Page 41 of Drawn into Oblivion

A sob caught in her throat just as the room disappeared. The woman and white-haired man were gone. Only Rosuke stood before her, or rather, below her at the base of a short set of stone stairs. His hair was black again. He was dressed for stealth, and though he seemed calm, small details about him spoke to his distress. Tension around his eyes and mouth. Clenched fists. The way he breathed.

She looked around the area for clues but couldn’t see much—perhaps some buckets in the corner of a yard behind him. It was so dark. The only source of light seemed to be Rosuke. She was standing just inside the entrance of an immense building, but where? Where was this place?

She considered casting a light spell, but the groaning of rusted metal and tired wood announced the heavy, massive doors of the building were closing. She watched them with a growing sense of panic and looked to Rosuke for an explanation, but she couldn’t hear whatever he was saying over the grating of the doors. Then someone tapped her shoulder, and she whirled around with a gasp.

No one stood there. Unlike the steamy, cramped brothel, the dark hallway she now stood in seemed cavernous and cold. With a whisper, she created a ball of light in her hand, and then cried out with shock and disgust as she whipped her sword from its sheath.

The walls were covered with thick, sticky blood that oozed down in a never-ending waterfall, as if the building were alive. Skulls and bones of all shapes and sizes, and even hair, adorned the hallway arches like festival decorations. With trepidation, she shone the light at her feet and whimpered at the sight of her boots caked with reddish-brown sludge. She refused to wonder what it consisted of.

She lifted her gaze and found her surroundings had changed once more. She stood in an ostentatious room with a ceiling so high that the heavy, black tapestries on the walls seemed to disappear into the void above. Large fireplaces blazed brightly and threw flickering, minatory shadows across dozens of massive, round tables choked with extravagant place settings and carefully plated viscera. The gory meals looked to be moving, and she realized they were crawling with vermin. The air stank of torture, screams, and death—centuries of it. Everything had been made ready for a grand, ruinous party, but all the chairs were as empty as the room. Save for one person.

An unconscious man was chained to the far wall, and Mai wove between tables to reach him. He was sitting on the floor with his wrists shackled uncomfortably high and his legs tucked against him. He was naked and splashed with dried blood. His sandy-brown hair was matted to his forehead. She knelt at his side and tentatively touched his chin. He woke with a start so violent his chains shook. He screamed in gasps, his wide, blue eyes searching the room wildly.

She reared back, and then another high-pitched scream rent the air. A woman’s voice, one she thought she recognized, coming from beyond the tall, imposing doors on one side of the room.

Gripping her sword tight, she ran to the doors, which looked as heavy as fully grown stone oaks and featured ornate, gold reliefs. A quick glance told her they depicted scenes of violence and terrible, powerful magic. She grasped one of the metal handles and pulled with all her strength.

A waft of air so foul it made her gag floated through the slowly widening crack. She braced her foot on the other door to get better leverage, and felt the strain like a sharp knife in her shoulder as she opened the door far enough to squeeze through. Panting, she slipped into the next room, sword still in hand.

At first, she thought she had gone blind. All she saw in the center of the room was a dark, shapeless mass. Beyond, at the back of the expansive, stark space, was a massive throne strewn with garish treasures, blood, and viscera. Wide columns supported high balconies, where dozens of horrid creatures stood, silently watching with wide grins permanently sewn onto their faces. Some had obviously once been human, but now they were weird and twisted by some warping of their original design. Several sad, stooping figures wore collars and nothing else, but most wore tattered rags that had once been beautiful clothes.

The Damned One’s court.

And the Damned One himself was the ever-shifting mass, too evil for her mind to parse. The empress floated next to him as if held by her throat. She kicked her feet with anger and frustration. When she saw Mai standing by the open door, her eyes went wide with panic.

“Mai, get out of here! Run!”

⁂

Mai shot awake, still in her bed in the residential palace. Still alive and safe. Her bedroom was empty, her door shut and locked, her window closed against the crisp morning air. But the foulness of the Damned One hung over her like a putrid cloud. She hugged her chilled arms, vaguely aware of the cold sweat that had dampened her nightclothes.

The Divine One had told her she may see the future, but she had thought she’d understand such portents. Instead, she’d learned nothing and only had more questions. Everything she’d seen and felt had been so disjointed and out of context.

Was she supposed to have seen something in particular? Was Shumei’s warning at the end meant to be heeded, or was that horrible scene something she could still avoid? Who was the scared, tortured man? Why did she get separated from Rosuke? And how did the brothel factor in? Had that been part of her vision or just a dream?

She had seen a blond version of Rosuke in her other dream, and some details of it had come true, in one way or another. So if what she’d seen in the brothel had been part of her vision, did that mean…? Would he—with someone else?

No avenue of inquiry resulted in any answers from the store of knowledge she’d been gifted. Whatever truth she sought, nothing the old court had learned could shed any light.

Several weeks had passed since she had invoked the genesis spell, and life in Houfu had been going rather smoothly—too smoothly. Scouts who routinely delivered reports on demon activity no longer had anything to report, not even any secondhand rumors. It was too quiet for anyone’s comfort, especially for the military officers, who were so jumpy they shot from their seats if anyone so much as dropped a plate during dinner.

Despite the tension, preparations for the empress’s campaign had continued unabated, and the harvest that had begun more than a week ago would culminate in today’s festival, the Dark Court’s first in centuries.

Mai looked around the room as the residue of her dream faded. The light of dawn cast a soothing glow through her half-open curtains, illuminating the wide array of dresses that hung in her fully stuffed cabinet. They and an equally diverse set of ribbons had been the bulk of the presents the citizens of Houfu had given her. Most of her new wardrobe was far more colorful and attention-drawing than she normally would’ve liked, but she had to admit she enjoyed the warm looks Rosuke gave her whenever she wore something bright or extravagantly patterned.

Besides clothes, the citizens had also gifted her scented powders and even some jewelry that still sat in their open boxes on her vanity, as yet unused. A large drop of emerald hanging from a frail, silver chain was by far the most expensive and lavish gift, meticulously packaged by a jewelry maker and his surviving grandson. But she hadn’t been able to bring herself to wear it.

As for the scented powders, Rosuke insisted she’d never need them—a comment usually followed by a toe-curling kiss that would last longer than what little time they could spare to be together.

She gave a bittersweet smile and sighed. In the past few weeks, they had shared only two meals together, both taken with the rest of the court due to their packed schedules. She had worried others would sit with them and interrupt their time together, but no one had disturbed their table. Of course, she had noticed several sly smiles from elders and officers alike, eliciting an endless barrage of blushes on her part.

No one knew of their frequent, surreptitious trysts. At least, she hoped no one knew. Whether by chance or design, they’d meet when they could, and wherever they could find privacy within the vast palace complex, and spend their precious spare moments with each other. Ten minutes here, twenty minutes there.

They did talk, usually of their work, but they spent most of their time together kissing, rubbing, and moaning. Even now, alone in her room, Mai blushed as she recalled the number of times her lover had slipped his hand into her dress to bring her pleasure, his deft fingers coming away moments later dripping with her release.

Only yesterday, he had propped her against a wall and hooked one of her legs over his shoulder, leaving her to stand on her other leg as he’d drunk her down, making her moan no matter how hard she’d tried to stifle it. How long would it be, she wondered, until she became wet just from seeing him across a room?

She always left his strong arms feeling satisfied, but the one-sidedness of their secret meetings had begun to worry her. Each time they met, he looked more and more strained. Dark smudges had appeared under his eyes, and his already fair skin seemed drawn. She knew he wanted her—he was instantly erect whenever they embraced—but he’d never sought anything more than her pleasure. She had offered once to use her hands on him, but he had refused, saying all he needed was to hear her crying out his name.