Lord of Eternal Night by Ben Alderson

26

Iwoke to a deep, thudding laugh. It took a moment to register it as I broke through the grogginess of sleep. I had fallen asleep, back resting against the wardrobe I had pushed against the bedroom door. It was one of many pieces of furniture I had moved to block the only entrance and exit to the room by foot.

The little sleep I had did nothing to clear the cobwebs that wove from bone to bone, and vein to vein.

I listened carefully for the noise again, unsure if it was an illusion from some already forgotten nightmare. All I could hear was the beat of my own frantic heart and shallow breathing. But then it happened again. A laugh that seemed to shiver in the very shadows of the room. It came from here, but also from far away. A noise impossible to pinpoint.

Yet I knew the deep chuckle and its owner.

The open curtains gave view to the dark of night beyond the room. From my perch on the floor, I could not see the blood moon. But its deep, blood-red glow washed across the night and everything beneath it. As though the full moon had been cut down and it bled profusely across the world.

It spilled into the room, waves of crimson that touched everything before me. I raised my hands and saw nothing but the red glow across my skin. There was no time to scold myself on how long I had been asleep or when I had fallen unconscious. I vaguely remembered my eyes growing heavy but blamed it on the lack of food and the long day. It did not matter now.

I stiffened as the laugh shivered around me. A slow, devilish chuckle that dragged on for countless, horrific moments.

The urge to clap my hands over my ears and pinch my eyes shut thrummed through me. To tell myself that this was the dream and I was, in fact, still sleeping. But if my plan was to work, I had to stay vigilant. And no dream begun in such a way. Those types of dreams had other names.

Regardless if I had been trained for this moment, it did not deter the utter fear and panic that riddled through me.

“Calm down,” I said, focusing on my breathing. Marius was strong, likely powerful enough to smash through the barrier I had created with the furniture. But his laugh, although near, was also far. His laugh was different. Raspy and deep, as though it was a multitude of different voices overlapping one another.

I stood slowly from the ground, my body useless to stop him if he wanted to enter. Raising my hands in their readied position, I stood back from the door and deeper into the room.

The moments that followed seemed to drag into oblivion. I kept as still and quiet as possible, trying to pinpoint if he was close. It was impossible to distinguish the violent beats of my heart to the footsteps beyond the room.

“Jak.” The voice was a symphony as he drawled my name. “Jak, I am hungry, Jak. So, deeply famished.”

I longed for the ceiling to crash down upon me. Marius was close. His last warning to tell me to hide trickled into my consciousness. Instead I waited for him in the first place he would have looked.

More moments of silence followed that was not broken by his voice. No. It was a scratch of nails against wood. The sound was so uncomfortable it itched at my skin and made it cold with sweat. Marius was beyond the door, his nails like scraping blades against the barricaded door.

“Do you not want me now?” Marius whispered like a hurt child. “Let me in, Jak, please. Open this door so we can… discuss matters.”

I could not muster a reply. My throat had dried entirely, and my tongue seemed to have thickened in my mouth from fear.

“Let me in so I can be with you.” Marius changed his tone to commanding as he partially shouted.

“What is stopping you?” I said back, unable to hide the shake in my voice. “You could enter if you wanted.”

Marius chuckled, his laugh turning manic. “Where would be the fun in that… witch? Come now, do not be spoiled. Do I not deserve some… fun?” I jumped back as he slammed his fist into the door, wood cracking beneath the force. “Let me in.”

I paced back towards the window which I had left ajar during my preparation.

“I am not letting you in, Marius. I am doing as you wished.”

“Do not mistake me for the man you think you knew. We are nothing alike.”

Magic swirled within my, now, awakened soul. I had a plan to keep him away and this was only the first step. Tiptoeing backwards towards the window, I kept a keen eye on the door. I did not want to encourage conversation for the fear he would hear my voice moving away.

“Beautiful night, is it not?” I shouted, hoping that would distract him from my distance.

“Delightful,” Marius purred. “Red has always been a colour I admired. There is something… passionate about it.”

“It is not how I would describe it.” My hands fumbled against the dusty windowsill, then to the iron latch that had rusted shut before I had pried it open. “I am fonder of the morning if I am honest.”

“Shame you will not see it,” he replied so quickly it hitched my breath.

I clambered up onto the windowsill until I was in a perch. Readying the element of air, I willed for it to listen for when I called. Its cooperation was imperative to my next plan. I buried the anxiety of the possibility of falling to my death before Marius got to me. An image of him drinking from my broken, shattered body at the ground far below the window sliced through my mind.

No. Focus.

The night beyond the room was crisp as the air swaddled me. It impressed me just how well the thin glass of the window kept the cold out of the room. It was the final night of the final month of the year and the chill of winter was intense. My jaw clenched as I braced against the chill, twisting my wrists and willing the air to follow my command. It was a simple gesture, but one that would keep me airborne for as long as it required to reach the castle’s towering roof.

Looking up, my stomach tugged downward as I took in the height. During the daylight it did not seem so impossible. Now, looking upwards, it seemed that the spires moved away from me before my very eyes.

Focus, Jak, I warned again, my hands shaking at my sides as the wind began to listen.

The trick was to hold one’s breath, not wasting precious air on breathing when it was needed to keep me afloat.

I closed my eyes, ready to throw myself backwards into the night when a brush of breath tickled my ear.

I spun so fast from my perch that I tumbled onto the chamber’s floor in a knot of limbs. Panting, I pushed myself back up to see Marius climbing through the window.

His gaze was obsidian, not a single slither of white left. His lips sliced into a smile, cutting through his cheeks, exposing rows of sharp teeth.

I crawled away from him as his black-tipped fingers bent the wiry frame of the windows and cracked the panels of glass. One leg inside, then another until he stood before me.

“I thought it would take longer than this.” He seemed taller, but crooked. And his tone was almost… disappointed, his low lip pouting slightly as he regarded me. “It would be crude to admit that I was hoping for more of a chase. You have made this far too easy.”

This was the creature I expected during my years of preparation. And he was far from the man I had come to know. To love.

This being before me was twisted and dark. His face was not soft, but sharp and creased with lines. His tongue, the very same that had explored every inch of my skin, now lapped hungrily across his pale, almost non-existent lips.

“I did not invite you in,” I said, forcing as much strength into my tone as I could muster.

“You seem to forget that this is my home. One I do not need an invitation to do what I desire.”

I scrambled backwards until my back was, once again, pressed against my barricade. He could not be here. Not like this. His presence ruined the next steps in my plan in a single, horrifying moment.

“You are speechless… it is becoming of you.”

My lip curled upward. “If this is what you warned me of, you do not frighten me.”

“Don’t I?” He rested his hand on one hip, flashing his fangs. “Shame…”

I looked between the open window, feeling the remnants of wind that was still waiting for my command, then back to Marius. “I do not want to hurt you… trust me.”

Marius opened his mouth to respond but was silenced as my power slammed into him.

He did not see it coming. Or perhaps the slither of the man I knew simply underestimated me.

The build-up of power still lingered in my bones, waiting patiently for its release. As I raised my hands, and held my breath, billows of wind thrashed across the room at him. It conjured from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. The force crashed into his chest, doubling him over like a doll, and ripping him from his feet.

The window shattered into pieces, flying out into the night with Marius. I closed my eyes, waiting for the nick of pain to spread across my uncovered skin as glass rained down around me.

But the wind I commanded kept a barrier of protection.

Once the element was expelled completely from my being, I sagged to the ground, opening my eyes to see nothing but destruction. The nightly, natural wind caused the ripped curtains to dance in place of where Marius had stood seconds before.

Panicked, I pushed myself up and ran for the gaping hole my power had created. I hardly cared as I gripped a hold of the glass covered windowsill and peered out to the ground far below.

I expected to see a broken body amongst the scattering of shattered glass.

But I did not.

There was nothing but curling mist and shadow across the overgrown grounds.

Marius was not there. So much relief burned through me that a single sob escaped my parted mouth. My breathing came out ragged and uneven as I fought the urge not to tumble to my knees.

As far as my sight could allow, I scanned the dark garden, looking for him among the shadows, searching for answers as to how he survived the fall.

Then, as I squinted into the dark, the echoing laugh began again.