Page 134 of Turncloak

Fields of Black

Pressing a single petal of nightpoppy to his tongue would melt it all away.

Back at the inn, after killing three innocent wardholders one by one—with a dagger, no less, a cowardly weapon, an insulting death, as though their lives were not worth draining his magic for—and tossing their bodies into the Cinereal Sea, Levan carved the three new tallies into his arm.

Saffron had been grateful, of course.

He had saved her this hurt, and that was the only thing keeping him from leaping off the nearest cliff onto the shards of rock below. There could be honor in dishonor, if you looked hard enough. He only hoped that the end would justify the means. That in killing those three wardholders, they would secure the Fifth Prophecy and somehow avert a world war.

Long after Saffron fell asleep, however—incense burning by the bedside, its coarse smoke causing her to snore lightly—Levan lay flat on his back beside her, wide awake and in deep, deep turmoil.

He trembled violently, limbs folded around his belly like a babe in a womb. Thoughts of loxlure obliterated all else, until, after an hour of resisting, resisting, resisting, he stuffed his feet into his boots and shuffled down the corridor toward Miret’s bedroom, bent at the waist from the intensity of the craving.

His knock was pathetic, even to his own ear.

The kindly old scholar appeared behind the door, fully dressed in his pale blue cloak and brown tunic, earthen skin deepening into bronze in the low light.

“Sorry to wake you,” Levan muttered, still in his slate-gray nightclothes.

“I’nar nilaq,” Miret replied airily—a common Eqoran expression meaning it’s nothing, which they sprinkled throughout their speech like confetti. The Eqorans were a nation of people who needed you to know how unbothered they were. “The old don’t need as much sleep as the young.”

Miret’s chamber was almost identical to theirs—worn rug, rickety desk and patched chair, threadbare blankets over a wobbly brass bedstead—only far neater, since Saffron was an agent of chaos who scattered her belongings around like a sweetblossom tree shedding its spores. Without the incense, the scent of nightpoppy was stronger, overlaid with the undeniable smell of old man.

“I killed tonight,” the kingpin muttered. “Three innocents—man, woman, grown daughter. Wardholders.”

“Ah,” Miret replied softly.

Though Miret’s response was not overtly damning, it was still charged. “The disappointment in your voice kills me.”

Miret sat down cross-legged on the threadbare rug, surveying his set of colored Saints stones. “Well, it would be disingenuous to imbue my tone with any other emotion. I want better for you, and you know that.” Hovering a palm over the stones, he murmured something inaudible in his mother tongue, then said, “So we’re closer now. Without the wardholders.”

Levan nodded, trying not to relive the way their gossamer skin had parted beneath his blade. The spurt of blood, the wails from the last victim—the daughter, watching her parents slain, which seemed kinder than the alternative. “We can’t be sure they were the only ones, but we should go to the caves as soon as dawn rises. See if you can still pick up a frequency.”

Miret gathered the stones into their black velvet pouch. “I’m not especially busy right now.”

Levan looked at the old mage as though he’d gone quite mad. “It’s the middle of the night.”

The scholar’s twinkling gaze was almost warm enough to thaw the cold grasp of addiction. “Are you unfamiliar with the miracle of torchlight?”

Saffron awoke to the call of a frostowl and an empty bed.

Fear hooked through her, and she sat bolt upright.

After killing the three wardholders, Levan had been silent for the rest of the night. The trembling had returned at full force, and this time, it could not be so easily dispelled with incense. She’d watched him heat the dagger to sterilize it before carving the new kills into his arm, feeling a grim sense of defeat borne from knowing nothing she said could convince him not to do it. She could not judge the ways he found to cope, especially when he was only in this situation because of her reluctance to do what needed to be done.

She was grateful to him—immensely, feverishly so. He’d absorbed the guilt and shame so that she didn’t have to, and in the moment, all she’d felt was relief.

But now…

He’d already been struggling.

What if her hesitation tipped him over the edge of relapse?

Saffron knew how deep the addiction ran in him, like a poisoned artery, like a toothache that had rotted the nerves all the way to the bone. She plucked her wand from the neat wooden holder on the bedside table.

“Et vocos, Levan Celadon.”

No response.