When Dalliance awoke the next morning, a few moments' disorientation was inevitable. The sunlight behind her eyelids streamed in from an ornate, brass-bound set of balcony doors to spill over the cozy confines of a damask-dressed feather bed. That soft glow felt so far removed from her days of shivering on the thin pallet in her cell at Farthingale that she was afraid to open her eyes for fear that she was dreaming.
Instead, she turned her face into a pillow that smelled of lavender and snuggled deeper beneath the covers.
The sun's rays were coming in from the wrong side of the room. That was odd, but she didn't want to examine that thought— or any other— too closely; thinking might fully wake her, and she was still tired from last night when her sleep had been so rudely interrupted by...
Last night! Yesterday, the tower!
Dalli's eyes sprung open and she sat up so quickly that she made herself dizzy. It hadn't been a dream. She was in a guestroom of the city manse she'd purchased, and she was in it because she'd been attacked in her own bedroom by masked killers who had, in turn, been killed by her daemon.
Seraphs, but that was strange to say, even in her own head. My daemon, she thought again, rolling the sound of the words around her brain like marbles in a mixing bowl.
A part of her still couldn't believe the calling had worked. Dalli trusted in her own calculations and theories, but still... Even if she weren't already a disgrace in their eyes, she'd have been laughed out of the Academy if she'd tried to suggest that there were spirits greater than the ones humanity had encountered before, and that it should be possible to summon them.
It almost hadn't been possible. A chill skipped hopscotch down her vertebrae as she remembered the eldritch storm she'd created in the crumbling tower, and how she'd very nearly lost control of the ritual. But she hadn't. Instead, he'd answered her call. It? No, construct or not, it didn't feel right to address a talking, thinking being like she would an object.
Besides, he had a name.
"Lycinder," Dalli whispered, thinking perhaps if she said it out loud, the whole strange ordeal would start to feel more real.
A great cloud of shadow appeared at the foot of her bed, startling Dalli nearly out of her wits until it resolved into the now-familiar form of her daemon. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized she'd been sort of hoping he'd grow less ethereally alluring overnight.
He hadn't.
"Good morning, mistress."
"Aack! What are you doing in my bedroom!" Dalli squealed, yanking the covers up to her chin.
Lycinder looked at her like she might be slow. "You. Called. Me," he drawled, enunciating with care.
Dalli put her face in her hands, messy auburn curls swinging as she shook her head.
The light of smug realization dawned in his glittering eyes, and his lips curved into a decadent smirk. "Oh," he said. "You didn't." That smirk became a full-fledged grin. "You just wanted to say my name. Any particular reason?" He waited with patience eternal for her to look up at him, one eyebrow raised suggestively.
"Ugh!" Dalli groaned and threw a pillow in his general direction. "You're intolerable! I was just... Oh, never mind," she huffed, a blush creeping across her cheeks. "Go away!"
Eiderdown ordnance neatly sidestepped, he clicked his tongue. "So very impolite, mistress. And after I hurried right up to wish you good morning..."
"Get out!" Dalli shrieked.
Lycinder just stood at the foot of her bed, grinning— no, leering, Dalli decided— at her.
Then, she remembered. "Lycinder, I order you to leave my bedroom!"
"Right away, mistress," he replied, his eyes flashing briefly to charcoal as Dalli felt that strange buzzing behind her own forehead. "Funny, but that's an order I've never received before." He winked at her, turning the pink roses in her cheeks to red. "And, in the future, you ought to be more precise; this isn't your bedroom, after all."
Parting shot aside, he did saunter out to the hall, leaving her to gather her wits.
Dalli looked around the guestroom and rolled her eyes. Of course, now he uses the door. She tossed the covers off her legs, very much awake, and slid down to the floor, grumbling, "Speak of the devil, indeed..."
Lycinder's rich, sinful laughter reached her from down the hall like his lips were at her ear. Insufferable spirit and his tricks...
Dalli figured it was just her luck; one's daemon was supposed to be the aethral spirit whose soul best mirrored one's own— that had been the basic precept her father had discovered that allowed him to pioneer the permanent binding process in the first place.
Before Archer Courtenay had deduced this and devised a way to incorporate soul tones— each soul's unique sonic fingerprint— into a summoning, daemons could only be called for a period of time ranging from moments to minutes. His doctoral thesis on his Theory of Essential Compatibility had shaken the world; his binding of Nyx, his own daemon, had changed it forever.
Of course, Dalli hadn't bound Lycinder at all. What they had was a compact of sorts, and one that the Church would surely decry as blasphemy if anyone discovered its terms. Nothing was more sacred to the Church and their doctrine than a human soul. According to the clergy, daemons were supposed to act as guardian spirits to these souls, to guide them in life so that they'd be better prepared for what lay beyond death in the Aethral Realms they must traverse to reach the Paradise Gate.
Dalli realized she would need to think carefully about how to explain Lycinder's presence if she intended to take him into human society by her side. She couldn't very well leave him at home now that there' d been an attempt on her life.
Sighing, she supposed his infuriating attitude was a small price to pay for his protection and the power to avenge her family and take back her good name.
She'd seen that power demonstrated—or flashes of it, anyhow— last night.
A chill trickled across the space between her shoulder blades like the steps of a spider dancing a gypsy reel as she recalled the attack.
She'd been so astonished when every window in her bedroom had shattered inward at once, and simply terrified from then until Lycinder had helped her out from her hiding place beneath the bed.
Well, that was true, but it wasn't the whole truth, Dalli was forced to admit to herself. She had been terrified, but it was two separate kinds of terror; she'd been afraid of the assassins, worried that they'd snuff out her life before she got the chance to claim her vengeance, but she'd also been afraid for Lycinder. Afraid that he might get hurt. Or worse.
Lycinder was strong beyond even the wildest hopes that Dalli had harbored upon entering that bleak tower yesterday afternoon. That much was clear. Nevertheless, daemons could be killed if they took enough damage quickly. She wasn't sure what would constitute enough damage to kill Lycinder, or how it might even occur since he'd apparently found bullets to be a minor annoyance, and she hoped it wasn't something she'd ever have to learn.
She could recall with perfect clarity the flippant unconcern in his voice and his almost lazily confident pose when he'd faced her assailants, but it had done little to assuage her terror on his behalf.
She started to frown in irritation with herself— for, why should she waste an iota of worry on that degenerate fiend? — until she remembered that it was perfectly reasonable to be concerned for him: he was her tool, and a broken tool was useless.
Nearly as profitless as a broken tool, and perhaps twice as dangerous, was one whose capabilities were ill comprehended. When Dalli had summoned Lycinder, she'd been trying for strength, and while she'd more than succeeded, what she'd truly received was power.
She thought back to last night and also just moments ago when he'd appeared out of nowhere. If her daemon could become smoke and shadow, travel long distances near-instantly, and call a deadly blade into being at will, what else could he do?
Wanting answers to these questions as well as the many she had about last night's attack, Dalli pulled the cord by her bedside that would call for Maryana to come upstairs and help her to dress.
A/N: First and foremost, a huge thankyou to the lovely and talented @lelakayy for the new scene break graphic above!
I'm still trying out this whole break up the chapters thing, so this one is practically bite-sized to my mind, but let me know if it feels too short to you or if it's just right. That would be a big help! This chapter isn't action heavy, but we do get some important information through this and the next couple chapters that we'll need before things really hit their stride. As always, I'd love to hear any and all of your thoughts!
If you're having fun, please remember to vote/comment/add to list/share/follow, etc. It really does mean the world to me and helps this story find it's way to new sets of eyeballs 😊
XOXO,
Evie