Page 51 of Enthralled

I rise slowly, standing on the balls of my feet. I offer no answer, but Ivor smiles, that horrible, lipless mouth peeling back from blackened gums. He looks like a Noswraith himself, a creature born of wrath and sorrow. “I see the truth in your eyes,” he says, taking a step toward me. He brandishes a sword in one shaking arm. Its sharp edge glints in the starlight. “You know me. You remember the lovely times we shared. Do you recall as well how you betrayed me? How you thought to send me to my doom?” He widens his stance, throwing open his arms. “A destiny like mine is not so easily thwarted. Not even by you or your precious prince.”

Movement catches the tail of my eye. I glance to one side, see Vervain rise, pen and quill in hand. But what use are such weapons against a physical sword? Ivor shoots a disdainful look her way, his awful eye rolling. He takes her in and dismisses her in an instant, focusing his attention back on me. “Your brother,” he says, “my sweet Oscar tells me I should keep you alive. He claims you will be useful to me in the days to come.” He tips his head to one side. It looks so unnatural, like his neck ought to break but doesn’t. “It seems he was right. You found a way back into Vespre when all the gates have been broken. If you found a way in, there must be a way out.”

I cannot let my face reveal the truth, so I fall back on a trick I’ve learned since childhood—a smile. Bland, meaningless. A disguise for anything else my face might like to betray. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, my lord,” I say, my voice calm and measured despite the leaping of my heart, “but the way I took was one-use only. Unless you’re willing to make another bargain with the Daughters of Bhorriel, you’ll not find it again.”

Ivor’s eye narrows. He bargained with the crones once before, when he convinced them to place a blood-curse on Castien. Whatever price he paid must have been terrible indeed. “You’re lying,” he snarls.

“I am not.”

“You’re human, through and through. You lie as you breathe.”

“Not about this.”

He raises his sword, arms trembling. “Tell me the truth, Clara Darlington. Is there a way off this island?”

I don’t hesitate, not for a moment. “All the gates are broken, my lord.”

Something in my voice must give me away, for Ivor laughs. He angles his sword, pointing the blade at my throat. “There!” he cries. “A lie. A perfect, exquisite lie. Now tell me—”

He breaks off with a strangled cry, falling backwards. It takes my dazzled eyes a moment to realize Vervain is latched onto him from behind, her arms wrapped around his throat. He cries out as she wrenches him back, and the edge of his sword nicks my jaw. I tumble to the floor, stunned. Vervain is stronger than she looks. Not long ago, Lord Ivor would have crushed her like an insect without a second thought. Now, broken as he is, he struggles to fend her off. She yanks his arm, and he drops the sword. Quick as a cat, she swipes it up and stands with the tip of the blade pointed at Ivor’s heart.

“Get behind me, Miss Darlington,” she says, puffing and winded. A strand of graying hair falls across her forehead. I scramble to my feet and hasten to her back. Her arms, holding that sword upright, begin to tremble. If she doesn’t act now, if she doesn’t run him through, he will get away.

“He’s the enemy, Vervain,” I hiss. “He means to invade Eledria with Noswraiths, to set himself up as High King.”

Ivor’s eye flicks to me. “So you know about that, do you? Did your brother tell you?”

“I figured it out for myself.”

“Another lie,” Ivor sneers. “You’re trying to protect your brother. You don’t want me to punish him for betraying my confidence.”

“Believe what you like.” I lift my chin, meeting his gaze over Vervain’s shoulder. “It makes no difference. You will never rule Eledria. You will never leave this island. You, like the rest of us, will perish at the hands of the monsters you yourself have unleashed.”

A slow, dreadful smile rips across Ivor’s ravaged face. “Oh, is that what you think? That I, like the rest of you, should be cowering in my boots, arms over my head, praying to all the gods who have long since forsaken this place?” He reaches a hand inside his ragged shirt, his one eye sparkling. “I have no need of gods or prayers. Nor will I cower, not for monsters, not for nightmares. Certainly not for the likes of you.”

He draws out the black gemstone hanging on its chain around his neck. With a single tug, he breaks the chain and holds the necklace out. The stone swings back and forth, a hypnotic rhythm that captures my gaze. Everything else fades away, until that gemstone dominates all existence. That stone, and the dark spell it carries. A spell of deadly love, of suicidal passion. Of pain.

“There is not one of your man-made monsters that does not fear my Beloved,” Ivor purrs. “She will protect me.”

As the words leave his mouth, roiling darkness gathers around the stone. Suddenly that darkness solidifies into a towering form, pale-skinned and exquisitely sculpted. A siren, a seductress. Her long hair hangs in glossy waves down her back, and between her bared breasts, the bloodgem necklace glints with its own spell-light.

I recognize her. I’ve seen this face before. But then the head was severed and stuck on a metal spike, displayed in Lord Vokarum’s dining hall. Even then I had been struck by her beauty, though it was nothing compared to this. She is terrifying and totally consuming. The mere sight of her sets my body on fire with a lustful need I cannot comprehend. My mouth drops open in dumb wonder and longing.

But she takes no notice of me. She bends, catches Ivor by the front of his shirt. For a moment I believe she will devour him as Idreloth devours all her husbands—biting off his head and guzzling his blood. Instead she lifts him off his feet and plants her lips against his, a sensual, devastating kiss, her plump lips drinking in his horror-ravaged mouth.

Then she lets him go, turns, and faces me. I want to drop to my knees before her, to beg for such a favor, for one such kiss. The urge is so great, I take a step toward her without realizing what I do.

Vervain puts out a restraining arm. “Beware, Miss Darlington!” she says. “Remember what she is.”

Startled from my fog, I shake my head and look again. In that moment I see Idreloth, the Eight-Crowned Queen, as she truly is, as the old song once told:

The lover, the loner, the mother, the crone,

Sister and slayer, the flesh and the bone.

All of her is visible to my eye at once, all eight terrible personas. The Prime Head is at the center, long black teeth gnashing, dripping with blood. The others surround her, flashing in and out of view. She steps toward me, moving with sensual grace on eight sets of limbs that overlap each other, blending in and out of perception. One instant, she is beautiful, the next horrifying, then heartbreaking, all within the space of single heartbeats.

Tell me, my sweet,a voice of pure silk and knives whispers in my head,have you come to taste of the pleasures I offer?

---