The Midnight Sea (The Fourth Element #1) (5 page)

But I knew I wouldn’t have if Darius hadn’t helped me.

It took me a long time to learn to control myself. To control
him
. He wasn’t as nearly obedient as they claimed. I woke every morning to the sensation of cold water trickling down my spine. My complaints to the magus were ignored. Apparently, Darius’s need to purify his Druj nature at the river, regardless of the season, took precedence.

But one thing came out of it that surprised me. From the day we were bonded, my nightmares stopped. I still dreamed of Ashraf, but they were good dreams. Of lying in the high grasses and swimming in the river. My sister had returned to me as she was in life rather than death.

And I started to notice that at certain times of day, usually the early evenings, Darius seemed to go away. I knew where he was physically, but his mind was so tranquil, I barely noticed him. Or I noticed him in a different way. It’s hard to be completely unaffected by someone else’s mood when they’re living in your head. If he felt angry or depressed, my own thoughts grew dark. I would worry about Neblis and her Druj, and what I would do the first time I had to face one. I worried about dying in battle, and I worried about
not
dying. About what it meant to live for hundreds of years, never truly alone in my own mind. Yoked to a demon for all eternity.

But then…there would be these moments of serenity. They lasted anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour, and left me feeling clean and new. Like a little kid again, without a care in the world.

I began to wonder what he was doing. So one day, when the birch leaves were just starting to turn gold, I went looking for him. Well, not looking, really. I knew where he was. A grove of trees near the river.

It was a beautiful early autumn afternoon, the sky bluer than blue and the air with that crisp edge to it that lets you know winter is coming but not for some weeks yet. If I had been home, the clan would just be starting the long trek across the mountains.

I followed the path, which wound in and out of the woods, through blackberry brambles and dark pines. As I reached the river, a cormorant winged by overhead, its serpentine neck extended in flight, and I paused to watch it for a moment.

Just past the bend was an overgrown orchard enclosed by a low stone wall. Darius sat beneath a pear tree, the very same that Tijah and I had poached fruit from in summer. His eyes were open. He wore his blue tunic and baggy trousers tucked into short boots. The left one was still too tight. I thought might ask Ilyas to give him new ones.

Darius must have known I was there, but he didn’t stir.

I had planned to…not confront him. Just ask what he was up to. But seeing him there like that, his face and hands relaxed, I changed my mind. If he could find a moment of peace, who was I to take that away? I watched him for another few seconds, and then I turned and walked slowly back to the barracks.

With practice, it grew easier to make a box in my mind and stuff Darius inside it. He wasn’t gone—my daēva was never gone—but it was the difference between someone whispering into your ear and the murmur of voices in a distant room. It was something I could live with. I had no choice.

I came to recognize these second-hand sensations, to sort them from my own direct experiences. As soon as I encountered a feeling that I knew wasn’t mine, I shoved it into an out-of-the-way corner of my brain and ignored it. If I hadn’t learned to do this, I would probably have gone crazy very quickly.

We trained every day, first with Tijah and Myrri, and when they grew tired, with Ilyas and Tommas. Despite their strained relationship, when my captain and his daēva fought together, they were like one mind in two bodies. I suppose it was because they had been bonded so long. It was beautiful to watch them move, like silk cloth rippling in the wind or water flowing over stones. Like a dance where the partners were perfectly in tune with each other.

By contrast, Darius and I were horribly awkward. I kept stepping on his feet, and he kept getting in the way of my sword arm. But slowly we learned the other’s strengths and weaknesses. We learned to anticipate each other. To let go of the walls we had built, if only for those hours in the yard, and allowing the other to be fully present.

Managing his power was different. I still fumbled with it, although I had become used to its constant presence. A faint, pulsing thing, like starlight seen out of the corner of your eye. I hadn’t seen him use it yet. The power was to be released only to kill Druj, nothing else, and the border had been quiet.

When I asked the magus what it was, he gave me a long-winded, technical answer that left me more confused that I was before. Tommas said that power was the wrong word. It wasn’t something you seized, like a force, but something you
became
, which made even less sense. All I knew was that it didn’t belong to me, although I could feel it, hovering just out of reach. And if I trusted Darius enough, I could let him touch it when the need arose.

That turned out to be the hardest part.

Chapter Six

“
H
old!” Ilyas held up a fist.

I reined up. The village we sought lay just ahead, a collection of mud-brick houses the exact color of the dusty landscape. We were close enough that we should have heard the shouts of children playing, the barking of dogs. But a heavy stillness lay over the streets. The buildings crouched together, dark windows like broken teeth, and I knew the reports weren’t mistaken. Something bad had happened here.

We were four hours’ ride from Tel Khalujah in the foothills of the Char Khala mountains that marked the empire’s northern border with Bactria. For two centuries, the jagged range had acted as a barrier against Queen Neblis and her necromancers. It was even higher and more treacherous than the Khusk range I’d grown up in and stretched all the way from the Salenian Sea to the Midnight Sea, which hemmed Bactria to the east and west.

There was no trade with Bactria, of course, and little news. Anyone foolish enough to travel that way didn’t return. But our side of the mountains had always been reasonably safe.

Until a few months ago. According to Ilyas, people were starting to disappear from the border settlements. Just one or two in the beginning. It was attributed to wolves. This was the first time an entire village had vanished.

That’s what the trade caravan passing through Tel Khalujah had claimed, at any rate. That the dwellings were all intact but the people were gone. They hadn’t lingered to investigate and I couldn’t blame them. Despite the bright noonday sun, the place had an ominous air.

“We search house by house,” Ilyas said. “Bonded pairs. Are you ready, Dogs?”

I shared a glance with Tijah. She flashed a cocky smile, but I could see she was gripping the amulet she wore to ward off bad luck. Behind her, Myrri stared into space with a dreamy look. We both rode with our daēvas on massive stallions bred for a double saddle. Ilyas and Tommas chose to ride apart, but they didn’t stray far from each other.

We all made the sign of the flame—head, lips, heart—and galloped into the village of Ash Shiyda. Our hooves kicked up a cloud of dust. I wound my
qarha
around my face. There were no bodies, no overt signs of trouble, but I felt Darius’s unease. It mirrored my own.

“Anything?” Ilyas asked Tommas brusquely as we reached the main street. It was lined with one and two-story dwellings, some with shops on the ground floor. An awning cast a knife-edge shadow across a table displaying wooden figurines of the Prophet. Next to them was a brazier with the charred remains of esphand seeds, burned to ward off evil. I wondered if these people had reason to fear something. If they had fled.

“Nothing living,” Tommas said. “Not that I can sense.” He looked at Darius and Myrri. They shook their heads.

“We’ll take the houses at the end of the street,” Ilyas said. “Nazafareen, you have the left side. Tijah, take the right. We meet back here in ten minutes. If either of you find anything, come get the rest of us. Understood?”

“Yes, captain,” I said.

I nudged the horse into motion with my knees and rode up to the first house. Laundry flapped on a line in the yard. A pair of boots sat next to the doorstep. I shielded my eyes against the sun, but it was too dark inside to see anything.

“Breathe, Nazafareen,” Darius said. “You’re giving me a stomach ache.”

I scowled and tried to relax. We’d been patrolling together for more than a year now, but we’d yet to encounter any Druj. So far, we had broken up fights in the wine sinks of Tel Khalujah’s seedier district, arrested a man trying to sell a pair of daēva cuffs (fake, of course), and hauled in several members of a new sect sympathetic to Eskander.

I was itching to kill a demon. But I was afraid too. I wasn’t happy that Darius knew it, but there was nothing I could do about that. Strong emotions were impossible to hide from him.

We dismounted and went inside, swords drawn. There were only two rooms. Both were empty. The stench of rotten food hung in the air. Whatever had happened, these people had been eating dinner when it came. Their bowls of stew were still on the table, crawling with flies.

The next house was the same.

“Are you sure you can’t sense Druj?” I demanded.

I knew Darius was a skilled tracker. He’d done it with the barbarian-loving traitors. They’d tried to flee Tel Khalujah and Darius had led us straight to them.

“They’re Undead,” he replied. “I can only feel life. It comes from—”

“Yes, yes,” I said impatiently. “The nexus. The magus already told me.”

None of that mattered at the moment. I wanted only to use it to kill as many Druj as possible.

“Come on,” I said, striding into the next house. “Let’s get this over with. If the demons were here, they’ve come and gone.”

It was larger than the others, with a narrow flight of stairs leading to a second story.

“I’ll look up there,” I told him. “You check these rooms.”

“We’re supposed to stay together,” Darius said. His eyes glowed like a cat’s in the dim light. “Unless I misheard our captain, he said to search in bonded pairs.”

“You’ll know if I need you,” I said, heading for the stairs. I could feel his annoyance and it gave me a grim satisfaction. Let him think I’m a coward now.

Thick carpets covered the floors, masking my footsteps as I entered the first bedroom. It faced away from the street. A child’s room, judging from the toys scattered across the carpet. My chest tightened. It had been five years since the wight took my sister, but the flames of my guilt and hatred had not dimmed. If anything, they burned hotter than ever. I had fed them everything I was, everything I had. In many ways, they were all that was left of me.

I left that room and went to the next. It was bigger, with a wooden bed and large chest in the corner. Dust motes danced in the beams of light streaming from the narrow window as I walked over to the chest. It was a pretty thing, with silver trim and a painted border of flowering vines. The owners of this house had been prosperous.

I used the point of my sword to ease the lid open a few inches. I suddenly had a terrible vision of finding a corpse in there, or something worse, but it turned out to be full of folded cotton tunics.

If Darius had discovered anything downstairs, I’d know about it by now. I let out a breath and closed the trunk. We still had a dozen more buildings to clear, but I was starting to think that whatever had happened here, it would remain a mystery. I’d yet to see signs of a violent struggle, not in this house or the others. There was no blood, no overturned furniture. Perhaps the people had simply left in a hurry.

I was turning to leave when I heard a creak. Soft, but definite. It came from underneath the bed.

I jumped back, blade leveled at the gap.

“Come out,” I said, adjusting my sweaty grip on the hilt. “If you’re human, I won’t harm you. I’m a Water Dog, sent by the satrap in Tel Khalujah.”

There was no response for a long moment. Then a woman crawled out. She looked about my mother’s age but her skin was pale and soft. A merchant’s wife.

“Praise the Holy Father,” she said in a cracked whisper.

She wore a blue headscarf that emphasized the hollowness of her cheeks, the sagging jowls. A woman who had once been plump, but whose flesh had been slowly winnowed away. I wondered how long it had been since she’d eaten anything.

“What happened here?” I asked. “Where is everyone?”

“I’ll tell you,” she said. “Help me up. My legs are cramped from hiding for so long.”

I hesitated for only an instant. The light was dim, but I could see her features. Not like my sister, who’d been hidden behind a curtain of dark hair. I held out my hand. She was starting to reach for it when her eyes fixed on something over my shoulder. The woman visibly recoiled.

“Darius.” I didn’t bother turning around. “You’re frightening her.”

“Step back, Nazafareen,” he said, and it was not his tone that made my pulse leap, although that was warning enough. It was the rush of emotion through the bond. Pure hatred.

Druj.

Without thinking, I swept my sword in a lightning arc at her neck. I was only two feet away. Her head should have toppled to the ground. But she slithered away like a snake, and when she looked at me again, her eyes were hard black almonds in her face.

“She knew you would come,” the wight hissed. “Water Dog heroes. She left you a gift.”

Rage blurred my vision. I leapt at the Undead, not caring if I lived or died. Only that if I did, I took it with me. The woman it had possessed was as good as dead. Worse. There was no saving her body. Only her soul.

I swung again and my blade sunk deep into its flesh, but that hardly slowed it down. I could feel Darius battering at the bond in a panic, shouting my name. I shoved him away. The wight dodged and wove, inhumanly fast. But I was fast too, and my bloodlust lent me its own unnatural strength.

Finally, I drove it into a corner. I stabbed and stabbed. I was raising my sword to do it again when Darius grabbed the front of my tunic and spun me around.

“Release me!” he screamed. “Let go of the bond, Nazafareen! Let go!”

And I realized that I’d been gripping our leash with white knuckles, holding all his power tight in my fist.

“I have to chop its head off,” I mumbled, sagging against the wall.

“You already did,” Darius said. “And the liches are coming. For the love of the Holy Father, unchain me!”

I looked down. The wight’s head lay between my feet, tongue lolling. When I looked up again, I saw them. Twin shadows darker than night. They billowed through the door like smoke, long tendrils reaching along the floor.

“Now!” Darius shook me again.

I closed my eyes and let go of our invisible leash.

A second later, the shutters banged open and a hot wind roared through the room. I staggered back. The
qarha
kept the dust from my mouth, but it felt like a huge hand was clamping down on my lungs and
squeezing
. Breath whooshed from my mouth in an arid croak. Then I was searching madly for something to hold onto as my feet began to lift off the ground.

A keening scream rent the air. The liches fought, shredding apart and reforming. Darius’s hair whipped around his face. I knew he was only using a fraction of what he could have. That he was still holding back. I could sense the shining pool of power, how deep it was.

He pushed me to the floor, careful not to touch the cuff, and braced his legs against the bed. The gold alloy felt both searing hot and freezing cold against my skin. Darius’s mind stilled.

That’s when the roof blew off.

Sunlight poured into the room. I watched as Darius lifted the liches high into the air and ripped them apart, the shreds dissolving in black wisps against the blue of the sky.

When it was done, he collapsed onto the bed. I felt him release the power but my breath still came in hard, sharp gasps, as did his. I lay on my back, stunned at what he’d just done. I could still feel echoes of that tremendous surge through the bond. It thrilled and terrified me at the same time.

“What just happened?” I finally managed. “Did the liches touch you?”

He rolled over and gazed down at me with mild scorn. “Do I look dead?”

“No.”

“Then obviously they didn’t. It’s the price of using the power.”

“The price?”

“Do you truly not know? Daēva magic is sympathetic. When I manipulate an element, my own body responds to it too. Water affects blood, earth affects flesh and bone. And air…” He took a shuddering breath. “Didn’t the magus explain it?”

“I…yes, of course.” I vaguely recalled his droning voice warning me that I
might
experience a
slight sensation
when the power was used. “I just didn’t think it would be so intense.”

“Well, now that you’re enlightened, we should find the others,” he said.

Darius rolled to his feet and we ran down the stairs. Five steps outside the door, he stopped abruptly and grabbed my arm. A ragged crevice had opened up in the ground, running the entire length of the street. On the other side of it stood Ilyas and Tommas. The thing they were fighting could only be a Revenant. One of the Greater Druj.

It towered over them and wielded an iron sword nearly five feet long. I saw right away that they couldn’t get close enough to put it down. Strings of silver hair swung past empty, colorless eyes as the Revenant parried a thrust by Tommas and nearly severed his arm on the backswing.

The magus said they were ancient warriors returned from the grave. A forgotten race resurrected by Queen Neblis’s necromancers. Whatever the truth was, I understood now how the Druj had overrun our cities in the war. Because as bad as the wights and liches were, this thing was worse.

It wore mailed leather streaked with some kind of black mold. I could see old wounds on its body. Terrible wounds. I knew they were old because nests of maggots squirmed inside. But they didn’t seem to affect the Revenant’s brutal strength. I heard the high whistle of metal cutting through air as it drove the Water Dogs back toward the crevice. Tommas had probably sundered the earth under the Revenant’s feet but it had escaped somehow. Now both he and Ilyas were about to tumble in themselves.

“Can’t you use air again?” I turned to Darius, frantic. The gap was too wide to leap across or I would’ve done it in a heartbeat.

“Not without risking them as well,” he said grimly.

The Revenant swung its huge sword again. Tommas leapt to the side, but the tip sliced through his tunic and blood started to run freely from his right shoulder. Tijah and Myrri were nowhere in sight.

Darius closed his eyes. A low stone wall on the other side of the street began to tremble. I felt a sharp pain in my side, like the stab of a needle. Three seconds later, half of the wall smashed into the Revenant’s back. It staggered a little. Then it growled and drove its sword against Tommas’s in a blow so hard that the blade flew from Tommas’s hands.

I watched in horror as his legs buckled and he dropped to his knees at the Revenant’s feet. The blow had affected Ilyas as well. He looked stunned.