Chapter 18

Chapter 18

W hen Andrian came back to consciousness, he stood in what must be his rooms.

He felt as if he was in a daze, no clue as to how he’d gotten there. Like he was half-asleep or perhaps still caught in a dream, dropped into the world with some semblance of a past, but no idea how he’d arrived.

He focused on the image in front of him. Another person—a man—stood there, shirt unbuttoned, messy black hair falling errantly into too-bright eyes as blood dripped down his chest.

Not a man. His reflection. He stood in front of a mirror.

Andrian cocked his head in curiosity as he stared at the image of himself in the glass. His reflection staring back at him was just as perplexed.

His shirt and black trousers were dirty, as if he’d fallen and pushed himself up more than once. Etched on his chest, just over his heart, was his Mark, the roaring dragon with flames leaping from its maw. At the center of the tattoo, just over where a solid black line had once bisected the Mark, was a shallow cut—the source of the blood staining his clothes and smeared across his skin.

The longer he stared at that tattoo, the more those feelings of being only partly there grew and intensified. His attention focused on the cut. He didn’t know how it had happened, but he felt as if the memory lingered, just out of reach. He pushed against the wall, stretching out his mind, grasping for more … but nothing. Only whispers of a half-forgotten dream, tinged with the scent of eucalyptus and jasmine.

As far as he knew, dreams could only harm the mind. Never the body.

An acquainted darkness crept up within him, its talons and claws tearing at the other half of his mind. That darkness was all he’d known while trapped in his dreams, a lingering malevolence he was unable to escape.

Perhaps that was what had given him the cut. Nightmare turned flesh for just a moment.

The beast in his mind clawed at him, even as Andrian sharpened his focus on his chest, on the Mark that adorned it, on the blood that spilled from it. The raging of his living nightmares faded to a dull roar, and he watched a bead of blood well to the surface of his skin. It cut a track down his chest, dripping to the floor.

When it splashed against the tiles beneath his feet, he felt something else stir.

It wasn’t the horror that had kept him trapped for as long as he could remember, locking him in memories of a life he couldn’t recall or was even sure was his. It was still dark, still wreathed in the shadows of the world, but it was familiar. Comforting, even. Something in his blood that made him feel at home, that made him feel less like an amalgamation of memories and more like himself.

Whoever that was.

The comforting darkness spread through him as he watched his reflection in the mirror. Slowly, tendrils of shadows pushed from his shoulders, weaving through his unbuttoned shirt. They formed into ropes of shade, twisting and dancing in the air above his head.

The sinister presence in his mind thrashed. But something had clicked, shifted. Andrian could keep that monster locked down, shut out, as he watched the shadows of his soul weave a tapestry in the mirror's reflection.

Without warning, the delicate strands of darkness plunged back beneath his skin, wrapping themselves around his heart, his pulse stuttering. His vision sharpened, tongue going dry as adrenaline and whatever else flooded his system.

For the first time in weeks—for as long as he could remember—he felt alive.

Andrian inhaled a gasping breath, taking a shuddering step forward and bracing himself against the mirror. He lifted his head again, meeting his stare for three more heartbeats, before the shadows—his shadows—moved again.

They unwound themselves from his heart and again jumped from his skin. This time, instead of drifting in the air, they pulled him toward the door with a gentle tug on his ribs. Andrian tapped his chest, his fingers smearing the blood.

He turned and followed his shadows to the door.

The monster screamed. He ignored it.

His shadows led him to a cavernous, unfamiliar hallway. Turned him left, pulling him down long, dark, winding corridors. There was a lingering chill in the air, and the air smelled sickly sweet, as if too much perfume and cologne had been sprayed to mask the scent of death and decay and despair.

Andrian wasn’t sure what this place was, but he hated it.

The shadows took him to a steep staircase, tugging him down the treacherous steps. Fangs dragged against his mind as the monster grew desperate.

Andrian took the first step down the stairs, knees shaking.

At the bottom of the steps, several allume lamps hung from the walls, plugged in by their lunestair chains. He took a lurching step toward them, but the tug in his chest halted his movement. He turned to where his shadows lingered, urgent and restless, a few feet in front of him.

With a jolt, he realized he could see, even without the light of the allume lamps. He could somehow feel where the shadows touched, could sense everything they enveloped. He was far from blind—in fact, he felt far more aware than he ever had before.

Andrian followed his shadows forward, deeper into darkness.

It was even colder here, even fouler. A thick layer of pain and sadness hung heavy in the air. With those strange senses he was just remembering, he felt another, there in the bowels of their prison.

It was a girl. A woman. Curled tightly on a disgusting mattress, desperate for any warmth she could create for herself.

His steps quickened as he chased his shadows through the dungeons toward the woman held captive, miserable and alone.

He saw her in a cell, one of many in a long line. Her dark hair fanned around her head, body concealed by a thin, stained blanket.

She must’ve sensed his arrival. Her body shifted, going rigid, and she shot up in bed just as her eyes blinked open.

Even in the dark, the glowing, brilliant forest green hit him like a hammer, knocking the breath from his lungs and nearly sinking him to his knees. The only things that kept him standing were his shadows at his back, pushing him toward the cell door, and the vicious creature tearing a hole in his mind. He could feel it pushing in, desperate to take back the control he’d somehow wrested in his mockery of a nightmare.

Andrian stared at the woman. She stared at him. His hands shook, clenched into fists.

His shadows wrapped around his wrists, pulling them into the pockets of his trousers. His fingers grazed cool metal.

He withdrew the keys. The woman did not break her gaze from his.

Still guided by his shadows, Andrian selected a thick skeleton key from the ring. Inserted it into the lock of the cell door. Twisted until the lock clicked.

The woman did not move as he stepped into the cell, his shadows pulling him with renewed desperation.

The creature in his mind lurched forward, and this time nearly reached him. He couldn’t stop from staggering forward, from dropping to his knee, pain fracturing up his leg as bone made impact with the icy stone. His palm landed beside his knee, bracing himself in the darkness.

There was a soft movement, a subtle shift in front of him. The woman stood from her cot, wearing nothing more than a short pink dress made of shredded lace and tulle. She didn’t flinch as her bare feet touched the cold ground. Andrian gritted his teeth and lifted himself up, staying in his half-kneel as she took a few more cautious steps toward him.

His shadows tugged his hands again, their urgency palpable. He could almost taste the fear—if shadows could feel such things.

His fingers moved to a new key. A small key, black and delicate. What could it possibly open, if he’d already opened the door to the woman’s cell?

But his eyes snagged on the woman’s wrists. On the delicate black and gold bands encircling them, the foulness permeating from them forcing his shadows to retract, cowering beneath his skin.

His fingers tightened on the small black key. The woman stiffened. Her eyes, somehow just as familiar in the dark as his own, darted down to the cuffs, then the key gripped in his hand, before rising to his face.

Despite the urgency raking down his spine, despite the evil screaming, biting, and tearing at his mind, he couldn’t stop the breath rushing from his lungs. If he hadn’t already been on his knees, he would’ve fallen to them all over again.

Even bruised and cold and dirty, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Perhaps his memories were limited, but he was confident he would never see anyone more perfect for the rest of his life, even if the Goddess herself returned to the earth to walk among her people.

Fuck, for all he knew, this was that goddess, and he was about to set her free.

He raised his hands, extending the black key to her. She stilled, for just a heartbeat, something unreadable flashing through those hypnotizing green eyes, before reaching her wrists out to him, palms up.

The key holes were there, nearly invisible. With shaking hands, tremors caused by her and the effort it took to hold back the force that was almost there, mere minutes from snatching back control, he pushed the key into the hole in the cuff on her right wrist. The snick was silent, but that was all it took. The cuff fell from her wrist, landing on the floor with a clatter. He repeated the movement on the other side until both cuffs were on the floor. With a disgusted look, the woman kicked them viciously out of her sight. They clanged against the bars of her cell.

Andrian barely heard it. He was fading, whatever barrier that had granted him this reprieve weakening. Staggering to his feet, something primal urging him to get far, far away from this place before he lost control. He lurched to the cell door, stumbling through, turning back once. Just for one final look at that perfect face, broken confusion written across the features of a goddess.

Her mouth opened as if to speak, but before any words could slip past her full lips, he’d launched into a sprint down the hallway, clawing his way back up the stairs and scrambling down as many winding hallways as he could.

His heartbeat thundered and his breath rasped as he collapsed into a pile of freshly fallen snow outside the castle, the darkness of the beast taking him back once more.

He remembered nothing of that day.