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This rising threat will have to wait until I am the undisputed regent of this world once again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
DID SOMEONE DRUG ME?
Darina
I dream.
That’s not much of a statement for most, but I’ve never, in my entire life, actually dreamed of anything—at least, while I was asleep. Seeing random things around me while I’m wide awake hardly counts.
Yet I’m quite certain I’m dreaming; first, because the pain, the terror, and the shame I was submitted to moments ago are completely absent. My heart isn’t racing in my chest. I don’t feel my wrist, which was burning.
Most of all, I’m not afraid.
I should be. The thing in front of me would send almost anyone running in the opposite direction, screaming.
Pure power, flashing through the night like a shooting star made of wild shadows, strands flying in every direction and catching arrows made of light, darkness, blood.
I’m watching a war in the dark vastness of space. An unending fight between powerful forces, and I couldn’t even begin to start understanding who I should actually root for. Right and wrong are irrelevant concepts in the empty cosmos. There’s only one power against another.
Yet I watch one shadow.
I watch as it rams into the light and engulfs it, smothering it, sucking up all its essence, until the light fades.
It occurs to me that I should feel sorry for the thing my shadow just destroyed.
I don’t.
Then there’s a voice in the darkness; I don’t recognize the language, but for some reason, I understand it anyway.
“That was an unnecessary risk, brother.”
The shadow, despite all sense, speaks. “I am needed elsewhere.”
The voice is delicious, dark and sinful, like a piece of chocolate cake wrapped in whipped cream.
There’s something like a laugh, full of haughty pride, and my world returns to pure darkness.
CHAPTER NINE
A DERANGED NEW REALITY
Darina
I’m definitely no longer dreaming, because ouch. I wake with the worst headache I’ve ever felt, which, given my constant state of achiness, is saying much. I bring my hand to my skull, half expecting it to be split in two. To my surprise, it isn’t.
My vision’s blurry at first, but it clears after the third blink, and then I gasp.
What the hell?
I am in a room larger than a concert hall, on a carved white stone bed fit for a dozen occupants at its center.
A fireplace higher than a grown man crackles with blue flames in front of me. Guarded by two angel-like figures carved in marble, it’s the single most breathtaking piece of art I’ve ever seen, until my eyes move to the ornately painted ceiling, the sculpted arched wall, the many ornaments, all more exquisite than the last.
The high walls are covered in thick, velvety blue and silver tapestries, depicting explicit, obscene scenes. Women and men, some with legs spread wide, others bent on the ground, rutting like animals—with animals sometimes. The drawings are so fine only talented ancient artists could have painted them; but the longer I stare, the more uncomfortable the orgies make me.
The sheer decadence reminds me of the poor girl and her incubus. Of myself. Then I can no longer ignore my reality. Everything comes crashing down to me all at once. The Night Hall. Then, the monster, and what he did to me.
