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Chapter 2

Liliana jerked awake on a soundless scream, her mouth stuffed with cotton wool and her head full of the cold finality of death. It took her long moments to realize that the door to her cell stood open; Bard watched her with those large eyes of liquid black.

“Hello,” she said, voice strained with the echoes of nightmare.

He waved her forward.

She got to her feet, ready to fight dizziness, but her body held her up. Relieved, she stepped out, following Bard’s ponderous steps through the dimly lit passageway until he stopped at another narrow door. When he did nothing else, she pushed through and felt her cheeks color. “I’ll be but a moment.”

Taking care of her private business, she used the mirror of black glass to tidy herself up as much as possible—there wasn’t anything she could do about her beak of a nose, or the eyes of dirty ice so wrong against her mother’s honey-dark skin, or the strawlike consistency of her matted black hair, much less the slashing gape of her mouth, but she was able to sleek that hair back off her face at least and tuck it behind her ears, wash off the blood that still streaked her wrists.

“Well,” she said to herself, “you’re here now. You must do what you came to do.” Though she had no idea how.

She’d grown up hearing the people her father had enslaved whispering of the four royal children, the true heirs to the jewel that was once Elden. The hope in their furtive voices had nurtured her own, fostering dreams of a future in which fear, sharp and acrid, wasn’t her constant companion.

Then, a month ago, driven by a steadily strengthening belief that something was very, very wrong, she’d stolen away into the putrid stench and clawing branches of the Dead Forest to call a vision as her father could not, his blood too tainted—and seen the tomorrow that was to come.

The heirs of Elden would return.

All of them … but one.

The Guardian of the Abyss would not be there on that fateful day. Without him, the four-sided key of power would remain incomplete. His brothers and sister, their mates, would fight with the fiercest hearts to defeat her father, but they would fail, and Elden would fall forever to the Blood Sorcerer’s evil. Horrifying as that was, it wasn’t the worst truth.

Elden had begun to die a slow death the instant the king and the queen—the blood of Elden—had taken their final breaths. That death would be complete when the clock struck midnight on the twentieth anniversary of her father’s invasion. Not so terrible a thing if it would strip the Blood Sorcerer of power, but Elden’s people were touched by magic, too. Without it, they would simply fall where they stood, never to rise again.

Her father had spent years seeking to find a solution to what he termed a “disease.” Which is why he would not murder the returned heirs. No, she’d seen the horror in her vision—he’d have them enchained and cut into with extreme care day after day, night after night, their blood dripping to the earth in a continuous flow to fool it into believing the blood of Elden had returned. They were a race that lived for centuries, would not easily die. And so her father would continue on in his heinous—

Thump!

Jumping at the booming sound, she realized her guard was whacking on the door to hurry her up. “I’m coming,” she said, and turned away from the mirror.

Bard began to shuffle off in front of her as soon as she stepped out. It was difficult to keep up with him, for even shuffling, he was a far larger creature than her, each of his feet five times as big as her own. “Master Bard,” she called as she all but ran behind him after reaching the top of the stairs.

He didn’t stop, but she saw one of those large ears twitch.

“I do not wish to die,” she said to his back. “What must I do to survive?”

Bard shook his head in a slight negative.

There was no way to survive?

Or he didn’t know how she might?

Surely, she thought, not giving in to panic, surely her father’s evil hadn’t completely destroyed the soul of the boy who had been Prince Micah. She didn’t know much about the youngest child of King Aelfric and Queen Alvina, but she’d heard enough whispers to realize that he had been a beloved prince, the small heart of the royal family, and of Elden.

“For who could not love a babe with such a light in his eyes?”

Words her old nursery maid, Mathilde, had said as she told Liliana a night-tale. It had taken Liliana years to realize that Mathilde’s night-tales had been the true stories of Elden. And then she’d understood why Mathilde had disappeared from the nursery one cold spring night, never to be seen alive again.

Months later, her father had taken her for a walk, pointed out the gleaming white of bone in the slithering dark of the Dead Forest, a faint smile on his face.

Pain bloomed in her heart at the memory of the only person who had ever held her when she cried, but she crushed it with a ruthless hand. Mathilde was long dead, but the youngest prince of Elden still lived and, no matter the cost, Liliana would return him to Elden before the final, deadly midnight bell.

The Lord of the Black Castle found himself waiting for his prisoner. It had taken longer than he’d anticipated to capture those spirits destined for the Abyss who had somehow managed to halt their journey at the badlands that surrounded the doorway to their ultimate destination. Usually, time had little meaning for him, but this past night he’d known the hours were passing, that the intruder who had dared look him in the eye slept in his dungeon.

He wasn’t used to such thoughts and they made him curious.

So he waited on the black stone of the floor beneath his throne, aware of the day servants from the village going about their business in jittering quiet. It had been so as long as he could remember. They feared him, even as they served him. That was the way it should and would always be, for the Guardian of the Abyss must be a monster.

The thunder of Bard’s footsteps vibrated through the stone just as he was getting impatient, and then came the deep groan of the massive doors at the end of the great hall being opened. The Lord of the Black Castle looked up as Bard walked in. His prisoner was nowhere to be seen—until Bard moved aside to expose the odd creature at his back.

She was … mismatched, he thought. Though her skin was a smooth golden brown that reminded him of honey from the redblossom tree, her eyes were tiny dots a peculiar sort of nowhere color and her mouth much too big, her hooked nose overwhelming every other feature. Her hair stuck out in a stiff mass akin to the straw in the stables, and she limped when she walked, as if one leg was shorter than the other.

Truly, she was not a prepossessing thing at all. And yet he remained curious.

Because she looked him in the eye.

No one had been unafraid enough to do that for … He could not remember the last time.

“So, you survived the night,” he said.

She brushed off a piece of straw from the coarse material of her sacklike brown dress. “The accommodation was lovely, thank you.”

He blinked at the unexpected response, conscious of the servants freezing where they stood. He didn’t know what they expected him to do. Just as he had no awareness of his actions when the curse came upon him. He just knew that after it passed, parts of the castle lay wrecked, and the servants scuttled away from him like so many insects afraid to be crushed. “I shall have to speak to Bard about that,” he murmured.

“Oh, don’t blame him for my comfort,” the odd creature said with an airy wave of a bony hand. “You see, I am quite used to a stone floor, so straw is the height of luxury.”

“Who are you?” Whoever she was, she could not harm him. No one could harm him. No one could even touch him through the black armor that had crept up over his body until it encased him from neck to ankle. He’d felt the tendrils spearing through his hair of late, knew the armor would soon cover his face, too. All for the best. It would make it more difficult for evil to touch him when he went hunting its disciples.

“Liliana,” his prisoner said, those tiny eyes of no particular color meeting his own with bold confidence. “I am Liliana. Who are you?”

He angled his head, wondering if she had all her faculties. For surely she wouldn’t dare to speak to him thus otherwise. “I am the Guardian of the Abyss and the Lord of the Black Castle,” he said because it amused him.

“Do you not have a name?” A quiet whisper.

It made him go still inside. “The lord does not need a name.” But he had had one once, he thought, a long time ago. So long ago that it made waves of darkness roll through his head to even think of it, the monstrous curse within itching to take form.

He snapped a hand at Bard. “Take her back!”

Liliana could have kicked herself as she was dragged away by a massive hand, her heels scraping along the stone floor. She’d attempted too much, too soon, and the twisted evil of her father’s sorcery had struck back like the most vicious of snakes. “Wait!” she cried out to the retreating back coated in unyielding black armor. “Wait!”

When her jailor stopped to open the door, she glanced around wildly, trying to find something with which to save herself. There were no weapons on the wall nearby, but even if there had been, she was no warrior. The servants were too afraid to help. Maybe she could throw the bread, she thought with a dark glance at the hunk that sat on a platter on the huge slab of a dining table to her left—it certainly looked hard enough.

Oh.

“I can cook!” she yelled as Bard started to drag her through the doorway. “I’ll cook you the most delicious meal you’ve ever had in your life if you—”

The door began to close on her words.

“Bard.”

The big ugly lug stopped at his master’s voice.

“Take her to the kitchen,” came the order. “If she lies, throw her in the cauldron.”

Relief had her feeling faint, but she managed to wobble around to walk beside Bard when he released his hold and turned to lead her down a different corridor. “He was jesting about the cauldron, wasn’t he? You cannot have a cauldron big enough for a person?”

Bard halted, sighed, looked at her with those wide, liquid eyes. When he spoke, the sound came from the depths of some deep cave, so heavy and thunderous that her eardrums echoed. “We,” he said, “have knives.”

Liliana couldn’t tell if he, like his master, was making a jest at her expense, so she shut her mouth and said nothing as they wound their way through black hallways free of all ornamentation, down a single wide step and through a heavy wooden door into a warm, sweet-smelling room at one end.

A startled pixielike creature looked up from where she stood by the large freestanding bench in the center. “Bard!” the woman said, her voice as high and sweet as her face was tiny and wrinkled in the most unexpected way—at the corners of her lips and along the bridge of her nose. The rest of her skin, the color of the earth after rain, was taut and smooth, the crinkled tips of her ears poking out through dark hair she’d pulled back into a thick braid.

A brownie, Liliana thought in wonder. She wasn’t a pixie at all, but a brownie, a creature her father had hunted to extinction in Elden, for their blood made his magic so very strong.

Bard pushed Liliana into the room with one big paw. “New cook.” He was gone the next instant.

The brownie’s face fell.

Feeling terrible, Liliana walked over to stand on the other side of the bench. “I’m sorry.” She hadn’t even thought when she’d spoken. “I was trying to save myself from being sent back to the dungeon when I said I’d cook.”

The other woman blinked at her. “Oh, no, oh, no. I’m an awful cook, I am.” Picking up a biscuit from a tray on the bench, she dropped it to the floor. It bounced. “I do not know why the lord has not had me beheaded. Perhaps, oh, yes, perhaps he enjoys that my food matches this place.”

Startled by her friendliness, Liliana said, “But you looked so disappointed just then.”

The woman’s ears turned pink at the tips. “Oh, no, that was nothing. Nothing at all. I’m Jissa.”

“Liliana.”

Reaching out, Jissa pinched Liliana’s wrinkled and blood-encrusted dress. “I am not a good cook, but I keep this place clean. You are not clean.”

“No.” Embarrassed, Liliana scratched at her hair. “A bath would be much appreciated.”

“You’ll have to be quick, quick indeed, if you are to cook a meal,” Jissa warned, shaking a rolling pin at her. “The lord will not wait past the early dinner bell before consigning you to the dungeon again.” The brownie was moving as she spoke, waving at Liliana to follow with quick, birdlike motions. “Noon meal he will not eat today. Not in the castle, he isn’t.”

Running after her, Liliana found herself led to a small bathroom where Jissa was already working the pump to fill the tub. “I’ll do—”

The brownie shook her head. “Take off your clothes and get in, in right now.” Impatient words. “I’m sorry but it must be cold, so cold, for we have no time to heat the water.”

Glad for the chance to be clean after spending days in her father’s dungeon for the infraction of refusing to slit a man’s throat, and then last night here, she gave up any attempt at modesty and stripped away her clothing to step into the frigid bath. Shivering, she picked up the bar of rough soap on the ledge, and dipping her head under the pump, wet her hair.

As she lathered it, Jissa said, “You are not very well put together, you aren’t.”

From others, it may have been an unkind statement. From Jissa, it sounded like simple fact, so Liliana nodded. “No.” Her breasts were so small as to be nonexistent, while her ribs stuck out from beneath her skin. Her behind, by comparison, was rather large, and one of her legs was shorter than the other.

“You will fit in very well here, yes, you will,” Jissa said with a sudden smile that gave her a quixotic charm. “For he is the only creature of beauty, and even he turns into a monster.”

Laughing, Liliana ducked her head under the water and washed off the suds before repeating the soaping process. Jissa stopped pumping to give her the chance to lather up her entire body, leaning against the pump as she recovered from the exertion.

“Where do you come from, Jissa?” Liliana asked, running the soap down her arms with a bliss even the cold couldn’t diminish. “You are surely not a denizen of the Abyss.” There was no evil in the brownie—on that Liliana would stake her life.

Jissa’s face grew sad. “A mountain forest far from here, so far,” she whispered. “The Blood Sorcerer came to our village and stole our magic. Stole and stole. I survived, but he said he couldn’t stand the sight of me, so he enspelled me beyond the kingdoms, beyond the realm. This is where the spell stopped.”

Liliana’s stomach curdled. She knew Jissa would hate her if she learned of the murderous blood that ran in her veins, but Liliana needed her friendship. So she bit her tongue and stuck her head and body under the pump as Jissa began to work it again.

I’m sorry, she whispered deep inside. I’m sorry my blood is responsible for the spilling of your own.

Chapter 3

Bath finished, she got out and rubbed herself down with a rough little towel while Jissa disappeared—to return with a black tunic that hit Liliana midthigh, black leggings and soft black boots. “I think these were meant for footmen,” she said, holding out the garments, “when there were men of foot. There have never been any in the years I have lived here. Never, ever.”

“Thank you, they look very comfortable.” The leggings fit well enough but the tunic was baggy, so she was grateful for the thin rope Jissa found for her to use as a belt. “Do you have a comb I could—Thank you.” Brushing it through the knotted mat of her hair, she pulled the whole mass severely off her face and tied it using a smaller piece of rope. She didn’t look in the mirror. She had no wish to see the face “that would frighten even a ghoul into returning to its den.”

“Can you truly cook?” Jissa asked as they made their way back to the kitchen.

“Yes. I spent many hours in the kitchens of the castle where I grew up.” In spite of his cadaverous frame, the Blood Sorcerer liked to eat, and so he didn’t brutalize the cook. As a result, the man had been the only one of the castle’s servants unafraid to offer a little kindness to the child who clung to the shadows so as not to attract her father’s attention.

“What raw ingredients do you have?” she asked Jissa, shaking off the memories. That child was long gone, her innocence shattered into innumerable shards. The woman she’d become would let nothing stop her—not even the monster who was the lord of this place.

“Oh, many things.” Moving to the bench where she’d been working, the brownie waved a hand and the mostly empty surface was suddenly overflowing with plump red and orange peppers, carrots, cabbages, ripe fruits of every description, a basket full of dark green leaves that would taste nutty when cooked, and more.

Liliana picked up a pepper with a wondering hand. “Where does this come from?”

“The village,” Jissa said in a matter-of-fact tone that was already familiar.

“There is a village in this realm?” She’d always assumed the Abyss was a baleful place devoid of all life—but that didn’t explain the servants she’d seen.

“Of course.” Jissa gave her a look that suggested Liliana was being very dim. “We are the doorway to the Abyss. The doorway only.”

“Yes, I see.” The Black Castle was still part of the living world. “Is the village close?”

A shake of her head that sent Jissa’s braid swinging.

“You must pass through the gates of the Black Castle, and then you must walk through the forest to the settlement. Dark, whispery forest. Whisper, whisper. But not bad.” An intent look, as if she wanted to make certain Liliana understood.

She continued at Liliana’s nod. “I walk quick and fast with Bard when we need supplies, and buy from the merchants using the lord’s gold. This and that and this, too.” A sudden dipping of her head that hid her expression, but her words were pragmatic enough. “Bard carries everything back for me. Always he carries.”

“He has gold?” The furnishings Liliana had seen were functional, but aside from a few grim tapestries, there was nothing of beauty, nothing to speak of wealth. All was black and hard and cold.

“It is the Law of the Abyss, first law, always law.” Jissa began to stack the vegetables to the side to clear part of the bench. “Do you not know?” She answered her own question without waiting for a response. “Evil gold and evil treasure comes to the Black Castle with the condemned.” A baring of those sharp, pointed teeth. “Only if an innocent, an innocent, you see, would be harmed by the taking, only then it does not.”

Liliana thought of her father’s coffers, knew this law was yet another reason he sought to live forever, though they, too, were part of a race that lived centuries. He had taken her into his vault after bleeding poor Bitty to nothingness. Gold in innumerable piles, jewels twinkling from necklaces still stained with their last wearer’s lifeblood, rings on skeletal fingers, it had been a glimmering nightmare.

“This,” her father had said, his arms spread wide, “this is what you could have if you aren’t weak.” Picking up a necklace of tear-shaped diamonds splattered with flecks of brown, he’d placed it around her neck. “Feel it, feel the blood.”

She had felt it. And it had made her choke on her own vomit. Her father had backhanded her so hard for her “weakness” she’d ended up resting on a mountain of gold coins. When he’d wrenched off the necklace, he’d made her bleed. She carried the scar on her neck to this day—it was a constant reminder of the vow she’d made as a defenseless child. Never would she be like him, no matter what he did to her.

And he had done things he didn’t do even to his enemies.

“Dungeon you’ll go to if you don’t cook.”

Snapping back to the present, Liliana nodded and chose an assortment of fruit vibrant with color and fragrance. “Will you chop these, Jissa?”

The brownie picked up a knife as Liliana hunted out the flour, butter and milk, and began to roll out a pastry on one corner of the massive bench. “The village,” she said as they worked, “do you live there?” It would make sense if Jissa did—the Black Castle was a gloomy place full of watchful ghosts and shimmering darkness.

“I cannot.” Jissa’s sadness lingered in the air, settled on Liliana’s skin, permeated her very bones. “I tried when I first came, and I … died, was all dead, after two days. The lord brought me back here and I lived again.”

Liliana’s heart caught, for she understood now. No matter her memories, Jissa hadn’t survived the massacre in her village. The Blood Sorcerer had a spell he called Slumber. Such an innocuous name for such an evil thing. He used it on those magical creatures who were pure of blood and yet rare. Rather than murdering them when he might already be swollen with power, he broke their necks but whispered a spell at the moment of death that kept them breathing and slumbering.

Liliana had been locked in a room with her father’s victims once, but it hadn’t horrified her as he’d intended. She’d been grateful, her magic telling her the beings no longer possessed their souls. They had escaped. But not Jissa. Whatever her father had done to her, it had trapped her in this borderland between life and death. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Confusion. “You aren’t the Blood Sorcerer. No, you’re not.”

Knives in Liliana’s chest, the lies of omission choking her up.

Jissa spoke again. “There are meats in the cold box. I can—”

“No. No meat on the table.” Her own blood would be the only blood she would ever spill. Her father had delighted in forcing her to watch as he took his time torturing and mutilating creature after magical creature. It was when she was six that he’d begun to whisper spells that forced her to do the same vile acts even as she screamed and screamed and screamed.

Four more years it had taken until she’d grown strong enough to block his spells with her own. That was when he’d started to hurt the servants who dared to speak with her, to offer her any small kindness—all except the cook. So she had learned to remain silent.

“Oh.” Jissa’s brow furrowed, her sharp little teeth biting into her lower lip. “Meat, he always eats the meat,” she whispered. “Even I, bad cook I, can’t make it taste that terrible.”

“Never fear, Jissa,” Liliana said, kneading the dough with determined hands, her mind on eyes of winter-green, so very beautiful, so very deadly. “He’ll never notice the lack.”

The dinner bell rang loud and sonorous. Seated alone at the head of a massive table of polished wood so dark it was near black, the Guardian of the Abyss raised his cup and took a sip of red wine. “Where is my meal, Bard?” he asked, though he wasn’t looking forward to the food that didn’t deserve the name.

If Jissa weren’t already dead, he was sure he would have executed her long ago for attempting to starve him. Of course today it was his new prisoner who would face his wrath. He wondered if she would look him in the eye when he sentenced her to another night in the dungeon.

“I will see, my lord.” The big man turned to open the door … to reveal the prisoner, Liliana, and Jissa standing there with huge trays in their arms.

“Thank you,” Liliana said with a smile that was much too wide. “We couldn’t open the door.” And then she was walking into the great hall with that halting stride of hers, her face brutally exposed given that she’d pulled her hair back.

Again, he found himself fascinated by his strange prisoner.

Placing her tray on the table and waiting for Jissa to do the same, she whipped off the covers from the dishes and moved to serve him. “This,” she said, placing a small round tart on his plate, “is not my best work, but you didn’t give me much time, my lord. Jissa tells me the dinner bell rings early today.”

He picked up the tidbit, wondering if all her food came in so small a portion. And if her words were meant to warn him that she’d lied about her ability to cook. If she had, he would have to send her back to the dungeon. Lines furrowed his forehead. He was intrigued enough by her that he wanted her around, but he couldn’t spare her—he was the Guardian of the Abyss. Mercy was a weakness he’d never had. Though perhaps he would ask Bard to give her a blanket.

“Well, my lord? Will you not eat it or are you afraid I will poison you?” A question as tart as the miniscule bite he held in hand.

He considered punishing her for her impertinence, decided she was likely feebleminded and didn’t know any better. “The Guardian of the Abyss cannot die.”

She tucked a stiff strand of hair behind her ear. “But only while you are within this castle.”

Amused by her, he decided to answer. “No. While I am in this realm.”

“I see.” Something whispered in the depths of her eyes, and he wondered if she was a very clever spy, come to assassinate him.

But who would dare raise a blade against the Lord of the Black Castle? And why would they send this creature so weak and small and strange? Ridiculous. With that, he ate the tart.

An explosion of flavors—sweet and fresh and spicy and—”What else have you made?” Swallowing the tiny tidbit, he waited with impatience as she served him two more of the same.

Then came the soup so clear and with round little green things in it that she told him were pieces of “spring onion.” He blinked, having the sudden, nagging feeling that he hated onion. But that was an inexplicable thought—he ate what Jissa made, but then Jissa’s food had no taste. “This is meant to feed me?”

“Try it, my lord.”

He didn’t bother with the spoon. Picking up the bowl, he drank.

And drank.

And drank.

There was a large square of something made of many layers in front of him when he finished the soup and set the bowl to the side. This time, he didn’t question, simply picked up the fork and took a bite.

Cheese and a thin pastry and peppers and cabbage, tomatoes and other things, spices he couldn’t name but that burst to life on his tongue with flickering heat. He cleared his plate with swift relish. “What is next?”

She spooned rice, soft and fluffy, onto his plate, before covering it with some kind of a stew, except that it was full of chunks of different vegetables that turned it into a storm of color. “Where is the meat?”

Putting down the bowl, his peculiar little prisoner folded her arms. “I won’t cook it. If you wish for meat, you may ask Jissa to do so.”

He was the Lord of the Black Castle and of the Abyss. He wasn’t used to being defied. But he was also not used to eating food that made him eager to see the next course. So he tried this vegetable stew over rice. It was a thick, flavorsome concoction that lay warm and satisfying in his belly. Finishing the food, he pushed away the plate. “You will cook for me.”

A slight nod—as if she had a choice in the matter. “I didn’t have time to prepare a proper dessert, my lord, but I hope this will do.”

She put slices of fruit in front of him, plump and fresh, alongside a small pot of something sweet and rich, with a scent that made his nostrils flare. “What is this?”

A faint smile. “Try it, my lord.”

He hadn’t been the recipient of any kind of a smile for so long that something creaked and crashed open inside of him as he looked into her face. “No, you will tell me,” he said in a harsh tone, suddenly no longer amused.

She didn’t flinch. “Honey with a bit of vanilla and some spices. It is sometimes called nectar.”

More, please!

Shaking his head, he rid himself of that odd childlike voice. He didn’t know such a child, and the smallest of the realms never came through the doorway to the Abyss. They didn’t have time to grow into the evil that would mean banishment to this place of torment and repentance.

More, Mama!

“Take it away,” he said, shoving back his chair with such force it clattered to the floor. “And do not bring me such a thing again.”

His prisoner said nothing as she—with Jissa’s help—began to gather up the remains of the meal. Stalking to the other end of the great hall, he used the power of this place to raise himself to the wall above the throne and picked out a giant sickle, black as his armor. The edge gleamed white-hot the instant it touched his hand.

He glimpsed Liliana watching him as he came back down to earth and turned to walk out into the cold dark of the soul hunt.

Liliana’s eyes lingered on the doorway through which the dark lord had disappeared, the echo of his chair hitting the floor still ringing in her ears. Something in him remembered the delicacy favored by the children of Elden, something in him knew.

“Liliana.” Jissa’s hand on her arm. “Go, go, we must go. Not nice to see souls being dragged into the Abyss. Always, they try to escape. Beg and bargain and plead.”

“Where is the doorway?”

“Feet, below our feet. Down, down in the castle.”

Liliana looked at the black marble of the floor and wondered what she would find if she were to crack it open. Likely nothing but rock. For it was said only the most blackened of souls and the Guardian of the Abyss himself could view that terrible wasteland full of screams and horror. And it was this place that the youngest Elden royal faced night after night. It was this place that had shaped him.

“We’ll eat now.” Jissa’s bright voice broke into her murky thoughts. “You and me and Bard, we’ll eat your delicious food.”