Mickey Reichert - The legend of Nightfall

Nightfall circled the dance hall, an oblong building with several rectangular wings that held the quarters of dancers, workers, and overseers. A few well-timed glimpses through windows led him to the performers’ area; he found it last of the four wings. The time used to avert the suspicions of passersby on the evening roads had dragged, and he guessed Kelryn’s session on stage had probably finished during his search. It bothered him that she might reach her quarters before him; he wanted to lie in wait. Yet, this would have to work as well. Quite likely, he would not have recognized her room anyway without her presence. Choosing wrongly would delay his mission and his return to his master.

Nightfall discovered Kelryn’s voice first, the familiar alto lilting through a shuttered window. She chanted words to the tune of the dancing song, occasionally humming phrases she could not recall. He drifted to the correct room, only to find the window shuttered and the wood painted closed. Frustration gripped him. For a moment, he stood rooted, thwarted, annoyance adding to the fires of his rage. He could crash his way through the barrier but not without alerting Kelryn, and every neighbor, to the danger. Turning, he trotted back to the dance hall entrance.

Once inside, he chose the left hallway. An enormous man in dance hall clothing stepped into his way. "Did you need something, sir?”

Nightfall tipped the man six copper, generous enough to get his way without becoming too memorable. "One of the girls invited me back."

The guard brightened, standing aside, and Nightfall continued his walk. He had expected it to prove that easy. Once the seductive dancing began, many of the girls would earn extra money by making arrangements on the side. He had balked at using the hallway previously because it required working his way past a guard who might remember him after the crime. Now, that could not be avoided. He would simply have to hope the man had not looked too closely or that he would become lost amid a sea of suspects. Kelryn had escaped his wrath so far by keeping on the run. This time, he had her cornered; and that opportunity might not present itself again.

The corridor seemed endless, and Nightfall counted doors as he went. Yet, though it had seemed to take forever to get there, too soon he stood before the door to Kelryn’s chamber. He fingered the dagger in his sleeve, well aware of the location of the other three blades on his person. His heart pounded, and his thoughts raced. He attributed a blossoming tickle in his chest to the excitement of finally slaughtering the one who had stolen his love, then betrayed him, of putting to rest the one woman to whom he had dared fully expose himself and all that he was. Ready, he drew a deep breath and eased open the door.

Nightfall took in the scene in an instant. The room contained a dresser/table with a matching stiff wooden chair, an inset closet, and a bed. Kelryn stood in the open center of the room, her costume clutched in her hands. She wore only two pieces of lacy undergarments, the top covering breasts and upper torso and the bottom spanning from waist to halfway down her thighs. The sheer fabric hid nothing, enhancing rather than hiding the delicate nipples and impressing a perfect triangle in the lower regions. His entrance surprised them both; his memory had not fully captured the grace of her form, thinner than in the past. An awkward silence ensued during which Nightfall managed to step inside and lever the door closed behind him.

Kelryn dropped the dress and back-stepped. Cosmetics flaked beneath her eyes, hiding dark circles poorly. Beneath a web of sleepless, red lines, he found a fear in her eyes that seemed older than the shock of a strange intruder in her room. "I’m-I’m sorry. I’m not taking clients."

“I’m not a client." Nightfall drifted closer, sexually aroused despite himself. It occurred to him that nothing would stop him from ravishing her first, and she deserved the humiliation and pain that would come with a rape prior to murder. But some emotion he tried to deny held him back. Just the brief idea of such cruelty instantly sapped him of desire, and a battered pocket of caring colored his thoughts even as he ignored and reviled it. He would have to fight his heart and spirit just to find the courage to kill her.

Apparently recognizing something violent in his stance, Kelryn took another backward step. Her gaze flicked to his blue-black eyes and held there momentarily, as if reading something in their depths. Her blank stare bunched into a mask of surprise, then a smile lit the corners of her features. "Marak," she whispered.

The recognition caught Nightfall completely by surprise. He cringed, waiting for the oath-bond to sever body from soul; but it remained quiescent. Clearly, her unassisted identification did not count as him revealing himself. "What?” was all he squeezed from vocal cords that would not function.

"Marak. You’re alive." The tight smile became a huge and open grin. "You’re alive!" Joy colored Kelryn’s tone and a happy blush tinged her cheeks. She ran toward him.

Before Kelryn took her second stride, Nightfall seized the glass swan and hurled it to the floor at her feet. It shattered, slivers of colored glass skittering across stone. A glaze of light trickling through a crack in the shutter glittered from every shard.

Kelryn checked her rush, back-pedaling. Only her well-practiced grace saved her bare feet from the largest fragments. The smile wilted into open-mouthed bewilderment. “Wha-why? Marak?"

Nightfall had hoped the destruction would trigger a release for his anger and charge him to the necessary violence. Though he had brooded over the reunion, he had never rehearsed the words he would speak before the murder. Always before, the proper threats and warnings had come as naturally as breathing. Now, he seemed to have forgotten even the language of his childhood. Rage rose, directed fully inward. He could not recall feeling this awkward or disarmed since his mother’s beatings had become routine. Only action mattered. If he needed to slaughter the traitor in silence, he would do so. Killing, at least, he knew well. He poised for attack.

A sudden pounding on the door startled Nightfall. Prince Edward’s unmistakable voice boomed through the panel. "Sudian?”

Nightfall tensed and froze, the need for decision breaking him free from his trance. He strung together the scenario of how Edward had tracked him. Apparently concerned for the length of time his sorcerer-hunted squire had taken to perform a simple function, the prince had gone searching. Probably, the guard had steered him to the proper corner of the dance hall. Whether or not the prince or someone else had witnessed his entry into this particular room remained to be seen.

Kelryn’s tired, hazel eyes fixed on Nightfall’s face. She remained still, taking her cues from him.

Nightfall waved Kelryn to stay silent and in place.

Edward hammered at the door again. "Sudian. I know you’re there. Answer me at once."

A string of words flooded Nightfall’s mind then, every one profane. It occurred to him first to slay Kelryn swiftly and claim he had found her corpse on the floor. His shock at discovering a bleeding body should suffice as reason for delaying his response to his master’s call. In demon guise, no other plan would have proven necessary. He guessed that, most likely, the prince had caught a glimpse of him disappearing through this door; but, as Sudian, he dared not risk the possibility that someone else had spotted him, a person who had watched the door since Kelryn’s return. If Prince Edward opened the door before he finished the slaying, or if the dancer managed a scream, his story would fail. Under other circumstances, he would murder the witness, too. This time, however, such action would cost him his soul and, though he hated to admit it, his conscience. Even without Gilleran’s magic to restrain him, he would not harm Alyndar’s younger prince.