“Come in, Brynt.” She called him from the navigator chair. “I thought it might be easier with the amplifier.”
Fiana had mulled over her decision all night. She had told him about her childhood, her family, the rough life under the Slavers—and she even admitted to some petty crimes. She opened up about nearly everything except that one secret. She licked her parched lips.
“There is something I haven’t told you.” She waved him closer and handed him Samare’s bracelet. “Remember, this is our only chance to save the colony. Without your support, I won’t... I won’t make it.”
He stood behind the chair and placed his arms on her shoulders. “I’ve got your back, Navi.”
She grabbed his bracelet hand with her own and leaned back. Familiar darkness surrounded her and the bridge appeared under her feet.
Brynt? She reached out to him.
I am here. He was just a voice. She still couldn’t find him.
I have to tell you something about the crash.
Yes?
I really didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt. Something stirred in the darkness. You were right. I was the stowaway.
She took a deep breath. Are you still with me?
Silence. Brynt? Silence.
Brynt? Her voice broke down.
Yes, was a reply, from somewhere close. A grey mouse made of shimmering dust sat on her shoulder.
She stepped onto the bridge. When the pain and voices tried to reach her she grabbed the mouse’s tiny tail and wrapped it around a finger. She focused on his calm whisper. One step at a time. One step. Just one more. Brynt’s presence quieted the voices and spread warmth that eased her pain. The experience was still excruciating, but she braved the full length of the bridge.
Finally she fell through the orb-gate on the other end. With the link established, she could order everything from the ship’s computer. They were saved.
Small orbs circled around the full length of the bridge as she walked back. She realized she wouldn’t have to go through the pain again to communicate with the ship next time. She should have trusted Brynt earlier.
The needles came out, but something wasn’t right. As her senses returned she yelped.
“Brynt?” She shook the cuffs around her wrists.
“You didn’t think you could get away with it, did you?”
He pulled her up from the chair, away from the amplifier. Blood dripped down her nose and ears and she was covered in sweat.
“Now that we have the tools to restore communication, the Navi council will be notified of all your crimes.”
Brynt grabbed her shoulder to push her toward the exit.
“I walk through hell for you and your colony and this is how you repay me? I trusted you!” She shook her head and blood drops splattered on the floor. Her eyes fixed on the Navi bracelet he still wore. “Rot in hell. Sybilla.”
The bracelet clicked in response to her command.
“Ah! What—” He choked on his words as convulsions ran through his body and foam formed on his lips.
She wiped the blood off her face and bent down to pick up the handcuff keys. Damn. This stuff really does work fast on men. The stowaway looked down at Brynt, dead. She would blame the crash on him, a thief of Navi property. As long as she ensured no other Navi came, she could make a home here for herself after all.
The End
AETERNAE NOCTIS
Jade Kerrion
Darkness sliced, swift and precise, across the amber curve of the full moon.
The flame in his lamp flickered. Shadows danced over the rough-hewn stones of his low seat beside the fountain in the city square. Erich Dale lifted his quill from the parchment balanced on his lap and raised his gaze to the sky. An easy smile creased his face as he visually traced the spread of the bat-shaped wings across the back of the slender, humanoid form soaring over the city.
His breath caught; his throat closed around the gasp of awe. Too lovely.
The icrathari’s beauty—perfect and pure—evoked matching emotions. His chest ached as tears pricked at his eyes.
A pity he was the only human to witness the icrathari’s flight. He threw a glance over his shoulder at the city of Aeternae Noctis. Its cobblestone streets were empty; its homes and shops darkened, a defense against the pale-skinned vampires who roamed the city each night of the full moon.
His people’s defense was psychological, not physical. Vampires did not need light by which to see. Erich had watched them for years—long enough to understand their strengths, of which there were many, and their limitations, of which there were few. Vampires who inhabited a city of eternal night had nothing to fear from the sun.
They were, however, curious about how openly he observed them from his favorite seat by the bubbling fountain. Several months prior, one of the vampires had actually stopped to ask him, in the politest manner possible, why he was not cowering in the shadows, hiding like the other humans.
Erich had laughed and shrugged. “I’m a poet, not a warrior. The people of Aeternae Noctis tell me I’m of no earthly use to man or beast. I don’t think the vampires will take any interest in me either.”
The vampire’s chuckle was low and amused. “I suppose not.”
He was right. The vampires paid him no attention other than to nod in acknowledgment when they walked past him.
On his part, he made no move to defend the struggling humans the vampires dragged from their homes. He did not attempt to save the weeping five-year old children seized from their mothers’ arms and carried into the vampires’ stronghold, Malum Turris, the black tower that cast its cursed shadow over Aeternae Noctis.
Like a man transfixed, he waited only for glimpses of the icrathari, the vampires’ overlords.
There were, he knew, more than one, but the one who entranced him wore her hair in a braid. From the moment he laid eyes on her several months prior, he could think of little else. Her predatory grace proclaimed her a monster, but the indefinable expression in her eyes declared otherwise.
Erich shook his head, his smile wry. As a poet, words should not have eluded him, but they did. He knew only that her eyes were not the eyes of a demon. He looked up, searching the sky for her.
The gust of chill wind heralded the silent beat of massive wings. Shadows flickered through the air and unfurled to reveal an ethereal creature. Scarcely five feet tall, it was so slender it seemed almost delicate. Its skin was pale, and its silver hair woven into a long braid it wore down its back. Large gray eyes slanted upward in a finely featured face that mirrored the murals of angels in the cathedral. Batlike wings stretched ten feet from wingtip to wingtip, and the horn-shaped bones that emerged from each juncture between the flaps of the black leathery wings were encased in studded metal. Dressed in leather bustier, pants, and matching boots, the icrathari strode past silent vampires to stand in front of him.
“Beautiful.”
He had not realized he had spoken aloud until the icrathari’s lips curved in a smile.
“Who are you?” His voice sounded thin even to his own ears. Did courage or stupidity inspire his question? There wasn’t much difference between either in the presence of an icrathari who commanded hundreds of vampires with a wave of her hand.
Her eyes narrowed, but she answered. “Tera.” The husky and rich timbre of her voice did not match her seemingly fragile appearance. She glanced at the parchment on his lap. “And you’re an artist, Erich Dale.”
He tilted the piece of paper to catch shards of light from the pale glow of the moon. Black ink captured in stark relief the curve of the impenetrable glass dome that separated the city of Aeternae Noctis from the outside world and trapped it in eternal night. Within the dome, an icrathari spread its wings in flight. The painstaking detail of the icrathari contrasted with the crude sketch of the dome. Erich held the parchment up to Tera. “I’m a poet, an artist, and beautiful things inspire me.”
She accepted his gift. “You do not fear the night, and you do not fear me.”
/>
He rose. At six feet, he towered over her, but he did not, for a moment, doubt her superior strength. Several months earlier, he had seen her flip her wrist, sending an attacking human flying through the air. The man crashed into the wall of the smithy. He stumbled to his feet and shook off his disorientation. With a snarl, spittle forming on his lips, he seized the blacksmith’s heavy hammer and charged at Tera.
Her calm expression did not change. She reached out and caught him around the neck. Her fingers tightened.
Bone snapped. The hammer toppled from the man’s suddenly nerveless fingers. Tera’s grip loosened, and the man collapsed in a crumpled heap. She turned away, but not before Erich caught a glimpse of the regret that flashed through her eyes.
She’s not a demon.
A panicked cry of a child recalled him to the present.
Erich turned his head at the desperate wails that shattered the silence of the night. Five-year old children screamed and flailed in the unyielding arms of the vampires who carried them across the drawbridge into the tower.
He closed his eyes and wrapped his mind around the certainty he knew in his heart. The icrathari are not demons even though they take our children from us. Even though they have imprisoned us in eternal night.
The people of Aeternae Noctis perceived the icrathari and vampires as more than captors; the inhuman tormentors were the Night Terrors—demons who possessed the power to block out the light of the sun.
In the fields surrounding the city, crops thrived beneath artificial light emanating in twelve-hour intervals from the tall columns interspersed in the fields, but humans were less resigned to darkness even though no one could remember any differently after centuries and generations of imprisonment. Sunlight was a story whispered to children at bedtime, a tale repeated by drunks in taverns, but it was also fact. Sunlight was the hope, the certainty that kept his people strong through the despair that should have otherwise consumed them.
Beyond the dome, everyone knew that sunlight blessed the Promised Land, cradling it within its benevolent warmth.
The chill of the eternal night cut through his thin cotton shirt, and he shivered. Erich understood the hate and fear that swamped his people, but standing face-to-face with Tera, he could not find those emotions in himself. Sunlight be damned. He would endure an eternity of darkness for the privilege of looking upon her. What was that look in her eyes? Deeper than loneliness. More profound than sadness. Why couldn’t he find the right words?
“I’m not much of a poet,” he confessed.
She turned to survey the silent city. “What in Aeternae Noctis could possibly inspire you?”
His jaw dropped. Couldn’t she see that inspiration lay all around? Erich lifted his face to the sky—the pale perfect circle of the moon; an endless parade of stars, each one a distinct sparkle in the dark of the night. Aeternae Noctis glowed beneath the moon’s eternal orbit; the polished stone walls of its buildings and cobblestone streets glistened like living silver. The stained glass in the cathedral shone with ghostly light, as if the radiance emanated from within.
“I find inspiration in the unaffected beauty of the night,” he whispered. “In the peace and silence.”
“Which is why you come out here, every night of the full moon.”
He nodded. “The night is most beautiful then. The city is silent.”
“But not at peace.”
“No.” How many adults and children had the vampires taken this night? How many families wept, broken-hearted, in their homes, their choking cries stifled against further discovery or retribution from the vampires? His shoulders rose and fell on a quiet sigh. “Necessity compels you, but you’re not at peace either.”
Her eyes flashed wide and then narrowed into slits.
“Isn’t it true?” he asked.
“No one has ever dared say so.”
“I know more about the Night Terrors than my people do. I see more. The vampires ignore me. Instead, they seize the most talented humans—our most skilled warriors and hunters, our scientists and engineers. The useless ones—our poets and artists—are left unscathed. You take with purpose, which implies a necessity at work. I see it, even if I don’t understand it.”
Tera tilted her head, the gesture challenging. “And the children?”
“I don’t understand why you take some five-year old children and leave others behind, but there is a purpose too, isn’t there?”
Her wings ruffled. She nodded, her jaw tense.
He shrugged. “You don’t owe me an explanation, though others would say that the truth is ultimately inevitable.”
“You don’t care to know much.”
“I care to know only what matters to me. My poetry, my art. Beauty.” You. “The truth will come in its own time. Everything else is irrelevant.”
She frowned. “Even though you’re trapped in the city with others of your kind.”
He turned and followed her gaze beyond the curve of the dome. Outside the glass dome, moonlight washed over waterfalls cascading from cloud-enshrouded mountain crags. The few trees that claimed the mountain’s highest ledges expanded into the abundance of pine forests before thinning as forests gave way to lush fields scattered with wildflowers. If he closed his eyes, he could hear the crash of water and smell the fragrance of pine and cedar. His fingers twitched, instinctively reaching for the rough bark of the trees and the velvet softness of wildflower petals.
His eyes flashed open. Reality smashed his vision into pieces, but enough fragments remained to keep the smile on his lips. “It’s beautiful out there.”
A flicker of guilt danced across Tera’s face. Her gaze darted to the pale glow that encircled the uppermost level of Malum Turris like a bracelet.
Erich’s eyes narrowed. Why?
He returned his attention to her. He opened his mouth to ask the question but his voice trailed into silence. Once again, his breath caught at the flawless perfection of her features. Tears stung his eyes. Compared to her, the most stunning human was scarcely more than a gargoyle. He quashed his curiosity. He did not need answers. The magnificent beauty of nature lay beyond the dome, but the greater beauty stood in front of him. “It’s far more beautiful in here.”
She turned back to him. After several moments of silent study, she said, “You are content.”
“Why do you sound surprised?”
“No human has learned to be content, not in the seven hundred and fifty years of Aeternae Noctis’s existence.”
He laughed. “There’s always a first.”
Her expression remained skeptical.
He waved his hand to encompass his surroundings. “I have everything I need here. Quill, parchment, the quiet of the night, and inspiration.”
“You love the night.”
Erich nodded. “Yes, I do.” Acknowledgment of that simple fact flooded him with peace.
She smiled, radiant beneath the moonlight. “Be blessed by the night.” Her wings spread, beat down, and lifted her into the sky. For a moment, she hovered above him before turning away, darting like an arrow toward Malum Turris.
After that first midnight encounter, Erich saw Tera often—at least once each night of the full moon. She did not offer reasons for her presence in the city. Surely it could not be to watch over the vampires’ activities; his people feared the vampires too much to put up a fight. She seemed approachable, even friendly, but her reputation warned him to keep his distance. Vampires gave her a wide berth, though Erich sensed their distance was inspired by respect rather than fear. Regardless, she lingered for an hour or two by the fountain in the city square, reading his poems, or far more often, watching him draw.
Even she, he realized with a self-mocking irony, had no appetite for his poetry. Apparently, no one—human, vampire, or icrathari—did. He was obviously as fine a poet as he was a skilled warrior. Yet who needed poetry when his muse was present? When she was with him, words failed him; he could not write. Instead, his quill danced across parc
hment in an attempt to immortalize her. He ached to touch the silver strands that escaped her braid to frame her face. Was her skin as soft as he imagined in his sleep each night? What would her voice—the now-familiar breath of silk over steel—sound like when roughened by desire?
Erich could not get her out of his mind and lived only for each night of the full moon, when he could see her again.
He had only hours to wait, he realized when he glanced up at the sky late one night—or whatever passed as night in a city of eternal darkness. With a smile, he looked down at the parchment in his hand. He had never fancied himself an artist, but perhaps, he had lacked only the right inspiration. A detailed image of her face with its solemn eyes and unsmiling mouth stared back at him. It was beautiful because it was too flawless to be otherwise, but her expression made it enchanting. It married hope with despair, a poignant reminder that the heights of one could not exist without the depths of the other.
It still fell short of the indescribable expression she habitually wore, but it was close. He would, he knew, spend the rest of his life attempting to capture it.
A flurry of motion skimmed across his peripheral vision. Strong hands seized him and dragged him to his feet.
His parchment fluttered to the ground.
“What is this?” a deep male voice taunted. Gerald, the blacksmith, picked up the piece of paper. “It’s the icrathari.” He tossed the parchment aside and spit on it.
Erich twisted but could not break free from the unyielding grip of the two men who held him. “Give it back to me.”
“You’re surprisingly coherent, for a blood slave.”
His eyes narrowed. “Blood slave?” He shook his head, his denial frantic. “I’m not a blood slave.”
“The demon didn’t force its blood down your throat and turn you into an unthinking, worshipful zombie? Of course it did. Why else would you consort with it?”
“Tera’s not a demon.”
“Tera?” A female voice cut in. A young woman in her mid-twenties, scarcely older than Erich, pushed past the men who surrounded him. A cascade of flame-colored curls framed her face. Her green eyes were narrow slits. “And so it has a name. Does it know yours? Will it come when we make you scream its name?”
“Yuri,” Erich pleaded with his cousin. “Don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what? Don’t fight back? It’s better than cowering. Better than living with guilt. I couldn’t protect them.” Her voice cracked with pain. “They took Jana and Jack last month. They took my babies.”
“Oh, Yuri…” His heart broke for her and for her bright-faced twins who had just turned five.
“The vampires and the icrathari…they’ll pay. I’ll make them.” Her lips twisted into a grimace. “And you’ll help me.”
Against Tera?
His affection for his cousin, for family, warred against his instinctive need to protect his muse. Tera was not human, but neither was she a demon. She was not the monster they believed her to be. Turmoil churned through him. He shook his head. “No.”
A sneer crossed Yuri’s face. Her chin tilted up, and she glanced at Gerald. “You handle Erich. I’ll make sure the others are ready.”
Erich caught a glimpse of several men holding a net, its corners weighed down with stones.
An image of Tera, coiled helplessly beneath a net, flashed through his mind. Fear surged adrenaline through him. “Yuri, no!” he lunged forward, breaking free, but Gerald’s companions pulled him back and tightened their grip on his arms.
The blacksmith leered at him. “Yuri wasn’t too specific on what not to do to you. By the time we’re done, you’ll be singing anything we tell you to.”
He gritted his teeth. Like hell he would.
Gerald drew back his heavy hand and backhanded Erich. Bone snapped from the impact. Pain exploded across his face. He gasped. Tears swam into his eyes, blurring his vision against his tormentors.
If only it were that easy to escape the agony that followed. He did not cry out when Gerald drove ham-sized fists into his face and stomach, or when the repeated blows bludgeoned him face first to the ground. The blacksmith’s voice boomed through his aching head. “You’re not so pretty anymore. Go on, Erich, scream for the demon. Maybe it will come to save you.”
No, don’t come. He bit down on his lip until it was bloody.
Gerald scoffed. “Stretch his arms out. Both of them.”
Dazed with pain, Erich stared at the ground as Gerald’s massive shadow loomed over him. A grey mouse scurried across the pavement, darting from light into darkness. Shadows shifted into the distinct shape of a large hammer. Gerald swung the hammer over his head. “Your last chance, Erich. Call for her or you’ll never write—never hold anything—ever again.”
Erich closed his eyes. Blood dripped from his nose and mouth to stain the streets. The cobblestones felt smooth and cold beneath his fingertips. His voice trembled, but he spoke without hesitation. “Go to hell.”
The hammer swung down. Iron smashed against stone, crushing fragile bones in between them.
Anguish—raw and brutal—shredded him. Erich screamed then, only once. He was scarcely conscious when Gerald brought the hammer down on his other hand. His eyes fluttered open. As if in a dream, he stared at the bloodied, mangled pulp where his hands had been. Oh, God. No…
His gaze traveled beyond his ruined hands to lock on the parchment carelessly tossed to the ground. Tiny splatters of his blood marked the edges of the parchment, but his precious drawing of Tera’s face stared solemnly back at him. Despair and hope. In that moment, he knew only despair. Don’t come. It’s a trap. Don’t save me.
An inhuman war cry—part siren, part harpy—pierced the night. The people cowered, reflexively huddling into fetal balls. Four silver-haired icrathari, pale against the dark walls of Malum Turris, streaked down into the city square. Their black wings stirred the air into a vicious vortex. Claws and fangs ripped through the humans. Blood sprayed. The water in the fountain turned crimson.
His people, bleeding and dying, faded into his peripheral vision. Their screams became white noise. Erich crawled forward, dragging his injured body an excruciating inch at a time across the cobblestones. He had to protect Tera’s portrait. It was all he had left, the last work he would ever produce.
He placed a shattered hand on the edges of the parchment and held it in place against the panic and terror flooding the city square. Heavy, booted feet trampled over his body in desperate haste to escape the fury of the vampires and icrathari. Frequently, a dying gasp heralded the low thud of another body falling lifelessly to the bloodstained streets.
Erich closed out a world pulsing with pain and withdrew to a place in his mind where he could share the night—quiet and peaceful—with Tera. They exchanged no words, but none were needed. They were united by a love for beauty in its myriad shapes and forms—both human and icrathari. It was the only world he understood, the only world he craved.
He lingered in that dreamlike state when delicate yet strong hands turned him around and gathered him up. The touch was gentle but he fought it, reaching down for the portrait on the ground. Another pale hand picked up the parchment, folded it, and tucked it into his shirt. With a quiet sigh, he pressed his crushed hands against his shirt, against Tera’s portrait, and closed his eyes.
“Erich,” Tera’s voice recalled him. “Focus on my voice.”
She was moving, each rapid step jolting shards of pain through his broken body.
He did not want to move. He just wanted to stay with her until the end. It would not be much longer.
A chill, colder than anything he had experienced, shivered through his body. The steady rhythm of Tera’s booted feet tapped against steel, not stone. He forced his eyes open and stared without comprehension at the black walls closing in around him. Straight lines of corridors flowed into perfect curves of corners before straightening once more. Seamless construction. Smooth, flawless surfaces.
Was he in Malum
Turris? It was like no place he had ever seen. Its use of steel, its impossibly perfect construction, and sterile, otherworldly appearance placed the tower beyond human skill and knowledge, beyond their time, perhaps even beyond their world.
Tera stepped over a threshold. Steel whispered against steel. In front of her, the floor yawned apart. Hot air rushed through the opening and thickened into steam as it collided with the cold air within the tower.
Nonchalant, she stepped into the void. Moments later, he was falling, though still cradled in Tera’s arms. Her wings flared out, controlling the speed of their descent. Uncomfortable warmth enveloped him. Even the air smelled different. It grated in his lungs, as if infused with a million tiny particles.
His lips trembled as he tried to shape words, but injury and exhaustion stole his voice. Where are you taking me?
The searing breath of heated air became near unbearable, and he closed his eyes.
Hell. You’re taking me to hell.
But the heat passed. When he opened his eyes, he lay on parched soil. Tera leaned over him, her lovely face cast into shadow by the massive domed structure that hovered several hundred feet above the ground, carried aloft by powerful gusts of air. Within the curve of the dome, he could see the cathedral, the city hall, and the buildings of Aeternae Noctis. Beneath the apex of the dome, seemingly anchoring the dome to its platform was Malum Turris itself.
His mind reeled. It was impossible! Aeternae Noctis was built on the ground. How often had he pressed against the curve of the dome and stared at the unchanging splendor of the world outside the dome. The eternal mountains, the endless cascade of the waterfall over pine forests and lush fields?
Erich closed his eyes, slowly, deliberately, and willed his senses to return. He willed the nightmare away.
When he opened his eyes, the domed city of eternal night was further still, racing away from the distant glow on the horizon.
But how? And why?
He recalled Tera’s guilty glance at the ring of light emerging from the uppermost floors of the black tower. The unchanging perfect world outside the dome was an illusion cast and sustained by Malum Turris.
It did not answer the question why.
He looked back at Tera. His lips shaped the word he no longer had the strength to utter aloud. Why?
“Trust me,” she murmured. She turned his face to the side, exposing the length of his neck. With a slither of bone against flesh, her pearlescent fingernails extended into curved talons, and she drew its sharp edge against his tender flesh, severing his jugular vein.
Blood spilled out of him and vanished, sinking into the thirsty earth, leaving dark stains. A deep chill expanded from a place deep within him and crept out to his extremities. His vision shrank as darkness closed in. The sound of his slowing heartbeat thumped between his ears, the gap between each beat longer, each beat softer.
He would die in her arms. No better place. Erich was too weak to smile, but he sank with gratitude into her embrace and closed his eyes.
He was not prepared for the flood of thick liquid into his mouth—like honeyed wine, but richer and far more intoxicating. It flowed without resistance down his throat, driving the chill and the darkness away.
His eyes flashed open just as Tera pulled away. Blood, the color of gold, trickled from a cut in her wrist. As he watched, her pale skin closed flawlessly over the cut. Her eyes were far more troubled than he had ever seen her.
Her lips shaped a soundless whisper. “Live. Live forever.”
Bright lights flashed through his head, blinding him. The slightest sound seemed to echo in his skull and ring through his bones. Tera spoke of life, but the scent of the earth, pungent with death, rose to fill his nostrils.
His senses reeled from the bewildering and dazzling overload, spinning his mind into panic.
What is happening to me?
She turned away.
No, Tera. Please don’t go. Don’t leave me.
His body sweated and trembled. Everything…too loud, too bright. Too much.
Tera returned. Desperate, he reached for her, the anchor of his dissolving sanity. Her presence held the terror, the fear at bay. His mental voice sobbed with relief. You came back. I knew you would.
Gently, she picked him up and deposited him into a shallow opening she had dug in the soil. It took him a moment to realize that it was a grave.
For a moment, her hand lingered on his face before she pulled away. The wrenching ache in her eyes steeled into resolution.
She stood and stepped back. Dirt flew into his face. It covered his body, burying him.
A voice, animal-like, devoid of sanity, maddened by terror, rent the night.
His voice, he realized stunned. No, no, no! Don’t leave me! I need you!
His unheard screams went on and on, roiling through his skull, even as the world around him fell silent.
Minutes passed. Hours. Perhaps even days.
Time had little meaning beneath the earth. When Erich finally found the strength to push the dirt aside and drag himself from his shallow grave, he rose to a world that was nothing like the world he had seen from within the safety of the dome. No lofty mountains graced by crashing waterfalls. No pine forests or fields blessed with an abundance of wildflowers.
Instead, a barren wasteland welcomed him—a world without water. The parched earth cracked into jagged lines that widened into crevices.
The truth of the world beyond the domed sanctuary of Aeternae Noctis—a city of limited resources, where children were regularly culled for the sake of the community’s survival—was like a stake through his heart. Above him, stars glittered in a cloudless sky growing light with impending dawn.
He stared at the brightening glow on the horizon. Fear pitched in his stomach. He was a creature of the night—he had been even as a human—but he had never feared the light before.
Now he did, his terror instinctive, primal.
Transfixed, he watched as the band of sunlight consumed all in its path, wringing pitiful drops moisture from the soil and setting aflame anything that could still burn.
His only salvation lay in the domed city of Aeternae Noctis which raced through eternal night, but it was nowhere in sight.
Day crept closer, ushering death in its wake.
Erich drew in a shuddering breath. Despair crushed hope. The sunlight for which his people had yearned was the source of death. The paradise beyond the dome of which his people had dreamed was hell.
His muse had cursed him and abandoned him to eternal life in hell.
His bloodcurdling scream rose to the heavens, but could not drown out the sound of his breaking heart. Erich Dale, once human, now a vampire, turned and ran from the light of day. There was nothing left to do, nothing more he could do, except mourn the eternal night Tera had stolen from him.
The End
THE LAST OF THE JINN
K.N. Lee
Malah rummaged through the dead guard’s clothing. Sweat dripped from her forehead onto the man’s chest as the heat of the room gained intensity. Malah grew dizzy and despite the heat felt a debilitating coldness crawl under her skin as her hand searched the last pocket.
Nothing.
She pulled her dagger from the guard’s head and wiped it clean on the bottom of her nightgown. Her eyes scanned the corridor. Four dead Parthan soldiers lie on the stone floor. None of them had an antidote for whatever poison the clerics had given her. Her full belly churned. She pressed her hand to her belly and closed her eyes with a sigh. Life stirred beneath her palm.
Two innocent lives.
The Parthans may be strong and powerful, but her gifts gave her an advantage.
The Reen guards that patrolled the exit would not be so easy to kill. They were larger, stronger, and composed of stone.
Malah opened her eyes and breathed in deeply. Within moments, cold air made her golden skin tighten and her toes and fingers numb. Her arms raised and she squeezed her eyes closed as she fed p
ower to the air around her. She peeked through one of her eyelids to see the stone guards turn from brown, to gray.
Frozen, they would not give her any trouble for the next few minutes.
Minutes. That’s all she had.
Whispers filled her head as she ran down the chilly corridor. The dark didn’t bother her, but the voices did. They’d never allow her to escape. Not when the entire planet needed her for its survival.
Malah didn’t care about them anymore. She wanted to go home. If she could rid their poisons from her body, she could finally think straight again.
She cursed herself for being so stupid. Why had she allowed herself to fall in love? She should have known better. Love never ended well. Hadn’t she seen the results of such a foolish emotion enough times before?
Malah wrung her hands. The gray guards slept upright, like statues, their hands formed into daggers, but kept inside the metallic scabbards at their sides. It looked like they simply had their hands in their pockets, but she knew better. She only hoped they wouldn’t be activated before she could escape.
“One, two, three, four,” she chanted into her cold hands. Her power was weak. She had neglected her practice for far too long. She rubbed her hands together and poured out a tiny burst of power. “Yolie! Please, come forth!”
A small light formed in the palm of her hand.
Malah smiled. Her heart thumped, but this time it was with hope. Perhaps her skills weren’t too rusty after all.
The light turned into a ball. She kissed it and it began to take the form of a tiny figure. The figure uncurled itself from a ball and rested on its knees. Malah could have jumped for joy. Instead, she hid in a corner, with her back against the stone wall. She watched the tiny person look up at her with large red eyes that sparkled like rubies. Then, it tugged at its black hair, making it longer and longer, until the curling locks could be coiled around its body like a dress.
“Blessed One,” the creature called. She stood in Malah’s hand and looked around. “Where are we this time?”
Malah closed her eyes and sighed. She rested her head against the wall and shrugged. “Yolie, we are in big trouble. We are in Partha.”
Yolie’s big eyes widened. “No, Blessed One. We have to get out of here! This is not one of ours!”
“That’s why I summoned you. I need your help.”
Yolie nodded but pursed her thin lips. “But Blessed One, what do you need me to do?” She sprouted red wings and flew from Malah’s golden hand to hover just inches from Malah’s face.
Malah’s gaze lifted to the open air ceiling. The passing sky beckoned to her. The clouds seemed to float and dance and she remembered what it felt like to be free. Free to fly with her family. She felt a stab in her heart as she realized that she would never fly with them again. She was the last, but she would not let that stop her.
“How did you get here, Blessed One?” Yolie asked. “We are far from home.”
Malah sighed. She gave Yolie a sheepish look from beneath her golden bangs. “I was curious. I wanted to see what this new race looked like.”
Yolie frowned. “Why? I don’t understand.”
Malah shook her head. “It isn’t important. I need you to fly me out of here.”
Yolie clapped her hands. “Oh yes! Yes! I can do it! Let’s go home! Let’s play together again. I do miss our games, Blessed One.”
Malah glanced back. It was still quiet in the temple. She might have a chance. Her hands shook. She looked down at them and nearly wept. Blood covered her small golden hands. It had seeped into the crevices of her palm and dried to a dry, sticky, paste. She’d never had to kill anyone before. She’d never had a reason to.
Now, nine dead guards and a cleric would haunt her dreams for all eternity. Even if they deserved their fate, the guilt would never fade.
“Good,” Malah said and stepped back to give Yolie room. “Go on. Shift.”
Yolie made a face. “You forget, Blessed One. I need more of your blessing.”
Malah sighed. She had forgotten. Her head was so full of fuzzy thoughts that she could barely think straight. She was losing time. The poison was too strong. Her vision blurred, but she nodded and held a palm out for Yolie to sit in. “Okay, quickly.”
Yolie flew into Malah’s hand and bowed on her knees.
Gold light filled the room as Malah ignited her blessing. Her golden body levitated as she breathed soft words into her palm. “I give you love. I give you light. I give you the power to Shift and take flight.”
Yolie opened her eyes and smiled. “That was beautiful, Blessed One. Thank you.”
Malah fell to her knees and hung her head, drained. “You deserve every blessing, Yolie. Now please hurry.”
Yolie nodded quickly and flew into the air. She stretched her red wings and flexed her dangling legs. Her hair unwrapped from around her body and floated around her as she Shifted. Red feathers started to grow all over her pale naked flesh. Her face was covered, and her hair continued to float. Like a giant bird, Yolie’s nose became a red beak and her eyes grew larger. She bowed to Malah.
“Climb on, Blessed One.”
Malah leapt into the air with grace and landed onto Yolie’s smooth back. She pressed her face to Yolie’s feathers and held onto her neck.
“Take me home, Yolie,” Malah whispered.
A loud explosion made Malah gasp. Shards of green magic shot out towards her. Something clamped around her neck and yanked her from Yolie’s back.
Malah screamed for her friend as she was pulled from the air and sent crashing to the hard floor. Yolie fought back and was stabbed by the tip of a red bone spear. Her bird-like screech ripped through the air, sending waves of vibrations throughout the entire room.
Malah had to act quickly. She reached out and created a glowing door that hovered in the air. She could never live with the guilt of a friend’s death, and so, she banished her. “Away with you!” she cried.
Yolie obeyed, as always. She nodded. Her white body flickered and faded into the cold air. Her essence seeped into the doorway and the door vanished.
Malah wiped the blood from her face and glared at the clerics in red cloaks that surrounded her. Protecting the clerics were Parthan soldiers with their bone spears.
Vornid peered down at her from beneath his hood. He reached a hand to Malah’s face and grabbed her by her cheeks.
Malah squirmed as the abnormally tall cleric lifted her from the ground. She dangled before him like a child as his black eyes bore into hers.
“Who said that you could go anywhere, Blessed One?” he snarled.