Page 14 of Lich's Bride

But then, just as the energies crest towards climax, she falters. Her brow furrows, her voice hitching on a vowel. The power gutters and fades, dissipating back into the null space between worlds. Kira sags, her shoulders slumping, her head bowing in defeat.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, her voice thick with unshed tears. "I'm trying, I swear I am. But every time I reach for that final surrender, that utter sublimation of self... something holds me back. Some weakness in me..."

"Enough."

The word comes out harsher than I intended, laced with an unfamiliar undercurrent of frustration. Kira flinches, her eyes flying to mine, wide and wounded in her ashen face.

I modulate my tone with an effort, gentling my voice as one would with a spooked horse. "You judge yourself too harshly, apprentice. The summoning of a familiar is no simple feat, even for an adept thrice your age and experience. That you have come so close, so quickly, is a testament to your innate gifts."

Kira blinks rapidly, taken aback by this uncharacteristic praise. I am loath to admit it, but something in her crestfallen mien, the dejected slump of her slight form, tugs at what could construe as my own heartstrings. The urge to offer comfort, to soothe and succor, rises anew, insistent and unignorable.

Almost before I register my own intent, I am moving, gliding across the sigil with preternatural grace to enfold her in my arms. She goes rigid at my touch, a startled gasp escaping her lips. For a single, eternal instant we stand thus, the sorcerer and his apprentice, locked in a macabre embrace at the heart of a circle of power.

Then, miracle of miracles, she melts against me. Her hands come up to fist in the ebon velvet of my robes, her face pressing into the hollow of my throat. I feel the pounding of her mortal heart, the searing heat of her breath on my chilled skin. It is... indescribable. Like cradling a living flame to my breast, feeling it thaw the long winter of my existence.

"You are more than the sum of your failures, Kira Noor," I rasp, my voice emerging rough and strange to my own ears. "You are a creature of infinite potential, a cipher of power and possibility. I chose you for a reason, plucked you from the chaff of humanity to stand at my side, to share in my dark work. Never doubt your worth, or my regard."

She shudders against me, a broken sound emerging from her throat that could be a sob or a laugh. "But the familiar..."

"Will come," I promise, my hand rising to stroke the silk of her hair, an unconscious gesture of comfort. "When you are ready, when you have divested yourself of the last of your mortal baggage, your soul-companion will emerge. This I swear, by the blood in my veins and the shadows in my soul."

She subsides, a deep, shaky breath gusting against my collar. We linger thus a moment longer, suspended in this strange new space of intimacy and understanding. Then, reluctantly, I set her back from me, holding her at arm's length.

"Enough revelry," I declare, my tone brisk and businesslike once more. "There is much still to be done, and the hour grows late. Return to your chambers, apprentice. Meditate on what has passed here, and marshal your energies to further your studies."

Kira nods, visibly pulling herself together. She sketches a quick bow, her eyes meeting mine in a wordless communication of gratitude and determination, then turns and pads in front of me. I watch walk, my gaze lingering on the sway of her hips, the play of witchlight over the raven sheen of her hair.

What is this mortal girl doing to me? What madness has she awakened in the arid hinterlands of my soul? I have walked this world for centuries untold, my heart a dead and withered thing, my existence a bleak exercise in the acquisition of power.

And yet, in a few short months, Kira Noor has kindled something within me, an ember of forgotten humanity long thought quenched. She makes me... feel. Emotions I can scarcely put names to, sensations that have no place in the cold, immutable edifice of my being.

The warm weight of the cinnamon-and-honey scent of her hair on my pillow. It should repulse me, this base cohabitation, this crude commingling of the living and the dead.

And yet... and yet.

I shake my head, dispelling these errant musings. Folly, to allow myself to be so distracted, so thrown off balance by a mere slip of a girl. I am Malachar, the Nightlord, dread scion of the eldritch dark. I have not endured the ages, mastered the black arts, to be undone by a pair of soulful eyes and a tousled mane of hair.

I must remember my purpose, my grand design. Kira is but a means to an end, a tool to be honed and wielded in the pursuit of my dark ascension. I cannot afford to...

To what? Cherish her? Desire her? Lo...

No. Such thoughts are madness, the first fissures in the edifice of my sanity. I must excise them, root and stem, before they blossom into true corruption. I must remember what I am, what I have always been.

Alone. Untouchable. Eternal.

And if some small, secret part of me aches at the thought? If some long-atrophied scrap of my soul yearns for the warmth and light of my mortal apprentice?

Well.

None need ever know. Not even her.

Especially not her.

11

KIRA

Idrift slowly into wakefulness, my mind rising from the depths of sleep like a bubble ascending through honey. The first thing I notice is a warmth on my chest, a comforting weight that seems to radiate contentment and belonging.

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