Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) - Jay Kristoff Page 0,68
charged on in front, quiet as a corpse, never halting for a second. The girl would only pause occasionally, marking the wall with a small piece of red chalk.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Mia asked.
“Nnnnot really.”
“Can you find your way back?”
“If someone doesn’t rub off the chalk, aye.”
“And if they do?”
“We’ll probably get lost and die of starvation in the bowels of the Mountain.”
“Just so you know, if it comes down to cannibalism, you get eaten first.”
“Fair enough, then.”
Mister Kindly roamed in front, hidden in the perpetual darkness. As they passed a particularly grotesque bone statue—something between a bird of prey and a serpent coiled upon itself—Mia felt a shiver in her shadow. Familiar almost. She could sense Mister Kindly’s hackles rising, her own shadow rippling. For second, a sliver of fear pierced her chest, cold and sharp. Mia grabbed Ash’s arm, pulled her behind the statue’s plinth, finger to lips.
Something was coming.
A low growl rumbled along the corridor. A shape moved in the gloom ahead, utterly black, picked out by the window’s dull luminance. Mia squinted into the dark, longing to ask Mister Kindly what was wrong. Daughters, it was almost unthinkable, but for the first time Mia could ever remember, the not-cat seemed … afraid.
“Shit,” Ashlinn whispered. “It’s Eclipse.”
Mia frowned. “What’s—”
The question died in her throat as a dark shape prowled into view. Four feet tall, sleek and utterly silent. Long fangs and sharp claws and no eyes at all. It was a wolf.
A wolf made of shadows.
The creature stopped in its tracks, staring down the hallway toward the girls. They were both pressed against the plinth, holding their breath, sweat gleaming on Ash’s brow. Mia could feel Mister Kindly at her feet, positively trembling now. His fear was infectious, rising into her chest and making her hands shake. For as long as they’d been together, he’d allowed her to conquer her fears. Making her harder, stronger, braver than she could ever have been alone. The things they’d seen. The places they’d been. But now, he seemed more terrified than she.
The not-wolf growled again, the sound reverberating through the floor.
“Eclipse,” said a deep, musical voice. “Be silent.”
Though she didn’t dare breathe, let alone peer out to look, Mia recognized the speaker at once: Lord Cassius. She heard the lightest whisper of cloth, the soft scuff of leather on rock. The Lord of Blades was there; she was sure of it. The head of the entire Red Church. Staring down the corridor right at them—just a few feet of polished stone between them and discovery.
Long moments passed.
Heart thumping in her chest.
Mister Kindly shivering as the shadow wolf growled long and low.
Four Daughters, Cassius is darkin.
“Eclipse,” he said. “Adonai awaits. Come.”
A hollow, graveled voice spoke in reply. Tinged with the feminine. Seeming to come from somewhere below the ground.
“… AS IT PLEASE YOU…”
One last, low growl. Then footsteps. Whisper-soft. Receding. Mia found her breath, pressed her hand to her breast, felt her heart hammering beneath. Mister Kindly slowly stopped his shivering, and the fear began to fade. Ash grinned, laughing beneath her breath, almost manic.
“Well, that was exciting.”
“What in the Mother’s name was that?”
“Eclipse. Lord Cassius’s passenger.” Ashlinn glanced at her shadow, the shapeless shape therein. “Cassius is darkin, you know about them, right?”
Mia nodded. “I’ve a notion.”
“Want to follow him?”
“Follow him? Are you mad?”
Ash grinned wider. “A little.”
The girl crept off into the dark, her feet making almost no sound on the stone. Mia reached out to touch her shadow, felt the chill in that liquid black.
“Are you well?” she whispered.
“… trick question…?”
“What was that? I’ve never felt you afraid before…”
“… i could feel him. in my mind. he was … hungry…”
“Hungry for—”
“Mia!” Ashlinn hissed from the dark ahead. “Come on!”
“… it is not safe here, mia…”
Mia sighed. Frowned into the dark at her feet.
“To be continued…”
She stole along behind the girl, regretting her decision to leave her room more and more with every step. But Cassius was darkin. All these years, all these miles, and she’d never met another like herself. Goddess, what secrets might he teach her …
Sadly, the Lord of Blades proved as elusive to chase as the dark itself, and somewhere down near Weaver Marielle’s chambers, Cassius had disappeared entirely. At a four-way junction in the labyrinthine dark, Ashlinn sucked her lip, cursed in Vaanian and finally shrugged.
“Slippery as a greased-up sweetboy, that one,” Ash whispered.
“Well, he is a master assassin,” Mia hissed.
Ash sighed. “He’s probably leaving the Church. Da said he never stays