Chapter 18
Liliana couldn’t look Jissa in the eye that afternoon as they began to set the great hall to rights. She could still feel the heat of Micah’s breath on her intimate flesh, the shocking wetness of his seed against her thigh, the rough clasp of his hands on her bottom. He’d left marks, he’d held on so tight at the end, but unlike with the scars on her back, Liliana had found herself twisting in front of the mirror to examine these with a sinful lash of heat.
They’d disappear within the next day or so, but until then, they were a physical indication of not only her own pleasure, but of Micah’s. There was going to be pain, terrible pain, when she told him her lineage, but nothing and no one could ever steal this truth from her—that she’d brought him to that extremity of need, of desire.
“Liliana,” Jissa said, and from the tone of her voice, she’d been trying to get Liliana’s attention for a while.
“I’m sorry.” An ache in her heart, entangled with memories of a most beautiful sin. “I was woolgathering.”
But Jissa didn’t smile or scold her. “He is not himself,” she said, “not at all, oh, no, when the curse is upon him. You must not blame him.” Distress in every word, in those dark button eyes. “Oh, please, don’t—”
“He didn’t hurt me,” Liliana managed to get in when her friend paused to gulp in a breath. “He didn’t, Jissa. Please believe me.”
“He is so fearsome, big and wild and terrifying.”
“Yes,” Liliana agreed, putting broken dishes on the cracked but usable table. “But inside, he is still the Lord of the Black Castle.” Her father had tried to twist the soul of the child Micah had been, and succeeded only in twisting the physical shape of him. “Kindness and a little flattery will calm him if you ever find yourself alone with the beast.”
Jissa’s eyes were huge. “Oh, no, never. Not me. I’m not brave like you.”
Liliana thought of how she’d cowered under her father’s whip, how she’d lain weak and starving in his filthy dungeons, and knew she wasn’t brave. But she didn’t say that to Jissa, who finally looked more like herself. Instead, sweeping up the remains of what might’ve been a chair leg, she asked, “Where is the lord, do you know?” He’d been nowhere to be seen when she’d returned from cleaning herself up—and putting on her now-dry underwear.
“The village elder, sharp and pointy man, came here. A scourge of Bitterness in the village, you see.” Seeing Liliana’s confusion, she said, “Many arms and feet they have, yes, they do, and they are covered in black, so black, fur. Small creatures, so much trouble. Trouble, trouble.”
“Are they creatures of the Abyss?”
Jissa shook her head. “Oh, no, they are simply drawn to the Black Castle. Home, it is, home from long, long ago. But rice and potatoes they love, tsk tsk. Stealing rice and potatoes.”
Liliana laughed at the idea of these pieces of “Bitterness” eating their way through potatoes with relish. “What does Micah do with them?”
“He brings them back home,” came a familiar male voice from the doorway.
Turning, she found Micah standing there, fully armored again—and surrounded by a small sea of furry little creatures who were making the oddest chittering sounds. Before she could say a word, Jissa put her hands on her hips. “No, no! Pests! No pests in my kitchen!” the brownie said in an unexpected show of temper.
“They’ve promised to behave.” Micah smiled, slow and coaxing, and Liliana all but saw Jissa melt. “They’ll only be here for a while. Something scared them and so they’ve come to hide until the badness is gone.”
Liliana felt a chill in her heart. “What is this badness?”
“Bad magic,” Micah said. “The Bitterness were created to sense bad magic, and eat it up. But they are too small, and can only eat small bad magics.”
And the Blood Sorcerer’s magic, Liliana thought, was huge and ever growing. Had she needed one, this was the final sign that there was no more time—she would tell Micah the truth tomorrow, hope he would remember…hope he wouldn’t hate her.
That night, while Micah was gone hunting the souls destined for the Abyss, Liliana dreamed of huge spiders as big as horse carts. Their eyes were a malignant red that burned, until she couldn’t look at them without tears of blood streaking down her cheeks. And yet she knew she couldn’t look away, for their legs were lined with razors, their mouths with knives.
Then she fell, and they were on her, cutting and tearing and ripping.
It was her own scream that wrenched her out of the nightmare.
Sitting up in the huge black bed in the room that belonged to the Lord of the Black Castle, his shirt—the one she had borrowed from his closet, though he had ordered her to sleep naked—stuck to the sweaty film on her skin, she bit the inside of her cheek, creating enough blood magic to open her palm on a ball of light. It floated to the ceiling, bathing everything in a soft glow. There were no spiders in the corners, or if there were, the small creatures were too shy to bother her.
But it wasn’t those insects that worried her. “They are coming,” she said to the mouse who watched her from the windowsill, his tail twitching as if he sensed it, too. “The Arachdem are coming.”
Micah returned to the castle with many shadows this night, all of them so full of evil that he felt drenched in it. Not going to Liliana until he’d washed off their stench, he was most displeased to find his bed empty—though the hunt had been long and dawn touched the sky in a luminous cascade of color. “Where is she?” he snarled at the mouse who had the bad fortune to be sleeping curled up on the bedside table beside the unicorn timepiece he’d shown Lily last night.
The mouse squeaked, stood up on two paws for a second, before dashing down and behind the table and under the bed. Leaving the creature because it was a denizen of the Black Castle, though its magic was very, very small, Micah slammed his way down to the kitchen. Jissa jumped when she saw him, then shook a wooden spoon.
“Look! Look at this!”
Bemused by the sudden aggression from this most sweet and timid of brownies, he walked around the counter to see what had her so upset. By and around her feet rippled a sea of furry black. The Bitterness. Micah scowled. “You promised to behave.”
A chittering, squealing response.
“Oh.” Raising his head, he said to Jissa. “Have they eaten any of your potatoes or rice?”
Jissa frowned, put down the spoon and went to check the stores, the Bitterness at her heels. They made a mournful hungry kind of sound when she opened the bins, but didn’t swarm. Instead, they followed her back when she returned to stand in front of Micah. “No, they did not.” Shocked words. “Not at all.”
“Then I believe they must like you, Jissa.” Kissing her on the cheek—and enjoying her “eek” of surprise—he left her surrounded by the squealing happiness of the Bitterness.
“Hush, silly, silly,” he heard her mutter, but there was no ill will in it. Then, “Very hungry you are?”
Smiling because the Bitterness would not be harmed here and Jissa would not be lonely, he was almost in a good mood for an instant. Until he remembered that Liliana hadn’t been waiting warm and naked in his bed as she should have been. She was his, after all. Didn’t she know the rules? He was scowling again by the time he entered the stone garden, following the scent of her sorcery to the grassy area beside the long reflecting pool that was a favorite with birds.
She’d drawn a blood circle and though he could’ve crossed it as this was his domain, he didn’t. To disturb such magic could cause harm to rebound on her. Instead, he took a seat on an overturned sculpture and watched as she knelt on the cold, hard earth dressed in nothing but her old brown dress and a black jacket.
At least the jacket was his, he thought, mollified.
A tickle at his leg announced one of the Bitterness. Looking down, he saw it was, in fact, four of the creatures. Carrying a cup of chocolate dusted with cinnamon. “My thanks.” He took it, was almost expecting the group that came along with a plate of bread heaped with butter and honey. “Jissa is working you hard.”
They all but leaped in joy before running back to their new mistress. That was what no one understood about the Bitterness. They had been created to eat bad magic, and that was how they got their name—for it was said they became bitter with the eating of it. That, however, was not true. When the Bitterness ate bad magic, it lost its badness and became inert. The Bitterness, on their own, were loyal creatures, full of happiness and a desire to help. If not for their unfortunate propensity to raid farmers’ stores, they would be much loved.
Eating a piece of the bread, Micah decided to keep one aside for Liliana. He wasn’t pleased with her for depriving him of a chance to touch and kiss her naked body, but he didn’t like her looking weak. After spilling that much blood—from a wound in her arm, he saw—she’d need sustenance.
Her lips moved, her fingers lifting to make graceful flowing patterns in the air that glowed with light. It was blood sorcery, beautiful and arcane and of Liliana. He watched, enthralled, his own power resonating with hers, as if it was as enamored of it as he was of the woman who wielded it.
“See,” she whispered.
A minute later, her hands fell, the glowing patterns disappearing into the ether. “I wasn’t wrong, Micah,” she said, her eyes flicking open. “He has sent the Arachdem.”
Her words were a chill wind. From what he’d heard pass the lips of the condemned, the Arachdem were fed the worst of the dark magics and, as such, were nightmares given form. It was said they could cross the Great Divide, traverse the ice mountains, lava-filled pools and other obstacles that protected this realm. “When?”
“Soon. Within hours.”
“Break the circle, Liliana.”
“What? Oh.” Standing, she ignited a match and dropped it on the circle. It opened with a “pop” of sound, the magic dissipating. “Is that for me?”
He held out the bread. “I will not share my chocolate.” But when she smiled at him, he gave it to her.
A small, quiet moment passed with her sitting beside him, warm and smelling of nothing but Liliana. Then the sun’s rays hit the broken circle, caressing the dark ruby stain of her blood. “How many?” he asked.
“I think…an army.”
Bard took care of evacuating the people of the village to the safety of the Black Castle—which had, according to legend, never fallen. The villagers came in huddled and scared, not simply of the threat of which they had been warned, but of the castle and its inhabitants.
Jissa, shy and afraid of strangers, came out with the Bitterness holding cups of sweet tea and cakes for the little ones. At first, people stared and whispered, but the sight of the Bitterness chittering and obeying Jissa soon charmed them into smiles. Before long, the Black Castle was filled with the sounds of children’s laughter as they attempted to catch the Bitterness—who were delighted at the attention, but never wavered from their devotion to Jissa.
“I think,” Micah said to Liliana in a rare moment of quiet on the castle roof, “that the Bitterness are here to stay.”
“Them, I welcome.” She touched her fingers to his arm. “He has sent the monsters for me, you must know that.”
He didn’t know why she told him that. Did she think he would turn her away so as to escape the Arachdem? The thought annoyed him. “Good,” he said, “then I’ll give you to them at the edge of the village and they’ll return from whence they came.”
A small pause, then an even smaller voice. “I’m sorry.”
Frowning at the bloody black of the sky, he shot her a glowering look. “Don’t be sorry. Help me halt this army.”
“The Arachdem are his greatest weapon,” Liliana said, an odd catch in her voice. “He has never been defeated when he has brought them into battle with him.”
Micah didn’t like the sound of that, but he also knew that this was his domain. The power of the Abyss would respond to no other, and would sing for him. “He has never before attempted to breach the Abyss.” Something pushed at him from the back of his mind, an insistent prodding. “Their eyes shine red in the dark—like living embers of flame, and they carry pure poison in the sacs on their legs.”
Liliana’s expression turned desperate. “Do you remember?”
“What?” Shaking his head, he dislodged the odd prodding.
“Please don’t fight it.”
But he barely heard her, his attention caught by a roiling cloud in the distance. “I must go. They’re almost here.” Turning, he caught her startled lips in a kiss that warmed him to the core, before he rose into the air on leathery wings meant for hunting shadow prey.
The sky thundered, menacing shades of red and black licking at the horizon. He dove down through the ugliness of darkest sorcery, to see another layer of black. But this one was furred and moving, flashes of gleaming metal catching the light as the huge spiders crawled forward on razor-armored legs; there were so many of them that they covered the bubbling lava pools that had kept out intruders for eons. He wondered how they did not drown in the agonizing heat of the pools—until he swept lower and saw that they were using the bodies of their fallen as a bridge.
It was no surprise.
The Arachdem were, after all, a creation of the blackest blood magic. It was said that the Blood Sorcerer himself, the one who had done more evil than the others combined, the one who sought to live forever and escape the Abyss, had formed them before— A wicked lance of pain swept through his mind, trying to disgorge thoughts his consciousness wouldn’t accept. It had him gritting his teeth as he hovered above the coruscating mass of the Arachdem.
They stopped as one.
Their heads lifted up, their many eyes holding him in their sights.