you are.”

Marius revealed more in the first five words than he had meant to. I witnessed his face pinch in frustration as he too realised.

The first person to fall victim to Marius was a boy and he was not a Claim.

I pieced the puzzle together in my mind. “If he was the first, and not a Claim, he must have been”

Glass smashed into the ground, sending a splash of red wine across the floor. I jumped out of the way of the littering shards, almost spilling my own wine down my front in the process.

Marius stood, hands clenched at his sides, breathing shallow. His face was tilted to the ground, but his eyes glowed like hot coals in a fire. Through his loose white hair, he glared at me.

“Stop pressing for answers. You may not like what you find.”

I stumbled back, watching the man before me change into the beast I had grown to know him as. Shadows quivered in the corners of the study as he flexed his sharpened nails and exposed his pointed teeth.

“You… you have only just toasted to continuing our exploration of one another.” I tried to keep my voice as steady as I could as his face morphed before my eyes.

“Do not use my words against me,” Marius seethed.

“Or what!?” I shouted, my own anger rising to the surface once again. All those buried feelings of guilt at what I had done came barging to the surface. “What are you going to do?”

Marius shook violently. “Go.”

“I will no”

“GO.”

His shout shook the very foundations of the castle. Urged on by his sudden, shocking anger. How dare you. I longed to throw the glass of wine at him. To hurtle the flames from the hearth and burn away the shadows he threatened to send after me. I watched as they thrummed with his control.

I did not fear him. Not entirely. But the tension that riddled between us was close to unbearable.

Before he could shout again I moved for the door which he partially blocked. I made sure to slam my shoulder into him as I passed.

I do not fear you, for I am the beast. The thought kept me going until the study was far behind me.

I almost expected the spectral figure of the young girl to meet me back in the chamber. To hear her scorn me for acting out.

But I would not let anyone speak to me that way. Not Marius. Not anyone.

There was no risk of Marius following me here. I knew it in my soul. So I sat back upon the four-poster bed and reached for the discarded scrying bowl.

Now it was time to consult with the coven.