“We’re safe,” he sighed out, assuring the woman and himself.
He patted her thigh, again noting the strange pliancy of her bronze, as if it were merely tanned flesh.
She ignored him. Her gaze aimed skyward, but not toward the sun. She stared toward the low horizon, where a half-moon sat. He remembered his earlier assessment of her, how her countenance reminded him of the Huntress. Both the dark Daughter and silvery Son made their home in the moon. It was said the two continually chased one another, round and round, leading to the moon’s waxing and waning. But such a chase remained a great phylosophical argument. Did the Daughter pursue the Son? Or was it the other way around? Wars had been fought over such a religious quandary.
But at this moment, he couldn’t care less.
I’m free …
He laughed up at the sky.
It seemed impossible. Joy swelled through him, calming his hammering heart and breathless panting. He finally sat up. He stared as the caravan crossed over a sea of black glass, where the sands had been fused by some fiery cataclysm. The reflection of the sun off its surface was blinding.
At the same time, the day’s heat grew steadily. He searched around him. They needed to get out of the direct sun—or at least, he did. He considered how best to dig a shelter in the broken rock.
Seems my mining duties are not yet over.
Despite the burn of the sun, he returned his attention to the mystery kneeling beside him. What exactly had he stolen from the Shriven? What manner of spirit was trapped in that bronze? He recalled the archsheriff mentioning a coming war, how such a creature could turn the tide. Rhaif now understood. Any army led by such a miracle—or, for that matter, a legion of the same—would be unstoppable.
Still, he sensed such an abuse of her would be wrong.
It was not her nature.
He tried to read her face as she stared at the moon. Her features were now sculpted in an expression of sorrow, as if mourning a great loss. He reached again to her, then lowered his arm. He owed her, this spirit who had bought him his freedom, who saved his life. He wanted to ask her how he could repay such a debt, but he feared she could not speak. Or maybe she simply needed more time to fully settle her spirit into the bronze. Either way, there was nothing he could say.
In their shared silence, she continued to look at the moon. As the caravan continued its course north, Rhaif settled back. A lethargy spread through him after the day’s many terrors. He listened to the driver’s song trailing back to them, to the steady rumble of wheels. He knew he should get started on that shelter, but his eyelids grew heavy and drooped closed.
After a time, a low moan rose from beside him, stirring him back awake. He turned and looked at the woman, her gaze still on the horizon. He could not say if the sound was a mournful exhalation or her first attempt to speak.
Still, Rhaif’s skin pebbled with cold bumps.
Her lips parted again, and the sound firmed around a single word, whispered to the moon.
“Doom…”
THREE
POISONED DREAMS
What are portents but dremes of the morrow.
What are dremes but the dai’s hopes cloth’d in dark shadows.
—From the poem “Allegory of a Scryer,” by Damon hy Torranc
8
THE SUDDEN PLUMMET startled Nyx awake. She flailed, scrabbling for any handhold to keep herself from falling. As her heart leaped to her throat, a part of her recognized this feeling. Many times in the past, half-asleep and adrift, she had felt the world shatter under her. In such moments, she would jerk in panic as she fell—only to wake a moment later and find herself safely back in her own bed.
Not now.
As she continued to plummet, she thrashed at the blackness around her—not to beat it back, but to hold it closer. Darkness was as familiar to her as her own skin. Below, a strange brightness grew. Kicking, gasping, she tried to stay in the comfort of the shadows. But there was no halting her fall into that light.
She attempted to cast an arm across her eyes, to ward against the brilliance, but something gripped her wrist and would not let go.
Words reached her, sounding both distant and at her ear.
Is she having another convulsion?
The answer calmed her panic with its familiarity. No, I don’t believe so. Nyx recognized Prioress Ghyle’s calm but certain voice. This is different. It’s as if she fights against waking back into herself.
With those words, memory flooded into Nyx, like a dam bursting, letting loose a roiling whitewater of terror.
—a flight up steps.
—a threat of violation and banishment.
—the wash of hot blood through her dread-cold fingers.
—a headless body.
—the mountainous shadow looming through the smoke.
—bone-crushing weight.
—fangs and poison.
—a violation unimaginable.
—then darkness.
One final memory swelled through her, pushing all else aside. Thousands of screams and cries filled her head, her body—until it was too much and finally burst out her throat. The world quaked inside her again, growing ever more violent. Still, beyond it all, she sensed the cresting of a silence without end. She cowered from its immensity and inevitability.
Then a cool hand rested atop her feverish brow. Words whispered in her ear. “My child, calm yourself. You’re safe.”
Nyx fought back into her body, not so much heeding the words of the prioress, but to argue against them. “No…” she croaked out.
Even that pained protest exhausted her. She breathed heavily, drawing in a scent of acrid tinctures, of steeped teas, of dusty sprigs of drying herbs. Still, the agonizing brightness refused to wane.
She tried to lift an arm—then the other—but her wrists remained gripped. She squeezed her eyelids shut and turned her head away, but the blaze was everywhere. It was inescapable.
“Unbind her,” Ghyle ordered.
A man responded, “But if she convulses again, she could hurt—”
“We must help her wake now, Physik Oeric, or she may never do so. I fear she is too weak. She has slept near onto a full turn of the moon. If she sinks again into her poisonous slumber, she will never escape it.”
With a tug, then another, Nyx’s wrists were freed. She lifted her trembling arms against the brightness. The prioress’s words settled to her chest. A full turn of the moon. How could that be? Nyx could still feel the crush of monstrous knuckles, the fangs piercing her flesh. She was certain no more than a bell had passed since the attack. Instead, if Ghyle spoke the truth, most of the summer was already gone.
Nyx’s hands reached her face and discovered a wrap already in place, bound over her eyes, around her head. She fingered its edges. Another tried to pull her hands away.
“Leave it be, child,” the school’s physik warned.
Nyx had no strength to resist him. Not that she truly tried. By now, darkness ate at the edge of the brilliance. She welcomed its return, its familiarity amidst all the confusion. She let her arms fall back to the bed. She was suddenly so tired, a stony torpor that weighted down her bones.
“No,” Ghyle snapped sharply. “Raise her head. Quickly now.”
Nyx felt a palm cradle the back of her neck and lift her head off of the pillow. Fingers unraveled the wraps around her eyes. Though it was done gently, her head lolled listlessly with each unwinding of the cloth. She grew dizzy from the motion. With it, the darkness coiled ever closer toward the brightness at the center.