Page 88 of In the Ravenous Dark
His voice sends a bolt of shock through me, followed by delirious, giddy relief. “Ivrilos?”
I squint into the blinding light, and a shadow coalesces nearby. My fingertips brush against a silk coverlet, and the scent of roses is overpowering. It covers a distant odor of rot. Birds chirp outside some window nearby. My body feels cool, heavy, and comfortable. I’m on a bed, I realize, and my guardian is standing over me.
My shadow. I’ve missed him, after being in that darkness for so long without him. I should dread the sight of him, but looking at him is easier on my eyes than anything else is. Maybe my body understands what my mind doesn’t yet: He’s not my enemy. Not anymore.
His beautiful features come gradually into focus. Dark gaze and gently curling hair. Pale skin, black tunic—shorter and simpler than usual, and there are neither bracers on his arms nor swords at his hips. He almost looks exposed, vulnerable. And yet, in the foldsof his tunic, underneath the fall of his hair, and beneath his brow, his shadows seem deeper and darker than before.Sharper.
He also looks baffled. Then amazed. Thenoverjoyed. It’s like watching a sunrise play out on his face. I’ve never seen anything like it with him before. He stares at me like I’m the most wonderful thing he’s ever seen.
“Should I still be shielding against you?” I croak.
He shakes his head, smiling a beautiful, gentle smile. “You’ll never need to again. I promise. You’re safe… for now.”
“Where am I?” I ask, looking around. The room is filled with roses. They grow up the sunny marble walls in intricate curlicues and in every color. I can’t see anything but the veil-shimmering sky through an arching window of glass cut in the pattern of a leafing tree. My voice is rough, dry. It’s like I’ve been sick, and just woken from a fever dream.
“I’m not exactly sure,” he says. “I… I haven’t been with you this entire time. And since I joined you, I’ve been shut in here, too. We’re in Thanopolis somewhere, from what I can tell, but not in the palace or the necropolis.”
“What entire time?” I ask.
“I’m also not sure. I spoke to Delphia briefly—”
“Delphia is here?” I interrupt.
“Yes, but she can’t maintain contact with me for long. She hasn’t yet mastered the trick of speaking with the dead—and she won’t, now that she’s free of the necropolis. But she said it’s been a couple of days since…” He trails off.
“What happened?” I can only remember pieces in fits and starts. The flash of a dagger. The gleam of a ruby. The liquid shine of spilled blood.
My stomach suddenly wakes up, as well. I’m hungry.Ravenous.
“Rovan,” Ivrilos says. The sound of my name on his lips is music to my ears. “There’s something you must know.”
“What?” I feel like I’m missing something important. Maybe something terrible. “Is Japha okay? Lydea?”
“Japha is fine. They’re here as well. Lydea, I don’t know. She’s still in the palace.” The first bit of news is great, the second not so much. “But this isn’t about either of them. It’s about you.”
I stare at him, as a strange sensation starts to creep over me.
“While you’re safe, you… you’re not yourself,” he says, stumbling, looking down at his hands, which are suddenly knotted. “At least not in the way you’re accustomed to.”
And then I realize what I’m missing. After that first, instinctual breath, I haven’t breathed much at all.
I don’t need to, unless I require air to speak.
I tear my gaze away from him, hauling myself onto my elbows. I seize the neckline of my shift—clean, white—and drag it down. I’m in a bed with silk sheets, but it might as well be a stone funeral slab. Because I immediately see the wound in my breast that goes straight to my heart. It looks fresh, but there’s no clotting or scabbing. No blood at all.
The smell of rot was coming fromme, I realize, though it’s almost gone. The roses were maskingmyscent.
“What the fuck?” I say, staring down at my chest. There’s no rise and fall of breath, only that deep rift separating me from the living.
“You’re different,” Ivrilos says. “But we can get through this. I’m right here, by your side.”
I draw my knees toward me on the bed. “Get through this? I’mdead!”
Something swells from deep within me. It’s not my breath. More like the urge to vomit. But nothing happens. There’s only the inescapable truth, with no relief.
“Rovan, just breathe,” Ivrilos says, and then he winces. “I mean…damn it.”
But there’s nothing I can do. I can’t breathe. I can’t even cry out. I just freeze as horror sweeps through me like a tide. My mind is a silent scream. But it passes, at least just enough for me to blink again. Or maybe I grow a little numb to my horror as it inhabits me.
