The Midnight Sea (The Fourth Element #1) by Kat Ross Read Free Book Online Page B

advantage of the bond was that I didn’t need to come up with a cutting response. I could just let my opinion of his patronizing attitude leak straight into his brain.
    “Thank you,” I said stiffly, turning my back.
    I could feel it, lapping at the edges of my mind. Not the dark power of the Druj I was so terrified of. Something full of life, bursting with it. I took a deep breath and let go of his leash. I was clumsy that first time, feeling the power surge and then clamping down in fear again, until I felt just a trickle come through the bond. But that trickle was enough. My reflexes quickened, as did my awareness of Darius’s position just behind and to the right of me. The yard snapped into sharper focus. Even from ten paces away, I could see the tiny patch of red-gold stubble on Ilyas’s jaw that he’d missed while shaving that morning, the sweat beading between his fingers.
    I felt Darius’s satisfaction as I kept Ilyas at bay for a full five minutes before he disarmed me. The next time, it was ten. To his credit, Ilyas realized what I was doing right away and didn’t reprimand me for it. He could be strange sometimes. I think he’d wanted me to figure it out on my own.
    But I knew I wouldn’t have if Darius hadn’t helped me.
     
    It took me a long time to learn to control myself. To control him . He wasn’t as nearly obedient as they claimed. I woke every morning to the sensation of cold water trickling down my spine. My complaints to the magus were ignored. Apparently, Darius’s need to purify his Druj nature at the river, regardless of the season, took precedence.
    But one thing came out of it that surprised me. From the day we were bonded, my nightmares stopped. I still dreamed of Ashraf, but they were good dreams. Of lying in the high grasses and swimming in the river. My sister had returned to me as she was in life rather than death.
    And I started to notice that at certain times of day, usually the early evenings, Darius seemed to go away. I knew where he was physically, but his mind was so tranquil, I barely noticed him. Or I noticed him in a different way. It’s hard to be completely unaffected by someone else’s mood when they’re living in your head. If he felt angry or depressed, my own thoughts grew dark. I would worry about Neblis and her Druj, and what I would do the first time I had to face one. I worried about dying in battle, and I worried about not dying. About what it meant to live for hundreds of years, never truly alone in my own mind. Yoked to a demon for all eternity.
    But then…there would be these moments of serenity. They lasted anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour, and left me feeling clean and new. Like a little kid again, without a care in the world.
    I began to wonder what he was doing. So one day, when the birch leaves were just starting to turn gold, I went looking for him. Well, not looking, really. I knew where he was. A grove of trees near the river.
    It was a beautiful early autumn afternoon, the sky bluer than blue and the air with that crisp edge to it that lets you know winter is coming but not for some weeks yet. If I had been home, the clan would just be starting the long trek across the mountains.
    I followed the path, which wound in and out of the woods, through blackberry brambles and dark pines. As I reached the river, a cormorant winged by overhead, its serpentine neck extended in flight, and I paused to watch it for a moment.
    Just past the bend was an overgrown orchard enclosed by a low stone wall. Darius sat beneath a pear tree, the very same that Tijah and I had poached fruit from in summer. His eyes were open. He wore his blue tunic and baggy trousers tucked into short boots. The left one was still too tight. I thought might ask Ilyas to give him new ones.
    Darius must have known I was there, but he didn’t stir.
    I had planned to…not confront him. Just ask what he was up to. But seeing him there like that, his face and hands relaxed, I changed