Lord of Eternal Night by Ben Alderson

15

“Something is wrong. I can tell.” Mother’s voice cleared through the shimmering water before her face even had time to materialise. “It is still night which means the beast is awake. Yet you call upon me, as though it is the smart decision to make in your situation. Did I not warn you of using your powers during the night?”

“Marius will not come here.” Already I longed to pick up the bowl and throw it across the room. But I held firm, biting down into my lower lip to keep my tone free of annoyance. “We are safe to speak.”

Her sharp brow furrowed, creating lines across her almost perfect forehead. “You refer to him by name.”

“A name I feel that you knew long before sending me here,” I snapped.

Mother paused before responding, looking to someone who sat before her out of view of the scrying bowl. “It was not a piece of information I deemed important enough for you to know. His name changes nothing towards the end result. Everything else you have learned from me does.”

What else had she kept from me? I narrowed my gaze, holding back the fire from boiling the water in the bowl. “Tell me about the first person he killed. The body he left on the boundary.”

“Why does it matter to you?”

I leaned in, hissing through gritted teeth, “So you do not deny knowing more about him? Pray tell what other information have you decided I did not need to know!”

“Whatever has gotten into you can cease immediately, Jak. I am your mother, you do not speak to me in such a manner.”

“I do not like being lied to,” I said, gripping the sheets beneath me until my knuckles mimicked their whiteness.

“No one has lied to you,” Mother replied, voice as cold as Marius’s touch. “Perhaps you have never thought to ask the question.”

“Then tell me. I ask now, do I not?”

I could not make sense of the quiet murmurings that came from the person sitting out of view. Mother did not hide as she glanced towards them again, listening intently before nodding in agreement. “He was merely a victim. There, now you know as much as I do. His body was drained entirely of blood. Drunk dry by the very creature you should currently be getting close to rather than pressing me for questions. Have you thought to ask him?”

She was keeping the truth from me. I knew it.

“Tell me who he was,” I pressed again, not giving up until I was satisfied.

“Jak.”

“Tell me.”

“What has transpired to get you in such a state?” she asked calmly for the first time, leaning over the bowl until her curtain of dark, straight, hair fell on either side. It gave the illusion that it was only the two of us having the conversation. Although I knew that others listened on from her side. Perhaps Victorya listened on to me, hidden in her astral form. Perhaps she too knew the boiling anger I kept buried, trusting that this was not the time to tell me what to do.

“It is not long until the fateful day, Jak. Do not let such insignificant topics cloud your mind and the task at hand. I will do you a favour and tell you everything you seek to know when you return home with his head. Think of it as yet another pending praise for your successful return.”

“Why not now?” I rocked back on the bed, burying my face in my hands in defeat. “What if I do not make it back?”

I almost felt the shift in temperature in the room. How the mundane storm that brewed within Mother was moments from bursting out. If she had true power like me, she would have been unstoppable.

“Then you will deserve nothing. If you fail, you deserve what is coming to you.”

Shocked, I could hardly hold a breath long enough to string a response together. “Mother…”

“You are different since the last time you called for me. Softer. Not the hard-edged dagger that I have moulded with my bare hands and own sacrifice.” Mother took a shuddering breath, battering down the anger she fought so hard to keep in. “I sense a change in you, one that fills me with great concern.”

As I kept my eyes closed, the flashes of wasted hours of preparation burst through my mind. Days of magic and physical training, where the other children of town were allowed to go to school and learn mundane matters. They, unlike me, did not have the worries of the survival of their own kind to think of.

“I will not fail,” I said quietly. Will I not? That mocking voice returned in the back of my mind.

“Say it enough and I may start to believe you.”

Her distrust in me caused my heart to harden. It tugged down on my stomach and made me feel sick. Dread. It made me feel worthless beneath her judging, watchful stare.

“Mother, I will not fail.”

I came to regret calling upon her. Again.

“I have a piece of advice for you, Jak. Forget the small details and focus on why you are there. I can see that the creature has wormed his way into your mind. Making you ask questions that you would never have uttered before you entered his domain. Keep focused. Not just for our sake, but for your own.”

Mother must have knocked the bowl from the table, for the vision of her vanished after one sudden movement. I hardly caught what had caused it. One moment she looked at me, the next the water in the bowl was still and… empty.

In a rage of emotion, I kicked out at the sheets, sending the bowl across the floor in a crash.

Frustration not only caused by her, but what she said. Perhaps she was right about Marius worming his way into my mind. Just thinking of him caused my lips to tingle as though his kiss had lingered. I did have to focus. This was my fault, allowing Marius to soften me with his words. Work me down with his intense presence and reaching hands. Strong hands. Yet I had to get close to him, enough to get him at his most vulnerable. Whatever that meant in the end.

Mother’s lingering presence made the room feel unbearably cold. I pulled the sheets over my legs, fending off the shakes that caused me to tremble like a leaf in a billowing storm.

Who was the first person to die by his hands? Where was the book? Why did my mother and Marius want to hide it from me?

I sat like that for a while, skimming through the questions only to add more as I went. Sleep was impossible, and the usual hunger I felt non-existent.

Over and over I went through the events of the day, trying to find a reason for the need for secrecy. Marius would be hidden in whatever dark hole he retreated to during the day. Even if I wanted to find him, he would be in…

The undercroft.

The word sang true as it rattled across my storming mind. It was a place, deep in the pits of the castle, far below the very chamber I sulked in. A place vacant of daylight. Perfect for Marius to dwell in until night fell again.

I bolted up in bed, knowing exactly where I had to go for answers. And I had an inkling where I would find the entrance.