Lord of Eternal Night by Ben Alderson

16

The door at the back of the dining hall was still left unlocked. It took all my will power to walk past the deliciously presented food that was waiting upon the long, oak table. Instead, I kept my focus on the task at hand.

To find the book.

As I entered the dark halls beyond the door, I felt a presence around me. In my haste I had not brought a source of light with me. Although it was early morning I didn’t have a clue what Marius did during his time away. Did he sleep like I did? Or wait the day out until he made his way back up to the surface of the castle?

The deeper I walked, the more the walls around me closed in. The ceiling seemed to shrink down upon me, and the smell of damp rock and moss only grew more intense with each step. Without light to guide me I had to use my hands to trail along the slick walls. Using my touch and slow, careful footing to make sure I did not fall on some unseen object.

It was not long until the strange foreboding of presence was justified. A kiss of a gaze furrowed into the back of my neck. I slowed, hands falling to my side, as a chill caused my skin to erupt in goosebumps.

“I know you are here,” I spoke quietly, although it did nothing to stop the echoing of my voice across the enclosed corridor of stone.

“You should not be down here,” Victorya said from before me. Not caring if she witnessed my magic, I lifted a hand in front of me and called upon my favourite element. Fire.

It sprung to life across my open palm. A curling of orange and gold that haloed the strange corridor in warmth and light. Victorya floated in the air, face pinched and arms folded over her see-through body.

“Because Marius is lurking somewhere far down here? Or because it is out of bounds for some other undisclosed reason? I will let you pick your answer.”

Victorya hunched her small shoulders. “It would seem that you also are in a foul mood.”

“You’ve seen him then?”

The conjured flame illuminated her pale form. I looked to the ground to see that only my shadow lay upon it.

“I have. And if he sees you down here then your chance of… you will not get far.”

“If he did not want me to come here he would have locked the door behind him. Shutting me out. He is rather good at that.”

“It is habit,” Victorya said. “It has been many a year since a Claim dared venture to find Marius during the hours of the living. This would usually be a time that they longed to be uninterrupted. Free of his company… when he was willing to share it.”

I hesitated before taking a step to walk past her. Victorya made no move or indication that she would get out of my way.

“You will let me pass,” I said. I could walk through her, just waltz between her spectral form as she had with the wall of my bedroom.

“And why are you so certain?”

I took a breath, gaze cutting holes through the already dead girl. “I am tired of being kept from the truth. Let me go so I can…”

“Can wake him? Impossible to do so during the day. Question him? If Marius has ignored your requests for answers he would have done so with a reason. Do not think your presence in his personal chambers is going to sway him to suddenly give up whatever he is keeping from you.”

I smiled, having obtained yet more information I needed. This was, as guessed, the way to wherever Marius kept himself hidden.

“Good,” I hissed, “because nothing you have said relates to what I am doing here. So… move.”

Throwing out the flame, I controlled its hurtling trajectory to land upon the girl. But instead it passed through her. Victorya did not flinch. Instead she zoomed forward until her haunting gaze was uncomfortably close to my own. “Beware how you act around me. For you will find that you go hungry before your stay comes to an end. You will be without fresh clothes. No bath will be drawn. I will… not… aid you.”

“Help me!” I laughed. “If you wanted to help you would let me proceed. If he will not wake during my visit then what is the harm of proceeding?”

“What do you hope to find?” she asked, bluntly. “If it is to kill him during his sleep, then you will be wasting your time.”

“I would not do tha—” The thought had not even occupied my mind. Killing Marius now, whilst he was at his most vulnerable. “That is not what I hope to achieve.”

“Good, because you would be a fool to think that Marius has not tried to end his life before. It never works.”

The flame in my palm died down to a simple glow. My connection to it severing as her words settled over me. “He has?”

“Not for a long time. It was terrible. Watching him being so broken. So tired. I will not explain his attempts further but know that you cannot do it.”

I spluttered out my response, “I do not wish to.”

What made the final night any different? I knew that my powers were linked to his demise, but why?

“As much as that relieves me… for now, we both know that we need you to do it. In the end.”

“I need a book,” I said, changing the course of the conversation as quickly as I could. I forced more energy into the flame so it burned brighter once more. “Marius has it. I know he is keeping it from me and I want to know why.”

“Stealing what you seek will do you no favours,” Victorya said. “Have you asked him for it?”

“Yes…” I stilled, shaking my head. “No. No I didn’t. The topic got heated and… there is no chance that Marius will give it to me. Not after the way he reacted when I asked a simple question.”

“You will ask him next time,” Victorya commanded in her small, but powerful voice. “If he does not comply then I will retrieve the book for you myself. But know that I do not like going behind his back.”

“You don’t?” I scoffed, ready to point out her double standard. “Because you certainly are encouraging me to kill him.”

“Trust me, Jak. He would encourage you to do the same if he believed it was a possibility. Now go. Leave him to rest. You do not understand how earned his moments of peace are. From the shadows beneath your eyes it seems that you too need to sleep. Try again with him when you wake.”

I looked to the waiting darkness ahead of her, imagining the space in which Marius kept to. Then I nodded, forcing my leaden body to turn back towards the direction of the dining hall. “For someone so young, you surely behave in the manner of an adult.”

“I am far older than you, Jak. Do not be fooled by my frozen appearance. Even in this form I have witnessed more of life and death than you could imagine.”

I shot a glance over my shoulder to say something in return, but she had vanished. Gone in a single moment. Yet her presence still lingered on the back of my neck until I finally closed the door to the chamber I now called my own.

Until next time, I guess.

* * *

Katharine returned the next evening.I heard her soft voice which floated up from the lower levels of the castle. Marius was with her, speaking in his usual low tone whilst she did not try and hide what she spoke of. I stayed out of view, hiding behind the splitting banister. On soft feet I had edged closer to try and see the scene as they conversed but the creak of the banister stopped me from leaning over any further for fear it would snap beneath my weight.

“How is your mother?” Marius asked.

“Not well. Every day her breathing shallows. I fear she does not have long left.” Katharine’s sadness was palpable.

“Let me give you something else to trade in for coin. I have other items you can…”

“Marius, stop. You have done enough.”

“Until she heals, I will not feel such a way.”

Katharine paced into view. I could see the top of her hair and the colourless, ripped dress she wore. But her expression was hidden from view as I watched from my perch.

“If I turn up with yet more unbelievable goods then they will sure catch wind of my visits. You do not know what they will do to me, to Mother, if they find out. And before you fret about not letting them harm us, you forget you are the princess kept trapped in a tower.”

“Waiting for my prince charming to turn up and save me,” Marius droned, spurring a weak laugh from Katharine. “If only it were that simple, little one.”

“I do not hear any crying or screaming from your Claim. Has he settled into his final days?”

My breath hitched as she looked up. I rocked backwards, just in time for her gaze to miss me.

“Do not speak like that, Katharine.” I could not see Marius, but I could imagine the pinching of his expression as he spoke. How he likely brushed the loose strand of white hair from his forehead, lips turned down.

“Have I touched a nerve?”

“Perhaps you have. He has settled well… considering. Did you want me to call upon him so you can thank him for saving your life from the blood hounds?”

Katharine folded her arms across her narrow chest. “It was not his blood that healed me—”

“Ahh,” Marius interrupted. “I finally see what you came for.”

“It worked on me, it might help my mother. I promise I will not ask for another thing again.”

She wanted Marius’s blood. A vision of him biting into his own wrist with his monstrous fangs before letting his dark gore drip into Katharine’s waiting mouth filled my mind. How her broken body had reformed and healed before my eyes.

Yet another example of the power he held.

“You would take that risk but will not pawn some useless item I can give you for coin?”

“There is no medicine left for her, Marius. I, we, have tried everything to better her state. You should see her coughing. How it racks her body and leaves her exhausted for hours. This is no state for anyone to be in. She told me of your kindness when it was her who visited you. Can you not do it for her?”

I expected him to refuse further. To tell her of what a dangerous risk this would be. Marius did not know what would happen to her. But if my mother or the coven caught wind that Katharine visited, they would punish her. If they saw the truth of what she requested from him this evening…

The thought alone turned my stomach.

Katharine was a desperate girl, looking for an equally desperate solution. Come to think of it, I had heard of a woman who was sickly in the town. She lived in a ramshackle house on the outskirts. It was likely why I had never seen Katharine before if that was where she lived. There was never a need for me to leave town that far.

“I will do it. For you. For Paloma. But you must be careful. It is at your own risk as to what happens when you give her it.” The warning in his voice caused my fists to tense into balls. “For you both, I hope this works as you wish it will.”

“Marius, thank you.”

Marius stepped into view, enough that I could see his crown of white hair. Katharine wrapped her arms around him, burying her face into his chest. “Do not thank me yet, little one. Return and tell me of its results, will you? I suppose it is a nice thought that I can help someone beyond this entrapment. For all it is worth, I hope it works.”

“So do I.” Her voice was muffled as she kept a hold of him.

I rocked back, unable to witness anymore. Guilt riddled through me. It felt wrong watching such a personal moment. So I left them, padding back to my room on bare feet, as quietly as I could muster across the panelled flooring.

Marius is not a beast.

I found myself losing tears as I picked up my walk into a run.

He is not the beast.

How could someone care so much about life, when those beyond this castle cared little about him?

In that moment I saw the truth, I understood it all. The realisation clear to me as I burst into his chamber. A room he never slept in. My vision blurred so much that I almost tripped. I threw myself onto the bed, unable to calm my breathing. My chest ached. I pressed a hand into it, trying to still the feeling of it cracking clean open.

Crying, I was crying. Something I had long left to the past. It was a strange feeling. A breathless, painful ache that spread across my chest as the unfamiliar wetness sliced down my cheeks.

I raised a hand to clear them, only for the moisture to return as more tears were unleashed.

“You want to kill him,” I spluttered through chesty sobs. Trying to convince myself of my fate. My only purpose. “You want to kill him.”

Want to or have to?