Page 22 of The Night Prince

Therewassomething off about him.

Something indefinable Something other.Some would even say it wasdark.Maybe he would, too.Even his own beloved parents had worried that he’d slip up in some way and be found out.

But what would be found out?

His mind went back to just earlier that day when the Sun had nearly done him in.While Finley was quick enough to assume it was some normal, if rare, disease that caused his Sun sensitivity, Declan wasn’t so sure.In this brave new world of magic and monsters, the only creatures who were affected adversely by the light were from the Under Dark andnoneof them were considered friendly.He certainly didn’t want to be associated with them no matter what the real cause of his aversion to sunlight was.He wondered what these Aravae would make of it.

Nothing good.

His keen hearing picked up their continuing conversation.

“He certainly looks like aVulluin, though he is quite lovely for one,” the male Aravae named Seith murmured.

Declan’s eyes narrowed.Sun Elves were notorious for their love’em and leave’em approach.That was not for him.If he ever were to date someone–let alone become intimate with them–it would forever.One and done.

He couldn’t imagine touching someone or letting them touch him and get into his heart and under his skin without having a commitment.The Sun King’s face flashed before his mind’s eye.He gritted his teeth.He was likely just fantasizing about him, because Aquilan was the safest person to fantasize about. He had no chance with such a being so he would never have to worry about pursuing such a romance or not.

Seith continued, “It can’t be because he put that snotty goblin in his place that you think him something other thanVulluin.”

“Oh,that?No, that’s nothing compared to what I’ve heard he’s done,” Leisha dropped her voice and leaned forward.

“And what is that, pray tell?”Seith looked disbelieving.

Leisha’s lips curled into a smile.“He killed a Leviathan.”

Declan’s breathing ceased for a moment, but again, he forced himself to appear completely unaware of anything they were saying about him.Leisha was wrong anyway.

He hadn’t killedoneLeviathan.

He’d killeddozens.

So many really that he wasn’t sure about the end count.Twelve hours of battle.Countless shadows burned away.Fangs littering the ground all around him.Body and mind completely blank except for the battle.

And I loved every minute of it.I finally felt like I was myself.Like I was doing what I was meant to do.

Declan’s eyes dropped to the seeming tattoo of a simple kitchen knife that decorated the interior of his left forearm.It was hardly remarkable enough to have been chosen as a tattoo.In fact, he wouldneverhave asked for it to be inked on his fair skin.But it was there.Whether he wanted it or not.

It ached whenever he thought of the Leviathan.They were made of pure darkness with red glowing eyes.They slithered and flew.They were huge yet able to slip through the smallest crack.There was nowhere that was safe from them when the Sun sank below the horizon before the Aravae had set up the shielded cities.

He felt the sharp outline of the blade underneath his skin.He snatched his hand away.His fingertips prickled and cold sweat coated his upper lip.Had he touched it too long?Would it stay as a tattoo or not?

Stay a tattoo.Stay.Stay,he begged.

After long moments where nothing happened, he dared to glance down at it again.The “tattoo” looked as it always had since the day it had appeared.Delicate lines of black detailed every swirl of wood in the handle.The blade was missing the tip just like the real blade had been after he’d pierced that first Leviathan’s side.The rivets that connected the metal to wood were also just as they had been on the real blade.Three down its length.He could almost remember how cool they were against his palm compared to the warmth of the wood when he’d wielded it.

This had been his mother’s favorite knife.She’d used it to cut everything from hunks of sharp cheddar cheese for them to snack on to the carrots she liberally sprinkled into his favorite stew.He’d found it clutched in her ashen hand, slick with her blood, just before she’d died.

As she’d pressed it into his hand, she’d whispered, “They’re here foryou, Declan.They’re here foryou.”

As her last breath had left her, he’d let out a keening howl and sliced his own skin with that blade, mingling her blood with his.He hadn’t felt the physical pain.The emotional one was so great that it threatened to consume him, burn him to ashes, leaving only blackened bones in its wake.The cutting of his own flesh had somehow helped him focus that rage and loss into something physical: a stain of crimson on steel.

It had feltright.

It had feltnecessary.

“Iefyr!”he’d shouted.A nonsense word.Yet he’d screamed it again and again and again until it echoed throughout his house. “IEFYR!”

The Leviathan that had attacked his beloved mother was still in the house.It had appeared like a ghost in front of him, all glowing eyes and inky blackness.There was the suggestion of coils in that darkness as if it was made up of squirming smoke snakes.It filled the space between the kitchen island and cabinets from the floor to the ceiling.Dwarfing him.Blocking out the feeble last rays of sunlight that streamed through the window above the sink.

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