Moonshadow (23 page)

Darien’s twisted mouth and troubled eyes signaled the anxious discomfort her questions brought with them. “Only suffering and death occur when our peoples come into contact with each other. When he saved our ancestors from the deluge, Elberon himself commanded them not to take humans as their lovers, lest destruction come upon the Mother again.”

“Ah.” Diana replied, crossing her arms over her chest. And there it was—the real reason Darien had been reluctant to get physical with her—some ancient religious law. “And you believe this? That the world will be destroyed if we have sex?” She tried not to let her skepticism seem too apparent.

Darien appeared to be struggling with what he wanted to say or how he wanted to say it. “No; I don’t believe such a thing would happen, or rather, such a thing
probably
wouldn’t happen. I don’t claim to know what can and can’t happen in this world; I only know what I’ve studied about the events at the archives.”

“What events?” Diana’s curiosity began to overshadow her frustration—for the time being.

“Wars and cataclysms, entire dominions destroyed—things of that nature.” Darien shrugged his shoulders. “More often than not, the supposed relationships between Naphalei and Tanarai are likely later additions to the account to explain events—a rationalization for irrational times.”

“I see,” Diana replied, considering the plausibility of his explanation. “You may continue.”

“The likelihood of divine retribution aside, many among my people believe such a thing to be possible, and long ago, the conclaves ruled romantic liaisons with humans to be a crime against our very civilization. Those beliefs have only grown worse in recent times, as humans finally gained the power they lacked through technology. As it stands now, our entire civilization could be wiped out by one human pushing a button.”

Diana pursed her lips and furrowed her brow. “What on earth does
nuclear war
have to do with the two of us being in a relationship?”

“Not a thing. I’m simply trying to help you understand why you would be killed if anyone in authority ever discovered we were romantically involved.”

“You wouldn’t be killed too?” she asked, not at all surprised that the human receives the harsher punishment.

“No; I would be sentenced to the Nightmare.”

“That doesn’t seem quite fair,” Diana replied.

“That greatly depends on what you deem to be fair, my dear,” Darien said, his tone deadly serious. “The Nightmare is not just a long sleep—what you might call a coma. You are forced to perpetually walk the most terrifying portions of the Veil, alone, until your sentence has been carried out—or your body succumbs to death in the mortal world. Time is very different inside the Veil. If you are sentenced to the Nightmare for two-hundred years, it would seem like two-thousand inside. I for one, would welcome death given that option.”

Diana shivered to her core, trying her best not to imagine what it would be like to be trapped inside that realm of magical horrors for two hundred years; and apparently, there were
worse
parts of the Veil.

She could never let something like that happen to Darien.

“Well, what are we supposed to do, then?” Diana asked anxiously. “I can’t just walk away from this, but I won’t have you take a punishment like that because of me.”

“Now you know the struggles I have been dealing with, on an almost constant basis, since the moment we met.” He closed the distance between them and then caressed the side of her cheek with the back of his hand. “I’ve always felt so sure of my place in the world, Diana, but since I met you I haven’t been sure of anything.”

She smiled at his words but she was still troubled by them. “What if someone finds out about us?”

“If the time comes, I will tell my superiors that you are bound to me as a thrall and nothing more.”

“A thrall?” she asked, puzzled. “What exactly is a thrall?”

“A Tanar bondservant, of a kind. A human may occasionally happen upon the existence of my people—for whatever reason—and we give them the option of either becoming a thrall or death. The majority choose enthrallment.”

He said it so matter-of-factly that it gave Diana chills.

“You enslave humans that find out about you?!” she asked. “That is terrible—wait, you’re going to tell people I’m your
slave?
” Her cheeks flushed with shocked anger.

“It’s certainly better than being put to death, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Well, yeah. But still—it just feels demeaning.”

“I wouldn’t let it demean you, my dear. I can’t begin to see you as anyone’s thrall; certainly not mine.”

She just shook her head. “I can’t believe you enslave humans that find out about you—it’s just wrong.”

“Would you rather they all be put to death, or ripped from their families and put into prisons?”

“You don’t take them and force them into labor and servitude?”

“A thrall isn’t a ‘slave’ in the sense of your English term,” Darien replied. “For many, daily life changes very little—they are simply monitored by a Watcher and report in every so often to perform a service. Others thralls become enamored with my people and choose to serve inside a Naphalei dominion. Quite frankly, both types of thralls tend to live more fulfilling lives than your average human.”

“How do you keep thralls from going public with your existence?” Diana asked, growing suspicious.

“They wear a thrall ring that they can never take off. Assigned Watchers are attuned to it and can sense the human’s intentions. Should they seek to betray us, they would receive a quick, and seemingly painless, death through the ring.”

Diana shuddered at the image. “That’s horrible.”

She shook her head, as if doing so could somehow make everything exceedingly less complicated. She’d never been one to rush into things before, why start now? They had only just started dating a few weeks ago; taking some time to figure all of this out was probably a good idea.

At least he wanted me after all.
She understood Darien’s reluctance to take their relationship to the physical level, now. Fear of capital punishment tended to do that to a person.

“As hard as this is on me—mentally, emotionally, and physically—you’re right. We’re talking about life and death consequences just for having sex.” Diana shook her head again at how crazy her words sounded. “That’s a little too extreme for me to handle right now.”

She sighed heavily and lay back down on the bed, resting her head on the musty old pillow, and stared at the deteriorating ceiling.

“I am sorry about all this Diana,” Darien said, trying to give her some sort of comfort. “I know how frustrating all this must be for you.”

You have no idea.

“It’s okay,” she replied. “Let’s just focus—”. Diana froze in fear as the dreaded eight-legged creature caressed the all but invisible lifeline hanging from a splintered rafter above.

“Are you alright?” Darien asked, noticing she was transfixed in fear. “What is it?” He stared at the ceiling, failing to see it.

Is he blind?

It dropped from the spindle of web above and landed on Diana’s face, shocking her out of the frozen state.

“Sssspider!” she shrieked in terror as she jumped off the bed, waving her arms violently in fright. “Get it off—get it off—get it off!” She repeated it over and over as she darted to and fro, shaking herself and slapping at her face.

“Stop flailing about the room,” Darien pleaded. “I can’t get it off of you if you don’t stop running around.”

His words fell on deaf ears as Diana continued her hysterical dance of fear with the spider. Darien attempted to grab her and stop her, but she only struggled harder as he gripped her sweater.

She finally broke herself away, losing her balance in the process, and went flying across the room only to crash into a bookcase. The shelves were so old and decrepit that the wood split with the force of her body and Diana, along with the contents of those shelves, became a pile of debris on the floor.

The spider had fled the crash site, but Diana was too dazed to care. When she finally came to her senses Darien was crouching beside her, taking pieces of broken teacups and splintered wood off of her person.

Diana pushed herself up from the pile of debris and sat upright.

“Is it dead?” she immediately asked with purpose.

“I think so,” Darien replied with a nod.

“What do you mean you
think
so? It better be dead.”

“Then it’s dead. Problem solved.”

She just stared at him.

“Don’t just tell me what I want to hear. Make sure it’s dead or long gone. There is no way I am going to be able to sleep in here if I know that thing could still be alive.”

“Fine,” Darien agreed with a sigh of frustration. “I’ll look around if it will ease your anxiety.”

As Diana watched him inspect the room, a chill went up her spine at the memory of that monster on her face and she felt creepy tingles on her skin, as if thousands of them were crawling all over her.

She jumped up and started rubbing and scratching at herself.

Darien just laughed at her and shook his head as he continued to inspect the pile of broken shelves and behind the bookcase.

“Well, I do believe the creature has probably skulked off to die in a corner somewhere, I don’t see any trace—” he stopped abruptly, staring at the wall.

“What is it?” Diana asked in fright. “There isn’t a bigger one behind the shelf, is there?”

“No, it’s not that,” Darien replied and Diana sighed in relief. She couldn’t take any more of that particular ordeal.

“There appears to be a draft down here.”

“Wow, that sure is a mystery,” Diana said with sarcasm as she drew attention to the state of the room. “How on earth could a draft get in here?”

“Cute,” Darien replied sardonically. “There’s a current of warm air rising from behind the shelf that you so gracefully just remodeled.”

“Oh, that kind of draft,” Diana said and then swiftly joined him to have a look for herself.

Darien closed his eyes for a moment in concentration. “There appears to be an anomaly in the foundation.” He opened his eyes and a wide smile crept to his mouth. “I
knew
something felt a little odd the basement.”

He grabbed a hold of the bookcase and gave it a quick, hard, shove, revealing a red curtain with a strange white image stitched on its upper half. Looking a bit like an anchor, the symbol consisted of a shepherd’s crook intersecting a crescent moon, ending with a V shape at the base.

“I’ve come across this symbol once before,” Darien replied, moving the curtain to the side, revealing the entrance to a spiral stairwell. “In a crusader tomb along the coast of the Black Sea.”

“Well, aren’t we special?” Diana replied with sarcasm. “Do you know what it means?”

“Not specifically,” he replied with a shrug of his shoulders. “I assumed it was the sigil of some group of militant priests, like all the others.”

“That’s fair,” Diana replied and then immediately went to the nightstand, grabbed her flashlight, and turned it on. “Let’s go.” She headed for the stairs, not giving Darien much chance to reply.

“Caution, Diana,” he said. “I should go in first. There is no telling what we may encounter down there.”

“True,” she replied with a nod. “Secret rooms in the basement don’t usually contain puppies and gingerbread cookies.”

Darien took Diana’s hand and pulled back the curtain with his other, allowing her to enter the stairwell. After concentrating a moment, he brought another small flame to life in the middle of his palm to guide their way down the stairs.

The stairwell descended much lower into the earth than the basement. When they finally reached the bottom, Diana’s eyes went wide with awe as they crossed the threshold into a small cavern.

Gazing on the walls of dark gray stone surrounding them, with the earthy smell of dirt and rock filling her nostrils, Diana noted how peculiar the cave felt. In fact, the atmosphere didn’t really feel much at all like caves she’d been in the past. They had always felt cool with a hint of moisture in the air, like the atmosphere soon after a rain storm. Instead, this cavern felt eerily warm and dry.

“What is this place?” she asked, scanning the area with her flashlight.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Darien replied.

As Diana surveyed the roof of the cave with the flashlight, she noticed numerous little marks throughout.

“This cave isn’t all natural,” she said. “I can see tons of chisel marks going off in five directions. From what I can tell, though, I think this central chamber may have naturally been here.”

“Curious,” Darien replied, apparently too lost in his own world to pay any attention to Diana.

Growing rather perturbed, she decided to explore on her own and started making her way to the nearest branch of the cave.

“Stay close to me,” Darien finally cautioned after he realized Diana was about to do something without him. “The barrier separating the Veil from the physical realm is very thin down here. It would be best if you stay close to me, lest some rogue Veil creature smells your essence and seeks to devour it.”