9. Kira

9

KIRA

I surface slowly from the depths of unconsciousness, like a diver ascending through fathoms of inky water. The first thing I'm aware of is warmth, a soothing cocoon that enfolds me like a tangible aura of safety and protection. Gradually, other sensations filter in - the subtle rocking motion of movement, the rustling whisper of wind through leaves, the earthy scent of moss and loam.

I crack my eyes open, blinking against the dappled light that slants through a latticework of branches high overhead. Memory comes rushing back in a dizzying flood - the glade, the fae creature, the terror and pain and despair. I jerk fully awake, a gasp lodging in my throat...

Only to realize that I'm cradled securely in Malachar's arms, my cheek pressed against the smooth blackwood of his armor. He moves through the forest with preternatural grace, his strides eating up the ground, the shadows parting before him like curtains of cobweb.

I consider struggling, demanding to be put down... but the sheer relief of safety, of rescue, is too potent. I find myself relaxing into his hold, my heartbeat gradually slowing from its panicked gallop. There will be time enough later for pride, for the reassertion of boundaries and autonomy. For now, I am content to savor this fleeting sanctuary, this moment of peace amidst the chaos.

It seems to take both forever and no time at all to reach the Nightfort. The towering ebony gates swing open at our approach, the bone-white gravel of the courtyard crunching beneath Malachar's boots as he strides towards the keep. I feel the ancient wards wash over us like a dark tide, tasting my aura, weighing my allegiance. They let me pass, apparently satisfied by whatever claim Malachar has laid on my soul.

He carries me up the winding stairs, down echoing corridors lit by guttering sconces, finally coming to a halt outside a familiar door. My room. He shoulders it open, bearing me inside to lay me with infinite gentleness on the bed.

I expect him to leave then, to melt back into the shadows from whence he came. But he surprises me by settling into the chair beside the bed, his ember-bright gaze fixed on my face.

"Sleep," he says, his sepulchral voice oddly soft. "You are safe now. I will watch over you."

And incredibly, impossibly, I do. Drifting off into a dreamless darkness, swaddled in the aura of his power, his presence, I feel truly safe for the first time since I crossed the keep's eldritch threshold.

When I wake, hours or eons later, he is still there. Watching me with an inscrutable expression, his hands steepled before his lips. Seeing me stir, he leans forward, his eyes lambent in the guttering candlelight.

"How do you feel?" he asks, and there is a strange note in his voice, a tension that might almost be concern.

I take stock, marveling at the lack of pain, the absence of wounds I know I sustained. "I... I'm alright. Better than alright." I meet his gaze, a thousand questions clamoring on my tongue. "You healed me."

It's not a question, but he nods anyway. "A simple working, for one with my gifts." He hesitates, a flicker of some indecipherable emotion crossing his austere features. "I... regret that you suffered such harm under my aegis. It will not happen again."

I blink, taken aback by this nearest thing to an apology I've yet heard from the dark lord's lips. "I don't understand. Why did you come for me? Why risk yourself, after everything..."

"You are mine." The words are low, fierce, almost angry. "Mine to shape, mine to mold... mine to protect. No other hand may touch you, no other power may have you. Not while I still draw breath."

I shiver at the intensity in his voice, the possessive fire that kindles behind his eyes. Once, not long ago, such a declaration would have raised my hackles, stirred my defiance. But now, with the memory of my own helplessness still bitter on my tongue... there is a strange comfort in it. A dark thrill, an illicit heat.

What is happening to me? What is this place, this being, doing to me?

Malachar rises abruptly, his cloak swirling around him like captured night. "Enough. It is past time we resumed your training. You must learn to master your gifts, to bend the currents of magic to your will. Only then will you be safe beyond these walls."

And so we do. The days blur into a ceaseless round of study and practice, Malachar driving me to the very limits of my nascent abilities. He is a harsh taskmaster, his methods ranging from silkenly cajoling to brutally uncompromising... but I cannot deny the results. Slowly, painfully, I feel my control solidifying, my reserves deepening. The power that once stuttered fitfully at my fingertips now rises swift and sure, a cresting wave of eldritch force.

But for all my rapid progress, Malachar remains unsatisfied. He watches me with hooded eyes as I work my clumsy cantrips, his aura crackling with a restless energy.

"You need a familiar," he declares one gray morning, appearing without warning at the door of the library where I have buried myself in moldering grimoires. "A companion spirit, to channel and augment your magic. It is past time."

I look up, blinking away the cobwebs of concentration. "A familiar? Like a cat, or a raven or something?"

His lip curls in an expression too sardonic to be called a smile. "Nothing so prosaic. The familiar of a true adept is a being of pure magic, an extension of your own psyche given external form. It will be a reflection of your innermost nature, your most fundamental Self."

A trickle of some obscure emotion chases down my spine - anticipation, or apprehension, I can't tell. The thought of giving form to the secret core of me, of laying that hidden heart bare to the world... It is as terrifying as it is exhilarating.

But I rise gamely enough when he beckons, following him out into the mist-shrouded bailey. The chill air pricks at my skin, heavy with the petrichor scent of impending rain. Malachar leads me to a bare expanse of swept flagstones, ringed by lichen-crusted statues of leering gargoyles.

"This is a place of power," he intones, his voice echoing oddly in the pregnant hush. "A nexus point, where the veils between worlds run thin. It is here that you will call your familiar, here that you will forge your bond."

Under his direction, I sink to my knees in the center of the circle, the damp seeping coldly through my robes. Breathing deep, I center myself, reaching for that now-familiar core of power that coils behind my breastbone. At Malachar's signal, I cast my awareness outwards, my psyche unfurling like a dark bloom.

"By blood and bone, by breath and stone, I call to thee," I rasp, the words tearing at my throat like fishhooks. "By warp and weft, by wing and cleft, come to me."

The power shudders through me, a rippling wave of invisible force. It pulses out across the flagstones, the statues, the very air... and dissipates, fading away to nothing. No flare of spectral light, no eerie whispering of unseen wings. Nothing.

I sag, my nails biting into my palms, bitter disappointment welling in my throat. Malachar makes a low sound, circling me like a great carrion bird. "Again," he snaps, his tone brooking no argument. "Reach deeper. Offer more. You are holding back, hiding your true face. A familiar will only answer to utter honesty, complete surrender."

I grit my teeth, tears of frustration pricking behind my eyelids. Again and again, I cast the summoning, each time flaying myself a little more raw, exposing a little more of my secret marrow. But no matter how I plead and abase myself, the result is the same. Silence. Emptiness. Failure.

As the pale sun reaches its zenith, Malachar calls a halt, his aura seething with a frustration to match my own. "Enough," he growls, turning away in a swirl of dark robes. "We will try again on the morrow. For now, meditate on the nature of your block. Delve deep, excavate your shadows. Only when you know yourself utterly will your familiar answer your call."

And with that he is gone, striding away into the keep's cyclopean silhouette. I remain kneeling in the center of the circle, my body aching, my mind spinning, my heart a leaden weight in my chest.

What is wrong with me? Why can't I do this simplest, most fundamental of workings? Malachar's disappointment, his thinly veiled disdain, cuts me like a flensing knife. I want so badly to please him, to prove myself worthy of his regard, his tutelage. To be the dark apprentice he desires.

But how can I, when I cannot even master this most basic tenant of the craft? When the true shape of my soul remains stubbornly shrouded, even from myself?

Stiffly, I unfold myself from the flagstones, my sodden robes clinging clammily to my legs. I feel the weight of the gargoyles' stone eyes on my back as I trudge towards the keep, silent guardians to my shame.

In my chambers, I shed my damp clothing like an ill-fitting skin, crawling into the cavernous expanse of my bed. The events of the day replay endlessly behind my eyelids - Malachar's searing scorn, the yawning emptiness where my familiar should have been, the sick swoop of failure in my gut.

What if I'm simply not meant for this world, for the dark glory Malachar promises? What if the power slumbering in my veins is nothing more than a cosmic mistake, a hiccup of fate? Perhaps it would be better for everyone if I simply stepped off the battlements, offered myself up to the feasting shadows beyond the walls...

"Stop."

The word cracks through the spiraling murk of my thoughts like a whip. I jerk upright, my heart pounding against my ribs. That voice...

Malachar steps from the shadows pooled in the corner of my chamber, his eyes gleaming like banked coals. He glides towards the bed, his aura unfurling before him in tenebrous coils. With a gesture, he stills my instinctive recoil, pinning me in place with a web of unseen force.

"I can taste your despair," he says, his voice low and sonorous. "It screams in the aether, a cancer, a poison. You must excise it, or it will consume you whole and entire."

He looms over me, a pillar of living midnight. His hand comes up to cradle my jaw, his touch searing against my clammy flesh. "You are my apprentice," he hisses, each word falling like a blood-dark ruby. "My chosen, my... investment. There is greatness in you, a potential that could reshape the very foundations of reality. I will not see it squandered in a welter of mortal frailty."

His grip tightens, his talons pressing dimples into my skin. "You will rise above this... this weakness. You will rend the veil of your psyche and drag your true Self into the light, kicking and screaming if you must. And you will secure your familiar, that outward badge of your dark ascension. I command it."

I shudder in his grasp, transfixed by the infernal fire of his gaze. There is something there, in the depthless abyss of his eyes... something more than the usual cold calculation. A fierce, almost feral intensity, as if my struggles have engaged some predatory instinct deep within his undead psyche.

He releases me as suddenly as he gripped me, receding into the wavering shadows. "Remember what I have said," his disembodied voice whispers, echoing inside my skull. "Remember... and obey."

And with that, he is gone, leaving me trembling and overwrought in the darkness, his words etching themselves into the fabric of my being like a talisman... or a curse.