Page 113 of Darkness Bound (Night Prowler 5)
“That’s not what I asked.”
There was a pause in which the only sound was the rain on the roof, dripping with a melancholy sigh through the canopy of leaves. “Yes. It’s good. It’s . . . what I want.”
The lie was so blatant she didn’t even bother to offer a retort. She simply walked in front of him, stopped a foot away, and looked up into his face. He refused to look at her, so she turned his head with her fingers on his chin. When his gaze met hers, his eyes were black.
She whispered, “I’m so sorry that I can’t remember whatever happened between us. Maybe eventually I will . . . or maybe you could just tell me.”
His eyes were tortured. He swallowed, then gently removed her hand from his face. He stepped back, out of arms’ reach. “Some things are better forgotten, Jacqueline. Sometimes . . . forgetting can be a gift.” He drew his brows together, closing his eyes just longer than a blink. When he opened them again, there was a new coldness there, a hardness that made her heart hurt.
“Hawk—”
“Sleep,” he said abruptly, turning to go. “I’ll be back just after dawn.”
Then he vanished, silent as smoke, leaving Jack alone with nothing but the sound of the rain. After a few minutes of listening hard into the darkness, Jack went back to the bed, crawled under the sheets, and lay there, staring up at the ceiling, until the first golden rays of dawn slipped through the canopy, and the birds awoke to sing their morning songs into the trees.
As was their custom, the tribe gathered at dawn at the Well of Souls for the burning.
Shrouded in white linen, Weymouth’s charred corpse lay atop a hollow rectangular altar of stone that had been built across a deep, ragged fissure in the ground, which opened, far below, to a cave with an underground river. The altar had two levels: one for the body, one for the kindling strewn beneath. Both levels were slatted with metal bars so that as the pyre burned, the ash would fall directly into the well, and eventually be swept out to sea.
Kalum stepped forward. Though Weymouth was a traitor, he was of the Blood; therefore the Rites of Fire would be read in accordance with the ancient ways, so his soul could be purged by the flames that devoured his body, and he could pass through Kadingir, the Gateway of the Gods, and reunite with Ama-gi.
After the proper words were spoken, the kindling was lit. The flame sputtered and smoked a moment, then caught in a burst of heat and produced a flash of yellow so bright it was nearly white.
The blaze burned greedily, high and hot, sending a plume of black smoke into the dewy morning sky. It didn’t take long for Weymouth’s remains to be reduced to ash; a dragon had already done most of the work. Hawk looked on from his spot alone in the rear of the vast, silent gathering, watching Weymouth’s widow weep at the front, flanked by her stiff-backed, white-lipped sons.
Hawk watched a feather of orange ash twirl lazily on the breeze, lifting high above the grove, and felt nothing but a brief flicker of jealousy. He wished in some dark, twisted part of his heart that it was he on that funeral pyre. That it was he who burned.
He whispered, “Ana harrani sa alaktasa la tarat.”
The road that does not turn back.
How much easier to be done with it all than to face the long, lonely years of emptiness ahead.
A small figure approached the barren hill where the pyre still smoked. Robed in black, she turned to face the gathering, her long, pale hair held back from her face with a pair of matching gold combs. She was slight and somber in the gray light, a wisp of a thing, a changeling of great power and ancient magic disguised as a mortal woman.
The woman raised her voice and said into the waiting silence, “Im ana simtim alaku, mala sihirtu.”
Gasps and shocked whispers rippled through the crowd. The Diamond Queen, half human, raised as an outsider in the human world, had just spoken in the Old Language.
A language no one outside this colony knew. Had ever known, for thousands upon thousands of years.
What she’d said was: “He goes to his fate, as must we all.”
Hawk stood in frozen stupor, unable to tear his gaze from her face. Even kalum looked surprised: he stood off to the side of the pyre, leaning on his cane, his eyes widening.
In English, the Queen continued. “This day is a dark one. The man who passes from this world to the next was a friend to me once. I’ve come to believe that our friendship was doomed not because of hatred or ignorance, but because the rules of our world were set up so long ago, in such a different time, that they do nothing but strangle us today. If we continue to abide by the old ways, we guarantee our extinction, whether by friend or foe. Everything must evolve to survive. I’ve lost too many people because of our outdated ways . . . I refuse to lose another one.”
She paused, looking into the crowd.
“You’re my family, not my subjects. You’re not beholden to me. Your lives are your own. From this moment on, you’re free to live your lives any way you see fit. You’re free to leave this colony if you choose. If you do so, you won’t be punished or chased. But you will be on your own. And from what I know of the world . . . you won’t be welcome. Not yet.”
A crushing silence followed this declaration, a hush of such weight it seemed to affect gravity, deepening it, so that Hawk felt himself sink down further into the ground beneath his feet.
“I say this not as a threat, but as a call to arms. If you decide to stay, as I dearly hope you will, you’ll be faced with a test. A dire one, and immediate. Our enemies know where we are, and they’re ready to strike. War is coming. Soon. Anyone who chooses to stay must be willing to fight. There’s no guarantee we’ll win, but if we don’t fight, we’re guaranteed to perish. So I’ll leave it to you. I’ll fight until I’m dead to defend my home and my people.
With you or without you, I’ll fight. But with all the gods, old and new, as my witness, I pray it’s with you.” Her voice broke. “Because you are what I fight for. What I live for. What I would gladly die for. Every single one of you.”
A beat of silence. A breath of wind. A lone bird call in the trees. Then the sound of a thousand voices rising as one, a scream of support and euphoria.
