Page 92 of Nocte

Niamh

Ican’t interpret violence. It is inherent disorder. It goes against the very laws and nature of the fae. It is violence.

The vamryre’s realm of expertise, not my own...

No.I have left that world of old rules behind, and now I must plunge into another. I must weigh the pros and cons of the violence inflicted before me in the same way I would weigh the risks of reading a book in secret or begging for help from a vamryre.

He helped me.

He needs me now.

He needs me now to take his hand gently in my own. He needs me to lead him away. Away from his crouched position on the floor, holding broken limbs like the remains of four broken dolls. He gapes at them. Talks to them. Shouts at them.

“Why can’t I hear you? Answer me! ANSWER ME!”

“Caspian,” I whisper to him. But he doesn’t hear. He can’t hear me beyond the realm of his shattered, fractured mind. He can’t hear me.

So I touch him. I stroke the blood-soaked hair from his face and crouch down, my voice gentle and broken. Tears fall from my eyes and spill and spill. They’re falling from his too. Beautiful, lost, broken tears of a poor, broken, shattered mind.

“Caspian. Oh, Caspian.” I stroke him. Pet him. I try to meet those wide, empty, red eyes. He stares right through me. “Come with me. Come with me.”

Somewhere safe. Away. We can’t stay here.

Because they will come for him again.

They will try to take him from me again.

“Caspian,” I tell him. “Come with me please.”

He looks up at me, but he isn’t here. His eyes are far, far away, pursuing the twisted wreckage of his mind. His poor, broken mind.

“We need to leave,” I whisper, tugging him upright. He follows me, but not with the assured, confident steps I am used to. He is weak and tired like a lost lamb, following the first shepherd to come across it.

And I am worried. So very worried.

I have seen the violence he is capable of. Heard it: he drained ten people dry one after the other. He just ripped four vamryre apart, one after the other.

He could rip me apart. Good. I don’t care. I would rather he rip into me. Feed from me. Devour me.

Anything to keep him safe. Anything to make him whole again.

So I tug him out into the street and away from that horrible place. I tug him into an alley, my lost, poor one. My Caspian.

I spin around to face him and offer my throat. “You are weak.” I tug on his limp, lifeless hand. Somehow, after being so very strong just minutes earlier, he is so very weak. He’ll fade to dust before me if I am not careful. He will fade away and leave me in another, more permanent way than he has before.

“Feed from me,” I tell him, throat bared, veins straining. “Bite me!”

He doesn’t. He can’t.

He is too far away to hear me. Lost inside his own head, he is so very far away. Too lost to ever return. Come back to me.

If I don’t help him, he will never come back to me.

So I take his hand and pull him along. I race. I run. I go to the only place I can think of to help him.

Not back to the portal. Not back to our realm.

I take him to a dank place on the other side of the city. I drag him—suddenly so very heavy—into a black building with rusted letters spelling out a name and number. A silly name I don’t bother to read.