LITMIR.BIZ

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task that was his nightly duty, the Guardian was always pure of heart. In this ancient legend she’d placed her faith, but if he allowed the putrid souls destined for the Abyss to linger above …

      “Of course not.” A grim stare that raised every tiny hair on her body. “There are other souls who are drawn to the Black Castle.”

      “Why?”

      “They come and they do not leave.” An answer that told her she was trying his patience with her questions. “The Black Castle welcomes them.”

      Liliana felt a glimmer of understanding, wondered if she might have more allies than she believed.

      “You will tell the tale now.” It was an order as he took his seat on the throne.

      Hairs still standing up in alarm, she nonetheless put her hands on her hips and said, “It would be easier if I didn’t have to shout, my lord!” He sat high and remote, an arrogant emperor.

      He gestured her forward. “You may sit at my feet.”

      Dropping them from her hips, Liliana fisted her hands by her sides, her entire body rigid. Sit at his feet?

      Like an animal? No. If her father hadn’t broken her after a lifetime, then the Guardian of the Abyss surely would not! But when she would’ve opened her mouth, given voice to her fury, she felt ghostly fingers on her lips, almost heard a whisper in her ear.

      The shock of it cut through her conditioned response, tempered her rage, made her think.

      Looking up into the face of the dark lord who’d commanded her, she saw impatience, saw, too, a quicksilver anticipation. “Is it an honor, my lord?” she asked, realization shimmering a golden rain through her veins. “To sit below your throne?”

      “You ask strange questions, Liliana.” It was the first time he’d said her name, and it felt akin to a spell on its own, wrapping her in tendrils of black that gleamed with bright green highlights. “This throne is only for the Guardian. Any imposter who dares sit here will die a terrible death.”

      And so it was a great honor for her to be allowed so close.

      Keeping that in mind, she swallowed her pride and climbed the steps to the throne—but instead of taking a seat at his feet, for that she couldn’t do, not for anyone, she perched herself several feet away, so she could turn and face him. “Once upon a time,” she began, her blood thunder in her veins—because it could all end now, with a single misstep—”there was a land called Elden.”

      Whispers rolling around the room, ghostly murmurs gaining in volume.

      “Quiet!” The lord cut the air with a slicing hand.

      Silence reigned.

      “Continue.”

      Curiosity about the ghostly residents danced nimble and quick through her veins, but she kept it in check.

      First, she must discover if the Abyss had saved the last heir—or if it had consumed him. “This land, this Elden, it was a place of grace and wonder. Its people grew old at so slow a pace that some called them immortal, but they were not true immortals, for they could die, but only after hundreds of years of life, of learning.

      “Because of their great love of this last, they were renowned for their knowledge and artistry, their libraries the finest in all the kingdoms.” She carried on when her audience didn’t interrupt, the ghosts as motionless as the green-eyed man on the throne of black. “Elden was also a land overflowing with magical energy, its people’s bodies touched with it.” That energy had given Elden its strength—and made it a target. “All of Elden’s grace and prosperity flowed from the king and queen. King Aelfric, it is said—”

      “No!” The Lord of the Black Castle rose, his hands clenched, his eyes black, the tendrils spiraling out to run across his face. “You will not say that name.”

      “It is only a name in a tale,” she said, though the merciless cold of his gaze made her abdomen lurch with the realization that he could end her life with one swipe of that razor-gauntleted hand. “It is not real.” Better to tell a small lie, if it would help her slip under the viscous cobweb of her father’s spell. “Surely, you aren’t a child to be scared of tales.” It was a chance she took, that he wouldn’t kill her for such insolence, but the stakes were too high for her to walk softly.

      “You dare challenge me?” Quiet words. Deadly words. “I will—”

      “If you send everyone to the dungeon, my lord,” she said, brushing an imaginary speck of dirt off her tunic in an effort to hide the trembling in her hands, “it’s a wonder you have any friends at all.”

      His eyes turned green between one blink and the next, the tendrils of armor disappearing from his face. “The Guardian of the Abyss has no friends.”

      She understood loneliness. Oh, yes, she understood how it could cut and bite and make you bleed. “I’m not surprised,” she said, rather than offering him her friendship. That would most certainly get her thrown back down into the bowels of the castle—he was a man of power and pride, of arrogance earned through dark labor. “It’s a dicey business,” she said, taking her life into her hands for the second time in as many minutes, “talking with someone who locks up anyone who disagrees with him.”

      Anger turned his bones stark against his skin, but then the green gleamed. “Tell this tale, Liliana. I promise, whether it is good or bad, you won’t have to spend the night in the dungeon.”

      Liliana didn’t trust that gleam, her heart thudding against her ribs as her hands turned damp. “What are you planning to do to me?”

       Chapter 5

      He smiled. And she caught her breath at the heartbreaking beauty of him. Now she understood, now she glimpsed the child he must’ve been, the one who had won a kingdom’s heart. However, his words were not those of a child, but of an intelligent, dangerous man. “You must imagine what the Guardian of the Abyss might do to you.”

      It took every ounce of her will to find her voice again when all she wanted was to stare at him, this lost prince who had become a dark stranger. “King Aelfric—” she saw him clench his hands over the arms of the throne but he stayed silent “—was wise and powerful. It was written that his people would do anything for him, they loved him so much.” She’d spent many an hour in the archives, a place her father never went, though he kept a chronicler on hand to record his “greatness.”

      “Kings are not loved.” A rough interruption from the Guardian of the Abyss. “They rule. They cannot play games of nicety.”

      Liliana rubbed a fisted hand over her heart. “Some kings rule, and some kings reign,” she whispered. “Some are loved and some are not. Aelfric was loved, for he was just and treated his people with a fair hand.”

      “Fairness alone does not engender love.”

      She looked into that gaze turned inscrutable, wondered if he was asking a question, or simply stating a fact. “In Elden,” she said, “it did.” When he didn’t interrupt again, she continued. “Its people, hungry for knowledge, did love to roam. Some even found a doorway to a realm of no magic and came back with the most fantastical tales.”

      Ghostly whispers of disbelief, but it was the Lord of the Black Castle who snorted. “A realm without magic? It’s like speaking of a realm without air.”

      “This is my tale,” Liliana said with a prim sniff, smoothing her hands down the wrinkled black of her tunic. It was as shapeless as a potato sack, but better than that ugly brown dress, he supposed.

      “If you don’t like it,” she continued, putting that large hooked nose of hers into the air, “you don’t have to listen.”

      No one said such things to him in such a tone, but though part of her tale caused a primal fury within him, it was an intriguing story, far better than anything

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