The Sword and the Sunrise (The Nightmare Court Book 1) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

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  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The Sword and the Sunrise

  The Nightmare Court, Book One

  Val Saintcrowe

  THE SWORD AND THE SUNRISE

  © copyright 2020 by Val Saintcrowe

  http://vjchambers.com

  Punk Rawk Books

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Nicce’s fingers were shaking.

  She tried to hide them in her dress, but it was a diaphanous thing, designed to reveal rather than to conceal, and she wasn’t very successful. The dress was made of a thin blue fabric, stitched through with silver threads like glittering stars, meant to symbolize that she was to be wedded to the guardian of night. It was beautiful, and Nicce had always thought those who dressed the brides were despicable, bedecking girls in beautiful garbs to be sent to their deaths.

  She’d always known someday it would be her turn.

  She alone was chosen amongst all the other girls of the Four Kingdoms, she alone would face Sir Eithan Draig, she alone would slay him, and she alone would save her people from the scourge of the Knights of Midian.

  Her entire life had been building to this moment, and now her hands were shaking, and she was frightened.

  Not of him.

  The leader of the Knights of Midian was Sir Eithan. He was her bridegroom. He was her target. She had been groomed to lie in wait for him, seduce him if necessary, and to kill him. She had been trained and prepared and practiced to the point that fear was an impossibility.

  But now everything was turned inside out and upside down, and she was afraid.

  She had become frightened on the way into this room, which was high in a tower in the knights’ fortress in the dark forest. The evening had gone exactly as she had expected up until that moment. First, she was taken to the edge of the forest by the Conclave, who prepared the brides to be given to Sir Eithan. They waited there, two men digging their fingers into her upper arms to keep her from trying to run, not that she had any intention of doing so, and then the knights appeared, at twilight, on the path. They seemed to emerge out of the darkness, and they were tall and dark and monstrous in that unnatural way of theirs, their skin pale, their eyes glowing, their expressions grim.

  She was passed off to the knights, two of whom gripped her arms in just the same way as the other men had. She was shot through with horror when she felt their skin. Cold, as if they were dead, as if no blood moved in their veins. And perhaps it didn’t. No one quite knew what magic made the knights as they were. Nicce had studied magic with the Guild of Vaccaik, who had trained her to kill Sir Eithan, but she had never stumbled across anything that explained the knights.

  Passing her off was wordless, all communication only done with nods. None of the men involved seemed to want to look each other in the eyes, as if they were ashamed of themselves.

  But what did shame matter if it didn’t stay their hands, if it didn’t stop them from killing girls every year?

  He wasn’t there. It was the other four knights, but Sir Eithan was not with them.

  They pulled her along, as if they expected her to drag her feet, but she stood tall and kept pace with them. At that point, she had felt almost excited. This was the culmination of everything she had trained for all her life. She knew she was ready, and she had never felt such energy, such sharp anticipation. It bubbled up inside her, like the sparkling wine she’d drunk at the dance that Rhodes had permitted her to attend the week before, and she had never felt quite so alive.

  And then they rounded a bend in the path, and she looked up into the trees, her gaze diverted there because of some movement.

  She blinked, thinking that her eyes were playing tricks on her, because sometimes, when a thing was seen out of the corner of one’s eye, one’s mind interpreted it incorrectly.

  But blinking did nothing to change what she saw.

  The first thing she saw was a mouth—wide, gaping, ringed in yellowed and sharp teeth. It seemed to only be a mouth, a mouth attached to a long twisting serpentine sort of body. The mouth itself was surrounded by long, drifting things that resembled black whiskers, only they could move of their own accord and they writhed and twisted in the air as the thing came for them.

  One of the knights who wasn’t holding her arm lurched forward, bringing up a shimmering spear—it glowed in the darkness.

  The mouth seemed to sense the spear. It shied away, a cry of dismay coming from within its teeth-ringed mouth. It retreated behind the trees, slithering backward, out of sight.

  And Nicce made an echoing sound, just a tiny little mew that ripped out of her throat and between her lips.

  That was when the fear rose in her, frigid, as if her spine was freezing an inch at a time.

  That was when she started to shake.

  One of the knights spoke to her, his voice surprisingly gentle. “Don’t worry about them. We can handle them. Those kinds are almost all instinct. Just feed and fight. They look bad, but they’re easily scared off.”

  Her legs had locked up. Though she’d been walking along with the knights up until that moment, now, she stood stock still, gaping into the forest in the wake of the creature.

  The knights holding her arms tugged at her.

  She stumbled after them. It was as though her entire body was coming apart, one vital organ at a time. Nothing was working in tandem anymore. Her heart was beating out of rhythm, her stomach was twisting into knots, and her bowels felt loose. “Nightmare,” she gasped.

  “Yes, that’s why you’re here,” said the knight.

  She had ripped her gaze away from the forest, from the path the creature had taken, to turn and look at the knight. What did he mean?

  But he wasn’t looking at her, and she put it together a moment later. Yes, she knew what the knights claimed. Sir Eithan must have a bride every year, because he needed her to keep the nightmares back. The dark forest was a barrier between the world of the nightmares and the world of the living, and if Eithan did not get his bride, he would let the nightmares through and the nightmares would destroy the Four Kingdoms.

  But…

  No one had ever seen a nightmare.

  And the Guild, they always claimed that the nightmares weren’t real. Children’s stories, like the gods themselves, made-up monsters to keep the people in check. M
agic might be real, but the nightmares were not. The goddess of nightmares was not. The power for the magic the Guild performed was in the yellow topaz itself, not infused into the jewel by Sullo, the god of the sun.

  She could hardly keep from tripping over her feet as the knights brought her to their fortress. It was a cluster of stone and wood in the midst of the trees of the dark forest, and she barely noticed it because now she was seeing all the things that were moving between the trees, things like the slithering mouth, things with tentacles and wings, things with scales and claws, things that shouldn’t—couldn’t—exist.

  The forest was crawling with nightmares.

  The nightmares were real.

  It occurred to her that the proper response to this might be to scream.

  But Nicce never screamed. She didn’t need to, because she didn’t have anything to fear, because she had been trained by the Guild to be an assassin. She was proficient with swords and axes and bows and arrows and quarterstaffs. She knew attack spells, could hold heat and light in the palm of her hand. She was strong and powerful and knowledgeable and prepared for every possible eventuality.

  Except this one.

  The knights took her up a stone staircase and put her in the room where she was now, standing in the doorway, her hands shaking as she tried to thrust them into her dress of filmy blueness and starlight.

  She had expected the room to have a bed.

  It didn’t.

  There were tables instead. Tables along the far wall, covered in food. Fruits and meats and breads and pies, all spread out, the tables practically groaning with the weight of the food.

  In the middle of the room was another, smaller, table. It had two chairs, and it was set with two sets of plates and utensils and pewter goblets. One of the chairs was filled, but when she came into the room, Sir Eithan Draig stood up from it.

  She clasped her shaking hands together.

  Behind her, the door to the room slammed shut, the other knights leaving her in here alone with her bridegroom. She heard a chain lock sliding into place.

  Sir Eithan cleared his throat. He was tall with shaggy dark hair that hung nearly to his shoulders. His shoulders themselves were broad and his arms were thick. He was obviously strong.

  Nicce knew ways around that. She could best a man who was stronger than she was. She had been doing it for years now.

  “What’s your name?” His voice sounded scoured at the edges. He met her gaze with an intensity that made her look away. There was something too penetrating about his pale, glowing eyes.

  “Does it matter?” She lifted her chin.

  “What will I call you otherwise?”

  “There’s no one else here.” She gestured around the room. “I hardly think I’ll be confused as to who it is you’re speaking to.”

  He nodded once. “Fair enough.”

  Her hands were shaking again. She clasped them back together. All right, all right, what to do?

  The nightmares were real.

  There was some reason why they didn’t ever get out of the dark forest, why no one saw them.

  That reason was probably the knights. They claimed to protect the Four Kingdoms from the nightmares, and they were telling the truth. It wasn’t some elaborate ruse for Sir Eithan to get a virgin every year for his twisted appetites, whatever they might be.

  He turned, waving a hand at the food-laden tables. “If there’s anything else you’d like to eat or drink, let me know, and we’ll see what we can do. Anything you want, we’ll try to find it. It is nearly eleven hours until dawn. For those eleven hours, whatever you wish, we’ll do our best to grant it.”

  What was he saying? She couldn’t think about that now.

  What she should do is engage. She didn’t have weapons, too risky if she should have to seduce him. Then she would have nowhere to hide even a small dagger. But Sir Eithan himself had a sword hanging from his waist, and she needed to get close and get her hands on it. It could be easy. Two minutes and his head would be removed from his body.

  But what if he was all that stood between the Four Kingdoms and the nightmares?

  What if she killed him and then plunged the rest of the world into carnage?

  She swallowed.

  “I promise the food is not poisoned,” said Eithan. “When it happens, it will be at dawn, and I will do it myself. If you’d like me to apologize, I am sorry, but it doesn’t change anything, so I suppose it’s obscene to say such a thing. If I were truly sorry, I would leave you alive, and I can’t do that.”

  She unclasped her hands. Her face felt hot, and her breath was shallow. She didn’t understand.

  “Please,” he said. “Come. Eat. Drink. Make your last requests,” he murmured.

  “Where’s the bed?” she said, and her voice shook, to her dismay.

  His jaw twitched. “It’s not like that.”

  “I am your bride, am I not?”

  “You’re not for me.”

  Her hands shook harder. “Who am I for, then?”

  “The nightmares,” he murmured. “But don’t worry, it won’t be… I told you, I will do it. I’d like to promise you it doesn’t hurt, but I’m afraid I can’t. I can tell you, however, that it won’t be—”

  “That’s how it works? The brides, they’re sacrificed to keep the nightmares back?” She furrowed her brow. “Why do they have to be virgins, then?”

  His nostrils flared. “It’s…” He flinched, and his mouth worked, as if he was trying to get some words out, but no sound came out. Finally, his features settled, and he drew in a breath. “A hundred years ago, when this all began, I tried to explain it, but no one wanted to listen. I was a man asking for young women. They worked things out in their heads the way they wanted, and there was no talking them out of it. In the end, it doesn’t matter how people understand it, so long as they send the girls.”

  He hadn’t answered her question. “They don’t have to be virgins, then?”

  “No.”

  It was quiet.

  She was trying to think. The Guild seemed to think that Sir Eithan had a magical hold on the other knights, that if he died, the spells keeping them all alive would be broken, but she wondered. Perhaps she could kill him and then the other knights might live. Perhaps then the world could still be protected by the other men.

  Of course, did Sir Eithan deserve to die if he was truly protecting the Four Kingdoms?

  “If I eat some of the food, will that reassure you?” He glanced over his shoulder at the spread behind him.

  He deserved it, she decided. He admitted that he was going to kill her at dawn. I will do it myself, he’d said. But what if the Guild was right? What if killing him killed them all?

  She took a deep breath.

  “Maybe you’d like me to leave you alone?” said Sir Eithan.

  She could not kill him. It was too much of a risk. However, she wasn’t going to let him kill her at dawn either. That was not the way this was going to end. She had trained all her life for this, and though she had always known that she might die in the attempt, she had been determined to live.

  Because with this done, she was free.

  No more waking at first light to throw knives at targets in the freezing cold. No more running until sweat poured from her forehead and her breath came in painful gasps. No more magic lessons until far past midnight, when she could hardly keep her eyes open.

  With this done, her life would finally be her own.

  And it had never been her own. Never for one instant.

  She wasn’t about to die now, not when she’d never lived.

  She let out her breath, and her hands stopped shaking. She was forming a plan. “So, then, I didn’t have to be a virgin? That’s what you’re saying?”

  Sir Eithan cocked his head to one side. “You’re still harping on that?”

  “I am, you know. I’m a virgin,” she said. Lie. She wasn’t. She’d done her fair share of research, learned that maidenheads were essentially fol
klore, that they didn’t “break,” and that there was no way to know if a woman was a virgin or not, and then she’d done away with it one night with one of the younger men in the Guild, who was almost her age and who had been very drunk.

  She hadn’t found the experience particularly impressive.

  Sir Eithan’s gaze flitted away from hers. He didn’t respond.

  “You said I could make requests,” she said. “That you would give me whatever I want before I die. Maybe that’s what I want.” You to get close enough that I can take your sword and fight my way out of here.

  “What do you want?” His pale eyes met hers again.

  “A wedding night,” she said.

  He blinked at her. “You’re serious.”

  She took a step toward him, letting her dress fall away from one of her shoulders.

  He narrowed his eyes and then he stalked across the room, closing the distance between them, and her heart went out of rhythm again for a moment, because of the sheer physicality of him. His shoulders. His arms. His chest. He reached out and snatched her chin with one hand.

  His fingers were cold. They were thick and calloused and blunt. He turned her head this way and that. “You’re not like the other girls.” His voice was husky.

  “Sorry to disappoint.” Her voice was less substantial then she would have liked.

  He dropped her chin. He looked her over.

  She licked her lips. He was close enough now. She should reach for his sword. But no, she should wait until he was kissing her or touching her, until he was distracted. Or maybe she should let him take the sword off himself, when he was disrobing, and then wait until after, when he was sated and sleepy—unless that only happened to young, drunk Guild members, she couldn’t be sure—and then she could escape easily.

  “Why would you say that?” he murmured.

  She reached up and brushed her fingers over his jaw. It was cold too. It was hard. It was like touching stone, like he was a statue.

  He caught her fingers. “Come now, girl with no name. You don’t want me, and I would never touch you.”

  She started at that. Why would he say that? Didn’t she look comely in her dress? Maybe she ran too much, and maybe her body wasn’t as rounded as it could be, but she had been dressed to entice tonight, and—