Raze the Night (Nightstar Book 2)

Fennrin sobbed into Daryan’s shoulder as thorns once again ripped his skin open, ever deeper. It hurt so much, but he knew he deserved it. He kept failing Daryan.

“You need to do better, Fenn,” Daryan told him, his voice just as gentle as ever as he carding his fingers through Fennrin’s hair. “This won’t stop until you bring him in. Or kill him.”

“I’m t-trying,” Fennrin whimpered out, shaking. “He’s too strong.”

“You are stronger,” Daryan insisted, pulling away from him enough to look him in the eye. Fennrin did his best to blink away his tears enough to see. “You let him blind you this time.”

“I didn’t….” Fennrin hung his head as he nodded. He wasn’t trying hard enough. That must have been it. What other explanation could there be. If he was so strong, he should be able to defeat Ainreth. The thought of killing him, though…. It made his stomach twist. But he would do it if he had to.

“You said you almost captured him,” Daryan said, pulling him into a hug again.

“Yes. But a civilian threw a rock at me. It distracted me for long enough to lose control,” Fennrin said, sniffling.

Daryan held him tighter as he scowled. “So even the civilian population has been riled up enough to risk attacking the Nightrazer, all to protect Ainreth.”

Fennrin nodded.

“Did they hurt you badly?” Daryan asked, fussing a bit, which made Fennrin’s heart flutter.

He knew times were hard and they didn’t have time to be gentle about anything, but he yearned for Daryan to go back to his protective, caring self. He was so frustrated from the way things had been developing lately.

“I’m okay,” Fennrin said, swallowing as he gently rubbed the spot on his head where the rock had struck. There was still dried blood there. He winced at the dull pain the action had brought with it.

“Let me see,” Daryan said, letting go of him so he could inspect the injury, going over to his medicine cabinet then. He soon brought back a healing salve and started to rub it against the wound, forcing Fennrin to grit his teeth.

“What about the soldiers I sent with you?” Daryan asked as he treated him.

Fennrin sighed. “They are too easily defeated by Ainreth blinding them. He hasn’t killed anyone, or blinded anyone permanently, but he easily could.”

Daryan nodded. “Then we truly need eye protection. I already started working on something in that regard.”

Fennrin nodded, a bit relieved. When Ainreth could so easily put everyone else out of commission, then it was really just Fennrin fighting him and all of his allies. And he couldn’t manage that, no matter how hard he tried.

“That’s enough for today,” Daryan said as he finished applying the salve and the thorns retreated back into the bracelet, making Fennrin groan in pain. Blood was dripping from his wrist to the floor.

“I…could I…get treatment for my wrist as well?” Fennrin grimaced, hating that he had to ask. He didn’t want to seem like he was trying to cheat his way out of his punishment. Because that wasn’t it at all. “It makes using my powers much harder.”

Even like this, Fennrin felt as though he was asking too much, swallowing thickly as Daryan humming and considered it.

“Very well. But I will only give you the means to treat your wrist if you are outside of Kyr-Toryl,” Daryan said at last, nodding. “Otherwise there is no need for it.”

Fennrin let out a breath and nodded, happy that at least he could hopefully be ready for battle without an injury slowing him down.

“You have to do better, Fennrin. For everyone, for the country,” Daryan said, kissing his forehead. Fennrin clung to him with his uninjured hand. “Already there are incidents between the army and the civilian population, and they are getting more and more frequent. If we don’t apprehend Ainreth soon, we might have a full-blown civil war on our hands.”

Fennrin shuddered at the thought. That was about the last thing he would ever want. So many people would die for no reason. Just because Ainreth couldn’t let their army stop queen Svytlani’s experiments.

It almost felt dizzying to think about what had started all of this. It had just spiraled so far out of control.

Fennrin almost pointed out to himself that if they hadn’t staged that assassination, then Ainreth wouldn’t be able to garner support so easily, but he stopped himself before he could even properly think that thought.

He wasn’t here to question Daryan, or even think. Thinking was the Herald’s job. He was here to do as he was told, and that was it.

“Rest while you can. I need to go have a talk with the Bulwark. If you’ll excuse me,” Daryan said, getting up and leaving the room. Fennrin sighed, looking down at his still bleeding wrist. He walked over to the medicine cabinet, retrieving only a rag to wrap around his wrist, hissing in pain.

Then he sighed again, tears of frustration pricking at his eyes. What if he never could be good enough to defeat Ainreth? He couldn’t disappoint Daryan like that. Daryan was all he had left now.

Sniffling, Fennrin wiped his eyes and walked outside, intent on taking a walk, hoping that would help him clear his head. These negative thoughts, all the self-doubt, it would just weigh him down, make him perform even worse.

He wiped his eyes as he walked around aimlessly for a while, not feeling any better. He almost turned back to go to his and Daryan’s room to sulk there, but then he walked past Mhalyn’s door.

He paused, nodding to himself. He didn’t particularly want to speak with Mhalyn or anyone right now, but he did want to see Snowflake.

Taking a deep breath, Fennrin checked his wrist and clothes to make sure his wounds were covered up before knocking.

At first Mhalyn didn’t respond, making Fennrin think that perhaps she was somewhere else, but then the door opened a crack, Mhalyn looking through it.

“Fenn,” she said, sounding wary as she opened the door up more.

“Mhalyn,” Fennrin nodded at her, choosing not to read too much into her reaction too much. She’d been jumpy ever since those rebels had tried to publicly whip her. “Could I see Snowflake? I would like to pet her.”

Mhalyn blinked at first but then nodded and moved aside, opening the door wide to let Fennrin in. As soon as he stepped inside, he had Snowflake between his ankles, rubbing herself all over his boots.

Despite his gloomy, depressed state, Fennrin couldn’t help but smile at that, reaching down to pick her up, wincing as he moved his injured wrist. But Snowflake’s purring quickly helped him forget about that as he cradled her close.

“I missed you, Snow,” he told her quietly, scratching her behind the ears.

“She missed you as well,” Mhalyn said as she closed the door behind them both. For a moment there was silence, Fennrin focusing on petting Snowflake only, but then Mhalyn spoke again. “Can we…talk?”

Fennrin looked at her, frowning. “What about?”

Mhalyn guided him to her sofa so they could sit down, her head waving a bit. Fennrin went with it, but he didn’t like it at all. The way Mhalyn kept looking at the door, as if expecting someone to burst in any moment, made him nervous.

“Daryan. Has he seemed…okay to you, lately?”

Fennrin frowned at her. “Okay? Well, he is stressed. Who wouldn’t be in this situation.”

Mhalyn shook her head. “What I mean is…I don’t remember him acting this way. Faking that assassination? The Daryan I know wouldn’t have done that.”

Fennrin scowled, narrowing his eyes. He didn’t like this talk at all. Nothing Daryan had done seemed out of character for him to Fennrin.

Perhaps Mhalyn just didn’t know him well enough, though he resisted the urge to snap that at her. He didn’t want to be hostile since he was certain she didn’t mean to annoy him. He was just very, very tense, and frustrated.

“Well, he has. So it is like him to do so,” Fennrin replied, not sure what else to say.

Mhalyn didn’t let up, though. “What about making people sign that document? What about….” She swallowed thickly. “What about not helping me when I was kidnapped?”

Fennrin sighed. He’d asked Daryan about that as well, so that was clear to him now. “It was unfortunate, but he couldn’t do anything because intervening directly would only make things worse.”

Mhalyn shook her head, looking at him almost pleadingly. “Do you really think that?”

“Yes, of course,” Fennrin said, getting very impatient. He tried to focus on petting Snowflake since that was calming him, but it was only somewhat effective.

“Fenn…. Is he…treating you well?” Mhalyn asked, her tick growing worse as she chewed on her lip.

Fennrin scowled at her. “Yes. Of course.”

Mhalyn looked even more alarmed now, though, her eyes wide and scared. And when she grabbed his shoulder, he blinked, only then realizing he’d been making the whole room dark.

He immediately stopped that, swallowing. That had been happening more and more often. If he was in a bad mood, he tended to make shadows around him darker, larger. There was something comforting about darkness. But he didn’t tend to notice when he did it.

He huffed and got up quickly, still cradling Snowflake. The cat, however, jumped out of his arms and curled up on her bed instead.

Fennrin sighed. He must have scared her. And it wasn’t as though he could force Snowflake to let him pet her, so there was no point to this visit anymore.

He walked to the door, but he was stopped by Mhalyn who grabbed his shoulder again, pulling at him to turn him around.

“Please, Fenn. What Daryan has been doing isn’t right. You have to know that,” she pleaded with him, but Fennrin just scowled.

“Keep talking like this, and I’ll tell him I suspect you’re going to join those traitors,” he told her, jerking his shoulder out of her hold. “Now leave me alone.”

With that he marched out of the room, ignoring Mhalyn calling him behind him.

This had been a bad idea after all. If anything he just felt worse now. He should have just stayed in his and Daryan’s bedroom, wait for the other man to return, but it was too late now.

Fennrin took a deep breath when he reached Daryan’s chamber, shaking off cat hair off himself before closing the door behind him and going to the bed to curl up on it. He let his shadows cover him, plunging him into comforting darkness, but unfortunately, he became very painfully aware of his wrist again.

His heart ached so badly as he lay there. He just felt so guilty and useless. He tried so hard, but nothing he did seemed to be enough. He couldn’t keep failing Daryan.

Despite his anguish, Fennrin must have ended up falling asleep—or more likely passing out—because the next moment he was jerked awake by the sound of the door opening.

Fennrin rubbed his eyes, wincing as he moved his injured wrist as he sat up. Daryan was there, of course, walking over to him to lean down and kiss his forehead. Fennrin clung to the loving gesture like a man dying of thirst would cling to a pitcher of water.

Daryan retrieved a healing salve before returning to him, sitting next to him as he started to treat Fennrin’s injured wrist.

Fennrin swallowed. “Does…this mean I am to be sent on another mission?”

Daryan hummed. “The rebels have cut off our access to Lor-Lyntera. They’ve taken over the town. I need you to go with one of our general to deal with them.”

Fennrin nodded. As long as Ainreth wasn’t there, it should not be difficult. Of course, on the other hand, if he was in Lor-Lyntera, then Fennrin would have to try to defeat him even more than before, and he already wasn’t sure how much more he could do.

But he’d nearly succeeded last time. If not for that woman….

He didn’t enjoy the fact that he’d be going to the town his parents lived, but that didn’t matter at all. All that mattered was him making Daryan happy.

“Can you do that?” Daryan asked, a slight edge to his voice. Fennrin ducked his head. Daryan wasn’t asking much. It was fair to be annoyed that Fennrin wasn’t giving him good results. Results he should be able to give simply based on how he’d managed in the war against Orinovo.

“Yes. I’ll do my best,” Fennrin replied and nodded, his eyes stinging. He was such a failure.

“Yes. Good.” Daryan said instead of what he could have done, which would be to mock Fennrin’s trying. Fennrin was very grateful for it.

“You leave in the morning,” Daryan said as he finished treating Fennrin’s wrist. He put the salve away and then captured Fennrin’s lips in a somewhat rough kiss, making him gasp in surprise. “So I suggest we use our time together well.”

Fennrin nodded. He was here for whatever Daryan wanted. He just wanted to be good, useful. That was all he ever wanted.

Chapter 40

“Lys-Akkaria grows weak,” said the queen. Yarima scowled.

When she’d gotten called to see her mother, she hadn’t been sure what it would be about. And she still wasn’t.

“You want to attack them?” Yarima asked because what else could this possibly mean? It didn’t make it sound any less insane, however.

“Now is the appropriate time,” Svytlani said, a pensive frown on her face as she sat on her throne. “My spies have confirmed what you’ve discovered—Lys-Akkaria is fighting with itself. And the situation is growing more dire by the day.”

Yarima didn’t know if she liked where this was going. This was the opposite of what she wanted, but she had to play along long enough to get enough support to manage a coup.

That was her new plan now that she knew she couldn’t take powers from the lightweaver or the shadowforger. And her main target was now Oretski.

The high-ranking members of the army respected him from what she’d heard, and many of the soldiers weren’t very happy with the new choice of kapetan, an arrogant, overconfident woman Yarima hadn’t had the displeasure of meeting.

But if Yarima and her brother could convince Oretski to stop being Svytlani’s good little slave and strike back against her, maybe a significant number of soldiers would go with him.

Surely, they all had to see that Orinovo wasn’t going to survive if it kept going like this. Yes, Lys-Akkaria was struggling with itself, but it still had a lightweaver and a shadowforger. Orinovo attacking might even unite them again, so she wasn’t so sure this was a good idea.

But she had no choice but to do what the queen asked, otherwise she might end up locked up again. Or killed. Or experimented on once more.

Yarima shivered at that thought.

“The battleplans are in the works,” her mother said, bringing Yarima out of her thoughts. “And you will be involved in them.”

“This will be a bloodbath,” Yarima argued, unable to keep her thoughts to herself in this case. “So many soldiers will die.”

The queen scowled at her. “It will be worth it. Once we kill or capture the svetlokriv and Notsisyk, there will be nothing stopping us from conquering that defiant colony once more, our country united.”

Yarima wanted to groan. Her mother’s delusions about how Lys-Akkaria was their territory, and that it being its own country with its own culture was ridiculous had grown very, very old. But Yarima knew better than to question it. There was no convincing Svytlani of anything ever.

“You will use the power I’ve given you to ensure our victory,” Svytlani said finally, nodding at Yarima. “I suggest you train while you can. Dismissed.”

Yarima barely resisted the urge to call Svytlani an insane monster. How dare she imply that the experimentation she’d been doing on her since she was barely old enough to remember it was in any way a gift?

But Yarima managed to stomp down her rage. No matter how much she yearned to kill Svytlani, there were people in the line of succession who wouldn’t hesitate to be even worse than her.

At least Svytlani was smart enough to keep the country functioning, even if heavily repressed. Some members of Yarima’s wouldn’t mind bankrupting it just for their own pleasure, and sacrificing countless lives for their entertainment.

It truly made her wonder how Denir managed to stay so nice and well-meaning. At least Yarima had a reason for being different from their other family members. But Denir grew up around them. Maybe it was through seeing what Yarima was being put through that he’d figured out early that their mother was a monster.

Yarima chose not to think about this further. It would only get depressing.

Saying nothing else since there was no need for it, Yarima turned around and left the throne room immediately. If she had to go out to fight soon, she wanted to spend time with Denir.

She didn’t think she’d die in a battle like this, mostly because she could always run away and desert her post if things got that serious. But that would prevent her from being around her brother either way, and she didn’t want to waste the time they had left together if that came to happen.

Glaring at a few guards she passed who gave her suspicious looks, she marched right to Denir’s door and knocked. If anyone dared try to prevent her from spending time with her brother, she would punch them.

The door opened a crack as usual, but when Denir looked through it at her, there was genuinely fear in his eye. It disappeared, though, when he saw her, opening the door more and waving her in.

Yarima walked in, immediately understanding why Denir had seemed so worried when she saw Oretski sitting on the bed.

He didn’t say anything, just nodding at her, not moving otherwise. Denir meanwhile locked the door behind her, and once he was done with that he practically tackled her into a hug.

Yarima chuckled, embracing him back and ruffling his hair. “I missed you too, bratrishko.”

Denir didn’t let go, keeping his face pressed into her shoulder. “Sorry about that. I thought you were a guard. I can’t let anyone see that is Nev here.”

Oretski sighed, staring at the floor, his shoulders sinking. “It’s okay, zlati. I would have flown out the window in time. No one would have seen me on this side of the castle.”

“You don’t sound too sure about that,” Yarima pointed out, getting an eye-roll from Oretski in return. It was quite cute that Oretski called Denir such a sweet pet name, though. Yarima was sure that Denir had a dozen pet names for Oretski, but he was an excited puppy of a person. Oretski liked to brood.

“Since losing my station, I’m not sure of anything,” Oretski grumbled.

Denir let go of Yarima then and marched over to his boyfriend to hug him tightly instead. “You’re the best, most skilled fighter in Orinovo. I know you’d manage. I just worry about you.”

Yarima watched them for a moment, Denir muttering comforting nonsense to Oretski, and him doing the same in return, her heart fluttering at how sweet they were together. The fact that they had to hide this, that they had to constantly be on the lookout because if anyone found out, they might never see each other again—it enraged her.

The moment she was queen would be the moment she’d make all of this go away. And anyone who didn’t respect the fact that sometimes men liked other men and women liked other women would get a harsh punishment.

“I have some bad news,” Yarima said after giving them a moment. Oretski immediately scowled, though it was clear he wasn’t annoyed at her. “Svytlani is planning to attack Lys-Akkaria.”

She watched Oretski, waiting for his reaction. It wasn’t dramatic, especially next to Denir’s wide, horror-filled eyes, but his scowl grew more prominent. “When?”

Yarima shrugged and sighed. “Soon. She didn’t tell me anything beyond this. She wants to take out Ainreth and Fennrin for good.”

Oretski sighed while Denir hugged him tighter.

“This is…unwise,” Oretski finally said, looking as though he was fighting with himself not to say what he really thought privatly. But that was exactly what Yarima wanted to hear. “There will be many casualties if we are to attack Lys-Akkaria head on, especially their strongest soldiers. Our army has sustained so heavy loses already as well. Surely we should free our people from Lys-Akkaria’s clutches first.”

“It’s almost as if Svytlani isn’t a good ruler,” Yarima said, earning a glare from Oretski.

“I’m certain she has her reasons,” Oretski immediately said, clearly not willing to discuss this at all. “It’s not my place to question her.”

Yarima was about to throw it back in his face, but Denir spoke first, staring pleadingly into Oretski’s eyes. “Nev, myleni, you just questioned her. Because you don’t think this is a good idea. You know it’s wrong.”

For a second Yarima thought that maybe they had a chance as Oretski stayed silent, and though he wasn’t looking at Denir, he was grimacing, his brow furrowed. He almost looked torn. But all of that was gone the moment he shook his head.

“No, what I think doesn’t matter,” he said, getting up. Despite this, Yarima couldn’t help but enjoy the fact that he wasn’t denying that he was disagreeing, just that he didn’t want to say it. “I am a soldier. I do what I’m ordered to do.” Then he looked directly at Yarima. “And if you wish to keep our people alive, I suggest you do that as well.”

Denir got up and sighed as he stood next to Oretski, who turned to him, pressing his forehead to her brother’s. “I will see you later, Deni.”

Denir kissed him and then nodded.