Whispers rolling around the room, ghostly murmurs gaining in volume.
"Quiet!" The lord cut the air with a slicing hand.
Silence reigned.
"Continue."
Curiosity about the ghostly residents danced nimble and quick through her veins, but she kept it in check. First, she must discover if the Abyss had saved the last heir - or if it had consumed him. "This land, this Elden, it was a place of grace and wonder. Its people grew old at so slow a pace that some called them immortal, but they were not true immortals, for they could die, but only after hundreds of years of life, of learning.
"Because of their great love of this last, they were renowned for their knowledge and artistry, their libraries the finest in all the kingdoms." She carried on when her audience didn't interrupt, the ghosts as motionless as the green-eyed man on the throne of black. "Elden was also a land overflowing with magical energy, its people's bodies touched with it." That energy had given Elden its strength - and made it a target. "All of Elden's grace and prosperity flowed from the king and queen. King Aelfric, it is said - "
"No!" The Lord of the Black Castle rose, his hands clenched, his eyes black, the tendrils spiraling out to run across his face. "You will not say that name."
"It is only a name in a tale," she said, though the merciless cold of his gaze made her abdomen lurch with the realization that he could end her life with one swipe of that razor-gauntleted hand. "It is not real." Better to tell a small lie, if it would help her slip under the viscous cobweb of her father's spell. "Surely, you aren't a child to be scared of tales." It was a chance she took, that he wouldn't kill her for such insolence, but the stakes were too high for her to walk softly.
"You dare challenge me?" Quiet words. Deadly words. "I will - "
"If you send everyone to the dungeon, my lord," she said, brushing an imaginary speck of dirt off her tunic in an effort to hide the trembling in her hands, "it's a wonder you have any friends at all."
His eyes turned green between one blink and the next, the tendrils of armor disappearing from his face. "The Guardian of the Abyss has no friends."
She understood loneliness. Oh, yes, she understood how it could cut and bite and make you bleed. "I'm not surprised," she said, rather than offering him her friendship. That would most certainly get her thrown back down into the bowels of the castle - he was a man of power and pride, of arrogance earned through dark labor. "It's a dicey business," she said, taking her life into her hands for the second time in as many minutes, "talking with someone who locks up anyone who disagrees with him."
Anger turned his bones stark against his skin, but then the green gleamed. "Tell this tale, Liliana. I promise, whether it is good or bad, you won't have to spend the night in the dungeon."
Liliana didn't trust that gleam, her heart thudding against her ribs as her hands turned damp. "What are you planning to do to me?"
Chapter 5
He smiled. And she caught her breath at the heartbreaking beauty of him. Now she understood, now she glimpsed the child he must've been, the one who had won a kingdom's heart. However, his words were not those of a child, but of an intelligent, dangerous man. "You must imagine what the Guardian of the Abyss might do to you."
It took every ounce of her will to find her voice again when all she wanted was to stare at him, this lost prince who had become a dark stranger. "King Aelfric - " she saw him clench his hands over the arms of the throne but he stayed silent " - was wise and powerful. It was written that his people would do anything for him, they loved him so much." She'd spent many an hour in the archives, a place her father never went, though he kept a chronicler on hand to record his "greatness."
"Kings are not loved." A rough interruption from the Guardian of the Abyss. "They rule. They cannot play games of nicety."
Liliana rubbed a fisted hand over her heart. "Some kings rule, and some kings reign," she whispered. "Some are loved and some are not. Aelfric was loved, for he was just and treated his people with a fair hand."
"Fairness alone does not engender love."
She looked into that gaze turned inscrutable, wondered if he was asking a question, or simply stating a fact. "In Elden," she said, "it did." When he didn't interrupt again, she continued. "Its people, hungry for knowledge, did love to roam. Some even found a doorway to a realm of no magic and came back with the most fantastical tales."
Ghostly whispers of disbelief, but it was the Lord of the Black Castle who snorted. "A realm without magic? It's like speaking of a realm without air."
"This is my tale," Liliana said with a prim sniff, smoothing her hands down the wrinkled black of her tunic. It was as shapeless as a potato sack, but better than that ugly brown dress, he supposed.
"If you don't like it," she continued, putting that large hooked nose of hers into the air, "you don't have to listen."
No one said such things to him in such a tone, but though part of her tale caused a primal fury within him, it was an intriguing story, far better than anything he'd heard these past several years. There was a storyteller in the village, but the old man quaked and trembled so when invited to the Black Castle that the Guardian of the Abyss was afraid he would shake apart. And his teeth chattered the entire time, a constant clattering accompaniment.
"Continue," he said to this curious storyteller of his, this Liliana who had appeared from nowhere and was stroked by a magic he knew he should recognize, a magic that aroused a shadowy curl of anger...of hidden memory.
He shook off the thought at once - he was the Guardian of the Abyss and had been so since the instant he woke in the Black Castle. There were no other memories within him. "Liliana." It was a growl when she didn't immediately obey.
Her head lifted. "In this land of no magic - " a stern frown when the ghostly residents of the Black Castle twittered in amusement " - it is said that they do everything with mechanical creatures. They build monoliths with fearsome metal beasts and even have birds that fly through the air on steel wings."
Cold. Cold. Cold, the residents whispered, but the lord wondered what those towering structures might look like. However, when his lashes drifted down, what he saw instead was a castle tall and strong, with many-hued pennants flaring above the parapets while firedancers circled, the birds voices a shimmering chorus to the dawn. The windows were made of glass so fine they appeared created of air, the building growing out of the pure blue waters of a pristine lake.
The entire scene was drenched in a golden glow.
Impossible, he thought. No light such as that had ever touched the Black Castle, or the barren desert and bubbling pools of lava that were the badlands. Perhaps he'd read of that golden castle in another tale as a child.
But...he had never been a child.
"My lord."
Turning, he met Liliana's quizzical gaze. Such an in-between shade were her eyes. Neither blue nor gray. "Enough," he said, getting to his feet. "You may sleep in the kitchen tonight. Bard!"
Liliana was already rising. "You didn't like my tale?" she asked as Bard lumbered into the great hall from where he'd been standing watch outside.
He stared at her, at those strange eyes that seemed to penetrate the hard shine of the black armor and see things in him that should not, could not, exist. "You will make me breakfast when you wake." Then he turned and walked to the doorway that would lead him out into the night-dark world.
As Liliana followed Bard's hulking presence to the kitchen, she felt a ghostly finger tug at her hair. Then another. "Stop it," she muttered under her breath. When they persisted, she halted, knuckled fists against her hips, foot tapping on the black stone of the castle floor. "I have no intention of continuing the tale until the lord wishes it." She glared at the air. "If you pester me, I'll refuse to do even that."
Turning back around, she found Bard staring at her with those liquid eyes so wise and deep. "Don't pretend you can't hear them," she said, folding her arms.
Bard said nothing, simply carried on to the kitchen.
The ghosts, at least, whispered away, leaving her in peace.
"Thank you," she said when he pushed open the door that led to the cozy room.
He waited until she was inside before pulling it shut.
She heard a lock click into place. "So much for trust." A little surprised that she'd survived the Guardian of the Abyss, she looked around for something with which to create a pallet. The sacks of flour, perhaps, or maybe - "Jissa, you sweetheart." A set of folded blankets, as well as a soft pillow, lay neatly in front of the stove that had been stoked so that it would burn all night, ensuring she'd feel no chill.
Unfolding the blankets with a smile, she realized one of them was heavy, stuffed with some kind of cotton. With that on the heated floor near the stove, it would be almost as comfortable as sleeping in a bed - something she hadn't done for months, having been banished to an empty stone room in punishment for not heeding her father. He hadn't locked her in, because he enjoyed tormenting her by making her watch her mother haunt the halls, Irina's face puffy and bruised from his fists.
A sharp hint of iron.
It took conscious effort to make herself unclench her fists, force her mind away from her hatred of the man whose blood ran in her veins. Face burning with pulsing rage, she got up to throw ice-cold water on her cheeks before hunting out some more food. No matter if her stomach churned with memory, she had to keep up her strength if she was to tangle with the dangerous, golden prince who ruled this place.
Taking out a thick piece of bread, she cut off a hunk of smoky cheese and rolled it up. The first bite was delicious, settling her stomach, the second even more so. Then she heard the skitter of tiny feet. Breaking off a bit of the cheese, she walked to the corner where she could see the gleam of small dark eyes, the skeletal push of bone against skin. "Here you go, my little friend."
