The Midnight Sea (The Fourth Element #1) (20 page)

He hated himself for losing control but he couldn’t turn back. He was too far gone now, I could see that. I wouldn’t use the bond though. Never that. So I smashed my forehead into his face instead. He rolled away, stunned.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

Blood ran in a thin trickle from his nose. He stared at the ceiling, the hand wearing the cuff thrown over his head, and I felt the fight drain out of him.

“I deserved that,” was all he said.

I crawled over to him. We were both breathing hard.

“I promise, I will never hurt you,” I said. Amending it to: “Not with the bond.”

He looked up at me. His eyes were so lost. A tear rolled down my face and landed on his mouth. I felt something snap in him. Not the way he had before. Not anger. This was a different tether, one that had been yanked taut for a very long time.

“Father forgive me,” he whispered.

Then he slid his fingers into my hair and pulled me down. I tasted the salt of his blood, still warm. Tasted his breath, his tongue. And as I did, I felt him taste me. Felt our desire crash together.

He gently rolled me onto my back, careful to avoid the cuff. Tried to gather himself together.

“We should stop now,” Darius said hoarsely.

“No,” I said. “We shouldn’t.”

I took his hand and pressed it to my cheek. I kissed the tattoo on his palm, the triangle with a slash marking him as a wicked daēva. His heart thudded as I stroked his chest, the grooves of his stomach. And then my arms were over my head as he pulled off my tunic. He leaned over me, his faravahar brushing my breasts. Heat flushed my skin as my own heart took up his rhythm as he began to kiss me again.

When I touched his withered arm, Darius stiffened. I held my hand still, but didn’t move it away.

“Does it hurt?” I asked.

“No. It’s numb. Like it’s not even there.”

“Then I’ll have to touch you places you will feel,” I said.

“Nazafareen…”

I arched my back, touching his mouth lightly with my own. He made me greedy, desperate. I had never been with anyone but him. Had never
wanted
anyone but him. Darius kissed me back, pressing me into the pillows, and I felt his walls crumble to dust. His knee moved between my legs. I threw my arms around him, tangling my fingers in his hair. In a heartbeat, we were so far lost in ourselves we wouldn’t have noticed if the world was burning down around us.

Agony
.

I felt it jolt through his body in a shuddering wave. He gasped, rolling to his back, and I realized too late that I had touched him with the cuff. I tore it off and hurled it across the room. Darius threw an arm across his face.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, feeling like a monster. “I forgot…”

“So did I. It’s all right.”

But it wasn’t. I knew now that for him, pain and love and intimacy were all snarled together, and had been for a very long time.

We lay there in a shaft of sunlight, listening to the gulls. The feel of him next to me was maddening. I was nineteen, not a girl anymore, but a woman. Almost. But I would wait for him as long as I had to. A hundred years, a thousand. It didn’t matter.

Only that we were together, and no one would ever take him from me again.

Chapter Twenty-Five

H
e fell asleep as the sun sank below the horizon. I listened to his breath, soft and even. I wondered who the
she
was that he had talked about. Not a magus. Someone else. Someone who had tormented him, probably as a child. I pulled my tunic back on and he stirred.

“Don’t go,” Darius mumbled into the pillow.

“I’m not. Just a little cold.”

“About before…”

“I’m so sorry. I should have taken it off. You know I’d destroy it if I could.”

“I told you, I don’t want that.”

I wanted to ask, what
do
you want, Darius? But the words stuck in my throat.

He studied me in that raw, unblinking way he had, like an animal, or a young child. “I want you to promise me something, Nazafareen.”

I nodded. “All right.”

“Don’t ever hold me against my will again. That’s done now. You wear the cuff, but you don’t try to control me.”

I sighed. “I promise.”

Darius held my eyes a moment more, then looked away. How long his lashes were…

“Victor’s an ass,” I said. “You were right to throw a platter at him.”

“Let’s not talk about him.” He paused. “Tell me about your sister. What was her name?”

“Ashraf.” It had been years since I’d spoken it aloud to another person. I thought he would ask me how she died, but Darius instinctively avoided prodding old wounds. He had enough of his own.

“What was she like?”

“Silly. Stubborn. She hated every kind of food except cheese. She pretty much existed on it.”

“Did she look like you?”

“People said so. She had a big gap in her front teeth that she could spit water through, quite an impressive distance. She used to chase me around.”

“How old would she be now?”

“Twelve.”

I tried to picture her face, imagine her as she might be today, but I kept seeing those black almond eyes. The way the wind streamed her hair like seaweed.

“And you joined the Water Dogs because of her.”

“Yes. I thought it would make her stop haunting me.”

“Did it?”

“No.” I turned so I could look at him. “You did.”

“Me?”

“I was too busy worrying about what a thorn in my side you were to obsess about it anymore. One nightmare at a time please.”

“Thorn in your side?” Darius laughed.

“Among other places.”

His fingers trailed along my forearm and lightly traced the skin on my stump. Now I was the one to freeze.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered.

“I’m maimed.”

“So am I. I told you, we’re a matched pair. Before, you were too perfect. Intimidating.”

I snorted, but watching his mouth as he talked was lighting a fire in me again. He was the beautiful one. I was trying to get a handle on myself when the door banged open.

“Daēvas!” Victor shouted. “Many. Moving toward the manor house.”

Desire vanished in an instant, leaving cold fear behind. They had found us.
Holy Father, they had found us
. Darius flew out of bed and started pulling his boots on.

“Immortals?” he asked calmly.

“They can be none other,” Victor said. He tossed a sword through the air. Darius caught it one-handed and buckled it on.

“What about me?” I demanded.

Victor gave me an appraising look. “Can you use it?” he asked.

“I fight with my left,” I said.

“Take mine then.” He strode over and buckled his sword around my waist. The weight of a weapon felt reassuring, but I still struggled to contain my panic. I had fought Druj, necromancers, things out of black nightmare, but they didn’t scare me half as much as the thought of returning to those dungeons.

“The cuff,” Darius reminded me quietly as I started to follow Victor out the door.

It lay on the floor in a shaft of moonlight. How a single object could inspire such simultaneous loathing and yearning in me, I don’t know. But I picked it up and slid it back around my stump. A part of him lived in that thing and I had to keep it safe until it could be returned to him, whatever he said.

We ran into the hall, where Kayan Zaaykar was waiting with a lantern, its shade closed to a slit.

“Come,” he said urgently. “There’s a back way out.”

“Not the sewers,” I muttered.

“No, a tunnel that comes out six streets away. All the safe houses of the Followers have them.”

We hurried down the stairs. As we passed a narrow window, I heard the horses whickering uneasily in the stables. I thought I saw shadows moving in the courtyard but couldn’t be sure. I silently cursed our luck. Just a few more hours and we might have been boarding the
Amestris
.

“Where are they?” I asked, my mouth dry as dust. “In the town? Do they know this house?”

“Close, but…I can’t tell exactly.” Victor frowned. “It’s strange. I’m sure I wasn’t mistaken.”

“I feel it too,” Darius admitted. “A presence, but hazy.”

When we reached the ground floor, Victor halted.

“I’ll slip out through the kitchens and meet you at the docks,” he said.

“Why?” Darius asked suspiciously.

“To give them a false scent.” He looked at his son. “Don’t use the power again, if you can help it. I’ll see you soon.”

Victor moved down the hallway like a stalking snow cat, and then he was gone.

“He’s abandoned us,” Darius muttered. “I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Don’t be so quick to judge,” Kayan Zaaykar admonished. “Victor is an honorable man. He’ll lead them away. Come!”

He brought us down another flight of steps, winding and made of stone, to the underground level of the manor. It was used as a storage area. I saw crates of wine and fruit. Bushels of onions hung from the low, vaulted ceiling. In the dim recesses was a door, so old the wood looked like pitch.

“The
Amestris
should be here by first light,” he said. “She needn’t make port. My men will row you out in a longboat. Just hide yourselves until she arrives. I have a warehouse at the docks. Its door bears my sigil, a dragonfly.”

“What about you?” I asked.

Kayan Zaaykar shrugged. “I am an old man. My children are all grown. My beloved wife has been with the Holy Father these last five years now.” He grinned. “And I am a very good liar. I will say you held me hostage. They cannot prove otherwise.”

I took his hands in mine. “Thank you, Kayan Zaaykar, for everything.”

He made the sign of the flame, and I returned it.

“The Prophet protect you,” he whispered, unlocking the door.

Darius’s eyes suddenly went wide. He threw himself against it, but it was too late. Immortals poured through, filling the space even as I reached for the hilt of my sword. Too many. Power surged for an instant through the bond before it was cut off, as easily as snapping a thread. I slashed at a soldier in red. He jumped away. Something struck me on the back of the head, a stunning blow. I fell to my knees. The next one knocked me flat.

I gasped for breath as a boot pressed down on the side of my neck. Spots danced in front of my eyes. I wrapped my hand around the soldier’s leg, tried to push it off, but it was like being buried under the mountain of snow. A paralyzing weight that wouldn’t budge.

My vision turned red, then black.

Blinding pain. I opened one eye. My room. I was back in my room, the bed soft beneath me.

A nightmare…Only a nightmare.

So why does my head hurt so much?

Some tiny sound signaled another presence. Not Darius. He was downstairs. My eyes flew open.

“
Where’s
Victor
?”

I tried to rise and was backhanded. I turned and retched over the side of the bed.

“Take a moment.”

I lay very still until my vision cleared again. Ilyas was sitting in the chair, the one Darius had told me stories from. His long legs were crossed at the ankles.

“What have you done to Darius?” I whispered.

“Give me Victor and I’ll let you both go.”

So they hadn’t caught him yet. I felt a tiny flutter of hope.

“Or what? You’ll take my other hand?”

“I could do that.” The way he said it sent chills along my skin. There was no malice. No heat to his words. Just pragmatism. “But it would be simpler if you told me.”

“I don’t know. He left.”

“When?”

“Just before you arrived.”

“I see. And did he say where he was going?”

“Only that he would try to lead you away.”

Ilyas absently stroked the cuff. “The King wants Victor badly. His own daēva betrayed him. He’s quite irate.”

I was afraid to ask, but I had to. “What has he done to her?”

“Locked her up, for now. The Numerators think she should be given to the fire in Darius’s stead. They’ve been cheated of their prize and they’re none too happy about it.” He sighed. “The King trusts them above the magi, and even the Immortals, because they haven’t harbored traitors. There’s a purge coming, Nazafareen. We will discover how deep this corruption goes.”

He was talking to me like the old days. Like his second in command.

“War is imminent,” Ilyas mused. “On two fronts. We can’t have loose daēvas running around. Especially not when they’re planning on running to Eskander.”

Did he know about the ship then? I resolved to keep him talking as long as I could.

“How did you find us?” I asked.

“Someone used the power in this manor yesterday. Very foolish of you. Immortals had already searched the town, but I thought it prudent to leave a few behind to watch for such things.”

I closed my eyes. Darius had let his anger get the better of him, and Victor had pushed him into it.
Idiots
. I could no longer sense the power through the cuff. They were blocking it somehow.

“How did you cloak yourselves? Darius had no idea your men were there until the last instant.”

Ilyas assumed the patient, slightly bored lecturing tone he used in training.

“Daēvas cannot sense Druj. Why?”

“They’re dead.”

“Precisely. They exist behind the veil. The Immortals have refined a similar technique.”

“Sounds like necromancy.”

“
You
did it,” Ilyas said. “In the woods. It’s the only way you could have eluded us.”

“That was different. I sought the light, not the darkness.”

He shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid you can no longer tell the difference, Nazafareen. Now, let’s go back to Victor.”

“I know you won’t let us go,” I said. “No matter what I say.”

He studied me. “I haven’t taken the cuff from you,” he said. “Do you know why that is?”

I didn’t answer.

“It’s because I think you need to learn a lesson. And the only way to teach it to you is to let you experience everything he does.”

My chest tightened. “Please, Ilyas. Whatever you’re thinking—”

“Tommas agrees,” he said. “He told me so.”

“Tommas is dead!”

“Because of Darius,” he agreed. “But he lives in me still.” Ilyas leaned closer. “I think you know where Victor went. And you will tell me, one way or another. I’m not returning to the King empty-handed a second time.”

I held my left arm out, trying to control the trembling.

“Take it,” I said. “Take my other hand, if you don’t believe me. I swear to you, Ilyas, we don’t know where he is. Just don’t…don’t hurt Darius again.”

“Your loyalty is admirable. I would have done the same for Tommas. But we’re past that now.” His tone was almost kindly when he added, “Perhaps the old man will break before you do.”