Page 2 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

I cut into the cold. The black. The silence. Until the water wasn’t water. My balance shifted without the buoyancy of it to hold me straight, and I suddenly wasn’t stroking but dropping, scrabbling for anything nearby to cling to and slow my fall. I transitioned back to my feet, though it did nothing to save me.

The Breath of Safiro glowed on its chain around my neck, illuminating the space around me. But that was all it was. Empty space. Miles and miles of it. I tumbled head over heels in a rotation I couldn’t stop. Into an abyss as endless as the stars, without any of their light.

Then I landed.

On my feet, at least. Knees crouched, my head spun with the sudden stillness of space and time. I straightened my legs, forcing a shudder away as I felt something move. The shadows. The empty. The darkness. It leered over me in a way that, even if I ran, couldn’t be escaped.

Hollow dark stretched in all directions, a crypt without light or sound, except for the dripping that came from nowhere and everywhere. Dripping far away. Dripping in my ears.

Drip… Drip... Drip... I looked around, but everything I found was nothing at all.

My mouth hardened as my eyes roamed the wall-less expanse, impatience nipping somewhere around my heels. Instinct flared, chilling my bare skin. I was being watched. Darkness was watching me. Wasting precious seconds, one at a time.

“I don’t have time for games,” I snapped.

“Oh, but I do,” a cold voice answered. A drip of liquid ice fell down my back, and I whipped around. Nothing was there. “Did you know, dear mortal, the offense of bringing light into a house of shadow?”

My hands immediately wrapped around my stone. Its glow escaped the cracks between my fingers, casting them an eerie blue. The voice laughed, the sound delving deep into my chest. I glared into the dark.

“Show yourself.”

A touch of cold slithered around my arm, traveling to my wrist and turning me slowly around. The shadow of a face peered into my eyes. “My darling,” Darkness said. “Have you come to strike a bargain?”

In the deepest cavern of the world, a tomb of my own creation, the poison within me burned. I pulled my arm away. “Yes.”

Frigid water dripped from its touch, vanishing before it hit the floorless space where I stood. “And did you see, sweet mortal, the wraithlings who live among the rocks above? The creatures who failed to keep their promises to me?”

I merely lifted my chin.

Darkness tilted its head. And vanished.

It reappeared behind my back, curling into my neck, its mouth in my ear. “Would you like to?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Darkness’s cold seeped into me, paralyzing my bones. I fought not to react to it. My muscles hardened into stone, and as I lifted my chin, the ice-laden tendons in my neck stretched in protest.

Impatience stabbed at me, heating my body and simmering under my skin. “Because I don’t care to.”

Darkness laughed again, sliding across my shoulders to my opposite ear. “Lies, lies. You are afraid to see them. Afraid you will change your mind and climb back to the light. Tell me only your truths, darling, for your night-sea eyes sparkle when you lie. You cannot keep secrets from the dark.”

My eyes narrowed. “Nothing will make me change my mind.”

“Nothing?” Darkness smiled. “Those who ask to see my wraithlings always change their mind. They are creatures devolved from their former bodies. Armless and legless. Eyeless, though they see. Mouthless, though they consume. Voiceless, though they scream. Scream for mercy. Scream for forgiveness. Scream for their souls to simply cease. Let us travel to them, dear pet. I shall not strike a deal with you uninformed.”

“I don’t care about your wraithlings,” I hissed.

But Darkness blew away, a ball of shadows, like smoke that somehow twisted and tangled within itself, curling a finger through the air until something small drew to its hand. “Come closer with your stone,” Darkness murmured, gazing down at its open palm.

Even under the burn of my irritation, a cold, clammy sweat prickled over my skin, my scalp tight as a voice inside my head pleaded with me not to. But my feet moved, one after another. I pried my fingers from the stone and lifted its chain, sending its glow over Darkness.

Shadows fled from the blue light, leaving Darkness’s skin uncovered. I might have expected its body to be as black as tar. Or perhaps pale as bone. But it was normal skin. Human skin. Dark as ochre and taut over a muscular male forearm, etched with arcane symbols that traveled the length of his limb, disappearing into the dark.

In his hand, a creature writhed in pain from the light.

It stood only a few inches tall, though it fell over at once, thrashing and coiling in agony. Its body a dull gray, it claimed a head on top of a wiry, wrinkled stump, eye sockets empty. It opened its jaw in a silent wail, but skin covered its mouth, leaving only a cavity it couldn’t fill. It made no sound, yet somehow, I heard its shriek.

And quickly snatched the light away.