Illumination Read online

  For the briefest of moments, he understood Mikhail Petrov and his driving need for freedom. He was gripped by the absolute consuming desire to be free of all chains—physical, political, and magical.

  Screw that. He wasn’t identifying himself with a traitor.

  But wasn’t he one?

  Laying the body parts outside the door, she made sure she picked up the stray bits of entrails and body parts big enough to grasp and threw them on the sizable pile. He didn’t say a word, knowing she had to do this. She’d killed. She’d have to dispose of the body, just like he did after his first kill.

  But his father had been there to back him up.

  The door to the cell shut with a dull thud. Mina returned to him, licking her fingers as if she’d just finished a good piece of greasy fried chicken. She finished as she paused in front of him.

  “I will find more. So you can see. Maybe something tastier.”

  “I don’t need it.” He held out his hand. “Come here.”

  “Me? No.” Mina watched him, eyes unblinking. “I am broken.” Simple. Flat. Despairing. Her head ducked a little as if she expected him to do what? Reject her? Hit her? Never.

  Straining against the limits of his chained foot, he reached out and jerked her into his arms, enfolding her tight against him. Her lean, strong body trembled. He didn’t realize until this moment how right it felt to do this.

  “No. Not broken,” he whispered, inhaling her unique scent, something spicy, like nutmeg and cayenne. He didn’t care if her hair was matted, her clothes stiff with blood. Hell, he was worse. He felt a brush of something sharp on his cheek. Lifting his head, he spied one of the origami cranes he’d made, in what seemed like a life time ago in his office, nestled in her hair. How the hell had it survived the last few days? Or was it weeks? He’d lost track of time in this hellhole.

  If it were any other time or place, he’d have said something about hygiene. But considering where he sat and knowing she’d never left his side, he didn’t bloody care. Plucking the tiny folded bird out of her hair, he called up a residual bit of magic, so small it wasn’t anything but a tiny tingle on fingers. It was enough to reanimate it.

  The fragile origami bird stretched and flapped its tiny wings, cocking its miniscule head at him as if to say Now what?

  Mina lifted her head, spied the origami bird on his finger, and gasped.

  “See this?” Xander asked the Darkling in his arms. “This was the first thing I made you when I met you, wasn’t it?” After he’d rescued her from the bullying boys, he’d brought her inside to clean off scrapes. He’d made a few of the origami birds and floated them around her head. She’d smiled, much like she did now, her mouth in a slight part as if caught on a half-gasp, her eyes opened wide, excited.

  He’d do anything to keep this expression on her face.

  “Yes. And hot chocolate.” She smiled at him, pursing her lips and blowing a puff of air at the bird. It fluttered upward, flying around her. “But there is no hot chocolate here.”

  “No.” He was surprised in how much he liked holding her. The blood had helped heal him enough that it wasn’t the agony it should be. If he lived, he’d never be able to get rid of the scars. This would be his eternal memorial of his choices.

  “I should be taking care of you,” she informed him. “But I am failing.” Reaching up, she touched the wounds on his chest, feather light. “The blood won’t last long.”

  “You aren’t failing. We take care of each other.” He kissed the top of head, realizing how true those words were. He’d do anything for her. A nameless emotion, stronger than hate, lust, and grief, welled up inside of him. It was dark, but also filled with something bright.

  “You love me,” Mina whispered and wrapped her arms around him so tightly his breath escaped him in an oomph.

  The door crashed open, and three Dark guards came in. The one in front, a stocky one with a face that looked like he’d lost too many brawls, stopped and looked at Mina and at Xander, eyes narrowing.

  “You shouldn’t be standing,” he groused, lifting his head and sniffing. He swore. “You’ve given him blood, you foolish girl.” With a sharp gesture toward the two thugs behind him, all three slowly advanced on them.

  “No. He needs rest.” Mina put herself between them and him.

  “He needs to pay for what his kind has done,” the leader spat. “You’ll see. He’ll betray you like all of them have betrayed us.”

  The taller one with skin like bark tried to restrain Xander. Mina tackled the Dark, who batted her away with one hand, throwing her to the rough stone ground, stunned.

  “No one touches Mina.” Xander snarled, lunging toward the one who had thrown her.

  Reaching up, he grasped the head of the Dark, his fingers curling around the rough edges of the skin as he called up the last vestiges of power borrowed from the ingestion of blood. With a jerk, backed up by a spell, he tore off the head with a loud sucking pop. Throwing the macabre trophy in the far corner of the cell, he turned to meet the head-on rush from the other two Darks intent on taking him down. For the first time since his capture, he fought, and he relished it.

  He didn’t win.

  Before they beat him into unconsciousness, the last thing he saw was the origami bird dancing lightly around Mina’s head, as if protecting her.

  Because he damn sure couldn’t.

  Chapter Seventeen

  THEY ALMOST KILLED HIM.

  The thud of fists on flesh as they beat Xander before dragging him out stayed with her. The memory of those blows were loud in her ears, echoed by every thump of her heart. He’d never made a sound. Her fellow Darks were so focused on their retribution, they forgot their decapitated comrade as they pulled the Mage from his cell, leaving Mina struggling for consciousness. No one came to check on her. The elves she’d ripped apart had been a big enough deterrent.

  It felt like hours, but only minutes passed before she forced herself to sit up. She couldn’t help him now, but she could get the items needed for his recovery. She wouldn’t make the same mistake again—giving him blood. He was going to suffer so much because of her today. Worse, the bird he’d reanimated continued to flutter around her, a reminder of her failure to protect the man she loved.

  It should be her, not him. That peculiar ache in her chest, the one that made her want to cry, to rip out her nails, clawing at a door, propelled her to her feet. She ignored how the stone walls circled around her as if she were on a great big tilt-o-whirl. She spied the head and picked it up, bracing herself on the wall to let the dizziness fade. This would give her some leverage.

  Mina waited outside the door of the cell with the head. The paper-bird perched in her hair, flapping its wings, and she found the movement a strange comfort. She heard a soft scuffle of small feet as scavengers came at the smell of the fresh blood. They’d been close, probably unable to get what was left of the elves.

  Small creatures, faces wizened like those of a garden gnome. They didn’t need the dark but preferred it. They were called dream stealers. They waited until their chosen targets slept and using their sharp, barbed tongues, bore holes through the back of their victims’ necks, incapacitating them and sucking out their brain matter.

  She held up the head by its course hair, letting whatever fluid drip onto the floor. One of the dream stealers darted up, opening its mouth to capture what it could. She moved it, and the little thing squealed in protest.

  “Oh, no, we deal first.” Mina wasn’t going to give here. She had to get to Xander, but she’d make sure she’d get what she needed first.

  “What do you wish of us lowly dream stealers?” a raspy voice replied. The leader, only as tall as her knee, stepped forward. He wore a jaunty red cap and neatly mended faded cotton clothes. He’d been at work by the look of it. “My people are hungry. The Mages are not paying us anymore. I ask for your kindness.” He looked at the head, smacking his lips. They’d grown used to having their meals given to them. The war had stopped t
he Mages’ use of them, and the Elementals weren’t keen on paying them with the heads of dead things.

  “Oh, I’ll give you this head.” She swung it for effect. “But I need something from you.”

  “But we have nothing you need. You are an upper cavern dweller…”

  She wasn’t in the mood for this. Bartering and dickering were a way of life down here. It was a game. This could go on for twenty minutes. Long enough for Xander to be killed.

  “Anything to help with healing, I want it.” Mina thrust the head toward the dream stealer. “Take it or leave it. There are more who are waiting.” She sensed others crawling and slithering toward them in the murk of the caverns, all drawn by the scent of meat. Her own stomach growled in response to their need.

  “Take it,” a female voice spoke, small, shrill, and impatient. A plump creature dressed in garden gnome clothing bustled forward, holding up two vials. “Here, all we have, tinctures for pain.”

  The other dream stealer frowned. “This is not—” he spluttered.

  “Hush. Your children are hungry. We can’t fight the bigger cave dwellers for this prize. You heard the princess,” the female snapped back. She pulled out two amber glass vials from somewhere in her layered skirts and held them up for inspection. “Please, take it, it’s all we have.”

  Mina reached out, picked up the vials, and sniffed them. They had the peculiar scent of cloves, indicating it was the right tincture. Lev may have thought he’d failed in training her as a healer, but she remembered a few things—like what the different tinctures smelled like. Without saying anything, she pocketed the vials as she put down the head.

  A dozen of the small dream stealers surrounded it, picking it up and hefting it out of the small pool of light. The female dream stealer curtseyed, and the male bowed before they followed.

  That was too easy.

  Now the body.

  She was almost too late. Already, the dust mites—wispy looking creatures with sticky pads on their fingers—surrounded the forgotten body, their drive for a fresh meal overriding their fear of retribution for entering the cell.

  “Oh, no you don’t.” Mina plucked one off the torso where it was slicing into the soft flesh of the belly with its retractable claws. The stomach was the only place the bark-like skin could easily be cut. “You owe me something first.”

  “We don’t owe you anything,” snarled the fuzzy creature whose face was a mix of human and feline. Their bodies were the same size as house cats. She should be glad she wasn’t dealing with the bigger denizens of the lower caverns.

  “If you want the organs, you’re going to have to pay, like the dream stealers,” she informed the fuzzy creature.

  It blinked its wide slit eyes. They were cute, until they tried to kill you. She could never tell if they were male or female. This was probably a Dark experiment gone awry, because she couldn’t see one damn thing useful about the dust mites, except they were good at getting rid of evidence, much like the elves were.

  “We don’t have—”

  “I keep hearing this. I’ve been to your den; it’s well-stocked. All I want is some of that salve you keep for wounds.” The stuff was amazing. It helped heal wounds and disinfect them. She suspected it was just a spell put into antibacterial cream, but she’d take what she could get. “Then you can take whatever you like.”

  The dust mite whined, showing razor-sharp fangs far longer and sharper than any cat. Their favorite meal was the pulverized flesh of any small animal, and the inner organs were indeed a delicacy they didn’t get often.

  It struck her how wrong it was that they ate their own. But she didn’t have time to ponder the depravity. She needed the salve and to get to Xander.

  The creature cocked its head and nodded.

  It wasn’t long before she had the salve and the body was gone from the cell. As she stood in the now-empty stone room, she clutched the tubes of salve in her hand and shut her eyes. She wished the blood hadn’t been so copious. The urge to drop to her knees and lick the floor where it dried was strong enough to make her swallow many times.

  She wanted to kill again.

  That was what her Dark nature was—a creature that wanted to cause pain, feel the life of another slowly slide from her hands, and decorate her body with thick blood.

  And still…Xander loves me.

  The physical evidence of this was fluttering around her head in the shape of a tiny paper bird. She could still taste the emotion when he’d hugged her—rich, sweet, like the finest chocolate and wine with the faintest touch of bitter to it. For what was love without the flavor of pain? She held it close to her, a precious gift she’d keep safe in her own heart, because what was she but a monster?

  I’m not a monster. I can’t be. Xander believes in me.

  The peculiar anxiety she associated with distance from Xander welled up inside of her, making her heart beat faster, pushing her breathing to increase enough to make her light-headed. She needed to get back to the blood chamber. Stumbling, she headed toward that terrible place. They’d stopped doing the public draining, except for once every five days. It was done twice in public, and every two to three days, they came for him for private sessions to maintain his weakness. He’d been to three or was it four already…

  And she’d given Xander blood. Dark blood. Giving him the ability to see in the midnight world of the lower caverns. It healed him. This wouldn’t be a short session.

  She couldn’t stop the small moan leaving her lips, and she pressed them shut.

  Show no weakness. She knew this, but the guilt roiling under her skin burned her like boiling oil.

  A scuff of a shoe on stone stopped her self-recrimination. She’d been so absorbed, she hadn’t sensed something else was in the tunnel with her.

  The first indication something was wrong was the sudden surge of cool damp air wrapping around her, blowing the origami bird from her hair into the tunnel wall. She snatched it and put it in her shirt, where it wriggled about. There wasn’t time to find a better place. There was only one person in the Dark world that could do this—Alexei.

  “I thought you’d left,” Mina called out into the blackness ahead of her. Down here in the tunnels, lighting was spaced every twenty to fifty feet with pools of shadows, perfect for her kind. But not always the safest.

  “Now, why would I do that?” the sly, accented voice answered her, but Alexei didn’t come out where she could see him clearly. Which was odd. How could an Elemental have control of the shadows? “Since I am a hostage.”

  When has that stopped you? Mina didn’t ask this, because it was true. The boy was adept at bending and stretching rules. Something he probably learned from his cousin.

  “There are no Xboxes down here.”

  He’d been whining about the lack thereof since he’d been sent to live in her world. He’d even managed to have one of the upper cavern Darks give him a PSP in exchange for some blood.

  “Oh, I’ve found something far more interesting than a game system.” He stepped into the anemic pool of light and smiled.

  Still lean, the sallow-faced young man had changed. It wasn’t the beginnings of the scruffy beard he sported, nor the rougher but still expensive clothes he’d adopted (his artfully patched linen shirt still had the faint chemical scent of new clothing). Around his neck hung small stained linen bags, tied with six or seven varying lengths of leather cord. The stench from them told her what they were—a mix of witch and Dark magic. Gris-gris.

  “For a smart boy, you’re very stupid,” Mina blurted. Her anxiety morphed into alarm, especially since she couldn’t sense any emotion in him. He smiled, his eyes glowing a strange mix of blue and white, but nothing—no anger, contempt, amusement, as if everything was filtered. She hated those gris-gris. “Playing with that kind of magic—”

  “—is what I need to help me,” he interrupted. He lifted up one bag and inhaled. “Who knew what a sacrifice would do? Mix it with some of those herbs…and it’s amazing what happen
s.”

  “Who did you kill?” She wrinkled her nose at what he held. “No one wants to be a willing sacrifice for that.” Mina’s hands flexed as she peered into the gloom around the young man, making sure he wasn’t with anyone. There was something out there, but she couldn’t quite get a handle on it.

  “Oh, I didn’t wait for assent. Those upper cavern Darks are weak.” He sneered, dropping the bags. “She didn’t scream long.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I think her name was Lila.”

  Lila? An image of long russet hair, gold eyes, and gray-tinged skin made Mina inhale sharply. Of all the upper cavern Darks, she was one who could mingle in the human world with very little illusion. She could be out in the sun for short periods of time. It was why Cazacul was having her trained to work for him. A year or two younger than Mina, Lila was a timid girl who’d never minded the strange daughter of the Darks. She’d been a friend.

  “You are very bad,” Mina spluttered. She’d never worried about Lila. The girl had been adept at keeping out of trouble—whereas Mina was not—and wasn’t a natural predator like most Darks. Like me.

  He laughed then, the sound loud and forced, meant for mocking rather than humor. “Is that all you have to say? C’mon, Mina, you can be more creative than that.” He lifted his arm. “It was brilliant; that’s what you can say.”

  No, she couldn’t.

  “What has Elspeth done to you?”

  Mina remembered when he’d arrived as a hostage, a surly, frightened boy. Cazacul had been gentle with him, making sure he was bled in a more civilized fashion than what Xander was going through. It kept the boy from manifesting his elements and requiring a balance. But when Cazacul began this war with his brother, the Mage Chairman, he’d ignored Elspeth, who’d stepped in and taken the boy under her wing. To him, it was one less thing for him to worry about, until his wife attempted an unsuccessful coup.

  “She opened my eyes.” Alexei tapped his index finger under one socket to illustrate. “She made me see what was really important.”