27. The Quiet Darkness

27

The Quiet Darkness

Safira Chastain

I staggered into the Spire, my whole body shaking, and collapsed just inside the door. My body didn't know what to do, alternating between floods of relief and terror, violently shuddering through it all. I broke into wracking sobs as I stayed there on all fours, my head hanging down while hot tears dripped down my face.

"Safira? Oh, gods! Safira!" Marin's voice rang out through the entry room.

I heard her running towards me, and couldn't bring myself to move, trying only to get my weeping under control. She dropped to her knees in front of me and started pushing my sopping hair out of my face. Her cool hands grabbed my face and made me look up at her.

"Oh, gods, Safira, what happened? What did he do?" she asked, her green eyes wide with horror.

The words made me dissolve into tears again, bawling like a child. She gathered me onto her lap, holding me up against her chest with no regard for my soaking state.

"Shh, shh, it's okay, you're okay, you got away," Marin said, like a mantra.

And I had, I had , but not from who she thought. Celyn hadn't done this to me. Celyn had saved me.

"It was the wizard," I gasped out, sobs wracking me with each breath. "Oh, gods, it was the wizard."

"What do you mean?" she asked, her own voice full of fear. "Safira, sweetheart, who's the wizard?"

I shook my head, clinging to her shirt, the tears cutting hot lines across my face. Pain clenched my throat like a vise, agony radiating through my chest. "The—the mage. He's—oh, gods, Marin, he's my husband," I said through my tight throat, every word hurting. "He—he came for me. He—"

I couldn't get anything else out, my throat closing. Marin made little shushing noises, rocking me, her face against my sopping-wet hair .

"It's okay, sweetie," she said, dropping a kiss on my hair. "It's okay. You're safe."

Another sob escaped me, tearing free of the knot in my chest. I had to make her understand. "We were married in Lestryn," I forced out, my ribs aching and arms shaking from the tension. "I'm his... property. He... he did it on purpose. Wanted me like that." I dragged in a shaking, stuttering breath. "He hurt me. I... ran away. Here."

"Oh, Safira," Marin said, heartbreak in her voice.

"I don't know how he found me," I said, the words dull. "Maybe one of the sorcerers recognized me, and told him. But he wasn't here for research. He was here for me." My fingers tightened on Marin's shirt of their own volition, but I made myself let go, sitting back, looking into her face. "But he... left. He swore not to come back."

"And Celyn?" she asked, her eyes flickering down to my soaked clothing.

"Celyn kept me safe," I said, my mouth trembling as I fought back the tears. "He convinced the wizard I would rather die than come out of the water. And when the wizard left, he let me go."

I didn't tell her Ceyln was bound. I didn't know how to say it, how to get those words out past the pain that clenched my throat tight.

An expression akin to disbelief flickered across Marin's face, like a battle between her discomfort with Celyn and my words. But she didn't challenge me on it. She simply closed her eyes and nodded, her mouth going tight for a moment before she looked at me again. "He really swore?"

"Yes," I said, my voice fragile. "He's never coming after me again." I took a deep breath, willing life to come back into my face. "I'll be fine. I'm okay."

"Are you sure?" she asked, sounding like it was impossible to believe.

I nodded, unable to say the words. Her kind eyes searched my face, but whatever she saw convinced her that I wasn't about to fall apart again. Marin dragged me to my feet and down to the bathing rooms, making me get in the water to warm up.

Getting warm hurt. Pins and needles stabbed in my fingers and toes, and the warm water felt as if it burned my skin. But I stayed in the water as commanded, until I stopped shivering and the tips of my fingers no longer looked blue. When I finally emerged and went out into the central room in a towel, I found Marin waiting for me.

"Go rest," she said, her voice soft. "You'll feel better after resting for a while."

I nodded, my whole body exhausted. Even my emotions were flat, the way fog lies heavy over the ground on humid spring mornings, clinging to the night. "I might skip dinner," I said. "I... I just want to hide for a little while."

"Of course," Marin replied. "I'll bring something up for you, okay? You can eat in your room if you want."

"Thank you," I whispered, the words shaky with relief.

She only smiled, and I went up to my room to curl up. I got dressed in comfortable clothes and tried to read in the nook. But I couldn't bear the sight of the lake, or the openness of the room. I drifted around, anxious and unhappy. Finally, I picked up the two stones from my parents' graves and crawled into the wardrobe like I had as a child, folding myself into a small ball and closing the doors. Clothes draped over me, and only a slender crack of light gleamed from beneath the doors.

Tears started falling again, silent ones, sliding out of the corners of my eyes. I cupped the two rocks and looked at them in the darkness of the wardrobe. The mica didn't glitter in the dark, and the quartz was merely any other rock, quiet and dull. When there's no light, nothing can reflect it. It's so much easier to hide in the darkness, to make yourself small and never again have to face the dangers outside your small corner of the world.

"We're safe," I said, the words catching in my throat.

Safe. We were safe. He was never going to come back for me, because he'd sworn on his power to never interact with me again. I could do anything I wanted—go anywhere I wanted. I only had a few years left on my contract. If I wanted to, I could stay longer, tending the beautiful greenhouses and enjoying the wild beauty of Barixeor's landscape. Or I could leave, go work anywhere I wanted. With Leyweaver's recommendation, I could have any position I desired. I could tend hothouses for a king, or run breeding experiments for rare plants. I could be anyone I wanted to be.

So why didn't I feel happy? The relief was there, mountains of it, the weight of my long fear melting away. Mage-oaths couldn't be broken. If he so much as tried to follow my movements, his own power would kill him. He was gone , truly gone, wiped out of my life with a thoroughness that should have left me giddy. I should have been dancing with joy. Why was I hiding in a wardrobe?

The image of Celyn in the waters flashed into my mind, his blue eyes full of longing and his mouth parted. I shoved it away. The water-horse wasn't human. He wasn't like me. He was a force of nature, something dangerous and untameable. He'd seen my fear and turned it into terror, taking advantage of my comfort with him to control my body and force me to look into the depth of his dangerousness.

His hand gripping my wrist like a manacle, his waters holding me in place as if I had been crystallized in ice. This is what it would be like, Safira. You will know it if I choose to steal you.

The ferocity on his face, his blue eyes blazing with anger.

The raw agony in his words.

I closed my fingers around the gravestones and buried my face against my knees.

"He's ancient," I whispered to myself. "It won't be very long for him at all. I didn't ask him to do it. He made that choice."

All the words sounded hollow. I knew what it was like to be owned by the wizard, and how he treated his possessions. It wouldn't be mere service. Celyn wouldn't be a servant, or even a horse. He would be a slave, his every action scrutinized and adjusted until the wizard was pleased. He would be shown off as a prize, made to abase himself not just for one man, but for many.

The wizard would use Celyn in every way that he could. He didn't brook the creatures under his command to be useless, or to act in any way that spoke of anything but eager devotion. If the wizard suspected that Celyn hated something, or if he dared to show any spark of defiance, the wizard would try to break him. Even one human man's lifespan is a long time when you must obey every edict as if it is your greatest desire, and anticipate his whims.

Mage-oaths prevent mages from inflicting the worst physical abuses on others, but they don't prevent everything. Not even close. The wizard would want to be remembered. He would want to leave marks on Celyn that would never be forgotten. To be remembered by the immortal is to become immortal yourself.

Ooh, I love thinking about you wearing my brand. That silky voice, the memory coming unbidden. You'd look so pretty with it tattooed right over your pussy. Nobody else would ever be able to have you without knowing you belonged to me.

I shuddered. I'd seen horses branded. The thought of red-hot iron searing Celyn's flesh made me break out into a cold sweat. If Celyn did anything aggressive towards the wizard or anyone he knew, there would be no more protection against physical harm from the oaths that held all mages on the Material Plane. I had no hope that Celyn knew those oaths, and even someone who willingly bowed his head could be pushed past the breaking point, and lash out.

He'd been awful to me. Monstrous. He'd taken hold of my body more thoroughly than the wizard ever had, and forced me to live out my nightmares.

I will show you what it means to touch a water-horse.

"You made your choices," I told the air, as if Celyn could hear me, and as if the words could absolve me of the knowledge of what would happen to him as the years turned.

It wasn't my fault. He'd chosen to bow his head. He hadn't even asked.

There wasn't anything I could do about it, anyway.