Bright Burns the Night Read online

  “And I what, exactly?” Lorcan bit out when she trailed off.

  Evelayn didn’t like the way the intensity of his scrutiny made her feel. “You … you don’t make sense. I don’t know you—I don’t understand you. At all.”

  Lorcan pushed his chair back with a loud scrape and stood, facing her across the bed and Lothar’s sleeping form. “You are not alone in that sentiment. No one truly does, though some may believe to.”

  “No one? Not even your mother? Your brother?” She couldn’t help but remember the scars on his body—scars inflicted by his own father.

  “No one.” The burning force of his gaze was so strong it nearly felt like he was touching her, though he wasn’t close enough to do so. The scar on her hand flared hot for a moment, and she closed her fingers over it. “Though perhaps you might know me better than any other.”

  “If that were true, it would be a terrible comment on your life, for I don’t know you at all—as I just said.”

  “Are you quite sure about that? What if I were to tell you that I have shown you more of my true self than to anyone else in my life?”

  Though she desperately wished to tear her eyes from his, she could no sooner force her power back into her body. Everything in her felt taut—stretched too tight. “I would say then you must truly lead a sad and lonely existence.”

  “The lot of a king. Or a queen.”

  Evelayn shook her head. “I refuse to believe that. My mother had my father. And I have Ceren and—”

  “Tanvir,” he finished for her.

  The sudden silence was heavy with unspoken accusations.

  “Tell me how Tanvir is alive—how Letha is alive.”

  Lorcan finally looked away, breaking the hold he had over her. “I don’t think that is my story to tell.”

  “Then tell me this—why did you make me think you’d killed him? Can you answer that?” Anger rose up again and Evelayn clung to it. Anger was good—it was much safer than … whatever she’d been feeling moments earlier.

  Lothar moaned on the bed, and they both turned to him. When he didn’t move again, she felt Lorcan’s gaze return to her, but she ignored him, busying herself by lifting the sheet to check on Lothar’s wounds. He, just like Lorcan, had a map of old scars on his torso, though his had healed differently, turning almost yellow against the metallic copper of his skin. But the new wounds were far worse than anything he’d previously sustained. Thankfully, the skin appeared to be knitting itself back together—at last.

  He would bear some new, truly horrific scars, but it looked like the prince would live after all.

  Lorcan moved as Evelayn tucked the sheet back up around Lothar’s bare shoulders once more. Her sensitive ears picked up the whisper-soft brush of his feet on the floor, but she refused to look. It took her completely off guard when she sensed him on the same side of the bed as her. His scent of frost-laced evergreen mingled with the smoldering ash and smoke of shadowflame grew stronger, as did the tension in the room.

  “Tanvir was supposed to get close to you. To help …” Lorcan trailed off, his voice disconcertingly near. “But he took it too far.”

  Evelayn stared at her hands clenched on the sheet. “He was supposed to get close to me,” she repeated coldly.

  “Evelayn, look at me.”

  She wanted to ignore him but knew that made her seem weak. So she willed her expression to give away nothing of her inner turmoil—though the Light only knew what he could ascertain through her scent—and turned to face him. In the early morning glow his disconcerting silver eyes stood out even more starkly.

  “Why was he supposed to get close to me—and why would you know that?”

  He studied her intently, his scrutiny so completely unwavering, it was all she could do to remain still and not back away. The full force of the king of Dorjhalon’s focus was a formidable—and unnerving—thing indeed. “I know you well enough to know if you hear it from me, it will do no good.”

  “Don’t pretend to know me.” She refused to let him see that he—or his claims about Tanvir, which struck her as if he’d sliced her as deeply as whatever had attacked Lothar—had any effect on her. Evelayn pressed the emotion down and lifted her chin, meeting his gaze squarely.

  “You still believe I don’t know you?” Lorcan reached up suddenly to touch her raised chin, letting his fingers move across her skin toward her neck. She inhaled sharply. “You do this when you are hurting inside but refuse to let anyone see. You utilize self-possession the way I use insolence. We are more alike than you know.”

  Warmth rose in her body, a response that shocked and dismayed Evelayn. “Stop it.” She tried to make the words sound like a command, but they came out more like a plea.

  Lorcan stared into her eyes, his fingertips a brand on her skin. A building ache deep within made her heart thud against her lungs. She could see the desire in his eyes, scent the musk of it rising from his taut, muscular body. His gaze dropped to her mouth and he let his thumb brush across her lips, parting them slightly …

  Evelayn suddenly jerked her head away, backing up until she hit the table beside Lorcan’s bed. “I said stop it.” She spat the words this time, clinging to the shreds of her anger and dignity, which had almost been entirely erased by the look in his eyes and his touch on her skin. “You will never do that again. Do you understand me? Never.”

  Lorcan’s face had turned to stone, unreadable. “Never is a long time, my lady queen.”

  A knock at the outer chamber was one of the most welcome intrusions Evelayn had ever experienced. Lorcan studied her for a moment longer, then turned on his heel and strode out of the inner chamber to the door beyond.

  Evelayn spun to face the table, clutching it with both hands to hold herself up, as her legs began to tremble and threatened to give out entirely. A humiliating sign of weakness. It’s the exhaustion. And I’m starving. But the excuses rang hollow as she unwittingly thought of the rough skin of Lorcan’s thumb brushing across her lips. She couldn’t deny the way it made her belly tighten and the heat rise in her body. How could he possibly affect her like that? After everything he’d done …

  But more and more she was beginning to realize that perhaps she didn’t really understand what he’d done at all—or why.

  “I must go,” Lorcan spoke from the doorway, startling her, but she didn’t turn. “There is much to be done to … control the damage last night’s catastrophe could very well cause.”

  She knew he meant far more than just the physical damage to the castle. Evelayn nodded but refused to face him.

  “Will you join me?”

  “So you may keep an eye on me?”

  He was silent, but she sensed him stiffen.

  “I will stay here with your brother. I have no wish for anyone to know I am here … yet.” Evelayn was proud of how firmly her words came out, no matter how she shook inside.

  “If that is your wish.” This time he didn’t wait for her to respond before shutting the door, leaving her alone at last. She exhaled slowly, lifting one hand to press to her chest, trying to calm her racing heart.

  A plan. She needed to make a plan.

  Her fingers brushed the empty scar on her breastbone, and a sudden idea took form.

  “Evelayn? Is that really you?”

  She gasped and whirled to see Lothar blinking blearily at her in the morning light.

  LOTHAR FELT AS THOUGH HE WAS SINKING THROUGH quicksand—again.

  As a youngling his father had taken him for a walk, just the two of them—a rare show of interest in his younger son. Or so he’d thought. When the king paused and waved him farther down the trail, Lothar didn’t think anything of it. It had been an unusual day of sunshine during the dark months of winter in Dorjhalon. Though most Dark Draíolon preferred the night to the day, the cold and snow to the heat and rain of summer, Lothar found himself lifting his face to the warmth, inhaling deeply to absorb the crisp, piney aroma of the evergreens surrounding them. A scent that reminded him
of his older brother. When the ground grew soft beneath his feet, he’d assumed it was merely from the moisture of melted snow. That was his first mistake.

  Trusting his father was the second.

  Or perhaps it was the other way around.

  It had taken only a few seconds to realize he was stuck, the shifting ground sucking him in—down. In moments, he had already sunk to his knees. Lothar’s heart thudded and his breathing grew short, but he tried to keep his voice level when he called out to his father to help him.

  Help never came.

  He should have known better, but he was still young then. He’d still possessed hope in the years before Bain beat it out of him entirely. The only response had been these words:

  Use your abilities to escape. Prove you are worthy to be called my son.

  Lothar would never forget the terror, the sheer panic, as he continued to sink into the bowels of Lachalonia. How every movement made it worse, the ground falling away beneath any attempt to lift his legs, to grasp at the earth, to pull himself up, to escape a terrible, slow death.

  Some part of him recognized he was fighting death again, in the castle where he now lived, even in the depths of his darkened mind. Lothar knew he needed to escape the grasping, pulling oblivion, but it was so difficult. Especially because every inch of him hurt; even there in the darkness, he could feel it. He’d experienced many degrees of pain throughout his life, but nothing came close to this bone-deep agony that penetrated even unconsciousness. And he was so tired … exhausted in a way he’d also never experienced before. Every time he forced himself to reach for cognizance, it fell away, out of his grasp, causing him to sink further into the abyss. The temptation to give in, to quit struggling and release himself to the comfort of oblivion, was strong. Almost too strong. But Lothar knew that was tantamount to giving up, and a deep, visceral part of him recognized that if he slipped back into the blackness again, he might never resurface.

  There were voices somewhere nearby, vague and indistinct. But they tugged at him, refusing to let him slip beneath the surface entirely. Just as Bain’s goading, his anger at his son’s incompetence, had eventually spurred Lothar to lose control of his recently unblocked power with a blast of shadowflame that had launched him out of the quicksand to land on his face at his father’s feet, panting, upset, but alive—now the voices provoked the part of him that refused to be an utter failure, and somehow he found the strength to claw his way to the surface.

  His eyelids peeled open, as gritty as if he truly had been buried in sand, to find himself lying in Lorcan’s bed, the room full of early morning light. The pain that had been agony while he was unconscious became unbearably excruciating upon waking. He felt as though he’d been split asunder and only raggedly pieced back together. A glance down revealed that was perhaps closer to the truth than he wanted to believe. Vague memories of what happened were just out of reach, hazy and ill-defined. But before they could fully solidify, he scented violets and lightning—and quite a bit more.

  With some effort, he turned his head—and there she was. After a decade, the queen of Éadrolan stood beside the bed, gripping the table with one hand, her other fingers pressed against the scarred indentation on her breastbone. Her sheet of tangled hair partially obscured her face, but there was no mistaking her.

  “Evelayn? Is that really you?” he rasped out of his raw throat.

  She jerked toward him, her violet eyes wide. “You’re awake!” she announced unnecessarily.

  “So it would seem,” he managed to respond, though every word cost him.

  “Lie still,” she instructed, again needlessly—he had no intention of moving more than absolutely necessary when it hurt this much to merely turn his head and breathe. “It’s a miracle you’re alive. I don’t know what attacked you, but I’ve never seen wounds like that before in my life.”

  Flashes of memory rose unbidden at her words:

  The summons, pulling him from the Athrúfar feast, where he’d been trying to keep the rumors about the messenger from spreading while his brother dealt with the queen somewhere else. Another Draíolon waiting with an urgent message, but since the king had commanded he not be disturbed, they came to him instead …

  The strange scent surrounding the female in the receiving room that had set him on his guard …

  The moment she’d morphed, shedding her Draíolon form and turning into something he’d never seen before, except in drawings …

  The attack when he refused to call for Lorcan—swift and violent …

  “Here, drink this.” Evelayn was watching him, her eyebrows pulled together in concern over her eyes, as she held out a cup with a pungent liquid inside.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to help me.” The words were halting, laced with pain though he tried to conceal it.

  “Of course, I apologize. Here.” She bent forward to slip her hand beneath his head and help lift it off the pillow. Even with her assistance the movement shot a fresh wave of agony through his body. Lothar quickly drank from the cup, hoping she couldn’t see or scent his weakness.

  “I can’t even fathom how much pain you must be in,” she commented quietly as she gently set his head back down on the pillow, somehow reading his thoughts.

  “If Lorcan had been wounded to this degree, he would still be on his feet, no doubt.” Lothar stared up at the canopy, feeling his uselessness acutely. He had to assume Máthair Damhán’s daughter had been beaten, as there was no urgency or fear in Evelayn’s movements or voice. But still, he wished his body would heal faster. A slight warmth spread from his belly throughout his body, particularly his wounds. The tea was taking effect, dulling the pain ever so slightly.

  “No one would be standing after the injuries you sustained. Not even Lorcan. I was not exaggerating when I said it is a miracle you are alive.” Evelayn still held the cup of bitter tea, fiddling with the silver handle.

  “Where is my brother? Is he … ?”

  “He went to see to the damages left after the attack. But he was here by your side for most of the night.”

  Lothar glanced down at the bandages on his torso. “Was anyone else … ? Did he stop her?”

  “Her?” Evelayn’s eyes snapped to his. “The Draíolon who did this was a female?”

  “A female—yes. But she was no Draíolon. It was one of Máthair Damhán’s daughters. She claimed to have another message for Lorcan.” Lothar shifted slightly, hoping his ability to heal had perhaps made some progress now that he was awake, but the fresh wave of agony spoke otherwise. “He must have angered her thoroughly to warrant this kind of message.”

  “Máthair Damhán?” she repeated, her voice sounding a bit off. Shock—perhaps even alarm—tainted her scent. “What dealings could he possibly have with her?”

  Lothar had spent the better part of his life being ignored, and therefore had learned to observe silently, catching the tiny details that escaped most. He didn’t miss the way Evelayn’s fingers tightened on the mug she still held, or the sudden stiffness in her shoulders. Interesting. “Honestly, I don’t know the full extent of their dealings. But I do know one thing for certain.”

  Evelayn set the mug down, slightly harder perhaps than she intended, because she flinched when it clanged against the marble top of the table. “And what is that?” She kept her voice admirably even, betraying very little of the urgency simmering beneath her cool exterior. What were her dealings with Máthair Damhán?

  “She is the one who wanted your conduit stone.”

  Evelayn jerked as if she’d been physically struck. “H-how … could you possibly know that?”

  “Because Máthair Damhán is the one who has it. After you disappeared, my brother took it to her himself.”

  THE SUN HAD BROKEN THROUGH THE CLOUDS WHEN Lorcan finally walked into his bedroom, casting the room in bright, white light. His shocked relief to see Lothar awake was short-lived, as a wall of animosity hit him with such strength he nearly stopped short. Evelayn sat beside the bed, glo
wering at him with fresh fury burning in her eyes, darkening them to mulberry. Even without her power, the room was filled with an acrid tang, as if her lightning was still there, simmering beneath the surface.

  “Can I at least sit down before you tell me what I’ve done wrong now?” Lorcan hated the weariness that seeped into his voice, but he felt barely capable of remaining on his feet after the horrors of the last many hours and the sleepless night.

  He sank onto the nearest plush, high-backed chair, and Evelayn immediately jumped to her feet.

  “You took my conduit stone to Máthair Damhán?”

  Despite himself, he flinched, shooting a look at Lothar, who was busy staring into his mug, but he quickly recovered. “Excuse me? Where did you hear such a claim?”

  “Don’t even think about lying to me.” She jabbed a finger at him, longing to blast him out of his chair, no doubt.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Her teeth snapped together with an audible click, as if she wished for the ability to bite his throat out. Which she probably did. She stalked toward him, her hands balling into fists.

  “And we’re back to this,” he murmured.

  She stopped a few feet away, her hot anger a spice on the charged air that burned at his nose. But when she spoke, her question came out an agonized plea. “Why? Why would you take it to her?”

  Lorcan sank back in the chair, too exhausted—too undone by the grief and hopelessness on her face—to try and maintain the guise of insouciance. “I can’t tell you.”

  “No more games,” she bit out, visibly attempting to hold on to her anger, even though it had already fled from her grasp.