Twenty-Three
Aharrowing darkness, unlike anything else I have encountered, curled my toes in icy heat. At the edge of the bed they festered, flinging itself to the high top of the canopy and entrapping its prey with deadly force.
I did not dare to open my eyes to the dark gnashing its teeth, whispering in my ear, daring me to look.
I curled at the head of the bed, shielding my feet from the intruder’s coldness, patting down the duvet to form it as armor.
It had to be a dream—it was a dream.
Any moment, Silas would whisper sweet words or chastise me for such absurdity in having a fear of the dark. The shadowy darkness did not speak, nor didit avert its gaze from where I slept. I didn’t need to crack an eyelid to know they were there.
Tall, lanky wisps licked at my ankles, scraping talons onto the duvet. “Valeria... Valeria,” it hissed. “Come play, sweet Valeria. Let me carve out your insides... she’ll be happy. Oh so happy.”
I sprang from the bed, ducking into the corner of the nearby wall, toppling over the nightstand. Compared to the shadows from the forest, the figure was not fully formed. It was feathery and similar to the ghosts. It shifted its form from a wolf to a tall lanky man, garish and enigmatic, it reminded me of what I had envisioned Death to be like. Nothing more than a shapeless being with a hunger for life stuck in the precipice of the world.
The shadow circled me closely, corralling deeper into the corner, snapping its jaw and hissing my name.
“Just a bite, Valeria. Ah, Valeria.”
The balcony drapes flapped soundlessly, the cold wind blowing sparkling flakes under a budding moon. The room was washed in silver, drowning out the solid hold the shadow had on the ethereal plane.
I grabbed for the knife, scattered upon the floor beside the discarded ashes and the vial. Hands shaking, I pointed the blade at the shadow, prepared to fight.
Prepared to die.
The shadow was fading back to wherever or whoever had sent it.
I stepped forward, and my body screamed to run from the danger, but I couldn’t run. Not when there was a storm on the horizon.
The shadow did not lunge nor react. It remained out of reach, hungrily circling for an opening to take a bite where it can. The mass grew eyes, dotting its body in grotesque hideousness, all flickered between the knife and the ring—Silas’s ring.
I touched the ring. A soft sense of his protection warmed my conviction as the scarlet jewels twinkled under the light. “I am not afraid. Tell your master I am alive, and I will fight to save Silas even if it costs me my life.”
The words were heavy, aloft even, but with the ring upon my finger and the budding in my chest—it was becoming difficult to ignore what I had to face.
I was linked to Silas, and he was linked to me. The danger would only keep coming if I remained ignorant to this fact.
It reared on its hind legs, standing taller than a black bear. From its grotesque jaws, it howled a bloodcurdling scream into the night. Inky blobs flew from its body, circling the ceiling and joining the blackness.
The shadow was gone, and I was alone to the soft darkness enchanted by the waxing moon.
The knife clattered to the floor.
Smoke rose from my lips, rubbing at my arms as I stalked to the balcony window. The faint breeze rustled the curtains, showing a most beautiful sight of thegarden and of the man sitting among the frost-covered roses.
Silas sat on the stone bench, head bent upwards to the moon in stilled silence, watching the night past him by. Loneliness and solitude rested upon his shoulders, trapped in a conversation between the ghosts he harbors and the night that sees all his sins. The pale moon kept a tormented man company in solace.
Without another thought, I grabbed a robe, threw it over my shoulders, and joined Silas.
The December air chilled me to the bones, and I shivered as the night winds danced among petals in the sacred place. Down the path of stones in the back of the castle and past hedges of wilting roses, Silas dared not glance as I settled beside him. Bitter cold pressed in from the bench, but I do not let that show.
“Tell me, what are you doing out here?”
Silas’s eyebrow quirked, and a dry laugh escaped from pale rose lips. “And why are you awake?”
I smoothed out the robe, the satin gliding across skin smooth as butter, doing little to stave off the cold biting at exposed flesh. I leaned forward, meeting his gaze. “You are deflecting my original question.”
Silas shook his head. “I can see that I am not getting rid of you anytime soon.” He closed his eyes, perhaps picturing intrigue playing across his lids as a silver screen does. His mouth twitched, parting softly as waves crashing the shore, only to remain quiet.
