Page 53 of In the Ravenous Dark
Without a second thought, I follow the sigils, drawing them out like an artist with a brush or chisel. And what becomes of them is…
Nothing. They don’t do anything. The shape of them falls away before it even comes into being. I feel something collapsing inside me. My father left menothing? How can that be?
Ivrilos’s eyes narrow, as if he can feel what I tried to do. But all he says is, “I hear something.”
“What?” I say, anger overcoming my despair. “Don’t try to avoid—”
“Shh.” He raises a finger to his lips, his other hand going to one of the swords at his hip, shoulders tense. I can’t help it—instinct makes me freeze along with him.
And then I hear it, too. A key turning in a door, the thunk of a bolt. The sound of boots on marble, at the other end of the gallery, where Ivrilos and I came through the double doors. My breath catches.
“Who’s in here?” a voice calls. “I bloody heard you.”
“See,” another voice says. “I told you it wasn’t just that royal bitch toying with us. Someone got in here. Maybeher. Look at the tracks.”
Royal?I wonder if they suspect Lydea—she would certainly be one to play magical tricks on anyone who annoys her. But the guards will find out in no time who’s actually in here. Ivrilos said there’s another exit. Even if they knowsomeonehas broken inside, maybe we can still sneak away and escape…
But then my guardian closes his eyes. His jaw hardens, and every muscle in his body goes perfectly still. Just like that, I know something bad is about to happen.
“Wait,” I say in the tiniest whisper. “We can leave.”
Ivrilos shakes his head without opening his eyes. “They know we’re here. Andno onecan know we’re here.” He smiles faintly, as if in apology, and meets my eyes. “I told you.”
He doesn’t seem to move. One second he’s in front of me, plenty of space in between us. The next, he’s nearly pressed up against me, looking down at me with a shadowed gaze. His fingertips graze my cheek—feather light, almost sweet, as they undoubtedly steal everything from me.
And then he vanishes.
I half expect to collapse right then—that’s what usually happens after he touches me. But I don’t.
“Ivrilos, wait!” I don’t care if I shout now. I know where he’s going. I pick up my skirts with one hand, wield my small flame in the other, and run, heedless of the statues I nearly careen into.
I tear around the last line of them to find the soldiers both staring at me in surprise.
“It’syou?” one of them growls. “You’re not—”
Ivrilos appears behind him, dark and looming, a sinister shadow. Based on the startled cry of his companion, his hand flying to a dagger at his hip, it’s not only me who can see my guardian. The first man has just enough time to turn, halfway drawing his sword, before Ivrilos’s hand closes on his wrist.Solidly.
Horror flares inside me… and then dies as my knees buckle. All feeling drains out of my body at once, like a split barrel of wine. I hit the floor, hard. I expected this after he touched me, beginning whatever dark transaction that steals his ward’s strength, but it’s still an all-consuming shock that leaves me gasping like a landed fish, barely able to breathe.
All I can do is lie there on the marble, cold, empty, and numb, and watch what’s unfolding.
Ivrilos moves like liquid darkness. He helps the guard finishdrawing his sword, his shade’s hand still clamped over the mortal man’s, and in one fluid sweep he thrusts the weapon into the other guard’s armpit, skewering him crosswise through the chest and expertly avoiding any armor. Before the wounded man can fall, my guardian appears behindhim, taking the hand that clenches the readied dagger. Together, they both bury it under the chin of the other guard.
Both men fall to the ground. Dead.
Ivrilos vanishes again.
For a moment, it’s just me lying there, as still and silent as the guards with their staring eyes. It’s almost peaceful. Much like the blood seeping out around their bodies, the room grows slowly darker at the edges… darker…
And then I can see Ivrilos. It’s as if I’m hovering over his shoulder. But he’s no longer in the royal gallery.
He’s in another world.
He’s lit by a strange gray light filtering through the… snow? ash?… that billows about. All around, deep gray dunes crest like a stormy sea locked in time. The colors of the earth and sky are reversed here, and the dark snow isfloating, not falling. Ashen earth drifts upward in lazy spirals, bits and pieces of the entire desolate landscape gathering in heavy, lingering clouds that blot out the shadowy gray sky. It’s as if the power that makes objects drop to earth no longer works, as if this entire new world is upside down.
A fortress sprawls in the distance, as big as a small city. If our strange surroundings are dark, this structure is a splatter of black ink on the horizon. Many towers rise from behind its high, smooth walls, but one dominates the rest, ending in a point. It looks like an obsidian sword piercing the sky. For lack of a better word, the walled city seemswrong. More of a blight than the one consuming the land of the living.
The two guards I just watched die are standing with their backsto Ivrilos, perfectly whole, baffled by the sweeping gray dunes all around us and the terrible, dark stain of the fortress on the landscape and not noticing the creature stalking slowly and silently up behind them. They should have been watching forhim. My guardian. Their murderer.
