The Nightborn by Isabel Cooper (howl and other poems TXT) 📗

A faint glow came from the opal in the hilt. At first Branwyn thought it was reflected in Zelen’s eyes, but when she looked closer, she saw it was no mere reflection. His dark irises gleamed with sparks, like the night air above a campfire.

That light felt a thousand times better than the other: where Gizath’s power had left Branwyn nauseous, viewing the brighter radiance stiffened her back and put new life into her weary muscles. She sensed that watching too long would be a bad idea, though. There was a difference between warming her hands at a fire and sticking them into the flame—and the power coming off of Zelen was a conflagration.

It wasn’t familiar, exactly. Still, Branwyn hadn’t been reforged or spent years with Yathana for nothing. She raised her sword in a salute.

The Deathmistress wouldn’t want her to kneel, then.

It seemed as though the rift closed slowly, while Branwyn kept an eye on it, but she knew not how much time passed. The tendrils retreated, back, then below the surface. That surface rippled, red light flowing and swirling around the gray-orange patches. Branwyn saw Zelen clench his jaw, the muscles in his arms standing out as he gripped Yathana’s hilt.

She wanted to embrace him, but she suspected that would be a distraction—and thus a disaster—rather than a source of strength. It was always a delicate balance when mortals dealt with the gods. Without knowing precisely what another weight on the scales would do, it was far better not to risk it.

The pit closed inch by inch, the orange light struggling with the red but always pushed into a smaller and smaller space, until finally Branwyn heard a cheated, bubbling roar and Letar’s power lit the room like a sunset. Green and pink specks danced in front of Branwyn’s vision when it faded, but through them she saw smooth rock where the rift had been.

She let her sword fall at that instant, ignoring all the irate shouting of past teachers, and spun sideways with a speed she hadn’t known she was still capable of. Before Zelen had done more than sag to his knees, she was down on the ground beside him, one arm around his shoulders and the other catching Yathana as his grip loosened.

Red specks still shone in his eyes when he looked up at her. Those eyes were practically the only color in his face: he’d gone the shade of old parchment. “Thank you,” he said, and smiled, utterly weary and completely serene. “That was a very timely loan.”

Chapter 41

For a very little while, Zelen had all he could imagine wanting, partly because he was too tired to imagine much. The demon was gone, the rift was sealed, and Branwyn’s arm was tight around him. He could’ve stayed there for quite a while, given a chance. He let himself indulge for a few heartbeats.

Letar had vanished with the rift, which was just as well for Zelen’s capacity to live as any sort of thinking being. The world had mostly taken on its normal proportions again. A shade of Her—the name and pronouns came back now, out of habit, though they’d never fit quite as well again—lingered in the back of his mind, though. Perhaps it always would—perhaps that was how devotion worked. He’d have to ask the priests.

Yathana had gone silent. That didn’t worry him, and not only because Branwyn acted calm. Zelen could feel part of the soul still residing in the fire opal. His wounds hurt no more than they would’ve otherwise, or troubled him more, but he could’ve named each one, and when he touched Branwyn’s arm, he could’ve done the same for hers, from the cut down her side to the aching soles of her feet.

Had he not been so exhausted, he could’ve healed either of them.

That brought duty to mind, and he groaned. “Your side,” he began. “I’m afraid we’ve no bandages here, but if we can get back to the house—” Zelen tried to remember. “The stillroom.”

“It’ll be fine before then. Can you walk?” Branwyn used the arm around his shoulders to help him up as she rose herself.

“As much as I need to.”

One of the footmen was dead when they got to him. The one with the wounded side was still breathing, though, and Zelen bound his wounds while Branwyn checked the other two injured men. He was going to have no sleeves at all if this sort of thing went on. He ardently hoped it didn’t.

“He alive?”

An unfamiliar voice slurred the words. Zelen turned, reaching for his sword as he did so but not very quickly. For one thing, speed was beyond him. For another, the speaker sounded as tired as he felt—and far more human than any of the guards or the servants had before.

“Yes,” he said.

The man who’d tried to hit Branwyn with the poker was pulling himself up to a sitting position against the wall. There was a hell of a lump coming up on his forehead. Branwyn stood over him, Yathana bare but not leveled at him.

“Is that…good?” The footman was more coherent than Hidath had been, gods knew, but his eyes had a trace of the same horror, and his hands were shaking. “He… They…they told me to do things, and I couldn’t not. I tried. Forgive me. Forgive me.”

“I know,” said Branwyn, standing bloody in the darkness and speaking lullaby-gentle. “You were their prey as much as the rest of us. There’s nothing to forgive. Do you know if everyone who served here was afflicted in the same way?”

“I think so, mistress,” said the footman. “We…couldn’t talk about it.”

“I understand.”

Zelen finished with the sliced-up guard and got to his feet. “At least one of them was,” he said, “and he took it badly when the spell was broken. Finding the rest might be a good idea, and I’ll gladly…” That was a lie. He wanted nothing more than to leave the house