Darkling (21 page)

“And you,” I snarl, rising to my feet. Victoria sneers as my head becomes level with hers.
“Will go to the Netherworld where you belong.”

Victoria’s face twists as her grip turns to ice. She parts her blood-caked lips and screams. She raises her hand to slap me. The chains yank tight around Draven, killing him.

I feel Scarlet flare then leave me. Burning like heat, she is white light, tearing through Victoria. Her scream ends as both her body and Scarlet’s light disappear. The chains around Draven thud as they fall to the ground. He wheezes, so desperate for air that he’s arching against the tombstone.

I fall to my knees beside him, resting a hand on his shoulder and another on the side of his face as he struggles to force air into his aching lungs. His skin is cold and his stubble prickles my palm. His eyes are so fixed and dull in the moonlight that I’m worried I’m too late. He’s fading. Then he blinks and they regain their glow. He rests his hand on mine against his face, gasping.

Something falls off my cheek. A tear. I’m crying. I slump beside Draven and hug him to my chest. I rest my chin on his hair and can feel his ribs rising and falling as they bellow life back into his blood. He’ll be all right. He just needs more air.

Draven grabs the collar of my dress, his arm trembling.
Holding on as if I am life. I hold him tighter as he quivers. The breeze is chilling me but I don’t dare let go.

I don’t know what happened to Victoria. How long it will take for her to lick her wounds. But Scarlet has given me time. She has given me Draven.
And something else.

I watch the moon through the dead branches. They look like they’re reaching for the sky, like twisted, pleading worshippers.
Followers. Sheep. We have all been sheep following Elias. Scarlet’s message unfolds in my mind. She has shown me the truth. Planted the knowledge as if she told it to me in person.

Elias knew she wasn’t a witch. He knew she wasn’t practicing dark magic. Yet still, she had bewitched him. He was drawn to the wit of her quick mind. She was his challenge. He tried to charm her. He let her read books he loaned to no one else. He complimented her beauty.

He made her uncomfortable. Unsafe. She started avoiding him. Until one evening, while tidying up after her studies, a feather fell out of a book. It was a feather. Assuming it was a bookmark, she opened the tome back up to the dented page. The feather had been attached to a necklace. A necklace of falcon feathers that Draven had made for Lucian.

Elias found her looking at the keepsake. She didn’t ask for an explanation but he gave one anyway. He told a story about a house Lucian had found in the woods.
A house with a young apothecary who wanted to bring the modern world into our valley. So he poured resin into the chimney of one of the apothecary’s fireplaces. It burst in an explosion of flame when lit. Elias had seen the black smoke from the village and knew the threat was removed. Lucian was the only other villager who understood what the smoke meant.

The darkness began shortly after. Lucian told Elias that we should seek help from elsewhere before it was too late. But Elias refused, even if it meant living in darkness. He surprised Lucian when he was checking a trap in the woods. He shoved him down a slope to his death.

Thus, no one ever found out about the house in the woods and the outside world it came from. No one except for Scarlet. She tried to flee but Elias stopped her. He forced her into his bed but she would have none of it. He claimed only a witch could make him confess like he did. Only a witch would deny her leader her love.

That was the night he lashed her to the stake.
The morning that we awoke to her screams. He didn’t only kill my sister. We’ve been following a mass murderer.

T
he moonlight is veiled with cloud. I feel like a statue in this graveyard. My joints are locked around Draven in the cold. His chest is no longer heaving, his windpipe no longer wheezing. I worry he has passed out again. His wound needs to be bound. How did we all become pawns? Even Victoria. Elias has caused all of this. Him and his lust for control.

Greed: the true Bringer of Darkness.

“Willow?” Draven whispers. His voice is hoarse and weak, but it’ll do.

I shift my weight to let him know I heard him. I should speak but if I do, I’ll tell him everything. He deserves to know.
But not yet.

“Ribs are broken.”

I nod. Moving slowly, which is easy since I’m stiff from the cold, I untangle myself. Once on my feet, I help him up. He screws his eyes shut as he forces himself off the ground. I pull one of his arms over my shoulders and wait until he is steady before I take a step. The snow is still falling. It’s starting to stick to the ground.

Slowly, we make our way back to the house. Once inside, I help Draven sit in one of the armchairs in the parlor then stoke the fire. I fetch us both some water. Yet even as I do so, I am listening. Victoria isn’t gone. She’s still dangerous. I wonder where Tristan is. How long it will take until I can see him again. I raid the linen closet and tear up a clean cloth.

Kneeling beside Draven, I’m forced to look at the wound. The flesh around the hole is jagged and white. Blood is still draining but from what I can tell, nothing critical is exposed. Only small veins. I pack it with linen then wind a strip around his neck, holding the dressing in place. I’m no healer. I’ve never done something like this before. But I figure it’s better than leaving it open and leaking. He needs that blood. Too much is staining the shoulder and chest of his tunic.

When I straighten, I find Draven’s face tight and beads of sweat on his brow. I wish there were more I could do for him. His skin is thawing and he looks a little better. Stable. I hand him a goblet of water and he tries to hand it back.

“You need to drink,” I say.

Was he anyone other than Draven, I’d be surprised that he wasn’t bombarding me with questions.
Demanding explanations. Accusing me of deceit. Instead, he seems content to wait. Not out of a desire for ignorance, but out of patience. Trust.

He sips his water. I sit on the hearth. Words are building inside me. Words I need to share. I hope Tristan is near. I hope he can hear me. This is for him, as well.

“Draven…”

He watches me through half-lidded eyes. His head leans against the back of the chair. I’m worried he’ll fall asleep.

“Your father’s death wasn’t an accident. He was killed. By Elias.”

Draven’s eyes open a bit more. Though I know it must hurt him, he tries to sit up straighter.

“Lucian found this house. He met Tristan, the man who lives here. Tristan offered to trade medicines for goods and training. But when your father told Elias, he made him promise not to tell about the house. Elias caused a fire that killed Tristan’s wife and… nearly killed him, too.”

Draven’s head is slightly cocked, his eyes unblinking.

“Tristan’s wife, Victoria, didn’t want to die. So she remained here, in this house, with him as her prisoner. She fed off of his life force to try to stave off her own decay.”

His nostrils are flaring. “Victoria?”

I nod. “You met her.”

His dark eyes narrow slightly. I know he’s thinking that she had body enough to torment him.

“She isn’t supposed to be here. She should be in the Netherworld. All of her feeding has created the darkness. A rift between our world and the next. I’m doing everything I can to stop it but –”

“But the shadows in the forest – the darkness started before my father’s death.”

“Your father wanted to break his vow of secrecy. He wanted to seek help from cities beyond our borders. Where Tristan and Victoria came from. Telling others about Tristan would draw attention to what Elias had done to them. So Elias killed Lucian and made it look like an accident.”

The goblet of water in Draven’s hand is shaking. Some is sloshing over so I gently take it from him.

“That’s why he killed Scarlet,” I say quietly. “She found out about what he did. She wasn’t a witch.”

Draven is stiff, his eyes focused on something just beyond my shoulder. His jaw clenched. This is enough to take in for now. He digs his fingers into his ponytail, making it messier than it already is. He shakes his head then closes his eyes as it aggravates his wound.

“Elias is no fool. What made him so threatened?”

This question has been in the back of my mind, as well. And I think I have an answer.
“Us.”

The focus in Draven’s eyes shifts. He’s looking at my face now.

“The more we know of the world, the more we may want to change. Learn to read. Try new medicines. Ideas. Until one day, we’d wake up and realize he knows nothing.”

Draven’s biting the inside of his lower lip.

“You’ve been gone a long while,” he says. “After what happened to you and Scarlet, many of us lost faith in him. He has forbidden us from trying to flee. He has instituted a curfew. We’re not allowed out of our homes. Sneaking out like I did is illegal.”

Draven’s bandage is blossoming with red. He shouldn’t be talking.

“There are ten of us. A group I’ve armed. If I didn’t come back with a kill, we were going to stop the lottery.”

Revolt.
Elias’ worst fear is coming true under his nose and he is unaware. That gives me satisfaction. Now that we’re warm and away from Victoria, I can hear myself.

I loathe Elias. I want him dead. Draven must, as well.

He’s watching me with his head slightly cocked and the firelight is pooling in his eyes. The expression on his face has me worried his ribs aren’t just cracked or broken. I’m worried they’re stabbing something inside.

“I’ve missed you,” he whispers. He
is
being stabbed inside, but not by his ribs. And now he’s trying to stab me as well.

I take a deep breath and let it out. How do I explain to him what has happened? In fact, how do I explain it at all? I adore a man who is only half alive.
A man who doesn’t even have a body right now. A man who is kind and selfless and gentle. A man who killed his wife. A man who is in part causing the darkness, even if it isn’t his doing. A man who should be the enemy.

“I wondered,” he continues quietly. “If I would see you again after I died.”

The roots he has grown in my chest are digging into me and it hurts. He would’ve looked for me in the Netherworld. And I would’ve looked for him. Because no matter how I feel about Tristan, Draven is my oldest friend. Others in the village often mock him behind his back for muteness.

He isn’t quiet because he doesn’t think. He sees more than anyone I’ve ever known. If I’m a Listener, then he’s a watcher. He can read the slightest twitch or shift of weight and interpret a person’s thoughts. Like he did when he realized how I had changed while I was with Tristan.

Draven’s expression turns stony. I’ve missed my chance to say something. He knows we can never go back to how we were. He doesn’t need words to see it in my face. He winces as he shoves himself up from the chair.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

He can’t bend over so he crouches beside his crossbow a few feet away, abandoned when Victoria attacked him. He straightens and looks it over.

“The lottery begins when the moon sets.” He hitches his crossbow to his belt. “I should travel while there’s still some light.”

Draven heads for the door and I grab his arm.

“You need to rest.”

“If I rest, someone may die.” He yanks his arm away and steps into the entryway.

“You’ll lose too much blood. You’d freeze to death and no one would ever know.”

He yanks open the door and descends the stairs. Snow is fluttering about in the moonlight.

“Draven!”

He pivots to face me. “Don’t worry, Willow,” he says mockingly. “After I’m dead, you’ll still be able to hear my whispers. It’ll make no difference. Because you’ve always ignored what I’ve been shouting.”

Draven’s roots are constricting inside, choking me. I wish I could speak. I wish I could say something to end this moment.
To reverse it. But I can’t. He gives me one last look, as if saying that he knows it’s safe to leave me. That I can fend off Victoria without his help. Then he holds a hand to his bruised chest and turns away. He disappears into the forest, and all I can do is stand here on the porch and watch him go. Because his roots are so twisted up inside of me that I can’t detangle them enough to think.