We stumbled back to Evernight.
“Hurry,” the Shadow Bringer murmured, grabbing my hand and leading us through a hall lit by floating candlesticks. “We need to make it to my chambers before the Weavers see us.”
Outside the corridor, the sound of battle pressed in. Demons screamed as Weavers and their legions rose to meet them, the ringing of metal as it met claw and bone punctuated by a great, roaring wind and the crash of booming thunder.
“Do you think those demons are actually—?” I began to ask, horrified to think that some—or all—of the demons released from the Nocturne were merely human souls trapped within monstrous bodies.
“I don’t know,” the Bringer said hoarsely, guiding me into a different hall. “I truly do not know.”
It didn’t take long before I was thoroughly lost.
Evernight was a maze teeming with hidden hallways and opulent rooms. It was magic in its purest form—beauty summoned by the wildest and most eccentric of imaginations—but was also convoluted and strange. We turned a corner and began to ascend a glass staircase, narrowly avoiding dreamers and scholars as they raced around us. Many looked at the Bringer, but it wasn’t in fear or hate.
No, they looked at him in awe. In admiration, even.
We pressed on, looping around a window-lined hall and up a smaller, cruder staircase cut from stone. Unlike the rest of Evernight, this section felt private and secluded. There were no people, no sounds other than our own. Even the battle had dampened to a dull rumble.
So when we turned a final corner and walked head-first into Xander, Weaver of the Present, I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“Erebus,” Xander said, sounding surprised. He looked between the Bringer and I slowly, as if we were beggars or thieves. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I thought you were outside.”
Beside me, the Bringer tensed. If I had to guess, he was a breath away from brandishing his sword and sticking Xander with the pointy end of it.
“What does it matter?” The Bringer snapped. It was nearly a hiss. “Are the demons not subdued?”
“What is left of them, yes,” Xander responded. His features, I noticed, were more haphazard than usual. His shrewd eyes seemed dull, his chestnut hair askew and tangled. It was strange to see him so unpolished. “But several hundred escaped back into the Nocturne or elsewhere in the Realm.”
“Then you have no need of me, just as I have no need for the remaining demons. Have I not already fought blood and bone against any threat to the Realm?”
Xander blinked. “You’re one of our greatest warriors, Erebus. And the Realm is in crisis now. We—”
“We were just retiring to my chambers.” The Bringer made a point to look at me. To squeeze the hand he still held between his own. “We have important matters to attend to there. There will be demons to fight tomorrow, and I have a feeling you’ll manage without me.”
I fought hard against a reaction.
This was the Bringer’s grand plan to fool a Weaver? To pretend we were lovers so preoccupied with each other that we didn’t even care about the demons outside? Maybe it would work.
Maybe.
If the person being fooled wasn’t an immortal spirit ordained by the Maker Himself, that is.
Xander beheld us. Slowly, he shook his head. “Do you, now? I never thought I’d see the day.”
At that, the Bringer scowled, pulling me down the hall and through an unmarked door.
“Good night, Erebus,” Xander called after us. “In your haste, do remember to ward your chambers. Else I will do it myself—”
The Bringer slammed the door, cutting him off.
And with that, we were alone.
It was a dark, elegant room, furnished in blue silk, marble tile, and several sprawling rugs. There was a bed on one end, tucked into a corner by three large windows, a balcony, a plush seating area, and several candelabras emitting soft, blue-hued light. On the other side of the room were several bookshelves lined with ancient-looking texts. A fireplace was centered inside the longest bookshelf, cavernous with its carved figureheads of a dragon, a wolf, and a stag.
“Is this your room?”
A fine mist of shadow spread from his fingertips, sinking into the walls and settling underneath every stone, tile, and rug. The ward, I thought. Something to protect us—and to keep others out.
“It was.” He stood just inside the entryway, as if unsure of where to go next. “Though I was rarely here to enjoy it.”
I tried not to think about what, exactly, he did—or didn’t do—to enjoy the room.
“It’s still strange to see beds in the Realm.”
“Well, we must sleep out of necessity, even here. If you sleep as a dreamer or scholar, you will wake in your mortal body. It is only when you sleep again that you’ll enter the Realm. But if you sleep as a Weaver or one of their acolytes, sleep is a formality or a comfort. A reminder of what is—and what was.”
What is—and what was.
For a long while, we fought it.
The raw, instinctual desire to sleep. To fall into a soft mattress, curl up in a blanket, and burrow deep into a pillow. To forget the day and begin anew.
But slowly, our conversation faded.
In the low candlelight, the Shadow Bringer’s eyes became dark, pooling shadows. He dragged his palms to his brow. Sat there for another moment, shoulders tight. Waiting. Then he slammed his fists into his knees and stood, prowling to the balcony. He stared into the night, looking out over the Nocturne.
“We can’t keep this up, Bringer. We need to sleep.”
The Bringer spun around, wild-eyed. “We can’t sleep. Not if I don’t know where we’ll be when we wake up.” He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself, but his chest continued to heave. “If I wake up and this was all for nothing—if I’m back in my castle, alone and unable to walk free—” He cut himself off. Like he had admitted something he didn’t want.
The pain in his eyes was too much.
“Perhaps it would help if you took off your armor,” I blurted. “You need to relax.”
He blinked. “What?”
What did I mean by that, exactly? I needed to continue before I lost my nerve.
“I only mean—you’d be more comfortable in bedclothes, surely. I’ve only ever seen you with sharp edges and claws.”
He laughed dryly. “I’ve slept in my armor for as long as I can remember. There’s no use for comfortable things in a pit of darkness.”
No use for comfort?
His bedroom was filled with hundreds of books, elaborate paintings, and plush armchairs. He had a balcony that overlooked a sea of stars. A bath that surely dwarfed the king’s. And I thought of his bed. The luxurious pillows, heavy blankets, and silk sheets.
“Your bed in the castle is comfortable enough. All that velvet and silk.”
The Bringer sighed, releasing some of his tension.
“My bedchamber is one of the only parts of the castle that resets itself. The rest lies in ruin after centuries of demon infestation,” he murmured. “Did you know that it once used to be a place of wonder? I spent years perfecting it. I created every stone and thread.”
“When you were a scholar?”
He nodded. “After scholars are recruited, they are given a dreamscape by which to practice their talents and abilities. Creating things—and destroying them. Manipulating reality so as to one day manipulate dreams. Mine was lost to the demons that inhabit it now.”
“But there are no demons here,” I whispered. “They aren’t outside of this door waiting for you.”
He lifted his head. The shadows in his eyes swam deep and thick. Like syrup , I thought.
And then he conceded.
His armor melted off his skin, replaced by a dark blue robe. My eye snagged on his chest. Followed it until it disappeared under a swathe of silk. I wasn’t sure if he wore anything else underneath.
“If I’m to wear this, you must wear something more suitable too, then.”
He titled his head. Slowly, my dress, still wet from the Nocturne and half-torn from our flight, shifted into a soft, flowing robe that mirrored his. His eyes melted as they beheld me. Turned raw and depthless—a testament to some unnamed emotion roiling underneath. Something primal, instinctive.
Something that spoke loudest in the shadows of the night.
I brought my hand up to touch his robe. I couldn’t help it. It looked soft, and I was exhausted, I wasn’t thinking—
“Why do you insist on doing that?”
Because I want to loosen your shields. Ease the pain from your eyes.
I lifted my hands, embarrassed, only to find him sliding them back.
“My question wasn’t an order to stop.”
My face flushed as I looked at our intertwined hands. His dark, hungry expression. The way his voice had dropped to a rasp. How his lips parted slightly as he searched my face. All my logic—every rational, careful side of me—became buried underneath something else. Something I wasn’t familiar with.
“I haven’t held someone like this before,” he murmured. Restraint still mixed in his shadowed gaze. “I don’t know how.”
“I don’t know, either,” I breathed. “But I want to.”
“Why?” There was that question again.
Why indeed.
I grazed his neck with my fingertips, raven hair sweeping over my skin. “You don’t deserve to be alone any longer,” I said softly.
“So it is because you pity me?” he asked, voice scarcely above a whisper.
I shook my head. “No, not at all.” I paused, my lip caught between my teeth. “How could I pity you for something I’ve felt my entire life, too?”
We stared at each other for a few breathless, quiet moments. All that could be heard was the deep, hypnotic thrum of the Nocturne. And he still looked so damnably uncertain, like he wasn’t sure he even deserved my touch. He was so broken, so deprived of anything genuine. I wanted to tear those thoughts from his mind—to be the light in the darkness that surrounded him.
“But you’re not alone,” he murmured. “You have a home. A family. I once mocked you for having those things—and for remaining in Norhavellis.” The timbre of his voice dropped. “Truthfully, I envied you. You had choices. Safety. Clarity in purpose. Hell, not being able to dream seemed preferable compared to the damnation of my castle.”
“But I didn’t have safety or purpose. I was lost,” I protested, gripping his robe. His eyes softened. I know what that feels like , they seemed to say. “When I met you that day—when I walked into your castle—I never felt so alive. Even through the fear and uncertainty.”
He laughed. “Then that makes you a fool. A complete and utter fool . You do not want this. This is nothing you—”
I grabbed his face and pulled it to mine, kissing him full on his mocking, irritatingly beautiful mouth.
He pushed away, eyes wide. Shadows still, for once.
Weighing. Measuring.
Then he crashed his lips back to mine.
He kissed me wildly—darkly. Exactly how I imagined he would prefer it. His lips were cool to the touch, tasting of starlight and velvet shadows. Of a cold breath of night air. I would drown in it, if I could, every bit as starved for him as he was for me. He curled one hand in my hair while the other was at my spine, drawing me closer.
After a moment, he leaned back. The shadows in his eyes simmered, taunting. “I’m a monster,” he rasped. “You saw what I could do. What I did. I summoned them, Esmer.”
“The man I met at the Revel didn’t want to destroy the world. He wanted to help it.”
“It doesn’t matter what I thought. Or what I want,” he whispered. “It doesn’t fix anything.”
“It does , though—”
“I don’t belong here. You don’t belong here. After what happened at the Nocturne, we could be stuck in this dream for years, reliving a past that wasn’t ever meant to be.”
“But maybe this is what Somnus intended for us to do. Maybe there’s a way we can use this to save—”
“You think I need saving —”
“Save the world from Corruption ,” I corrected. “Even if we’re stuck here, we can use this chance to learn more about Corruption’s origins and fix it once we return to our own reality. Or if we wake up and we’re in your castle, then maybe we’ve passed Somnus’s test and can walk free. And we can continue the fight against Corruption then.”
His hands slackened. “You actually believe this?”
“We don’t know what will happen when we wake up, but we have to face it. And you won’t be alone. I won’t be alone, either.” I kissed him again, if not to rip that look of sorrow and dread from his eyes. He could mock, twist, and taunt all he wanted, but his eyes betrayed him. “You just need to surrender, Erebus. Let go of your guilt, your hatred, your doubt—everything.”
He pulled back, lips a breath from my own. I waited, but he did not correct me.
“Erebus,” I said again, twining a hand through his hair as he shuddered. My face burned knowing I could affect him like that. “Can I call you that?”
“Yes,” he breathed. “Yes, you can call me that.”
“Good.” I traced a hand across the shadows forming patterns over his exposed chest. His skin was cool to the touch; smooth, flawless, and a pale contrast to his raven hair. “I want to walk through these shadows with you, Erebus. I’m not afraid anymore.”
“You’re not?” His expressions softened, a hint of a smile playing at his lips. “Then you have convinced me,” he whispered, lips warming as he brushed them against my temple. “And for you, it seems anything is possible.”
Erebus didn’t hesitate after that.
He brought his mouth to mine, twisting his fist in my hair and pulling me to him. Pressed against him this closely, and with nothing between us but the thin fabric of our robes, I could feel every smooth, hard plane of him. Every lean muscle. The power in his arms as he held me. The shifting of his thighs as he brought me closer still.
We made it to the bed, somehow—he stumbled backwards, sitting on the edge, and I moved to his lap, all-too aware of how our robes had spilled open. His had slipped off a shoulder; mine had fallen open at the chest. He tugged my hair back, exposing my throat, and I felt teeth and shadow grazing my neck, tantalizingly slow, before he returned his attention to my mouth. An overwhelming urge burned inside me to do the same. To kiss him there, as he had done to me.
He groaned the second my lips met his neck.
I dragged my lips and teeth leisurely down his skin, pausing at the curve of his shoulder and the hollow of his throat. When I next looked at him, his eyes were clear—bright and filled with wonder. And when we finally settled into his bed, curling into each other as if we could shield ourselves from the encroaching dark, we didn’t just feel anger, fear, or helplessness.
We felt, for perhaps the first time, a wild, reckless hope.
