Nocturne Read online

  Nocturne

  Fourth Talisman #1

  Kat Ross

  Nocturne

  First Edition

  Copyright © 2017 by Kat Ross

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This story is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  Cover design by Damonza

  Map design by Robert Altbauer at fantasy-map.net

  Created with Vellum

  For Christa and Jessica, who made this book about a hundred times better

  Contents

  Map of Nocturne

  Map of Solis

  1. Lacuna

  2. Faravahar

  3. Breaker

  4. The Scarred Man

  5. A Ship from the Sky

  6. Partings

  7. Night Flight

  8. Shadow and Flame

  9. Something Wicked

  10. To Samarqand

  11. An Ill-Fated Knife

  12. They Tried to Break the World

  13. Some New Devilry

  14. The Umbra

  15. Children of Fire

  16. A Fey Doorway

  17. The Shadowlands

  18. Thena and the Witches

  19. Footprints

  20. A Blade in the Dark

  21. Culach’s Folly

  22. Trapped

  23. The Brazen Bull

  24. The Storm

  25. A Pit of Vipers

  26. The High Holdfast

  27. A Message

  28. Bonded

  29. Daníel/Demetrios

  30. The Maiden Keep

  31. The Prisoner Herodotus

  32. Quarry

  33. An Unbroken Pitcher

  34. They Bend Light

  35. The Cold Cells

  36. Ghosts

  37. Parthenoi

  38. Names

  39. An Unlikely Savior

  40. Gerda’s Globe

  Sneak Peek from Solis, Fourth Talisman Book #2

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Also by Kat Ross

  1

  Lacuna

  Nazafareen raised the hood of her cloak, tucking errant strands of light brown hair behind her ears. Cool air crept through the crack in the door, redolent of pine and spruce. She waited for six long heartbeats. Nothing stirred in the night. She knew Darius would be occupied in his workshop. Sentries patrolled the Valkirin border farther out, but with care she could avoid them. They weren’t looking for anyone leaving.

  She slipped into the shadows of the trees. Artemis the Huntress Moon rode at the farthest point of her long elliptical orbit, so distant she looked like another star in the inky heavens. Selene hid behind the mountains to the north. Only cool white Hecate peeked through the leafy canopy above, but she was the smallest of Nocturne’s three moons and cast the faintest glimmer of light.

  Nazafareen couldn’t see in the dark like the daēvas, who had been born to eternal night. She was a child of the sun—even if it was lost to her now. So she made her way with caution, soft rabbit-skin boots silent on the carpet of pine needles. The light of the lumen crystal in her window faded to a pinprick, then vanished altogether. She felt small and alone in the dark wood—but also blessedly free. Nazafareen had only left the Dessarian compound twice in her time among the daēvas, both occasions unsanctioned. They would never let her roam on her own. Her very presence there was a closely guarded secret.

  Once clear of the last line of houses, she relaxed a little. The forest was sparse and open, with little undergrowth to snag her feet. She passed stands of pale bonewood—the daēvas made armor from that—and spreading oaks, skirted shallow pools full of whistling frogs that fell silent at an alien presence. She took the same path she had last time, following a resonance almost too faint to detect, like a snatch of music on the wind.

  She climbed a rise. The forest thinned to open meadow and she got her first sight of Hecate, three-quarters full, floating above the distant mountains like a silver coin. Despite chafing at her confinement, Nazafareen had come to love the way the deep twilight softened the edges of things like a velvet cloak. The brightness of the stars and subtle coloring of the moons.

  The great forest of the Danai had never known the touch of summer or winter, spring or autumn, but the passage of the seasons could be tracked by the travels of Artemis the Huntress. Her orbit took a full year to complete but when she returned, her light supposedly made it almost as bright as true day—solar day. The tides would surge, covering the land for leagues. Nazafareen hoped to see that. Darius had told her what an ocean was, but she still found it hard to imagine so much water.

  She crossed the meadow and descended into a thickly wooded valley. Finally, she saw a greenish flicker through the trees ahead. Her steps slowed, the hair on her arms lifting.

  She had reached another sort of border.

  The gate to the Dominion waited ten paces ahead. It looked like a rectangular doorway with no frame—just a glowing hole in the night. The surface had the shimmery quality of running water.

  Nazafareen stepped closer. And closer still.

  Two months before, Darius had carried her through the gate in his arms, nearly dead from her own fey power. Breaker, they called her. A mortal with daēva blood and the ability to shatter magic. She had drawn too much of it.

  A lake. A green-eyed man with a scar and an evil sickness inside him. The crowns of trees burning like torches.

  She dimly remembered a battle. Her bond with Darius flaring to life and being snuffed out again when they passed through the gate to Nocturne. It was why the daēvas were hiding her. Because that green-eyed man was a Valkirin, the clan that lived in the mountains, and if he ever discovered she still lived….

  Nazafareen stared at the gate in queasy fascination. Her own world—her past—lay on the other side, but she had no memory of it. Darius said she’d broken a ward that contained a spell of forgetfulness. The backwash had wiped her own mind clean.

  I want to know who I was. Who I am. I have the right.

  She sighed, absently rubbing the stump of her missing right hand. It had been a stupid impulse to come here. Fleeing through the gate wouldn’t restore what was lost. Magic had erased her past and only magic could restore it.

  Darius seemed to think her condition was irreversible, but Nazafareen refused to accept that. Someone, somewhere, knew something and she intended to find them. Except that the daēvas wouldn’t let her leave. And part of her didn’t want to go. Not without Darius.

  She stood before the gate as Hecate set. The lunar night was nearly over. Soon Selene would appear, her bright yellow face heralding the dawn of the lunar day. It was time to return before they found her gone. She started back through the trees, the scant light growing dimmer by the moment. True night was coming, the brief period where none of the three moons was visible. The length of it varied from day to day. The daēvas called it the lacuna and it might last anywhere from a few seconds to an hour or more.

  Nazafareen scanned the sky. A thin veil of clouds had swept in. So much for starlight, she thought. Let’s hope it’s a short one tonight. She pulled her cloak tighter and retraced her steps through the valley, moving as quickly as she dared.

  Nazafareen paused at a soft sound behind her, like a bree
ze rustling the leaves—except that there was no wind. She wished she’d brought the lumen crystal. There were animals in these woods. Mostly small game, but Darius’s father Victor had seen wolves near the mountains. Her hand dropped to her belt knife.

  One of the frog pools shimmered just ahead. Hecate sank beneath the rim of the sky. The forest seemed to take a last, lingering breath of anticipation. She glimpsed an owl gliding from branch to branch in the canopy. And then the lacuna descended, as dark as the bottom of the sea.

  She’d always been safe at home with her lumen crystal when true night fell. Sometimes Darius came by and they played a board game with little wooden animals. The pieces had curving horns and barbed tails and different magical powers. All were cunningly carved to the smallest detail. Nazafareen usually won, though she often cheated when he wasn’t looking. A petty victory, but sweet nonetheless.

  She glanced up, hoping the clouds would pass. Just a little starlight to guide me…

  The dry rustling came again, behind her and low to the ground. Moving fast.

  Before she could blink, thick coils of scaled muscle wrapped her in an iron grip. Nazafareen grunted, scrabbling for the knife. Her fingers brushed the hilt too late. It slithered higher, pinning her arms. She fought to draw breath against a crushing weight on her chest. The knife slipped from her grasp as she tumbled down a muddy bank. Cold water closed over her head.

  Darius had warned her about the forest. She got the feeling he knew about her occasional wanderings. He hadn’t said so directly, or even asked her to stop. Perhaps he knew she needed to get away from time to time. That she’d go mad if she didn’t.

  There are snakes, he said. By the way.

  Of course, he’d neglected to mention how bloody big they were.

  Down they sank to the silty bottom. Nazafareen swallowed her panic and sought the Nexus, that place of nothing and everything where elemental magic could be touched. It wasn’t easy with the life being squeezed out of her, but she knew it was her last hope.

  She reached for earth and focused on the snake’s slender articulated spine. Darius would be able to snap it in an instant. She tried to do the same, bubbles of air slipping through her lips—the last air she might ever taste—but earth was the heaviest element to wield and she’d always been terrible with it. Once, as a lesson, he’d set her to moving grains of sand from one anthill to another. The ants had accomplished the same task much faster.

  A glint in the corner of her eye.

  Frail moonlight lancing through the water, touching…something.

  Her belt knife?

  Blood pounding in her temples, she reached for water—and felt it stir feebly in response.

  Come, she urged. Come!

  A weak current lifted the knife, drifting it toward her open hand. As soon as the hilt touched her palm, Nazafareen stabbed at the cold reptilian flesh, driving the blade deep. For an awful moment, the snake clenched tighter. She twisted the knife. And then the coils binding her loosened just enough to pull her arm free. A second later, she plunged the blade into the snake’s flat black eye. It sank away into the depths.

  Nazafareen dragged herself from the pond and lay on the bank, chest heaving. After long minutes, the frogs resumed their peeping song. She laughed softly, though it hurt. The Valkirins didn’t need to come after her. She was doing a fine job getting killed all on her own. If the lacuna had lasted a few seconds longer…. She rolled to her side, wincing. Then she stood and walked back to House Dessarian.

  Selene had risen in the west when the first outbuildings came into view. The walls were live white birch, their boles and branches weaving together like clasped fingers to form a leafy roof. Every sixth tree grew crookedly away from its neighbor halfway up the trunk, creating an oval window. The dwellings of House Dessarian were not laid out in orderly rows, the way she heard mortals built their cities. These were haphazard, most barely within shouting distance of each other. Most of the daēvas still slept and no one saw her slinking through the shadows like a wet cat.

  Finally, she reached the house they’d given her, smaller than the others but cozy enough.

  She opened the door—and found Darius sitting at her kitchen table.

  Daēvas looked much like mortals, if a touch…feral. There weren’t any obvious differences. It was more the way they moved. Lithe and graceful at rest, blurringly quick when they chose. They were stronger and healed faster. They could wield earth, air and water. But they had a weakness, a fatal one.

  Fire.

  Which was why the fourth element was banned in Nocturne. Why the daēvas made their home on the dark side of the world.

  Nazafareen masked her surprise at finding him there. Darius kept his wavy brown hair short, a holdover from his time as a soldier. As always, she found the intensity of his bright blue gaze disconcerting. He raised an eyebrow at her sodden cloak.

  “Where have you been?” he asked in a level tone.

  “I felt like a swim,” she said, daring him to contradict her.

  “Fully dressed?”

  “It was a little cool out for my taste.”

  Darius barked a laugh. “You’re an awful liar.” His expression grew serious. “It’s not safe, Nazafareen. You know that. At least take me with you next time.”

  She hung her cloak on a peg and sat down across from him.

  “I’m sorry, Darius, but I feel a prisoner here. I know that’s my own fault. The Danai were kind to take me in. But I…I wanted to see the gate.”

  He leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “You went all the way to the gate? Are you mad?”

  “Just to see it. That’s all.”

  Darius exhaled. “To see it. Why?”

  “I don’t know.” She felt suddenly angry—not at him. At everything. “Curiosity. I don’t wish to talk about it.”

  Darius looked away.

  Now you’ve hurt him.

  “What’s that?” Nazafareen asked in a softer tone, pointing to a cloth-wrapped bundle on the table.

  “A gift. It’s why I came.”

  “May I see it?”

  “Of course.”

  She felt him watching her as she struggled to undo the twine with one hand. Darius knew her too well to offer his help. Finally, she remembered her knife, holding the bundle in place with her stump and slicing it open. The cloth fell away.

  “Oh.” She looked up at him in delight. “Darius, it’s beautiful.”

  He smiled. “It’s called an astrolabe. I made it from yew.”

  Nazafareen turned the wooden sphere over in her hands. Three moons, each of a different size and distance, spun around it on circles attached to a polar axis.

  “I’ll show you how to move them to correspond with the heavens,” he said with a warm smile. “Then you can track the return of Artemis.”

  Nazafareen smiled back. There was something stern and unyielding in him that only seemed to soften when they were alone together. She fiddled with the astrolabe for a moment, sliding the moons around and around. It was a clever thing, and cunningly made. His skill with wood amazed her considering the short time they’d been there.

  “Thank you,” she said solemnly. “It’s a wonderful gift. But I have nothing for you.”

  His gaze held her. “Let me teach you. I enjoy it.”

  “We’ve tried—”

  “It takes time. And you’re stubborn.”

  “Me?” Nazafareen laughed. “You make a boulder seem pliable.” She thought of the snake. “But perhaps it wouldn’t hurt.”

  In truth, she desperately wished she could use elemental power like the daēvas. The Danai—Darius’s clan—were especially strong in earth. They nurtured the only forests in the world. The master craftsmen of House Dessarian and the six other houses made furniture and weapons and other items for trade, commanding premium prices for their products.

  “Then let us begin with a simple talisman. Extinguish the lumen crystal and then light it again.”

  They spent the next few hours prac
ticing with air, which Nazafareen found the easiest element to work with. She’d grown more adept at finding the Nexus and could feel the torrents of power swirling around her. The difficulty lay in making them do what she wanted. She could manage the lumen crystal, but trying to move objects—even small ones like their game pieces—left her swearing through gritted teeth. Darius was patient as always, though the man could be relentless in his own quiet way. When she finally upended the entire board, not using the power, he laughed and slid his chair back.

  “You’re tired,” he said, rising. “And I have work to do.” He paused at the door. “But I want you to promise me you won’t return to the gate alone.”

  Nazafareen stared at him. She wanted to trust him. But the secrets he kept had become a chasm between them that grew wider by the day, even if he refused to see it. All her frustrations boiled over.

  “Then tell me everything.” She held up her stump. “Tell me how I lost this.”

  He flinched away from her gaze. “I already have. We were soldiers—”

  “Yes, yes. I know the story by heart. Your words hardly vary when you tell it. But it rings false. What was the purpose of the bond? Who forged the cuffs and why? How did you come to be born in my world when your kin are here?”

  For a moment, he looked as though he might speak. His eyes searched hers, but then a door seemed to close.