3. CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3

DANIELLA

Darkness smells sweet.

That was my first thought, and my only thought, for a long time. It was maddening to perceive only that sickly smell. There was nothing else. No sights. No sounds. No brushing caress against my skin.

Only a flat, indistinguishable sweetness.

I didn’t know how long I was submerged in that cloying nightmare, but at some point, the sweetness seemed to take shape and acquire a name.

Flowers.

That was what I was smelling: flowers. Soon, even that knowledge grew more specific, and I could tell the flowers were roses.

Another realization hit me. I wanted that scent. In fact, my entire being was reaching for it. At first, the scent lingered, then gradually grew weaker, until only an undertone of decay remained. When that happened, I grew restless, what little awareness I possessed reaching outward, wanting more.

But always, the sweetness returned, and I was grateful for it. I begged it to stay with me, but it never did. It always seemed to die, just to return again. Then its visits became shorter and shorter. The sweetness turning to rot far too quickly.

Hours or days passed, but eventually, the sweetness acquired a taste. It was slightly bitter in its aftermath, the way I imagined eating a handful of petals would feel. Yet, I welcomed this new sensation—one I’d nearly forgotten.

Sometime later, there were also sounds. They were distant and unintelligible, but I derived comfort from them. One in particular, I craved. It came and stayed with me for only a moment, then it was gone, and I felt its loss acutely.

Once more, sweetness renewed the scent of rot.

Fresh flowers!

I reached for them eagerly and realized that I didn’t only want them. I needed them. I was drawing from them, taking what little life they had to build my strength, to heal the damage that had nearly obliterated every single cell in my body.

This was it. This was the last batch I needed to awaken. Once I was done drawing its energy, there would be enough of my own life force to let my magic work, to heal myself.

I eagerly drew and drew and drew, like sucking on a straw without taking a breath. I took everything the flowers had to give in an instant, then my healing skills kicked in and swept over my body.

“Kryn, stay here,” someone said. “Larina, find my uncle. Tell him I want his best guards to come here and protect Daniella. When the guards get here, come find me.”

Kalyll! Kalyll was here.

I struggled to speak, but not a word came out. I willed my healing skills to hurry up, to push away the cold. My entire body tingled as it attempted to warm itself up.

A moment later, I came to, gasping and shivering. I wrapped my arms around my torso, trembling, nothing but a grunt escaping my lips.

“Dani!”

I blinked, and a mane of red hair took shape. “K-Kryn,” I managed in a hoarse voice.

His emerald gaze snapped to one side. It looked as if he were going to call someone, but he stopped himself and returned his attention to me.

“You… are you all right?” he asked.

I frowned, my mind so addled that I couldn’t begin to shape an answer. I grabbed Kryn’s hand and tried to sit up with his help, but I collapsed back down, exhausted, my healing abilities already drained. Before I knew what I was doing, I got hold of Kryn’s life force.

His eyes shot wide open as I drew from him. His energy felt like a ray of sunshine after an endless night, but I bit on my lower lip and managed to clamp down the desperate hunger for self-preservation.

I let him go, a sob escaping me.

“No, no, it’s all right,” Kryn said and seized my hand. “Take what you need.”

I shook my head weakly.

“C’mon, Dani. We need you. Kalyll needs you.” He squeezed my fingers, urging me to draw more energy from him.

“S-sometimes I can’t s-stop,” I said, a shiver raking its nails down my spine.

“You’ll stop. I know you will.”

Kalyll needs you, Kryn had said.

I needed him too. I needed his arms around me to warm me and get rid of this unbearable cold.

Without further protest, I found the spark of Kryn’s life, something like a glow in the middle of his chest, and drew from it. Strength filled me. My eyes rolled into the back of my head, and I sighed as a measure of blessed warmth suffused my limbs, driving life into the tips of my frigid fingers and toes. When I opened my eyes again, Kryn was pale, his teeth bared as he did his best not to collapse in a heap.

I let go of him, even though I needed so much more. He inhaled sharply and took a step back, pressing a hand to his chest. He swayed on his feet, and I thought he would pass out, but after several deep breaths, he straightened and gave me one of his patent mean looks.

“Don’t ever let me be nice to you again,” he grumbled.

I was still cold, but it was bearable.

I sat up with some difficulty. There was a blanket over my legs. I fumbled with it, my hands clumsy as I picked it up and wrapped it around me, welcoming its warmth. Two pedestals with large arrangements of dead flowers sat on either side of my bed. I blinked at the dead petals on the floor.

“This is… incredible.” Kryn looked me up and down, his eyes round.

I glanced around the room as memories slowly trickled back into my mind. The first one threatened to overwhelm my senses. It was a sharp blast of flight followed by unbearable pain. I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut. When I opened them again, I searched Kryn’s green gaze.

“Kalyll… he’s all right?” I asked.

He huffed. “You could say that.”

“Varamede didn’t hurt him?”

“Oh, you’re talking about that. No, Varamede didn’t hurt them. You were really stupid, and he hurt you instead.”

I wanted to argue, but I had been stupid, or so my returning memories suggested. I’d thought Varamede’s lightning attack would strike Kalyll, and I’d intervened even as he turned to shadow to avoid the strike.

Dropping the blanket, I splayed my hands in front of me and stared at them. “All that light,” I said. “It came out of me.”

“It sure did.”

“I’d never…” I trailed off.

“We’ve speculated a lot about it. Kalyll thinks it has something to do with the bit of shadowdrifter energy that tangled itself with you that day in Mount Ruin.”

I pressed a hand to my forehead and rubbed it from side to side. I barely managed to keep myself together as all the memories came at once, the realization of what I’d become hitting me like another bolt of lightning.

The energy I’d used to fight Varamede had come from the life of that poor guard I’d killed. I had taken it from him. I had kept his life force trapped inside me, unaware of it. Then I’d used it to attack with the full intention of killing once more.

Many times I’d wondered what I would be capable of for a loved one, and now I knew. I hadn’t even stopped to consider my options. But even if I had, I knew my actions would have been the same.

More than once, I had tried to shame Wölfe for his selfish behavior, for always putting his happiness first. But now I knew, I would always do the same. I would defend Kalyll, my need to be with him, to love him and cherish him for as long as I could, over anything else.

“He’s right,” I said. “His shadowdrifter energy changed something in me.”

“He explained. You can still heal and give life, but you can also take it away.” As he frowned, he examined his hand, the one I had drawn energy from.

“I’m not useless in a fight anymore.” I gave him a sidelong glance.

He smirked.

“Where is Kalyll now?” I asked.

Kryn winced at the question. “A lot has happened.”

“How long was I out?”

“A week.”

A week. It both seemed like a long time and a short time. I had been lost in an endless limbo, and it had seemed like an eternity while I tried to claw my way out from the brink of death. Seven days was nothing in comparison.

“I should have died,” I said.

Kryn didn’t argue with that. He simply nodded. “Silver… he froze you. No one could heal you. How did you…?”

I nodded toward the flowers. “I drew their energy. It was so hard at first. It took a long time, but as I got stronger, I was able to do it faster and faster.”

“That’s why Larina had to keep replacing them.”

I turned my head and realized they’d moved the bed in front of the window, which was open, a tranquil moonlit night stretching far into the distance above Elyndell.

My feet dangled over the side of the bed. Kryn offered me his hand. I took it and slid down to the floor. He steadied me, although he didn’t look much better than I felt. I’d taken a lot from him—enough to make him look as if he’d just gotten over a bad flu.

“Seven days, then,” I said. “What did I miss?”

Kryn winced again.

“That bad?”

“He was here just now. We’ve been looking for Cardian and Varamede, but no luck there, so we came back, and another blow was waiting for him.”

“What do you mean?” I pressed a hand to my chest, bracing myself for it. Kalyll had been through so much already. What else could…?

I froze, looking over Kryn’s shoulder as a warning rose in my chest. His hand immediately went to the sword at his side, and he started to turn.

“No!” I cried out as Cardian, who had appeared behind Kryn, raised a dagger and plunged it into the side of Kryn’s neck.

A horrible gurgling sound escaped Kryn. Despite the terrible wound, he grabbed Cardian’s wrist and whirled on him, blood streaming down his neck, staining his jacket. He drove Cardian back, using his weight, and slammed him against the wall.

Cardian pulled the dagger out, a weapon that looked more like an icepick than anything else. Now, the blood spurted from the wound in a jet. Panicked, Kryn smacked a hand to his neck to contain the flood. He stumbled backward, eyes full of dread.

“Run, Dani!” he ordered me.

When I just stood there and watched him topple to the floor, it was the pleading look in his eyes that made me hesitate. I wanted to run to him. I could heal him, give him back the life force he’d lent me. But he wanted me out of here. His eyes told me that my safety mattered more to him than anything else.

Except, I couldn’t leave him on the floor, bleeding to death. I took a step toward him. I had to…

Cardian stepped in front of me, dagger raised.

“Run!” Kryn said again.

I shook my head.

Cardian took another step, a gleeful smile stretching his thin lips. “You’re coming with me, Sleeping Beauty.”

No. I couldn’t let Cardian take me. For all I knew, I would end up a prisoner of the Unseelie King. They were working together. I took several shaky steps back, my eyes locked on Cardian’s blood-stained dagger. Behind him, Kryn kept bleeding, and still, his only concern was for me.

“Run!” Kryn’s voice again, this time accompanied by a gurgle.

I obeyed. As fast as my weak legs allowed, I ran on bare feet. I heard Cardian behind me, his boots tapping with purpose. My knees wobbled. My head swam. I was too weak to escape.

I made it to the door and staggered into the hall.

Cardian laughed. “You’re not going anywhere.”

Holding on to the wall, I managed to go down the first flight of the tower’s winding steps. At the landing, there was a fork. The one to the left led to a door that spilled into a garden, while the one to the right led deeper into the palace. That was the way I should have followed, but I kept leaning on the wall and veered left, too weak to move away from its support.

Suddenly, I heard voices and rushed steps coming from the right. Help was on its way. I stopped and glanced over my shoulder, my vision going dark around the edges.

Cardian was a few steps up, dagger still in hand. He was frozen with indecision, his head cocked toward the approaching sounds. He glanced in my direction and met my eyes for just an instant before he tightened his hand around something and disappeared, leaving nothing behind but air.

The darkness encroaching on my vision rapidly shrank. I stood there for a few seconds, my body swinging precariously. Through my blurring vision, I saw several shapes run past, bounding up the steps, dashing through the exact space where Cardian had been standing just a moment ago.

They’ll help Kryn,I thought. He’ll be all right.

But the sounds of a struggle ensued. Why? Had Cardian gone back to the room?

Weakly, I reached out a hand and murmured. “Kryn.”

Then I toppled backward and rolled down the stone staircase, unconsciousness sinking its claws into me, even as the pain of the fall jarred my bones.