Page 88 of Haunted

I laugh. “You don’t remember half the things you said to me, do you?” I have not forgotten a single word she uttered while in my arms.

She shakes her head.

“Emotions are dangerous. You don’t need to be a woman to be overwhelmed by them. As an emrys, as a half-emrys, we’re particularly swayed. They’re stronger to us. We feel more deeply than mortals. We hate with greater intensity. We love more completely. We’re ever confused by each and every inkling that surges inside us.” I lock eyes with her. Surely she remembers the meltdown I had in my study that started all this.

She shuts her mouth. At least she knows I’m volatile. She doesn’t need to know more. She must not climb into my bed anymore. If she develops feelings for me, a relationship would end poorly for both of us.

But I want her to want me as much as I want her.

I continue. “Ever since the day I consoled her, the empress looked at me differently. I looked at her differently. In my heart, I vowed to help her. After some digging, I learned that becoming the Vessel was the only way.”

“The Vessel? What is that?”

“The Dark Master’s vessel. Whoever is the Vessel becomes the Dark Master’s hands on Bryn. The physical hands to do what he cannot in his eternal prison.”

“This Dark Master, this is what we call Cysgod?” Niawen asks.

“Yes. His power is in the empress.”

“Oh.”

“When I tried to take the power to free her, she exiled me,” I say.

“You? You tried to take it?”

“I had grown close enough to the empress that I knew the secrets of the chamber where the Dark Master dwelt. She caught me in the passage. Captured me. She thought I was taking the power for myself. She couldn’t understand, or rather she refused to understand my motives. And power was more important than what I offered her.”

“But you’d become the Vessel. You’d be filled with evil. Why would you want to become this?” She narrows her eyes. “You’re leaving something out.”

I turn and stare out the same window Niawen had been. “That’s all you need to know.”

She scoffs. “This sounds like another pity story, the prequel to the exile story you told me.”

Anger blazes through me, and I round on her. The last sentiment I expect is pity. I own all my former actions. Neifion died because I tried to free the empress. “Does my pathetic tale make you pity me? Is that where your compassion came from? I don’t need you mopping my forehead!”

She’s taken aback. “That’s not what I meant.”

The darkness erupts from my core, coursing throughout my body, making my head heavy. My reason is clouded. “That’s exactly what you meant. I’m baring my soul, and you believe I want pity. That’s how the emrys are, aren’t they? Full of empathy.”

“No.” She holds her hands up as she backs away from my penetrating gaze.

My words lash out, propelled by a darkness I’m glad to let control me. “I don’t want your pity. This has never been about pity! Don’t you hear the warning in my voice! Don’t you understand that I’m trying to protect you from danger?”

“Danger? DANGER!” She’s filled with fire and squares her shoulders. “I’m not in danger from you. You can’t hurt me. You don’t have to push me away.”

“It’s inevitable.” I was wrong to think she’d back down with my rage.

She yells in my face. “You can be left to your own devices! Rage through the night for all I care. Throw up walls like before. I don’t want to see your torments.”

I temper my rage long enough to form a sensible thought, a reason for erupting. “I offered you a place for starting over. That’s all. But you unearthed a hole in my heart-center that you feel the sudden desire to fill. There’s nothing but a black pit. Blackness, Niawen!” She must understand. “I won’t relinquish my darkness. It’s too much of a part of me.”

“You don’t have to suffer.”

She could never understand. “I’ve suffered for centuries,” I say.

“So this talk of a clean slate is rubbish. You don’t believe you can change, so why would you think I could heal?”

Rubbish for me, not you. “I don’t want your light to be dimmed. That’s why I gave you purpose. Your light is healing, but for a while, we were the same. I thought the darkness would give you perspective so you’d understand me.”

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