But Damien did try. He lay there, staring intermittently at the blue on the ceiling that was so close to the color of Amma’s eyes and then squeezed his lids shut, considering everything. He was here now, in her home, and he knew the truth. There couldn’t be much else to know, except that there definitely was. Something was off here, in Faebarrow, and multiple people seemed to have small pieces of the puzzle. Normally, he would have no time or interest in the petty drama of a barony in Eiren, but when a baroness staged her own kidnapping, when she had ferreted away the Lux Codex, when she harbored Bloodthorne’s Talisman of Enthrallment inside her…
“Darkest, basest beasts, thetalisman.” Damien slapped his hands onto his face and raked his fingers downward. How in the infernal Abyss had he forgotten? The bloody talisman was still inside her, the one he needed to free his father who, he hated to remind himself, he had not spoken to or even thought of in some time. That was the only reason he’d needed the Lux Codex to begin with, the only reason he was here, and now he was mixed up in whateverthiswas, and, worse than perhaps all of that, he actually cared.
Damien sat up with a start.
Hecared.
He had seen the look on Amma’s face, the quiet discomfort, the bating anxiety, the masked fear, and he heard the way these people spoke about her like she were too delicate, still a child, or worse, a commodity. They simply did not listen to her—and she had said it herself, baronesses didn’t have the freedom blood mages did—and he hated it all.
“Oh, fuck me.” He stood to pace across the room. How dare she make him feel like…likethis. Damien had never once been so concerned with another being that he would put his life’s work on hold—that he would forget about it even—until now, and especially not for a creature that had manipulated him. Though that, at least, was the slightest bit admirable. Arousing too, but that hawking, hulk of a guard was going to do everything in her power to keep him from seeing Amma—and even if he could manage to sneak off and find her, she was promised to marry someone else, and why in the Abyss, at a time like this, was he even thinking with his—
“Master?” Kaz was cowering in the spot he’d sat himself.
“You’re not going to like this, Kaz, but we’ve got to stay.”
The imp fell backward into an exhausted, infernal puddle.
Damien spent what felt like an eternity simply pacing. It was broken by the occasional knock at the door, each time his expectation that it might be Amma lessening when it was some nameless guard with food or clothes or linens. He did eventually break up the monotony by bathing, and he understood then why Amma had said she wasn’t used to being dirty. The facilities in this keep rivaled his at home.
He thought of Aszath Koth while he sat in the bath, the bleakness of its stone walls, the chill in the high halls, all a stark distinction to this wallpapered and wooden place. The floorboards were smooth and light, and the counters were chiseled from white and pink marble, and the furniture was painted in soft pastels with flower-embroidered fabric. It turned his stomach, yet settled it at the same time, reminding him of Amma—he had stopped trying to not think of her, especially when he was naked and submerged in hot water. Compared to his own home, the contrast was almost comical, their worlds so different it seemed impossible they had even met at all.
She came from this place with its enchanted liathau trees and its hard-working populace and those parents of hers. Her parents who didn’t really seem to respect her, but had at least seemed to mean how much they loved her, pleased to have her back. That was the problem, though, thehaving, but that was his problem too, wasn’t it? His desire to have her to himself was counter to…everything.
But the desire of a parent to keep their child, even a grown one, safe, was no failing. Meanwhile, his own father was trapped in an occlusion crystal by the king of Amma’s realm because he was a demon, of all things, and his mother was dark gods knew where since abandoning him and Zagadoth over twenty years ago. Another difference between them, the chasm ever deepening.
A sharp tapping woke Damien from his thoughts. The window at the back of the bath chamber was made up of opaque glass, but there was the outline of a bird on the exterior sill. A dove, he thought, then scoffed at himself as he climbed out of the water—it was never a dove, and especially not with the darkness of that shadow.
“Surprised to find me here, Corben?” he asked, opening the window.
The raven perched outside cocked his head and gave him a squawk.
“As am I.”
Damien slid his fingers through the raven’s feathers, and an arcane message ran through his mind in a throaty, inviting voice. It would have been good news if he’d received it sooner, but there was nothing he could do with it now. After speaking with his father at Anomalous’s tower, he’d made a vague request of some associates, and their response through Corben was an eager offer to help—they were always eager to help, for a price—but these particular associates were unfortunately on the other side of the realm.
“Well, fine job, regardless, as always,” he murmured to the bird, scratched him under the chin, and released him.
Damien stared out after Corben as he disappeared into the sky, blue and bright like Amma’s eyes. He raised a hand to his face, fingertips wrinkled from the water, palm smooth and free of dirt and scars. He could slice into it at any time and release the noxscura full force, the darkness his father warned him about, the one he suspected chased his own mother away. He’d never truly unlocked it, but knew if he did, awful things would happen.
Awful things will happen, Damien. Those had been Amma’s words when he asked what would arise from the guards at the city gates seeing her face. But if the guards, Brineberth or Faebarrow, recognized her then, they would have protected her, surely. So, what had she meant byawful? And why, when she’d had the perfect opportunity surrounded by soldiers in her room at The Too Deep Inn, hadn’t she simply thrown him under the cart to free herself from him? Instead, she’d made up some ridiculous lie, painted him as a savior rather than a villain, and brought him home with her. Didn’t she know he could raze this place to the ground and destroy all within it?
He flexed his fingers again. He could use the noxscura to break free of his current predicament, of his duty to Zagadoth, of everything, and just go. But whatever had anchored him to this place instead, continued to hold him, and he clenched his fist again, deciding to stay.
CHAPTER 30
A FEW DROPPED EAVES
Damien dressed in clothes that had been brought to him, none of them black, predictably, but the deeply forest green tunic would suffice even if it was stitched with delicate, golden vines along one arm and the collar. He paced a bit more until there was another knock at the door and Kaz miserably changed himself back into a dog, sitting up on an ottoman with his asymmetrical underbite quivering as he held back a growl.
A young man entered, tall and lanky under the thick, white robes he wore. One of the Faebarrow guards stood in the doorway behind the newcomer, eyeing Damien with arms crossed, doing his best to look intimidating.
Damien waited, standing there a few paces back, conversely doing his best to not look intimidating with hands clasped behind his back. “Yes?”
“Oh!” The robed boy turned back to the guard and held up a leather bag. “Lady Ammalie requested I give Sir the blessing of Osurehm. It may take a few moments.”
“Carry on.” The guard shut the door with himself out in the hall.
The young man turned back and blew out a breath. “Hello.” He gave him a quick, friendly wave. Odd.
