Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman Read Free Book Online Page B

fields of cracked ice. His eyes. The dark fae was alive in there, too, and a music that was far more ominous—and darkly seductive. She nearly cried out, for wanting it.
    “Quiet, child.” His voice was nearly human again. “The cost of that’s too high, for you. But I know the temptation well.”
    “It’s gone....”
    “It’ll never be gone for you. Not entirely. Look.”
    And though the night was dark again, and silent, she was aware of something more. A tremor of deepest purple, at the edges of her vision. Faint echoes of a music that came and went with the breeze. “So beautiful....”
    “You avoided it.”
    “I was afraid.”
    “Of the darkness? Of its creatures? Such beings aren’t kept at bay by a simple closed door, child, or by lamplight. If they want to know of you, they do, and if they want to have you, they certainly will. Your charmed wards are enough to keep lesser demons at bay, and against the greater ones mere lamplight and human company won’t help you at all. So what’s the point in locking yourself away from half the wonders of the world?”
    “None,” she breathed, and she knew it to be the truth.
    He took her arm and applied gentle pressure, forward. It took her a moment to realize what he meant by it, and even then the gesture seemed strange. Too human, for this extrahuman night. In silence she let him walk her toward her home, his footsteps utterly silent beside her own. What else did she expect? All about them shadows danced, alien shapes given life by the moonlight. She shivered with pleasure, watching them. Was this hers forever now, this marvelous vision? Would it stay when he was gone—his gift to her, in this unearthly night?
    At last, eons later, they came to the last rise before her house. And stood on it, silently, gazing upon the all-too-human abode. There, in the light, the music would fade. The fae would be gone. Bright sanity, in all its dull glory, would reign supreme.
    His nostrils flared as he studied the small house, as if testing the breeze that came from it. “They’re afraid,” he observed.
    “They expected me home before dark.”
    “They had good reason to fear.” He said it quietly, but she sensed the threat behind his words. “You know that.”
    She looked into his eyes and saw in them such a mixture of coldness and power that she turned away, trembling. It was worth it, she thought. Worth it to see the night like that. To have such vision, if only once. Then the touch of his finger, cold against her skin, brought her back to face him.
    “I won’t hurt you,” he promised. And a hint of a smile crossed his face—as if his own benevolence amused him. “As for what you do to yourself, for having known me ... that’s in your own hands. Now, I think, you’d better go home.”
    She stepped back, suddenly uncertain. Dazed, as the fae that had bound her will dissolved into the night. He laughed softly, a sound that was disconcertingly intimate; she sensed a glimmer of darkness behind it, and for a moment she could see all too clearly what was in his eyes. Black fae, utterly lightless. A silence that drank in all music. An unearthly chill, that hungered to consume living heat.
    She took a step backward in sudden panic, felt the wet grass bunch beneath her feet.
    “Nari!”
    She whirled around, toward the source of the sound. Her father’s form was silhouetted against the glowing house, as he ran up the rise to reach her. “Narilka! We’ve been so worried!” She wanted to run to him, greet him, to reassure him—to beg for his help, his protection—but suddenly she had no voice. It was as if his sudden appearance had shattered some intimate bond, and her body still ached for the lover it had lost. “Great gods, Nari, are you all right?”
    He embraced her. Wordlessly. She couldn’t have spoken. She clung to him desperately, dimly aware of the tears that were streaming down her face. Of her mother, running out to join them.
    “Nari! Baby, are you all