Lord of Eternal Night by Ben Alderson

29

Ithrew everything I had at him. Every ounce of magic and energy. With each, thin and quick breath, I commanded the elements as my soldiers. My guard. And it listened, willingly. Volleys of wind, fire and water. Time slipped through my fingers as I lost the ability to think of anything but keeping him from me. It was easy at first, manipulating the emotion that roiled inside of me, feeding it to the elements as they raged as my protection. All whilst my back was pressed to the wall of shadows keeping me, and him, from leaving this cursed place.

I watched in horror as the skin melted from Marius’s face as a wave of flame raced across him. It was a moment of tiredness. A lax in my judgement as I did not keep the element from harming him. All control slipped from my hands as I watched, a rasped scream echoing between us, as the fire devoured his skin.

My stomach jerked and twisted, bile creeping up my throat as I pulled the flame back. But I was too late.

Marius was caught in a roar, hand raised to do little as the wave of fire cascaded over him. As he lowered his hand, skin had been burned back to reveal bone. The side of his face less fortunate against the brunt of my wild power exposed the skull beneath, gleaming and pristine, dripping with melted flesh.

I wanted to call his name but my voice was a muddle of rasps and croaks. My throat so dry that each inhale and exhale seemed to encourage a symphony of knifes to cut across it.

His cry of pain and shock soon ceased. One moment it filled the night, next not even my power dared make a noise. The world was silenced. Had I gone too far? Even as I blinked I could not rid myself of the image of melting flesh against charred bone. Had I completed what I had been fated to do?

Marius raised his hand before us and we both watched as skin creeped back over bone. His pale flesh was like a small wave of water lapping back across a sand bank, leaving moisture in its wake.

He was healing, fast, before my eyes.

Marius twisted his wrist, displaying the feat with pride. My focus was entirely on the miracle before me. Dead and burned flesh, healing over, new and fresh.

When he lowered his hand, it revealed his fang filled grin, the last of the skin knitting back across his sharpened cheekbone. “You had me for a moment.” Marius clicked his head to the side, the sound painfully loud over the thundering of rain that persisted around us. “I admit, even I was frightened.”

My arms ached as I raised them back in defence and threat. “Next time it will burn through bone.” I did not believe my warning, and from his intensifying smile, neither did Marius.

He released a hearty laugh at the cracking of my voice. “We both know that you would not maim me. You could have done that a long while ago.”

If it was not for the constant force of the barrier behind me I would have fallen to the ground with exhaustion. Dwindlings of fire returned to my palms, but not the strength that it had been before. Even the winds died down to a gentle whisper and the rain calmed to a soothing shower.

“Let this end, give up.” Marius walked towards me, sidestepping the curling of fire that I had thrown, missing his foot by inches. “You have fought hard but I sense you’re willing to give up. Listen to it. Denying it will not help you in the end. And the end will come.”

My stare faltered on his walk, catching the faint limp in his leg. It was so subtle I could have missed it. Then I noticed how his lip curled upward with each step.

He was hurt. Not healing completely as he should have. Marius, although seemingly unharmed, was exhausted.

And the clearing of the clouded sky revealed why.

Gone was the dark of night, but the deep blue of dawn’s warning.

A rush of hope thrilled through me at the sight, followed by the pop of a laugh that escaped me. “It would seem you are nearly out of time.”

The spark soon exploded into a wildfire of hope that filled every inch of my being.

Marius looked upward, eyes squinting towards the brightening sky. A wince pinched across his face. The piercing red that filled the sky was now pink, dulled by the blue of dawn.

“Enough of this!” Marius face creased with feral panic. Desperation turned his face into a mask of hard lines and pointed fangs. He lunged forward with speed that was unstoppable. Before I could will my magic to help, his hand was around my throat, the other gathering both my wrists and squeezing them together. The bones in my arms and hands felt as though they could shatter, his grip intensified by his urgency.

A nail dug into the side of my neck, piercing my skin with ease.

“Ahh,” Marius sighed, dark eyes skirting over everywhere but my own. I could do nothing in his grasp. Not as my head throbbed, longing for air. But his hold kept that from being possible. “Enough time has been wasted.”

I closed my eyes, the spark of hope extinguished as his mouth closed in towards my neck. His tongue met my skin first, lapping roughly across the cut that his nail had gifted me. I wanted to cringe away as I felt his entire body tremble with excitement.

This was it. I had tried to prolong this moment, hoping for my own selfish reasons that I would see morning and pass the fateful evening. As his fangs pressed into my skin, I felt a trickling of calmness rush over me.

For me it was the end, but for Marius… it was the beginning. I focused my stare on the lightening sky, hands hanging uselessly by my sides. There was no pain. No agony that I expected. It was the sensual pulling that I had experienced with him in his bedchamber. As he drew blood from me, he took my warmth with it. Starting at my toes, my feet numbed with each deep intake.

But still the pain did not arrive.

Only… relief.

“One feels strange watching on.” A voice sounded behind us. I thought it was an apparition until the pressure of Marius’s fangs relaxed and he growled, lifting his face from the crook of my neck. All of a sudden that seeping, draining feeling ceased and the warmth kept huddled in a ball deep in my chest. “I did not mean to stop you, goodness no. How terribly ill-mannered interrupting one’s… dinner party without an invite.”

I believed to have felt fear before this moment. But a new stabbing of horror buried into me at the realisation of whom it was that spoke. The feeling was like drinking water after wine —in that moment, my attention and understanding snapped back to reality.

“Mother.”

I could not turn around to see the truth behind me, stood beyond the barrier. Not as Marius’s grip on my wrists tightened. The rumbling growl deepened as he hissed towards those who stood beyond my sight. With a sharp tug he turned me around, forcing me to stand before him, one arm around my throat, keeping my head upward, and the other around my waist. I felt like a lost lamb, entrapped within the coils of a snake, looking on at a far greater predator.

It was not only Mother who stood beyond the rippling wall of shadow. Hooded figures of the coven stood with her, each holding lit torches and other, gleaming objects with sharp pointed ends.

And there, exposed to the cold chill of morning, stood Katharine. Hair shaved violently close to her scalp, exposing raw cuts and wounds across her head. She trembled, shoulders bent inward as she did her best to cover her thin, frail body with the scrap of dirtied material that wrapped around her.

This was Mother’s final attempt. I could see it in the widening of her eyes. An attempt at a distraction to give me time to end him.

“I fear I missed all the fun.” She spoke, her voice painfully calm. “Apologies for the extra guest I have—”

“Do it,” I snapped, pushing up against Marius as much as I could. “Finish it now.”

I spoke to him and only him. Mother’s appearance changed everything.

“A waste…” Mother began, folding her arms across the dark cloak that she wore. “Such a handsome man locked away in this castle for all these years. If I had known of your beauty, perhaps I could have visited as a Claim myself.” My stomach turned at Mother’s comment. Marius’s hold on me tightened. “Goddess knows I would have finished off the task at the end of it. Something my dear son seems to have failed at.”

“You look just like her,” Marius seethed, spittle and blood dripping onto my shoulder. “If you would have visited I would have taken pleasure in draining you long before the final night.”

“For a creature that is so feared and spoken about, you sure are able to string sentences together well. Even on the fateful night. I would have expected a more beastly creature, one who did not enjoy conversation when all he wanted to do is feed.”

“You want the beast?” His voice deepened, causing the shadows to curl inward around us.

Mother leaned on one hip and spat, “Well, go on then. Show me. For I look upon not only one, but two pathetic beings. Do as you will with my boy, our kind have adjusted to our pending fate. Yet you will not see the next night either way. I sense it now, the curse on this place weakening. Soon enough the barrier will fall and you will let go of this hungry creature. Jak will die and you will follow. You can either take your fill, the outcome for you and Jak will be the same. But hurry.” She glanced up to the sky only slightly, both the corners of her painted lips turning upward. “I give it a few minutes until the sun rears its beautiful face for us all to see.”

I followed her stare to the brightening sky. It was light enough that I could see the sleepy town materialise in the distance.

There was hesitation in Marius’s grip. A moment that I almost missed as his hold on me relaxed slightly, nails no longer digging into my skin. Yet he did not let go completely.

“Do it,” I whispered my plea. “You will be free.”

Mother winced as I admitted aloud the outcome that was moments away. I was ready for the end as desperately as Marius was ready for the feast.

He leaned in, cold breath tickling my neck once again. Then he spoke. Subtle words that shattered me into a million pieces.

“I will never harm you again.”

His voice was soft in nature. It rumbled slightly, as though he fought for a place in this conversation. I feared that Mother would sense my stiffening and know something was amiss.

“Finish him off, but forgive the aftertaste of failure when you are done,” Mother cooed from her position beyond the weakening barrier.

Marius kept his mouth hovering above my neck as he spoke again but his hold on me softened, enough for me to feel but not for Mother to see. “It is me.”

My body trembled violently, so much so that Marius had to return the strength to his hold to keep me standing. Deep within I felt the power raise its heavy head as I readied it for what was to come.

Marius breathed his next whisper. The words jagged like a blade, edged and commanding. “Unleash hell, Jak.”

It happened so fast that my breath was snatched away from me. Marius pushed me towards the barrier with a roar. I raised my hands, expecting to collide with its layering, but passed through to the surprise of Mother. Into her unexpecting arms I fell, knocking her to the floor.

We tumbled across the paved ground, rolling over limbs as she tried to push me from her. But I became dead weight from my own surprise and confusion.

“No!” someone shouted as I came to a stop among reaching hands. Countless hands from the hooded figures of the coven yanked me from the floor. Mother batted those who dared reach for her. She stood, straightening herself as we all now watched on at Marius who towered in front of Katharine.

“Fool,” Mother screamed, her shrill voice that of the dreaded banshee. “You dare play games with me?” If her pointed finger was a weapon, Marius would have been dead ten times over. Her arm shook as she kept it raised towards Marius.

But he looked at me with a pleading, sorrowful gaze. “Fight back.”

“You are free,” I murmured, eyes brimming with tears.

I could not do anything. Not as the glare of Mother turned to me. In seconds she was before me, blocking my view of Marius. A line of coven members formed between both parties, brandishing their weapons in shaky grasps, each aimed at Marius whose stance was bent and ready to move as he watched them.

“I would take your next steps carefully…” Mother spoke to Marius, but her stare did not leave mine. Not even to blink.

“The barrier is down, the curse is broken and he is free.” Spit splashed across her face as I pulled as close as I could to her. But I felt the resistance as those who held me stood strong. “I fail with pride knowing you will die by his doing. That, Mother, is the just ending.”

Mother hushed those who held me away like she was swatting bees. Her bony fingers reached for my shoulder and squeezed. Although she was powerless, her touch was enough to silence me. She leaned into me, forehead pressed to mine as she replied, “Then you will die with the same pride.”

Confusion pinched lines across my forehead, my eyes searching her face for a sign of a lie. But as she looked up again, a single tear slipped from the corner of her eye.

She cried, but not from sadness or grief. It was something else, something more.

I wanted to shout for Marius as the blade concealed in the folds of Mother’s cloak came free. Wind blew at her blue-black hair, pushing each strand from her face so it was impossible not to see her expression. Lines creased over her forehead and I was certain she was shouting.

But the sound did not reach me. No noise did.

One moment the blade was cutting through the air between us, the next sharp tip sliced across my throat.

One fell swoop that was painless. For a split moment I could not register that it had happened as my hands fumbled to discover the truth.

Red. The tips of my fingers were red. Confusion spread through me for a moment, but soon melted away. My mouth parted and I took a breath, gurgling as blood popped like bubbles deep in my throat.

A spray of red splashed across Mother’s unblinking, wide stare. That one tear no longer the only thing wetting her face.

But before I could feel the warmth of blood spreading down my body, I was overcome with a chilled, soundless darkness. My eyes met Marius’s for a moment. I smiled.

Then nothing.

Just the sweet, calm, uncontrollable lullaby of death greeted me.